Online Collaboration allows teams to communicate and work together remotely in a streamlined way. It combines social media, traditional business and crowdsourcing to make working together more efficient and productive for companies large or small. It can also help to reduce overhead costs by eliminating the need for office space and equipment as well as making it more affordable for remote employees.

While the idea of online collaboration makes perfect sense it can sometimes be an adjustment for some businesses especially those that are used to working face to face in an office environment. Fortunately, there are plenty of tools available to assist businesses with implementing this type of system and getting started. These tools range from chat platforms that are inspired by the familiarity of public social networking apps to project management software and even a collaborative wiki which has become an important part of how many businesses work now.

The key to successful collaboration is the ability to keep everyone informed and up-to-date on the progress of projects. These tools can help to do that by providing visibility into the status of projects, tracking tasks and ensuring that all stakeholders have access to necessary files. This helps to imbue a sense of accountability into the team that is crucial for successful collaboration.

Using online collaboration tools can help to reduce the need for meetings which is often time consuming and inefficient for everyone involved. For example, a tool like Asana allows users to track their tasks and collaborate with other members of the team in real time by commenting on posts and adding their own comments and suggestions. It can also help to keep everyone on the same page by displaying activity streams and reducing the need for emails which can be difficult to search through for important information.

Another helpful tool is Trello which uses a board to help teams visualize the progress of their project. Each task is represented as a card which can be moved across the board according to its status. This allows the team to stay on track with deadlines and ensures that all stakeholders have a clear picture of how the project is progressing.

An online collaboration tool called Quip is a more comprehensive platform that does much more than simply track changes to documents. It also offers a built-in chat for each document, creates a meeting framework that can be easily scheduled and shared with the team and allows members to view the progress of other members’ tasks from within the program. This can increase the sense of urgency for each member to finish their own work in order not to hold up the rest of the team.

Other useful tools for online collaboration include Slack, which is often used by tech companies to facilitate discussions and meetings. It has an easy to use interface and supports a wide variety of integrations including instant messaging, video conferencing and more. It is also possible to integrate other popular platforms such as Salesforce into the platform.