Making Online Task Management Software Better—The All-in-One Solution

With more businesses embracing practices to help team members achieve work-life balance—and many embracing remote or distributed team models—the call for better tools was inevitable. Instituting task management tools that can be accessed online has been a lifesaver for teams that have had to shift how (and where) they work to also keep up with industry changes. The time has come for you to pick up online task management software to optimize your team’s workflow.

New tools, in-and-of-themselves, aren’t always enough to keep the day-to-day tasks running smoothly. Your software needs to offer other features to help keep your team organized and engaged. That’s what we’re highlighting here.

Optimize Workflow with More Than Organizational Tools

There is, of course, a bare minimum of features that your online task management software should provide. If it doesn’t help your team get and stay organized, there’s no point in using it. You’ll only waste money and compound existing problems with more disorganization—adding to the team’s stress. With any modern task management platform you should be able to:

• Add files, photos, and links directly to a task workspace.
• Assign, tag, or subscribe team members who need to have their hands—or eyes—on a task’s progression.
• Create tags for due dates, project names, and team members to make prioritizing tasks easy for everyone on the team.
• Schedule recurring tasks, whether for every Friday or once per quarter.
• Divide tasks into subtasks to make the workload more manageable.

Assuming your software provides this baseline functionality, let’s look at other features that will make your team’s day-to-day experience even better.

Built-In Chat Function for Deepening Connection

There are a variety of tools that support communication in real-time, and many of them integrate well with task management software. But a built-in chat feature provides more ways to connect with team members and to exchange, record, and find task-related information. With an in-task chat option, critical details or updates can be discussed—and kept organized—in one place. Group chats allow wider teams to stay on track and to stay connected, and direct messaging allows for private and spontaneous conversations.

Additionally, if there is an advanced search option, you can find a spreadsheet or client referral in seconds—even if the link was dropped into a chat channel last month and has since gotten buried. By using @mentions, the right people receive notifications—meaning, you don’t have to bombard everyone with updates. So, a built-in chat function gives you more options for organizing tasks. At the same time, the opportunities for team members to connect also increase.

Full Range of Capabilities for Streamlining Projects

Because task workflows are usually part of a bigger client project, team goal, or company vision, your software tool should also act as a project management system. Having a full range of capabilities at your disposal does a couple of things. First, it keeps you from jumping from one tool to another by centralizing operations. This cuts down on costs, time, and frustration. Second, by streamlining access to tasks, projects, and conversations, all business activities become more visible and easier to manage. Imagine:

• Tracking task and project progress easily from a calendar, from your dashboard, or by receiving personalized notifications.
• Customizing your daily operations with Kanban boards, Gantt charts, or to-do lists.
• Generating reports for your team, company, and clients. 
• Integrating with other tools like Google Drive and Zapier.
• Inviting client access to certain aspects of a project while maintaining online security.

This is just a snapshot of what an all-in-one solution can provide your company. So, it’s worth seeking out a platform that will help you streamline everything.

Intuitive Design for Encouraging Collaboration

The look and feel of software often get deemphasized—as if functionality were all that mattered. But design does matter—and not just to teams managing creative projects. If a platform is clunky, confusing to navigate, or takes a long time to learn, people will avoid using it whenever possible. Eventually, it’ll get abandoned all together.

The more intuitive a software solution’s design, the more your team will feel encouraged to learn and play around with it. If mastering the platform takes only a matter of minutes, that’s one more thing taken off your team’s plate—leaving extra brain space for collaboration. Don’t underestimate the power of online task management software that is as easy on the eyes as it is to operate. It’s important that your team feels at home in the software since they’ll be working with it all day—and since the height of their collaborative success depends on it.

Online Task Management Software That’s Designed to Engage

By broadening what you expect from online task management software, you expand what’s possible for your team to achieve. It sounds simple, maybe even unrealistically so. But the advantages of having all the necessary tools accessible from a workspace your team loves are worth the extra attention in this search. An all-in-one platform that serves all of your team’s needs in an enjoyable space is the ultimate goal.

And since the modern “office” is no longer just about getting more done faster, but also about engaging teams so that they can—and want to—do their best, there’s no reason to settle for less. Yes, optimizing workflows is important. Inspiring people to work together with a sense of purpose is next-level.

Flow isn’t just an online task management software. It’s an all-in-one platform designed to keep your team engaged and connected. Sign up to check out Flow for free, and help your team love what they do.