october-2012

WORK TOOLS TO GO
Business travellers increasingly want to work on the move,
and there is now a profusion of great collaboration and work
management software available to help get the job done
If you’re travelling on business,
being able to work remotely is
a necessity. As long as you’ve
got access to the internet there
are cloud-based collaborative
software tools to make all this
easy, whatever your profession.
We’ve picked a selection of
collaborative software solutions,
each with its own unique selling
point. Many off er free trials, so
why not give them a go?
Project management
Suitable for: project
managers, team leaders
Trello is a free browser-based
programme for tracking
individual and team projects.
Create a virtual white board,
comprising individual task cards,
which can be organised into lists,
colour coded and have
attachments added. Invite team
members to join a board, where
you can assign them tasks. Boards
are live and update automatically
every time a task is completed,
enabling you to track progress
using the activity log or via email.
Whether it’s a single to
multiple project or simply
planning and tracking your
team’s schedules, Trello is a
fl exible programme for easily
managing a lot of data and can
be optimised for mobile and
tablet browsers, as well as
Android and iPhone apps.
trello.com
108—GW
File sharing and back-up
Suitable for: freelancers,
creatives, sales, remote workers
Box is a cloud-storage solution
for uploading, backing up and
sharing fi les. Unlike some other
cloud-storage solutions it can be
used for any type of document –
photo, spreadsheets, video or
presentation. Once uploaded,
fi les can be shared with internal
and external colleagues simply
by sending a link.
Box for Business off ers 1GB
uploads and 1,000GB storage for
£11 (€14) a month per person,
With it you can turn folders into
workspaces, invite multiple
users to contribute and track
changes and post comments.
Box is the only fi le
management software with apps
developed for all OS’s (Android,
iOS, Windows Phone and
BlackBerry), making it easy to
view share fi les on the go with
clients or contributors who
aren’t in the same organisation.
box.com
Conferencing & training
Suitable for: trainers, sales
managers, project managers
Join.me is a free screensharing
programme that lets
you hold web conferences with
up to 250 team members
wherever they are in the world.
Organise a conference and
you’ll be able to share the
contents of your screen with
participants – whether it’s a
sales presentation, training
programme or simply idea
generation – as well as sharing
files and chatting. Join.me is
browser based; use the code
provided and a simple toolbar
to control the meeting.
Join.me Pro costs $149 a year,
but adds audio (including
international conference lines)
individual window sharing,
presenter swap and meeting
scheduling.
www.join.me
Idea generation
Suitable for: creatives,
teachers, team leaders
MindMeister is a web-based
mind-mapping programme,
used for creating online
brainstorming sessions.
Even if you’re not creative,
simple controls make it
incredibly easy to create a mind
map, which you can share with
other users, before collaborating
simultaneously in real time.
Unlimited participants can
contribute (indicated by diff erent
colours) and the completed mind
map can be exported using
multiple formats, including
PowerPoint and Word.
MindMeister works on any
desktop browser, so you don’t
need to download any software.
There’s an offl ine mode and
Android and iOS apps, so it can
also be used remotely.
MindMeister Pro costs £9.99
(€12.58), with unlimited maps,
custom branding and stats.
www.mindmeister.com
Sales management
Suitable for: sales force, sales
manager, marketing manager
Sales Cloud is a sales app with an
emphasis on the social, bringing
together a wealth of useful
information, from meetings,
tasks, emails and fi les to overall
sales performance, leads and
accounts.
‘Chatter’ is a business social
feed to connect the entire team,
providing real-time updates of
marketing lead and new product
details, where you can or post
questions to get answers from
team members.
Sales Cloud comes in
diff erent versions. Small
businesses can use Sales
Cloud Group at $15 a month
per person, while Sales
Cloud Professional costs $65 a
month per person but includes
customer relationship
management tools such as realtime
quotes and contracts.
For added fl exibility
touch.salesforce.com works
across all mobile devices.
www.salesforce.com