Creating the ideal remote workspace: Merging communication tools with business solutions
While planning and organizing an efficient working environment for your remote or distributed teams you may face various challenges such as smooth merging of all tools you require together, creating secure collaboration and communication environment, etc. Most corporate messengers offer integration opportunities for merging business solutions. For example, Slack provides 500+ integrations with such tools as Zoom, Jira, etc. Though this may seem really convenient as large teams require powerful tools for video conferencing or complex issues tracking and task management systems, there are certain integration drawbacks:
- No or slow response from services
- Synchronization issues
- Not all plans support integrations
- Complex permission settings
What do you need for productive workspace communication?
Sometimes solving integration issues requires additional time and effort. Thus, having all the tools you need in one application can be the best solution and may significantly facilitate your workflow.
Let's start with listing the functionality your remote teams use on a daily basis:
- Communication in private and group chat rooms
- Screen sharing
- Remote control
- Voice and video meetings
- Meetings recording
- Task management
- Issues tracking
- Calls
- Files sharing and storage
Most cloud business messengers support all listed above features but on a basic level. Thus, they offer a wide range of integrations so that businesses can integrate the tools they used to work with into their communication workflow.
Virola as alternative to TeamViewer
TeamViewer is known to be the one of the most widely used tools for screen sharing and remote control. It is used for troubleshooting by technical support engineers in many companies. Virola corporate messenger supports both screen sharing and remote control features and can be used as an alternative to TeamViewer.
Screen sharing and remote control sessions can be started in private and group chats. You can use screen sharing during video or audio meetings to show presentations and discuss various topics. Remote control can be used for taking over other users' desktop for solving issues or configuring other software.
Virola as alternative to Zoom
Video and audio meetings are supported both in group and private chat rooms. Thus, Virola corporate messenger can be used as an alternative to Zoom. With a couple of clicks users can start meetings in their chat rooms. Though Virola lacks available in Zoom features such as links to meetings or integration with Google calendar, it offers powerful sound suppression options, an ability to tune microphone and meetings recording.
Virola as alternative to Dropbox
Storing files and sharing them with co-workers is an essential feature for any remote workspace. Being a self-hosted solution Virola corporate messenger allows storing files and chat history without limitations. With the help of powerful search tools, users can easily find the needed files in groups and download them whenever they need. Thus if you share and store files in your remote workspace environment, you can use Virola as alternative to Dropbox.
Tracking tasks and issues with Virola
Tasks and issues tracking is an important part of any workflow. There is no need to integrate third party tools with Virola as Kanban board is already available with it. Let's see what you can do with help of the Virola Task Board:
- Create tasks and see them as cards on the Kanban board
- Create issues or tasks from messages
- Update task workflow
- Set priority and assign tasks
- Filter tasks on the Kanban board
Creating an ideal remote workspace is not an unreachable goal anymore. You can either integrate all necessary tools into your workflow or use a comprehensive corporate messenger like Virola which supports everything you need for efficient collaboration. Moreover, using such a tool is quite cost effective as you will not need to purchase additional license for the tools you are going to integrate with your communication channel.