Editor’s note: This post was originally published in July 2017 and has been revamped and updated for accuracy and comprehensiveness.

There’s been a massive transition to remote work in the last few years — especially in the last 12 months. The quick shift from in-person to virtual has pushed us to learn how to connect with our team and coworkers online.

Whether you’re in the office or online, effective communication is the key component to working together successfully. If you don’t communicate, how do you resolve problems and achieve your goals? 

“Alone we can do so little; together we can do so much.” – Helen Keller

Luckily for us, today there are so many applications that can help you optimize your team’s communication, workflow, project management, and more.

In this article, you’ll find 9 smart tools and apps to help you stay in touch with and work effectively with your team, no matter where they are.

1. Zoom

It’s safe to say that virtual meetings aren’t going anywhere anytime soon. The beauty of a virtual meeting is that you can join from essentially anywhere in the world – as long as there’s an internet connection.

Zoom takes the cake for being one of the best group meeting apps. Zoom is incredibly easy to use, has high-quality video, integrates with tons of other apps, and can record your sessions for anyone who wasn’t able to make the meeting. 

Not only is Zoom great for meetings, but it also has other solutions like Zoom Video webinars, Zoom Room, and Zoom Phone.

For solopreneurs and small businesses just starting out, Zoom has a forever-free plan with unlimited one-on-one meetings. There are three levels of paid plans: Pro, Business, and Zoom United Business.

If you haven’t already, give Zoom a try for your next meeting.

2. Slack

Slack is one of the best apps for communication and collaboration. As their tagline says: Where Work Happens.

Slack is a fit for businesses of any size. There are channels that you can create to keep your work organized. You can create a private channel for a particular project or team, as well as a public channel for everyone to view. Slack also allows you to send direct messages to a group or a particular person. Not only can you use Slack for your business, but you can create shared channels to communicate with other vendors or businesses that you work with who also use Slack.

It isn’t just a messaging platform, it also supports voice and video calls. You can share your files, images, folders, and documents with anyone at any time from anywhere. Slack has these three plans: Free, Standard, Plus, and Enterprise Grid. 

Try Slack to make communication easy and improve your team productivity.

3. Asana

Asana is a great app for collaboration and productivity. It has a clear interface, it’s easy to understand, and the functions are simple.

It allows you to create a team, track the team, and manage your important projects. You can see the status of any ongoing project without sending an email.

You can easily create tasks and assign one to a team member. You can use their Free basic version. With a Free account, you’ll get a basic dashboard where you can add up to 15 team members, create unlimited tasks, projects, and conversations.

Try Asana. You’ll love its simplicity and how it creates transparency among your team.

4. Calendly

Calendly is an automated scheduling software built to help you eliminate the back and forth of setting up any meeting of any kind. There are multiple types of meetings that Calendly works with like one-on-one meetings, round-robin scheduling, group meetings, and collective meetings.

The software integrates with many other apps and can connect with up to six of your calendars to automatically check availability and help you connect with your team, prospects, and clients.

Calendly has three pricing plans: Basic (always free), Premium, Pro.

Try Calendly to streamline your meeting scheduling process within your organization or with your clients. 

5. Harvest

Harvest is a modern time tracking tool that can help businesses of any kind track time. From consultancies to internal departments, you can plan and estimate projects with real data, manage your team’s capacity and workflow, and invoice seamlessly.

The platform is simple to use. You can track time from your desktop or mobile and integrate time tracking into your existing workflow. Harvest integrates with some of the great tools on this list like Asana and Slack.

There’s also a large selection of visual dashboards you can create that helps you keep your projects moving smoothly.

Try Harvest to make the most out of your time.

6. Google Meet

If your business is using Google Workspace, Google Meet is a great app that’s already integrated that you can use for secure video meetings for businesses of all sizes.

Google Meet takes the headaches out of joining a video call at work. All you have to do is just set up a meeting and share a link. There’s no worrying about whether teammates, clients, or customers have the right accounts or plug-ins. It makes multi-person video calls a breeze.

You can also join meetings directly from a Calendar event, an email, or directly from Gmail.

Work easier and give Google Meet a try.

7. Monday

Are you a busy team? Are you managing multiple clients?

Monday can help you with managing teams, clients, freelancers, and important projects. 

It will make it easy to track project status, prioritize tasks, add updates on projects, communicate with team members, create automations to streamline your processes, build visual dashboards, and so much more.

You can easily track who’s working on which task (or project) and assign the task to someone on your team. It also allows you to integrate your favorite apps and tools.

Try Monday and it will keep your team organized.

8. LastPass

LastPass makes sharing and managing passwords across team members easy. LastPass offers secure password storage giving employees their own vault for storing every app and web login they use. It allows you to easily share logins while keeping your data safe and revoke access if needed.

LastPass has multiple solutions and plans to choose from. There are two plans for businesses – the Teams or Enterprise. This is great for businesses managing multiple users. There are also two personal plans you can choose from – Free or Premium.

If you want smart password storage, convenient password sharing, and an easy-to-manage dashboard, give LastPass a try.

9. Basecamp

Basecamp is a project management and communication app that helps you to organize your projects and teams in one place.

It allows you to break a project into multiple portions and assign it to your team members. The 6 core tools it provides are:

• Group Chat: start a quick chat (or group chat) with your team.
• Message Boards: Post important announcements, updates, and ideas.
• To-dos: Make a list of work or tasks and track it.
• Schedule: For posting deadlines and milestones.
• Automatic Check-ins: Get insights from your team.
• Docs & Files: Team members can access the files, documents, and folders.

Basecamp offers a free account for verified teachers and students. For businesses, it’s $99 per month. They also have a 30-day free trial.

Try Basecamp and organize everything you need in one place.

Thanks for reading this post! Now it’s your turn – which one is your favorite app? How do you communicate with your team? Let me know in the comments.