How to Collaborate with Web Development Teams Using Productivity Tools

If you're a web developer, designer, or project manager, you're likely quite busy these days and have a lot on your plate.

This is partly because the number of websites is growing rapidly, with 71% of all businesses in the world having one. In fact, every three seconds a site is launched!

So software development is a growing field, and developers have many responsibilities when it comes to creating quality websites and web apps. You have to keep up with changing trends while staying productive and organized. And you'll often find yourself working on multiple projects while collaborating with stakeholders.

But don't worry: you can boost your productivity and empower yourself and your team by using the right collaborative tools. In this article, I'll share some of my favorite such tools with you so you can start using them.

What are Collaboration Tools in Web Development?

Collaborative tools are software apps and platforms that help teams communicate, collaborate, track projects, and do collaborative coding. These tools ensure that team members will be able to work together smoothly, increasing productivity and helping them meet project deadlines.

Different collaboration tools, such as annotation tools, social media platforms, and version control, serve different purposes. They can help you and your team with task tracking or simply keeping everyone updated on the situation.

Some popular ones are GitHub for version control, Slack for real-time communication, Trello for project management, Google Docs for collaborative document editing, Jira for issue tracking, and Asana for task management.

How to Pick the Right Collaboration Tool for Your Needs

It can be challenging to pick a project management tool given all the available options. So here are some important factors you should consider before choosing a tool.

Verify Project Requirements

Consider the distinctive features of your project in order to determine what functions and features you need. Think about things like task management, code collaboration, communication, and integration of different tools when deciding which tool best suits your requirements.

You can also streamline various tasks using online tools. For instance at my company, we developed an online website builder which was a long-term project. Our design and developer teams used collaborative tools like Slack and Git to track progress and final deliverables.

Check Integration and Compatibility

Collaboration platforms should integrate seamlessly with your existing technology ecosystem. Ensure that the tools you choose are compatible with the development environment and programming language(s) you use.

You should also make sure that your collaboration tool works with any project management software you use, your version control system, and repositories to avoid errors.

For example, GitHub offers a version control platform that integrates smoothly with various development tools and services including project management platforms like Trello and Asana. It also provides continuous integration services like Travis CI and CircleCI, as well as code review tools like Codecov and Code Climate.

Choose User-Friendly Tools

Try to choose collaboration tools that are simple to use. Your tools should be intuitive and easily adaptable for users with minimal (or no) training.

The best collaborative tools create a good user experience and they should increase your efficiency and productivity.

For example, as a widely used messaging platform, Slack's intuitive interface and simple channel organization make it easy for web development teams to communicate in real-time and share files quickly.

Google Docs is another popular tool that almost everyone is accustomed to or uses. It’s very helpful in sharing written content or any other project documentation.

Consider Privacy and Security

Often, your team's projects under development are built based on confidential information and intellectual property. So you'll want to make sure that you choose the most secure tools, which include encryption and access controls. Industry standards are often a good bet.

For example, Jira is a popular collaboration tool for developers and offers options for cloud or self-hosted deployments. It also implements security best practices. Likewise, Microsoft Teams and Slack offer end-to-end encryptions that safeguard sensitive copyrighted and development information.

Scalability

The tool's scalability is another factor you should keep in mind. As your projects become more complicated, the tool will need to be able to handle such complexities. You might also need to add members to your team as it grows.

As an example, Hibox provides data privacy features, encrypted communication, and scalability for teams of different sizes.

Pricing

You'll want to compare the pricing and subscription plans of various collaboration tools before making your choice. It is important to consider your budget and the value each tool provides. As a result, you will be able to find the most cost-effective option that meets the needs of your team.

Some tools like Skype and Google Docs are free to use for everyone, but they might not fulfill your needs. You can opt for paid ones like Monday.com or Wrike which have a basic pricing plan of around $9 to $10 per month that may suit your needs. You can always upgrade to the Pro plan if the basic one is insufficient.

7 Best Collaboration Tools for Web Developers

Now you should understand the benefits of using collaboration tools and what to consider when choosing one.

Let's go over 7 of my favorite online collaboration tools you can use to help your team manage complex projects.

Webvizio

Webvizio, a new player in the market, transforms online communication and collaboration into a visual experience using visual collaboration tools. It is part of a single integrated workspace, and it's one of the best tools for sharing visual feedback, managing web design projects that are going on, finding bugs and fixing them, and iterating on designs without any hassle.

Developers and designers can use this tool to sync their intentions, improve user interfaces and designs, and ensure a smooth transition from design to development.

This tool grants webmasters and designers a broad range of collaborative tools. This is the right tool, especially for teams that seek to optimize their design workflows and improve collaboration, with its visual interface, real-time collaboration tools, and design-specific features.

Pros of Using Webvizio:

• Collaboration with seamless visuals. It enables users to add annotations right on top of visuals and forward on problems, or they can upload screenshots and add comments to web pages to give contextual feedback, improve clarity, and reduce mistakes.
  
• Managing tasks efficiently. With this tool, users can assign tasks, define deadlines, track productivity, and monitor the project progress effortlessly. This is useful to project managers and web developers for managing the workloads of their teams.

Cons of Using Webvizio:

• Problems with email invitations. There have been some reports of users experiencing difficulties accepting email invitations while using this tool, possibly because the invitations did not arrive in their inboxes. Several clients who are less tech-savvy have reported this issue.
  
• Viewing multi-page PDFs is inconvenient. Several users have complained about the way that Webvizio displays multi-page PDFs. Reviewers have criticized the lack of a scrollable side-by-side page layout, which appears as a separate tab instead of a side-by-side layout.

Monday.com

Monday.com is an online tool for managing web development projects that is equipped with several in-house features and is compatible with the best collaboration tools on the market.

In addition to offering a collaborative web development tool, it also offers the following features:

• Sharing documents
• Editing in collaboration
• Integration of collaboration tools
• Multiple views
• Projects and dashboards that are customizable

Here, web developers have access to files that can be shared and co-authored in real time using Workdocs. Thanks to seamless third-party integrations, you can continue to use popular collaboration tools like Slack, Microsoft Teams, Dropbox, and so on with Monday.com.

Monday.com also offers multiple views for project management, such as a calendar, timeline, Gantt chart, Kanban board, and more, as well as customizable dashboards and time-tracking features.

Pros of Monday.com:

• Simple Automation. Simple tasks can be automated using rules
• 200 templates Available. There are more than 200 templates available for projects that users can choose from.
• Easy to Understand UX/UI. User interface that is modern and minimalistic which makes it easy to understand for everyone.
• Free Plan. For solo and duo users, a free plan is available

Cons of Monday.com:

• Filtering tool is restrictive: Filtering tools can be a bit restrictive when it comes to tasks
• My Work section is useless. There is little use for the "My Work" section
• No time tracking in the free plan. Time tracking is only available in the Pro plan, which is a major disadvantage
• Mobile App is not very useful. There is a lack of functionality in the mobile app

GitLab

GitLab's main goal is to allow software developers to work together in a collaborative setting while working on code. You can use this project management platform for complete software life cycle development. It's also good at complimenting the DevOps process, where teams work together and complete projects as fast as they can.

Whether you are planning or shipping the code, GitLab has many sets of features. You can monitor tasks, write and run code, perform and report on code quality, track issues, and more. Despite all the complexity of the features, developers are still able to communicate with each other, provide comments, manage pull requests, and merge code in real time.

You can sign up for a GitLab account and choose from one of three tiers: free, pro, and ultimate. However, its price is usually higher than that of its main competitor (GitHub), which may be a disadvantage for some users.

Pros of GitLab:

• An all-encompassing platform. With GitLab, you can manage version control, issues, continuous integration, and more.
• Open-source. GitHub is an open-source platform that makes it possible for users to interact with and modify the source code.
• Ability to collaborate effectively. With GitLab, teams can collaborate easily, with code reviews, merge requests, and real-time comments.

Cons of GitLab:

• It's a steep learning curve. For beginners, GitLab can be a complex tool, requiring time and effort to learn.
• Integrations with third parties are limited. Compared to some other platforms, GitLab may have fewer integrations with popular tools.
• Issues with performance. Performance issues have occasionally been reported by some users, especially for large databases.

Jira

Jira is a popular software tool that many developers use while working with Agile methodologies. It offers Kanban and Scrum boards, which help team members visualize what tasks must be done, what is in progress, and what is completed.

It also offers roadmaps, which help projects stay on track thanks to their transparency and ease of working together. This tool empowers managers to make team reports that visualize the data and let the them decide where improvements need to be made.

Equipped with more than 3,000 applications, Jira offers seamless collaboration. This tool is free for up to ten users, but for any extra users you'll need to pay. A subscription to the Standard plan costs $8.15, a Premium plan costs $16, and an Enterprise plan costs $24 per month.

Jira is an ideal tool if you are an Agile team that uses Scrum or Kanban methods. It is a program that can help you to run your processes smoothly and efficiently.

Pros of Jira:

• Customization. Teams can customize workflows, fields, and issue types with Jira's powerful customization features.
• A visual representation of work. Jira's intuitive layout and clear status indicators allow users to visualize work items effectively.
• Limit the amount of work in progress. Make sure thresholds are set for work items at specific stages in order to prevent bottlenecks and keep tasks flowing smoothly.

Cons of Jira

• The setup is challenging. A new user of project management tools may find Jira's extensive features and customization options difficult to understand at first, as it has a variety of features and customization options.
• There is no feature for managing ideas. There is no built-in functionality for idea management in Jira, which may force teams to look for other tools to develop ideas and concepts.
• It is expensive for small teams. A small company or startup with a limited budget may find Jira's pricing structure prohibitive.
• The query load time is slow. There have been reports from users that query loading times are slow, affecting efficiency as well as performance, particularly for larger organizations.

Wrike

Wrike's multiple views, time tracking, and other features have helped it become a top player in project management software. It has the capability of file sharing, proofs, approvals, and proofing.

Team members can edit documents in real-time using a live editor while developers attach files to tasks, projects, and folders on the web. Automatic posts are made in real-time to keep everyone updated.

One of Wrike's primary strengths is collaboration with versatility:

• Flexible integrations of other apps
• Multiple project dashboards on one
• Different styles of status views

Web developers can collaborate via various channels within the Wrike platform, including Zoom, Slack, and third-party integrations. It also comes with a couple of project management features, including task tracking and automation, real-time monitoring, and more.

For web development project managers who are always looking for multiple ways of visualizing progress, this tool is appealing thanks to its numerous views.

Pros of Wrike:

• Increased visibility. Team leaders can use Wrike's reporting tools to understand team members' workloads and the status of projects.
• Templates for flexible projects. It is easier to save time by customizing templates for similar projects rather than starting from scratch every time.
• Task management made easy. Wrike is designed to simplify the process of assigning tasks to team members and involving external partners.

Cons of Wrike:

• There is no note-taking tool available. An easy-to-use note-taking tool is desired by users who wish to record notes and then access them at any time.
• Costly for solo users. A free plan is available on Wrike, but it only provides a limited range of features. For individuals or small teams, premium plans offer more valuable features.
• Some integrations delay notifications. Integration with apps such as Outlook may cause notifications to be delayed by more than an hour. If users fail to monitor their inboxes and Wrike, critical messages may be missed.

Hibox

The Hibox ecosystem is a comprehensive suite of apps designed to simplify online collaboration and improve productivity. The tool's customer interface is intuitive and offers a robust feature set that can meet the needs of a variety of business types, from online retailers to sales teams to project managers to web developers.

Hibox offeres a range of features to help web developers collaborate, including managing tasks, sharing files, scheduling sprints, collaborating effectively, and tracking progress.

Pros of Hibox

• Easy to use and intuitive. Its intuitive nature is consistently praised by users, with many reporting that their team members were able to figure out how to use it without assistance. It was more efficient to communicate via chat and create tasks rather than email, which resulted in 90% fewer emails.
• Tracking projects effectively. With Hibox's project tracking feature, users are able to stay organized and see how their projects progressed. They can generate individual reports to evaluate their team's performance.
• Collaboration made it easier. With its chat feature and ability to assign tasks, Hibox makes it easy to collaborate among users.

Cons of Hibox:

• Integration is difficult. It has been reported by many users that Hibox has difficulty integrating with the various tools they use in their industries. Some reviewers have found this frustrating and found it hindered their workflow efficiency.
• Not easy to understand for new users. There have been reports of some users experiencing a steep learning curve when they first started using this tool. The platform's initial challenges can make it difficult for users to grasp all of its features and get started.
• Synchronization delays. Many users have reported delays in file synchronization while using it. These delays can slow down workflows and interfere with collaboration.

Conceptboard

Conceptboard is a web-based platform that was developed to enable hybrid and distributed teams to work more efficiently. This digital space allows team members to collect inspiration, generate ideas, collaborate, and create visual content.

This powerful tool allows design teams to work in the same room and turn their ideas into actions using features like wireframing, prototyping, and design review.

Pros of Conceptboard:

• An excellent whiteboarding feature. The whiteboarding feature has turned out to be an extremely useful tool for users. It's a facilitator of brainstorming sessions, and allows users to use the tool as a virtual whiteboard.
• Free templates. The templates of the tool were also highly praised, with users indicating that they were easy to use and of good quality. Templates have also been experienced to be draggable and droppable to the projects, attributed to the speed of project management.
• A valuable tool in the design team's arsenal. Conceptboard helps design teams with activities like user mapping and workflows in the UI/UX design. For designers who work in different fields, this functionality has proved to be of great value.

Cons of Conceptboard:

• Lack of integration capabilities. Some users have gotten into trouble integrating this tool with popular developer software like Jira.
• There aren't any apps developed for mobile phones. Other users have faced challenges when using it away from their computers since there is not a mobile app. As such, they can't use the platform conveniently or any time they like without being tied to their desktops.
• Changing browser windows causes a loading delay. Delays due to changing browser windows have been quite irritating to the users. Consequently, these delays hinder the flow of the work and make switching between tasks harder.

Summary of the Collaboration Tools

Team collaboration is one of the most important components of web development. Each developer tool listed above encourages team collaboration.

To ensure you pick the right software for your team, compare their features, advantages, disadvantages, and pricing.