Tools That Improve Your Online Team Meetings

21 October6 min read
Tools That Improve Your Online Team Meetings

Isn’t this amazing how we have shifted our work meetings online, to remote and digital environments. While some companies are comfortably bringing virtual or augmented reality meetings, others are adapting more basic communication tools. One-to-one meetings are undeniably quite beneficial, but how often is it practical? 

Online meetings have been the new normal for business since the pandemic and companies have to adjust and learn to run better virtual meetings through various tools. The new normal has brought a new way to work and interact with employees at remote locations through various online meeting tools. With the emergence of digitization and countless new tools, how do you know what is best for you and your team?

But first, what should be the essential feature to run meetings virtually?

Features for an online meeting tool

  • Screen sharing and slide show
  • Meeting recording
  • HD video and audio
  • Live chat
  • Easy to use
  • Adequate participation slots

For smooth online meetings, these are the basic features to be present in the tools. And to make meetings even better, you need to empower your teams with tools bringing people together, improve efficiency and simple collaboration. So for such reasons, we have listed out few online tools and highlighted their pros and cons respectively:

Zoom

Zoom is one of the tools for video conferencing and has played a vital role in the post-pandemic situations. It is a video telephony software program developed by Zoom Video Communications. With a transparent UI, Zoom allows you to access the upcoming meeting details easily in an expanded view. It is quite reliable and easy to use that even the school classes are hosted virtually by creating a meeting. The search bar lets you find the contacts, files, chats and any meeting channels. 

Pros:

  • Zoom offers HD quality videos and an audio range for calls.
  • Provides features for group messaging.
  • Allow splitting into various rooms approximately 50 for a dedicated meeting.
  • It allows screen sharing simultaneously between members of a meeting.
  • Supports file upload for different types like PDF, DOCX or PPT etc.
  • It also allows multiple attendees to share their screen at the same time making collaboration and interaction much easier.

Cons:

  • The free plan has a 40-minute limit.
  • It becomes difficult sometimes to join a meeting through the browser.
  • The cloud storage for free plan is comparatively low.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a proprietary business communication tool developed by Microsoft as part of the Microsoft 365 family launched in 2017. Unlike Zoom, it has also gained much attention since the meetings moved to virtual interaction. It offers workplace chat, file storage, video conferencing and application integration. Microsoft Teams has moved further into the spotlight as a part of workplace productivity and collaboration strategy.

Pros:

  • Integration of all tools in a single place
  • Useful chat additions
  • Integrations of all tools at one place
  • Helpful bots
  • Seamless file search, backup and collaboration

Cons:

  • Limited number of channels
  • Unnecessary storage consumption
  • Increased security risk

Google Meet

Google Meet (formerly known as Hangouts Meet) is one of the most popular online communication tools developed by Google and easy-to-use for online meetings and provides a more stable connection as compared to Zoom. It is available free to Google users but limited to 100 participants for upto 60 minutes per meeting. This means you have to quit the meeting and join again if the call exceeds an hour.

Pros:

  • Can join a meeting via Google Calendar
  • Updates are automatic and constant
  • Provides video, audio and messenger supports simultaneously
  • Supports screen sharing with your teammates during a meeting or webinar

Cons:

  • No integration of third-party apps
  • Screen sharing restrictions
  • No dedicated desktop app, hence accessible through web browser only
  • Cannot chat individually without creating meeting

Skype

Skype is a proprietary telecommunications application operated by Skype Technologies, a division of Microsoft and is one of the most prominent free online meeting tools available. It mainly offers real-time translation and the voice translator supports 10 languages while the text translator supports over 60 languages. Also, Skype makes itself multi-functional through the integration with Alexa. Business version of this tool is free and it supports around 250 participants in a meeting.

Pros:

  • Offers HD video calling
  • Provides screen sharing and location sharing options
  • Meetings and webinars can be recorded

Cons:

  • Profile setup takes too long to process
  • Confusing interface compared to others

Slack

Slack is a messaging program specifically designed for office use, developed by the Canadian software company Slack Technologies (now owned by Salesforce). It is a widely known workplace tool as it has transformed how organizations communicate before the onset of remote culture. It helps you to connect with people from both inside and outside organizations. Basically, slack transforms the way organizations communicate by bringing the people together to work as a single unified team. It has over 70% market share in workstream collaboration platforms. And the best part, there is no need to spend extras in connecting or integrating different tools with Slack.

Pros:

  • Supports asynchronous work organised in channels
  • Offers screen sharing and collaborate all in one platform
  • Provide different customised programs for enterprise use
  • A beautiful and interactive user interface and UX

Cons:

  • Minimum file storage
  • Notifications can be overwhelming due to different ways of notifying
  • Context switching occurs easily

Cisco WebEx

WebEx by Cisco is an American company which develops web communication applications. Cisco WebEx is another popular online tool for meetings. It is a versatile and easy-to-use platform where the number of participants can be included in a meeting depending on your package level. WebEx’s free plan provides inclusion of 50 participants in a single meeting while the premium plan allows upto 3000 participants.

Pros:

  • Supports third-party recording tools
  • Excellent security and encryption
  • Call Me feature allows you to call a participant who cannot join the meeting through link
  • Available for all devices
  • Sharing options are quite easy

Cons:

  • The website version is weaker compared to the application.
  • Weak control over comments and chat.

Meetings with productivity shouldn’t be difficult to host when there are, specially, a wide variety of digital tools providing an interactive communication among team members. Those who embrace the growing world of digital meetings, these tools will have no trouble saving money, time and moving forward with better ideas to share on organizational level.

Enhancements for these tools

Every tool is better in its own way. But there are certain features which we wish to include in our comfortable tools. Google meet and Microsoft Teams are better for those who want to collaborate in real-time through full integration irrespective of Google workspace (G-suite) and Office 365. Clearly, there is no obvious winner for the ideal video conferencing but you can have the enhanced version of your tool by changing the powerful settings within the application.

So, what’s best?

Each tool listed has its own benefits and shortfalls. Selecting the right tool to run virtual meetings should be based on how it will satisfy the business requirements within the described budget. Meeting tools should be adaptable fundamentally. And regardless of what your organization does, there should always be an interactive online meeting tool with access ease and constant upgraded versions for better support!

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