At OnePlace, we strongly believe that collaboration is the key to business success. Allow everyone an opportunity to participate on a project, and everyone can be proud of the results.

By integrating online team collaboration tools into project management, small business teams are able to keep all communications and projects organized in a centralized location. This can lead to increased task management, increased collaboration on projects and less information lost - allowing your team to be more successful.

Our favorite team collaboration feature is OnePlace Discussions. We’ve mentioned them many times, but they are a huge factor in increasing communication among teammates. Discussions allow team members to post information on a generic topic, client account, product or business objective. From there, each team member can see the posts, and comment when appropriate.

By communicating within OnePlace Discussions, business teams can collaborate on updates to a project, product or process. Every team member can see each other’s comments, and because Discussions are refreshed every minute, they can be used like instant messaging to hold live conversations.

Discussions also feature the ability to upload files and attach them directly to the discussion. This allows all team members the ability to view a file directly within the discussion and comment on it in one place, which keeps all communication stored for easy reference.

There are many businesses who communicate and collaborate via email. While it may be a natural instinct at first, OnePlace Discussions have a couple advantages over email collaboration. Conversations can get lost in email strings, and sometimes people miss a task assignment, note or file to review. Within OnePlace Discussions, that information is stored in an endless chain of posts, and are searchable for future reference. And because all team members are able to view each discussion post, everyone is kept in the loop as to the progress of each project, instead of losing information if forgotten on the email string.

Here's an example of a OnePlace discussion in action. Team members Tad, Tara and Tim are discussing potential competition to a glucose monitoring product their company will be rolling out.

Now everyone on the team can share their thoughts, and work together to move the project forward.

Begin using Discussions to share ideas and updates on a project rather than email. You’ll be surprised at how simple it is to track information, and all team members will share in the overall project success.

To learn more about how OnePlace Discussions can improve communication and collaboration in your business, sign up for our weekly OnePlace Web Demo held every Thursday at 11am CST at http://www.oneplacehome.com.