With the UK National Lockdown having no official end date insight & hundreds of thousands of UK workers being furloughed or working from home; the feeling of being suspended in time continues.
We are heading towards nearly a year of Covid related restrictions in the UK & for many businesses it has been unbelievably challenging to strike some kind of balance & for many sadly they have simply not been able to retain their staff, despite the support from Government.
However, for those who are managing to strike a balance & have moved their employees to a predominant home working scenario; how do they keep everyone updated in real time, without keeping everyone in Zoom meetings most of the day?
Virtually smart have been using Trello & Slack to support & update remote teams for different projects for some time now & each application can work in different ways for different clients needs.
Trello
What is ‘Trello’?
Trello is an ‘intuitive board’ ‘list’ based planning tool, which multiple team users can access. It is flexible & collaborative, allowing team users to access, alter & add information in real time. Setting up a new user only takes a few minutes & once the boards/lists are created, every user then has access to up to date information.
Each board/list has the option to add what is called a ‘card’. Each card is an individual piece of information. Dependant on your needs, these could be meeting notes, updates on projects & or tasks aimed at the relevant users.
The flexibility of ‘Trello’ allows you to create your own flow format. For example, a basic flow format could simply be a ‘To do’ list an ‘In progress’ list & a ‘Completed’ list. The team can then denote how many lists are available, their titles & how they are going to be processed.
The beauty of ‘Trello’ is that you can simply move the cards along through the list, so when other team members log in, they can see in real time when something has been actioned. Ultimately, you can archive information, which means there is still a full audit trail of tasks which have been actioned. “Dragging a card across lists in Trello feels as easy as moving sticky notes on a wall” (1)
Power up options in ‘Trello’ also allow users to add in calendars & other apps to boost the benefits of the ‘Trello’ platform. One such app is the calendar option.
“Whether you are planning a conference, managing an editorial calendar, or organizing a family vacation, the Calendar Power-Up lets you display cards with due dates in a weekly or monthly calendar view. Easily prioritize cards by dragging and dropping them on the calendar to automatically update their due dates, and export your Trello calendar to third party apps with an iCalendar link.” (1)
- Quickly switch between week and month modes for a more specific or a broader view of cards
- Drag and drop cards between calendar days to quickly change their due date
- Click to expand calendar days for a roomier display of cards (1)
“I really like the visual nature of the Trello Boards & the various options within cards like being able to add due dates, categorise & watch key items. It’s also great to be able to attach relevant documents & images which can then be shared with other team members.
Trello is really easy to use & I can give access to the teams I’m working with so they can easily see the latest status of actions.
Using Trello definitely makes my life a bit easier & it means I’m not trying to keep another Excel spreadsheet up to date!
I recently downloaded a power-up for my Trello Boards, called ‘Board Export’ It’s an incredible add on to the Trello function & allows you to export your Board into Excel, so you can use it to create really useful Spread Sheets to track activity. This is especially useful if your client prefers Excel format.” Helena Parrott – VA/Director Virtually Smart
Slack
‘Slack’ is a collaborative hub, whereby information can be updated & linked to multiple platforms, so information is free flowing & everyone in the ‘channel’ is updated whenever there are any changes made. (2)
‘Slack’ functions in ‘channels’ & these can be organised by topic, project, team, or whatever is needed by the collaborative group using the app. As the channels are linked directly to each user, no one is left out & information is constantly being updated. Messaging is also easy on ‘Slack’ as it allows users to send files instantly.
‘Slack’ works alongside the apps & services a team already use every day. Information is constantly updating in the conversation, so everyone in the channel can see it in real time. This means that each current app you already use, once connected to ‘Slack’; can allow users to see when changes have been made. Whether this be in Gmail, Google drive, Github, Dropbox, etc; you have up to date information on changes & essential knowledge about what your channel users are currently working on.
Voice calls can be built into ‘Slack’ making personal connections & communications ever more effective. You can share your screen with a video call, so explaining & exploring information is quicker, more effective & productive. (2)
Therefore, looking at both of these apps, you can see the benefits for how they can support effective collaboration, particularly when keeping remote working teams updated.
When you have multiple layers of information & multiple team users online together; using ‘Trello’ or ‘Slack’ can really help to streamline your productivity & ensure no one is ever left out of the information loop again.
Written by Katy-Jane Mason for & on behalf of Virtually Smart
- Trello.com
- https://slack.com/intl/en-gb/features
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