Daily Biz Solutions

The far-flung nature of today’s office environment demands robust collaboration tools. Gone are the days when everyone worked in the same office and teamwork consisted of a brief meeting over a cup of coffee. Today’s teams are spread out between headquarters employees and telecommuters, employees in other offices, contractors and all manner of workers in various locations. Right-sized collaboration and project management software is essential to ensure every project is conducted perfectly.

SharePoint, BaseCamp and are three such tools that facilitate collaboration, each with its own benefits and drawbacks that need to be considered.

Microsoft Sharepoint

SharePoint’s major plus is its Office integration, lessening the learning curve for end users. A Sharepoint migration tool like Sharegate can make moving offfice documents, permissions, metadata and more to SharePoint even easier.

The drawback of moving to SharePoint is the cost. Costs will be high if a company decides to use the traditional SharePoint installation and not the new cloud version. The purchase of a server and associated software will easily go into the thousands. This isn’t a great pick for a business on a budget.

BaseCamp

BaseCamp is an online project management tool. Since it’s “in the cloud,” its major advantage is there is nothing to buy, lowering the cost of hardware, software and administration. Pricing is reliable and flexible, with fees ranging from $20 per month for ten projects and 3GB of storage up to a $150 monthly fee for 100GB and an unlimited number of projects.

The challenge most with have with BaseCamp is integration. Users report a steeper learning curve and a fair amount of ramp-up time to make it work well with existing processes.

Google Docs

Companies looking at BaseCamp due to its lower price should consider Google Docs. If price is the only concern, Google’s free offering is the hands-down winner.

Security concerns are the biggest negative regarding Google Docs. Someone once said of Facebook, “if you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” Some consider this to be true of Google Docs, which will integrate with Google’s new Google Drive online storage service. Many speculate that Google will index saved documents to help target searches and advertising. If you believe in full ownership of sensitive data without someone “snooping,” Google Docs is not the choice.

SharePoint, BaseCamp and Google Docs are all fine pieces of collaboration software that businesses can utilize to manage projects. Which is right for you depends on your specific needs, budget and concerns, but when it’s time to run a project across not just departments but also time zones, enterprise collaboration software is a must.