The most effective way to maximize the productivity of your development team is to use collaboration tools. Software developers these days are not expected to work full-time without even contacting or communicating with each other for long. If there is no collaboration among the workers, your million-dollar worth of a product cannot sustain since it’s been developed in a communication-restrictive environment. Sharing ideas and suggestions, free communication and quick meet-ups to discuss even the smallest detail, are the major factors behind the success of a software product. In order to ensure seamless, effective and productive communication between project managers, their team members and other subordinates, organizations are adopting different collaboration tools. It’s absolutely not necessary to use the same collaboration tool which is being used by another company. Analyze the nature of your company and then decide which tool best suits your setup. To help you in picking out the right choice, I have selected 5 best collaboration tools for you to check out. Let’s take a look! 5 Collaboration Tools for You: Every collaboration tool which is listed below has its own set of features and limitations. Which one you like the best, is something that matters. 1. Trello: A collaboration tool which needs no introduction. Trello, undoubtedly, is one of the most popular tools being used by several Fortune-500 companies for project management and collaboration. It’s like your digital whiteboard where you can create, assign, check and mark the tasks for your team. It has a user-friendly environment, where you can create boards and on every board, you can create cards to list out your To-Dos and then cross out each task once it’s been completed. Trello offers integration with several other platforms including, Dropbox, GoogleDrive, OneDrive, Slack and the list goes on. The basic plan only allows you to add one power-up from the list. Features: Easier tasks organization.Free basic service.Drag and drop feature.In-line editing.Checklists.Notifications.Data filters.SSL encryption for data.Task assignment.Easy uploads.Tags and labels. Availability: Android.Apple.Web Application. Pricing Plan: Basic Plan: Free. Business Class: $9.99 per user/month. Enterprise: $20.83 per user/month. 2. CrowdSourcer.io: A state-of-the-art collaboration platform which enables software developers to contribute to a project and get paid. CrowdSourcer.io is a web-based contributor platform which contains within, almost all the qualities of the best collaboration platforms in the market. It is a perfect blend of contribution platforms and collaboration platforms alike. Ideally created for remote teams. CrowdSourcer.io is based upon the principle of profit sharing and it doesn’t require any financial investment nor the services are charged for. It’s mainly a code-based project management tool using which, a project manager can create a project directory, create and assign tasks, chat with the team members, review the work submitted and decide the amount which is owed to the contributor. As a team lead, you don’t have to worry about hiring the right talent for your project. Simply kick-off your project by creating a folder for it in the CrowdSourcer.io and specify the number of developers you need on your team. While going through a list of project, if a developer is interested in your project, he will contact you via CrowdSourcer.io. You can review the resume and can offer him a place in your team. That means, you no longer have to hunt the right talent since CrowdSourcer.io will attract the right talent and will redirect it over to you. Features: Easy to use interface.Powerful selling tools.Analytical monitoring.No usage charges.Seamless chat module.Quick review feature.Smooth tasks management.Organized team management.Contributor ratings. Availability: It’s available as a web-application for now. Pricing Plan: CrowdSourcer.io is free to use until your product starts selling. You only pay a pre-defined percentage of your sales and there are no hidden or recurring charges. 3. Slack: Next in the list, is none other than the mighty Slack! It’s another wonderful collaboration tool having millions of users across the globe. Slack is basically a communication-based tool which allows sending direct messages, files, code snippets, images, to your colleagues or team-mates, either in groups or individually. You can easily organize every department by creating its own channel and by adding all of its members in the channel. For instance, you have a quality assurance team which you want to manage. Simply click on “Create Channel” in the settings, give your team a name like “QA Ninjas” and add them to your QA channel. They will receive all notifications which you share with them in this channel and if they need to share anything, they can share via this channel. Slack also supports voice and video calling as well. You can utilize these features to talk to your team members about the latest developments underway. Although it cannot be considered as an alternative to the cloud storage services because it comes with a limit, it is absolutely compatible with Google Drive, Trello, OneDrive and the like. Features: Advances search modifiers.Pinning links and messages to different channels.Tracking and managing documents.Sharing channel across multiple workspaces.Quick navigation.Sending DMs.Notification reminders.RSS feed. Availability: Android.Apple.Desktop.Web Application. Pricing Plan: Basic Plan: Free. Standard: $6.67 per user/month. Plus: $12.50 per user/month. Enterprise Grid: Quotation based. 4. GitHub: A purely cloud-based collaboration tool for developers. GitHub is a web application which and a cloud-based service which allows software developers to store, manage, and reuse their code. The way it has managed to serve the development teams located remotely is quite miraculous. GitHub is one of its kinds type of platform which features a cloud-based code repository hosting service. Not only it gives the developers, the ease to code freely, but also they can merge their codes to make up a whole module. Apart from code collaboration, another exemplary feature of GitHub is the version control. In the initial days of a project, the code is manageable and there is no need to manage it from any aspect. It is limited, easy to understand and only a few comments in the code can help a lot. As the project grows, several other developers join in, the code becomes complex. Every developer is working on his own side of the project. GitHub allows all these developers to merge their version of the code and keep on working. The moment a developer is finished with a module, he pushes his code to GitHub and the project manager can easily track the changes being made throughout. This is the concept behind version control. In the same manner, the developers branch and merge and the cycle goes on! The only drawback of GitHub is, it requires some time before you get all comfy using it. Features: Source control and version control.Fosters parallel software development.Compatible with protocols like FTP, SSH, HTTP, HTTPS and etc.Effective handling of codes of all magnitudes.Cryptographic security for all the data.Pluggable merging strategies.Toolkit-based design.Garbage accumulation.Code standardization.Explicit object packing.Also comes with a GUI. Availability: Apple (iMac, MacBook).Desktop.Web Application. 5. JIRA: One of the best software development tool for project management & task delegation for all agile teams out there. Initially, JIRA was developed to cater to the needs of businesses of all kinds. Slowly and gradually, it evolved into a complete and full-fledged project management tool with tons of features to offer. Now, JIRA employs feature-rich solutions based on Hybrid Scrumban Approach. Ranging from flexible deployment options to offering a well-endowed toolkit for developers. JIRA is quite capable of collecting and categorizing every single bit of historical data related to a project. The best part of JIRA is, it comes with its own functional language called JQL (JIRA Query Language) which makes it quite easier for the developers, mainly the project managers to manipulate the settings for the whole on-premise JIRA environment. It offers connectivity with GitHub and BitBucket to track and maintain certain bits of code. Besides, it’s a useful tool for the overall project management and development lifecycle and offers premium features for bugs reporting and solutions tracking as well. Features: Smooth user experience.Customizable workflows.Unlimited custom fields.Bug reporting and tracking.Search and filter options.Customizable wallboards.Integration with REST APIs.Easier data import.On-premise JIRA for larger organizations.Availability on mobile devices.Advanced security. Availability: Android.Apple.Desktop.Web Application.On-Premise Setup. Pricing Plan: Cloud for 10 Users: Flat fee of $10. Users between 11–100: $7 per user/month. Self-Hosted Server: $10 one-time. Self-Hosted Data Center: $12,000 per year. Final Word: Now that I have listed some of the best collaboration platforms with all their features and pricing plans, it’s time for you to make a decision and pick one that best suits your needs. Rather than “Go Hard or Go Home”, it’s “Go Smart or Go Home” kind of situation these days and do remember that, effective collaboration positively impacts your software product and who knows your next idea turns out to be a huge success?

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