Working collectively certain is not what it was.

Nowadays, you do not have to be in the identical convention room — or, heck, even time zone — to work facet by facet with co-workers. Due to the number of top-notch collaboration instruments for our ever-connected units, you’ll be able to edit, set up, and talk with anybody as if you happen to have been sitting proper subsequent to them, regardless of the place your corporeal kind resides.

And you do not even must be perched at a pc for that to carry true: With the appropriate set of Android apps, you’ll be able to put the ability of collaboration into your pocket — prepared to leap into motion anytime, anyplace.

These are the very best Android apps for efficient and environment friendly collaboration, damaged down by what they’re going to enable you do.

[ Related: The best Android apps for business 2023 ]

Collaborate on paperwork

Google Docs or Microsoft Phrase

For years, Microsoft uncared for Android, with app choices starting from “barely usable” to “solely nonexistent.” At the same time as not too long ago as 2017, when the corporate first began taking Workplace for Android critically, the software program’s real-time collaboration characteristic was vexingly clunky and inconsistent.

Immediately, all of that’s historical past. Microsoft Phrase on Android is now a delight to make use of — and its multiuser modifying system is easy as will be, with real-time adjustments and inline commenting absolutely useful throughout a number of platforms.

That places it neck and neck with Google, whose Docs phrase processor has at all times excelled at collaboration and continues to function a shining instance of straightforward multiuser assist.

JR Raphael/IDG

Inviting others for collaboration in Google Docs, left, and Microsoft Phrase, proper.

The one actual query is which app you favor and which ecosystem makes extra sense on your skilled wants.

Docs is free for particular person use, with company-wide plans beginning at $72 per consumer per yr. Phrase is equally free for particular person use, although with some important restrictions in place — like read-only entry on large-screen units. Its absolutely featured plans are $70 a yr and up for people or $12 per consumer per yr and up for companies, as a part of Microsoft’s broader Microsoft 365 subscriptions.

Collaborate on emails

Spark

E-mail is an space the place staff collaboration is commonly wanted — and but the method has remained clunky, inefficient, and largely unchanged over time. Give it some thought: When you have to get a co-worker’s enter on an electronic mail you acquired or ask them to weigh in on a response, what do you do? Odds are, you ahead the message to them in some capability, both straight or through some secondary service, and then you definitely alternate messages backwards and forwards or work on edits in another app till you get all the things hammered out and able to be pasted again over.

The corporate behind Spark thought there needed to be a greater method — and certain sufficient, they discovered it. The Spark app makes it easy as will be to talk with colleagues about an electronic mail proper alongside that electronic mail (think about that!). It does so by supplying you with a non-public, inner chat system that lives inside your inbox: You merely point out a staff member within the chat space related to any message, and you may then talk with them in regards to the electronic mail, alternate associated information, assign duties and due dates, and even work on a response collectively proper then and there.

Spark

Spark makes it straightforward to talk with colleagues privately alongside an electronic mail, left, and collaborate on a response, proper.

Spark’s Android app is properly designed, too, and chock-full of helpful options and customization choices. The one actual draw back is that the service nonetheless is not obtainable in a easy web-based kind, although the corporate does now have native macOS and Home windows apps obtainable along with the mobile-specific variations.

Spark is free for particular person use with restricted collaboration options and an optionally available $60 a yr premium improve. For the complete staff model, it prices $84 per consumer per yr. 

Collaborate on notes

Notion

In terms of be aware collaboration, Notion is in a league of its personal. The service offers a versatile canvas for just about any type of collective brainstorming and idea-storing conceivable, and it makes it particularly straightforward to share notes with anybody and management precisely what stage of entry collaborators are granted — viewing, modifying, or each modifying and inviting different collaborators.

Notion permits a number of individuals to edit paperwork on the identical time, in actual time, and the app boasts a strong system for commenting and tagging different members of your staff to assign particular objects and work together all all through your supplies.

JR Raphael/IDG

Notion has all of the instruments you have to create and set up notes after which collaborate securely and successfully inside them.

The app empowers you to publish particular person notes or whole collections to the online, too, and to permit anybody with the hyperlink to view them — even when they do not have their very own Notion account. You may set expiration dates for such hyperlinks, too, to make them public just for a restricted time period, and you may determine whether or not you need any of your hyperlinks to get listed by serps or stay in an “unlisted” form of standing.

Notion is free for particular person use with an optionally available $48-a-year Professional improve that gives limitless file uploads, limitless visitor entry, and a 30-day modifying historical past. Workforce-level entry begins at $96 per consumer per yr with a full set of collaboration and administrative controls.

Collaborate on tasks

Trello

Have to work with others on organizing concepts and monitoring progress on tasks? Trello is the Android app for you.

Trello offers you a easy but feature-packed framework for protecting tasks so as: You simply create a board for every challenge or space of curiosity, then create a collection of lists inside every board. The lists then get crammed up with playing cards — particular person objects that include textual content, information, checklists, photos, and different such supplies.

Each card accommodates its personal remark stream for co-workers to depart ideas and concepts, and every card — in addition to the board on the entire — has an in depth exercise log that lists all feedback, additions, edits, and invitations in a single place.

And whereas Notion additionally gives a broadly related form of organizational system, Trello’s board-based setup (recognized formally as a Kanban board) actually is past examine when it comes to its energy, flexibility, and consumer friendliness — each on the cell entrance and on the desktop facet of issues as properly.

JR Raphael/IDG

Trello offers remark streams in each card and allows you to add extra collaborators with a pair fast faucets.

Including in new customers is as straightforward as tapping the three-dot menu icon alongside your workspace identify throughout the app’s principal menu. There, you’ll be able to invite anybody to view your board — with or with out their very own Trello account — and to affix you in modifying it, supplied they’ve an account with the service (or are keen to join one). It’s also possible to create a shareable hyperlink that’ll let anybody view your challenge or particular person playing cards inside your challenge with out the necessity for an account or invite.

[ Trello tips for beginners | Advanced Trello tips | Trello productivity power-ups ]

All foundational options apart, Trello actually shines with its spectacular built-in automation capabilities. The service’s Butler system permits you to arrange all types of superior “if this, then that”-style guidelines for organizing your boards, updating playing cards, and speaking with staff members every time sure triggers happen. The triggers could possibly be something from the arrival of a selected day and time to the motion of a card from one listing to a different — and even the posting of a remark that features a particular phrase or phrase.

Trello is free, with optionally available premium subscriptions beginning at $60 per consumer per yr that unlock further options equivalent to bigger file attachments, administration capabilities, and the flexibility to view your information in a wide range of superior views.

Chat together with your staff

Slack

Slack has grow to be the de facto communication service for corporations and groups — and for good purpose: The app offers a robust, dependable, and easy-to-use system for protecting in contact with colleagues in virtually any method conceivable.

[ Slack tips, tricks, and hacks for power users ]

Slack offers you a mix of channels — subject-specific boards for particular members of your staff — and personal direct messaging capabilities to communicate with particular person co-workers. It has customizable notifications so you may get alerted to exercise as usually as you want, with choices for keyword-specific notifications in addition to channel-wide exercise alerts and pings for direct messages and mentions.

JR Raphael/IDG

Slack excels at each group chats, left, and extra private sorts of communication, proper.

With productivity-oriented integrations for all the things starting from Google Drive and Calendar to Salesforce, Zendesk, and Trello, Slack is designed to function the central nervous system for your entire work-oriented communication. It is free with probably the most primary set of options (and a few strict limits on each storage and integrations) or $87 per consumer per yr and up for limitless use together with superior options equivalent to visitor entry and impromptu audio calls.

Seamlessly share information

Dropbox, Google Drive, or Microsoft OneDrive

Slack, Trello, and Notion all embrace their very own built-in file-sharing features — however when collectively accessing information is a frequent a part of your staff’s workflow, having a devoted frequent folder could make your life simpler.

The excellent news: You have obtained loads of stable choices. Dropbox, Google Drive, and Microsoft OneDrive all have easy features for sharing particular person information or whole folders from their respective Android apps. You may create shareable hyperlinks that’ll let anybody obtain the info in query — or you’ll be able to share straight with different registered customers to allow them to each entry the info and add their very own additions. With the respective firm’s software program in place, you’ll be able to even make a shared folder look and act like an everyday native folder in your desktop pc for fast drag-and-drop transfers.

JR Raphael/IDG

Sharing a folder with somebody in Google Drive, left, and Microsoft OneDrive, proper.

Dropbox offers 2GB of house totally free; Google Drive offers you 15GB of free storage that is shared throughout all Google companies (together with Gmail and Google Images); and OneDrive begins you off with 5GB of storage at its free stage. All three companies provide choices to pay for added house and different superior options, with business-level plans obtainable as properly.

[ How to use Dropbox | Google Drive | Microsoft OneDrive for collaboration ]

Coordinate your calendars

Google Calendar or Microsoft Outlook

Google Calendar and Microsoft Outlook each do a commendable job of supporting shared calendars for colleague coordination. The primary distinction is every app’s related ecosystem — and likewise the truth that Microsoft’s service comes bundled as a part of its broader electronic mail software.

Mainly, if you happen to’re already utilizing Microsoft apps — particularly Outlook — then utilizing Outlook for shared calendars probably is sensible. In any other case, you are most likely higher off going with Google’s standalone calendar service.

Each apps are free to make use of, with choices to improve to enterprise-level plans. (See Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 enterprise pricing.)

Work collectively on whiteboards

Microsoft Whiteboard

Clichéd as it might sound, generally an image actually is value a thousand phrases. (Or at the least a pair hundred.) The following time you want a shared visible floor for long-distance collaboration, Microsoft’s Whiteboard app is the instrument to strive.

Whiteboard, as its identify suggests, places a clean whiteboard floor in your display. You ship a non-public hyperlink to whomever you want to invite, and — whether or not from a cell system, a desktop internet browser, or the native Home windows app — they’re going to be capable of view and work together together with your digital board in actual time.

JR Raphael/IDG

Microsoft Whiteboard has all types of instruments for whiteboard-like collaboration.

Collectively, you’ll be able to create diagrams, sketch out concepts, and annotate photos. Whiteboard makes it straightforward to export and save your boards whenever you’re carried out, and it is free to make use of (although any boards you create and save inside it’ll rely towards your customary Microsoft 365 storage quota).

Share your smartphone’s display

Google Meet

Perhaps you want greater than a whiteboard. Perhaps you need a colleague to see precisely what you are seeing by yourself display — one thing inside an app, on the net, or regardless of the case could also be.

You would be forgiven for failing to note, however Google’s personal free Meet videoconferencing app makes it extremely straightforward to share your display in actual time with anybody else you invite into a gathering. When you’re on a name, all you have gotta do to begin a display share is:

  • Faucet the three-dot menu icon within the lower-right nook of the display.
  • Search for the “Share display” possibility within the panel that pops up.
  • Faucet that, then faucet the “Begin sharing” textual content to verify that you simply wish to proceed.

From that time onward, anybody else in your room will see a dwell view of your smartphone’s display on their very own system. Solely you’ll be able to management the telephone, however any distant observers will witness all the things you are doing at each step of the way in which whereas nonetheless having the ability to chat with you on the identical time.

JR Raphael/IDG

Google Meet makes sharing a dwell view of your display so simple as will be.

[ Google Meet cheat sheet ]

Ah…trendy collaboration. With instruments like these, you may by no means have to depart your favourite chair once more.*

* However please do — at the least every now and then. OK?

This story was initially revealed in January 2018 and most not too long ago up to date in January 2023.