5 Essential Features for Online Collaboration Tools

If you’re looking for the best online collaboration tool, you've probably noticed that there are many great options around, many of them loaded with useful features. But with so many choices around, it can be difficult to find the tool that is perfect for you and your organization. To help you on your search, I’ve listed below the five best, absolute must-have features for an online collaboration tool to be useful.

1. Easy, clean interface - A good user interface is key to a great online collaboration tool. Applications that are simple and intuitive are much easier to learn to use, so you and your team won’t have to waste time in long tutorials. An uncomplicated tool is also much more pleasant to use, so managing your projects with the help of an easy-to-use online collaboration tool will be easier.

2. Permissions control - Users need to be able to easily add people to workspaces and control what they are able to do in each workspace or document. This way, workspace managers can make sure that only those who are authorized to change documents do so. This helps add an extra layer of security to the online collaboration tool, so you and your team won’t have to worry about changes being made by those who should only be viewing documents, for example.

3. File storage with document versioning - Not only do you want to be able to upload all documents related to a project onto your online collaboration tool, but you also need to be sure that all document versions are saved on the tool. This will make it easy to track the progress of a document, and if any past versions need to be referenced, it’s easy to do so.

4. Whiteboard - Whiteboards are very useful in a collaboration tool, as they let team members communicate in a more informal way. It’s also possible to host a virtual brainstorming session using a whiteboard, so the flow of ideas never stops. Best of all, a good online collaboration tool will let you save your whiteboard, so you can always refer back to the ideas that were added by your colleagues.

5. Document locking - This feature ensures that only one person is working on a document at a time. This way, no two people can change the same document at the same time, keeping documents completely organized, and preventing confusion. This is especially important if you work in a large team, with several document editors.