7 Online Business Tools (For a Super-Productive 2020)

7 Tools Your Online Business Needs for a Super-Productive 2020

This post is about “7 Online Business Tools for a Super-Productive 2020” and has been contributed by James Wignall.

Do you have big goals for your business in 2020?

If you answered “Yes”, please read on.

To make your plans come to reality, you’ll need to take advantage of every opportunity available to you.

Having the right small business tools can help you power your way to your profitability goals.

Get on the right path to business success with these 7 tools to supercharge your productivity.

Online Business Tools for Project management

1. BaseCamp

BaseCamp is an easy to use online business tool. This easy to use online business tool presents each member of your team with an organized home screen interface. The screen highlights employee-specific assignments, bookmarks, drafts, and recent activities alongside company-wide, team-specific, and project-based information.

At each level (HQ, team, and project), every user can access six fundamental tools to track their work, post announcements and provide status updates. They can also chat casually with team members, post time-critical deadlines, organize files and notes, and obtain regularly scheduled team insights.

Discussion boards collect topic-specific information together to avoid disorganisation and lost information.

To-do items delegate and manage responsibilities. Automatic Check-ins solicit daily, weekly, or monthly status reports from every team member. Reports summarise activities and identify individuals’ involvements. Built-in group chat and messaging unify inquiries and announcements directly into BaseCamp.

The product even helps organizations reduce the need for meetings. This is achieved by regular, automated, built-in status reports that gather progress and problems into a unified information layer.

Forwarded e-mail messages accept comments, review, and forwarding inside BaseCamp as well. Your team can access the product on Macs and PCs, online, or on iOS and Android devices.

Costs

Free: Academic use for teachers and students

10% discount: For non-profit organizations

Business use: $99.99 monthly fee for an entire organization (no per-user fees; $83.25 with an annual pay plan at $999 per year).

2. Trello

If your business relies on a team, especially one that collaborates virtually from remote locations, you need extra help to keep everyone on the same page.

Online business tools like Trello break projects down into tasks and make it clear who’s responsible for what. You’ll also have a clear view of what’s complete and what’s still pending.

Set up your online Trello board with lists that include cards for each step or task. As you collaborate, you and your team can upload documents, create comments and checklists, mark due dates, and use color-coded labels to track tasks.

Because you can invite collaborators to join an individual board, you can include freelance contributors as well as employees as needed. Notifications let everyone know when important milestones arrive, from deadlines to accomplishments. The Trello mobile app helps remote teams bond wherever they are.

Power-Ups add modular features to Trello boards. Their functionality expands your boards with applications that enhance communication, file management, marketing, sales, support, and more.

Costs

Free: Unlimited boards, cards, and teams. One Power-Up per board. File links and attachments up to 10MB in size

Business Class upgrade: $9.99 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan). Unlimited Power-Ups. Files up to 250MB. Enhanced control of board creation and management. Priority e-mail support.

Enterprise upgrade: Up to $20.83 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan). Additional customized security features. Dedicated account support and personalized training.

Team management and communications online business tool

3. Asana

Asana can help you quickly create to-do lists with individual tasks, projects, conversations, and dashboards. You can then easily synchronize them among members of your team. Transform items from class to class, turning conversations into tasks. Establish milestones that combine task identification with due dates that connect activities with those responsible for completing them.

Share files from cloud storage sites including Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, and OneDrive, as well as local files. Track individual team members’ responsibilities on a project-wide calendar. See a progress graph that tracks overall progress toward specific goals and identifies potential problems with task completion.

Mobile apps keep Asana at your fingertips wherever you and your team members travel or live.

Costs

Free: Unlimited tasks, projects, and conversations. Maximum of 15 team members. Dashboards and search are limited to basic options.

Premium upgrade: Up to $9.99 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan). Unlimited team members and premium dashboards. Advanced, customizable search and tracking features. Add start dates. Designate teams and projects as private. Make tasks contingent on completion of other tasks. Priority support.

Enterprise upgrade: Pricing available on request. Advanced administrative controls, security features, and branding. Customized support. Data export and deletion. Control and block the integration of other apps. Added log-in security. Uptime guarantees. Multi-location backups.

4. Slack

Communication forms the lifeblood of effective teams.

Slack handles team telephony and discussions through public and private channels you can dedicate to specific subject matter or use to handle private discussions. Built-in voice calls and video calls with screen sharing remove the need for added communication apps. Direct messages support one-to-one conversations and small groups. Shared channels and guest accounts enable you to integrate clients, vendors, and contractors directly into your communication flow.

Slack also includes file sharing with support for uploading local documents or accessing them through asset platforms including Dropbox and Google Drive. Its search capabilities help you locate file assets, messages, and notifications you’ve archived. Connect your communication through a public or private WordPress site or in Skype.

Indexed, searchable archives make the entire history of your communications and file assets accessible quickly and responsively. Smart search recommendations point you to relevant materials. At enterprise scale, Slack accepts direct integration of hundreds of apps.

Costs

Free: Searchable access to 10K of most-recent team messaging. Integration of up to 10 custom or third-party apps and services. Up to 5 GB of file storage. One-to-one voice calls and video conferences. Standard support.

Standard: $6.67 monthly fee per active user (with an annual pay plan; monthly per-user cost rises to $8.00 with monthly billing). Unlimited searchable messaging. Unlimited integration of custom or third-party apps and services. Integrate clients, vendors, and freelancers through external access to shared channels and to single- and multi-channel guests. Enhanced log-in access and security. Customizable policies for retention of files and messages. Creation of customized groups of team members. Add up to 15 team members to voice-only and video conferences with interactive screen sharing. Enhanced search functions. Up to 10 GB of file storage per team member. Priority support.

Plus: $12.50 monthly fee per active user (with an annual pay plan; rises to $15.00 with monthly billing). Addition sign-in and authentication options. Specialized message exporting. Add and remove users. Up to 20 GB of file storage per team member. Round-the-clock support and guaranteed uptime.

Online Business Tool for Personal productivity

5. Wunderlist

To manage the tasks involved in a personal to-do list, Wunderlist gives users the ability to establish due dates and issue reminders. Shared lists enable subscribers to collaborate with friends, family, and colleagues. Wunderlist offers support for Macs and PCs, iOS and Android devices, Kindle Fire, and an online version for even broader support.

Folders organize related lists. Notes and comments capture ideas and communicate shared objectives. Due dates and reminders keeps deadlines top of mind. Notifications provide updates.

Browser extensions enable you to create to-do items from e-mail messages and information you find online. In the Business upgrade, Wunderlist supports task delegation, and a team Activity Center to make individual task completions visible to all employees.

Costs

Free: Multi-device support. Creation and sharing of lists. Unlimited comments. File uploads up to 5 MB of storage. Delegation of up to 25 assigned to-do items. Creation of up to 25 subtasks within each to-do goal. Choice of 20 backgrounds to personalize the look of Wunderlist.

Pro: $4.99 per month. Adds unlimited assigning, file storage, and subtasks. Choose from 30 Wunderlist backgrounds.

Business: $4.99 per user per month. Adds centralized administration and billing, team management, and team-size flexibility

Online Business Tool for Help desk functions

6. HelpScout

Whether you manage your own help desk or outsource these functions, HelpScout makes it easy to integrate online help with other apps, e-mail, and your documents. Workflows use Boolean logic to help you automate such actions as assigning help tasks to team members. Reports show you trends, performance, and customer satisfaction right in the HelpScout interface.

HelpScout integrates with popular live chat apps, logs voicemail messages from more than 50 services, and uses keyboard shortcuts to eliminate pointing device use and speed functionality. The Traffic Cop feature eliminates situations in which multiple team members respond to the same customer contact or inquiry.

Costs

Basic: $8.00 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan; monthly per-user cost rises to $12.00 with monthly billing). Supports up to 10 users with unlimited messages and storage, 1 mailbox, 1 public help-documentation site.

Standard: $15.00 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan; monthly per-user cost rises to $20.00 with monthly billing). Supports unlimited users with 5 mailboxes, 1 help-documentation site with private connections.

Plus: $27.00 monthly fee per user (with an annual pay plan; monthly per-user cost rises to $35.00 with monthly billing). Supports unlimited users with unlimited mailboxes, 3 help-documentation sites with private connections. Integrates with third-party apps. Offers HIPAA compliance.

Online Business Tools for Employee hiring

7. Goodhire

Before you add new members to your team, it makes sense for you to verify their credentials to do the job. After all, hiring an unqualified candidate with a dubious background can expose your business to all sorts of risks.

So, careful screening of any potential candidates is a must. Goodhire verifies references, qualifications, skills, and much more. It manages all these screening processes with typical turnarounds of between one to three business days.

Goodhire can customize your potential employee’s verification with a range of add-ons that allow a more in-depth verification. From automated personal and background checks to drug screening and international checks. All checks are provided in respectful manner which treat all candidates fairly.

Costs

Basic: $29.99 per check (plus a one-time setup fee) delivered in one business day. Data limited to Social Security Number trace, and a search of national criminal databases and sex offender lists. Costs drop when customers order more than 50 checks per year.

Standard: $54.99 per check (plus a one-time setup fee) delivered in one to three business days. Adds a search of the domestic terror watch list and a seven-year search of county criminal courts. Costs drop when customers order more than 50 checks per year.

Premium: $79.99 per check (plus a one-time setup fee) delivered in two to three business days. Adds verification of education and employment. Costs drop when customers order more than 50 checks per year.

This post was contributed by guest author: James Wignal

This post is about “7 Online Business Tools for a Super-Productive 2020” and has been contributed by James Wignall. James is a founder at Gotkard.

He specializes in all things technology related, from helping small businesses, to empowering entrepreneurs.

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