Stay home, stay connected
Being on lockdown, stuck in your house, restricted movement, social distancing, whatever you want to call it isn’t easy for a lot of people but luckily for us, in this day and age, we have a wide range of technology at our fingertips to help us stay connected.
Staying connected is important for us on a personal level to help keep away the boredom, help keep us motivated and help keep a closer eye on our loved ones that are now out of reach. Video calls are most definitely a great option for keeping in touch with people.
Staying connected for business is going to be vital for many as more and more people are migrated to home working; getting access to apps, software and resources will help us work effectively and efficiently and well; just make the day easier.
Here’s a good but not exhaustive list of software and Apps you could try to keep you connected for work and socially.
Video Calling Software
Facetime – available on your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch and even newer Macbooks
https://support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204380 Facetime is a nice simple tool to use to video call loved ones but it is also a nice easy option for one to one video meetings.
WhatsApp – is popular for group chats but also have a video feature where you can video call individual people or groups of people, WhatsApp is available for Android, iPhone on Mac & Windows PC so is very accessible for lots of users
Zoom – is designed for video conferencing and makes keeping in touch from a personal point of view but is especially handy for business use with several options & plans
Skype – Skype has video conferencing available and you can chat to more than one person at a time and share your screen, this makes it good for personal use but also. Works well for businesses use too
Microsoft Teams – This is more than just a chat or remote meeting solution, Microsoft teams allows you to set up teams, have chats, hold group video calls, share a calendar and share documents within the teams, it is designed for teamwork.
https://products.office.com/en-gb/microsoft-teams/group-chat-software
Handling documents
Big businesses might have fantastic IT resources, but if you are a smaller business it might be harder to manage your documents between your teams.
I wouldn’t want to suggest one over another but a few options to help you keep running more smoothly are:
Microsoft teams – as above, it is not just great for keeping in touch, it also has the power to share documents and update them live without the need to email things backwards and forwards.
Dropbox – This is more of a file-sharing option, you can give authorised people access to a Dropbox folder so you can access the documents within. If you have to work with personal data you will need the business version to help you be GDPR compliant
Google Drive – This is a file-sharing platform and they have both personal and business packages available
Huddle – a cloud-based project management solution that helps project teams in businesses
Receipt Bank – a pre-accounting tool often used by accountants and bookkeepers but can also be used by businesses to log receipts digitally.
https://www.receipt-bank.com/uk/
Smart Receipt – Turns your phone into a receipt scanner and expense report generator with Smart Receipts! You can track receipts and lots more
Expensify – claims to be the world’s leading application for expense management, receipt scanning, and business travel. Take a picture of your receipts using SmartScan and go from there
There are loads of tools out there to help make things just a little easier… all at your fingertips.
