One of the keys of effective team collaboration is what we like to call staying in-the-know. Knowing what your teammates have done, are doing, and plan to do is crucial for making sure that your efforts align properly with those of your team.

Unfortunately, keeping informed is not easy. Think about the team you're on right now. How many members does it have? How many initiatives is your team tackling right now? How much new information does your team receive on a daily basis? How much of what you knew yesterday will change today? Did you lose a team member yesterday? Did you gain a new one today? I could go on, but you get the point. Keeping track of all those things is difficult, and you need help.

So what do teams do to combat this problem? Well, they meet, and they meet, and they meet. Lots of meetings to discuss what was done, what's being done, and what will be done. You're spending too much time in meetings, and the result is you're doing less, not more.

Is there a solution to this problem? Yes, we think so! OnePlace was designed to provide numerous ways for you, the team member, to stay in-the-know and stay in step with your team. Let's talk about these ways:

Notifications

Ever have the case where someone on your team receives a document, and then dumps it into the spot where your team stores its files but forgets to tell you? It's the classic "tree falling in the forest" situation. It happens, and it causes problems for teams.

OnePlace has a rich notification system built into it, whose purpose is to stop this problem from occurring. OnePlace will automatically send out system notifications to all or select team members whenever new information is added or changed by someone on your team. This includes discussions, projects, tasks, files, lists and notes. Likewise, whenever your team creates a new workplace and adds you to it, you'll be notified. Been assigned to a task, or one of the tasks on your schedule been updated? No problem, OnePlace will let you know.

Team Activity

Receiving notifications as things occur is great, but what if you want to know what your team did as a whole during the past day? Finding this out is one of the typical reasons why teams meet.

There is a view in Team Central called Team Activity, which gives you this information at the task level. You can see which tasks were added, updated, completed, trashed, etc., and by whom. You can also get at this same information at the workplace level, by viewing the Recent Activity on the Dashboard for a workplace. This will show you the same kind of team activity, but only for tasks within that particular workplace.

Team Schedule

Ever wonder what others on your team plan to work on today, tomorrow or this week? Maybe you're waiting on someone to complete their work so that you can starts yours, but you don't know when they plan to be done. Well, now you can find out the answer to these questions. The Team Schedule view within Team Central gives you the ability to see what your teammates plan to do, when they plan to do it, and how long they think it will take them. Team Schedule lets you see the work scheduled for today, this week, or the following week, so that you can plan accordingly.

Team Pulse

One of the best features within OnePlace for knowing what others on your team are doing right this moment is Team Pulse, another component of Team Central. Team Pulse is like the heartbeat of your team, a way for team members to let each other know what their current status is, and what they're dealing with as they work throughout the day. It's also a great way to throw out a question to your team and get a fast answer. OnePlace even sends out auto-pulses whenever someone starts or completes a task. Team Pulse gives you real-time status updates for your teammates.

So why not make it a New Year's resolution to get out the conference room, and into a group collaboration solution like OnePlace? We think you'll find that staying in-the-know will result in a more effective team, and more productive individuals.

Hear Ye, Hear Ye!