SLACK
One of the first things that I had set up for NurtureU was SLACK. It is simple to set up, and has an archive of ten thousand messages. And it is free forever, that is, if you do not want to access messages older than the 10000th message. A chatty team one could call us, we reached the limit within four months 😎. Slack provides very impressive people analytics. One such analytics that I had received: 1934 messages exchanged, 23% in public channel, 31% in private channel and 46% in direct message.
These analytics provided insights into how the team communicates. Insights that prompted us to change our communication style. The mobile app, and the integrations it comes up with are a plus. Having a different app other than WhatsApp is refreshing.
CLOCKIFY
Microsoft Excel was a good start to tracking time and served the purpose for a few months however, as our clientele grew, it was not suiting us. Our payroll processing time gradually increased, prompting us to look for a better alternative. Priorly I have used TopTal, this time the search for a timesheet application on Google, shone light at Clockify.
A team member can be an admin or member. Private project details can be viewed only by members of the project. (In certain modules, private project details can be viewed by all team members, not going to tell you where it is 😁) Moreover, Clockify has excellent reports. The above snapshot is one of the many reports Clockify can provide.
JIRA
If your team is losing track of what is to be done on a project, JIRA is your saviour. Trello was also one of our options but the ease of the integration of JIRA, Clockify and SLACK made us choose this over Trello. Trello integrates with Clockify using a browser plugin. With JIRA, it is a seamless integration; project names must be the same between Clockify and JIRA. Once a one-step integration is done, the team can directly clock hours when they work on a task that is logged in JIRA. JIRA provides a variety of templates for task management – content management board, service management, process management, website design, and software project management are a few examples.
It is forever free for a team size of 10 with limited capabilities on roles and privileges. For a team where tasks can be transparent between projects, JIRA free version comes in handy.
ZCAL
Scheduling a meeting without knowing your availability is the problem solved by ZCal. Once you are on ZCal and connect to the account in which your calendar is maintained, you can forget about the overlapping meeting invites. A very powerful scheduling tool that gives the ability to others to fix an appointment with you without sharing of the calendar and back and forth interactions on available times. If you want a quiet time without meetings, you can remove that time block to prevent others from scheduling that time. You can add a personalized video (useful for sales calls and team meetings)
ZCal meetings can be integrated with your Zoom account or Gmail account. Once this integration is done, the meeting location drop-down lists these options and automatically adds the zoom/gmeet invite.
ZOHO CRM AND ZOHO BOOKS
Excel sheet cannot bring up the deals that you worked for your clients, nor it can remind you on following up with your prospects, Zoho CRM does. Once you add an ‘interaction’ with your customer or a prospect as a lead/deal/contact/account, you are creating a repository and a ready reckoner of your customers. Zoho CRM helps to mark various stages of a deal that is in progress with your customers. You can also schedule tasks to follow up. Migration from excel sheet to Zoho CRM is straightforward and simple. (You can start with a free version and move to a paid one as you grow )
Create professional invoices, stay on top of your business financial health, and track expenses using Zoho Books. With Zoho Books again, start with a free version and move to paid one as you grow.