Teams | Collaboration | Customer Service | Project Management

March 2023

The best Basecamp alternatives & competitors for 2023

A quick web search for project collaboration or project management tools will yield more than two billion results! Among the most reputable collaboration tools out there is Basecamp, a platform that's been in existence since 2004 and is trusted by many. However, Basecamp's lack of common project management features (such as Kanban boards and Gannt charts) may be enough to make your team turn elsewhere. So, what are some of the best Basecamp alternatives?

Frontline employee survey reveals significant recruitment and retention concerns

Frontline employee recruitment and retention is top-of-mind in many industries these days, as more than one-third of companies lack the right technology to effectively communicate, engage, and retain these employees. And our recent survey offers insight to help understand and address these challenges.

7 Corporate Governance Trends in 2023 and Beyond

2022 has seen heaps of disarray with continued supply chain issues, energy price crises, and rising inflation. Businesses were forced to shift priorities and adopt new policies to continue driving profitability. There were also actions on the regulatory front, particularly in corporate governance, to guide companies into transformation. Moving to 2023, the pressure to adapt to the changing landscape continues.

10 Creative Ways to Communicate with Remote Workers

In the decade before the Covid 19 pandemic, remote employment was steadily increasing and had become the fastest-growing segment in the workforce of the day. By early 2020, Covid took hold, and almost overnight the global on-site workforce became remote. In the most bizarre way imaginable, and in something of a sci-fi atmosphere, Work from Home (WFH) instantly became the norm.

Introducing the new and improved Automations designer

Courier Automations lets you build smart notification workflows. With Automations, notifications can be scheduled, driven by events, canceled, and more. We’ve just completed a big redesign of the automations UI — before this overhaul, notifications were restricted to linear workflows. This made it difficult to build more advanced automations, however the new automations UI, based on React Flow, allows you to build more sophisticated workflows, including those requiring branching logic.

Top 11 self-hosted chat apps in 2023 for secure communication

Organizations adapting to the global trend of working remotely or in hybrid settings must maintain data privacy by adhering to local or industry-specific regulations. This can be achieved almost effortlessly with the help of self-hosted chat apps without compromising the organization's ease of usage and smooth communication. Self-hosted chat apps are open-source software that one can download, modify, and deploy in their organization as needed.

Top 7 customizable chat apps for every use case

In-app messaging has become integral to most businesses across industries due to its convenience and efficiency. For example, in the healthcare industry, live chats can help patients schedule appointments, ask medical questions, and receive timely updates about their health status. Therefore, real-time in-app messaging is no longer a nice-to-have but a must-have.

How to Leverage Chatbots & Automation to Streamline Your HR Operations

What is Workativ? Workativ is a FREE no-code SaaS platform for companies to quickly build, automate, and deploy conversational AI chatbots with app workflow automation out-of-the-box in less than 60 mins. No coding is required. Workativ differentiates itself by focusing on employee IT & HR support for digital and hybrid workplace transformation. Along with the chatbot, Workativ has a powerful app workflow automation engine and out-of-the-box automation marketplace with prebuilt bots and 600+ pre-built app workflows for the chatbot.

What's new: What we launched in March 2023

This month, we have been working on some big updates to help you present your ideas in an engaging way through our new Interactive Presentation Mode. We’ve also been working behind the scenes to bring you the next big thing: Miro AI — your new launchpad for creativity, collaboration, and productivity. To see all the newest features that will help make your day a little better in Miro, here is our roundup of releases from March.

15 essential templates for team practices from Agile experts

Agile practices are a crucial part of agile teamwork – they’re when collaboration is in high-gear and the creative juices really flow. But with more and more agile teams doing remote or hybrid work, it can be challenging to replicate the magic that happens when you’re all gathered around a physical whiteboard with a box of shared bagels and sticky notes in tow.

Best Practices for Managing and Maintaining On-Premise Infrastructure

Most companies prefer on-premise infrastructure over cloud solutions in today's digital environment because of the unprecedented cyberattacks and loopholes in data maintenance. Since you observe companies implementing cloud solutions successfully, your thoughts may differ.

There's a contradiction at the heart of modern collaboration.

“Collaborative Intelligence is information that can diagnose problems in your organization, like which teams aren’t working well together or who’s overloaded with work.” Dr. Rebecca Hinds, Head of The Work Innovation Lab, will go in-depth on the effectiveness of Collaborative Intelligence at Asana Forward on March 28, 2023.

Made in Basecamp with Hilary Fitzgerald Campbell

Hilary used to keep her client notes, doodles, ideas, and invoicing scribbled on post-its, napkins, a pile of sketchbooks, emails and texts. Then she discovered Basecamp. A refreshingly simple project management app, whether you're tech-savvy and have a project manager, or you're a cartoonist that has to do it all.

Simplifying notifications with the Courier iOS SDK

Push notifications are a valuable tool for keeping users informed and increasing their engagement with your app. You can use push notifications to alert users about promotions, new content, or any other important updates. While push notifications are a powerful tool, setting up push notifications in iOS can be a daunting task that requires a significant amount of effort and time. Fortunately, the Courier iOS Mobile Notifications Software Development Kit (SDK) simplifies this process.

Maximizing Your Incident Response Strategy With ITSM Problem Management Software

When something goes wrong in the office, it can throw off everyone’s day, especially when it comes to IT operations. Unfortunately, IT problems are bound to happen, no matter the precautions we take. That’s why the quick and effective incident response is key for IT teams, and why ITSM problem management software is a critical component in their arsenal.

7 Tips and Techniques to Boost Intrapersonal Communication

Unlike interpersonal communication, which is a conversation between two and more people; intrapersonal communication is communication with yourself, reflecting on your thoughts, and getting to know yourself better. It’s super essential for personal growth and development and even has a big impact on your mental health and overall well-being.

Upgrade your team communication: 10 best Cisco Jabber alternatives

When it comes to team collaboration, Cisco Jabber is a robust tool. It enables users to communicate with one another through multiple channels, including phone, video, VoIP, and instant messaging. These features make it a preferred option for businesses. But, in November 2022, Cisco announced its End-of-Life (EOL) and End-of-Support(EOS). It means Cisco will discontinue the development, sale, and support of Jabber. There will be no more software updates, security patches, and technical support.

What's New in Asana | March 2023

Welcome to the March edition of What’s New in Asana! This month is all about Asana’s native time tracking. First, plan and monitor the time spent on different projects by tracking estimated and actual time on tasks. Manually enter time or start and stop a timer to record actual time spent on a task. With subtask rollups, the time you track on subtasks will automatically roll up to the parent task.

Automate Slack and MS Teams Notifications using Node.js

There are ways to integrate cross-channel notifications via individual APIs, but we’re here to provide you with a quick guide to send across your preferred channels in one single API call. This guide will focus on sending and automating messages via Slack, MS Teams, and any other channel of your choice from your Node.js applications. You can also automate Slack and Microsoft Teams notifications using Python. This blog is a comprehensive setup guide.

Building Android Push Notifications with Firebase and Courier's SDK

Push notifications have become an essential part of modern mobile apps, allowing you to keep your users engaged and informed. However, implementing push for different platforms can be a complex and time-consuming task, requiring developers to set up and handle token management, testing, and other logistical details.

Top 10 Value Additions of Convene to Board Meetings

Board meetings are a critical action that allows company directors to discuss and address company-wide concerns. This is where executives come together to make decisions of strategic importance. Every executive committee wants to run an efficient meeting, but the process can be increasingly time- and data-intensive. But with the rise of board management software, boards can streamline meeting processes and ensure efficiency at the same time.

What is multilevel security, and why does it matter?

In today’s world, organizations must be conscious about protecting data and safeguarding the exchange of information. On top of that, digital transformation has become ubiquitous, covering everything from the organization's top-secret business leads to unclassified day-to-day operational information. With this level of digitization, the risk of cyberattacks also comes to the fore. A multilevel security (MLS) approach is crucial in privacy-conscious organizations prioritizing data security.

37signals: Live design review, recorded.

Curious how we do design reviews remotely at 37signals? Here's a recording of a live one we did this morning for a new feature we're building into HEY (hey.com), our email service. Two people. Jason Fried (first voice you hear), and Jason Zimdars (second voice you hear). Zimdars was showing Fried where they're at on this feature that lets you send the same reply to multiple people at once in separate emails. Think old school mail merge, but drastically simplified in email.

Balancing Cognitive & Emotional Culture for the Employee Experience - Interview with Laila Tarraf

This episode features an interview with Laila Tarraf, author of Strong Like Water. After losing her parents and husband, Laila learned that compassion was essential in her personal and professional life. Prior to writing her book, Laila served as the Chief People Officer for Allbirds and Peet’s Coffee, and was the Vice President of HR for Walmart.com. In this episode, Amanda sits down with Laila to discuss leading with love, harmony between company values and felt experience, and psychological safety.

Breakdown in Communication: What is It and How to Deal With It

Do you know some companies don’t realize or admit they are suffering from communication breakdowns, which causes adverse outcomes like arguments between the teams leading to blame games, delays in deliveries, employees' poor performance affecting their morale, the noxious surge of customer complaints, and so on? The grievous problem is about the companies that don’t realize the breakdown in communication.

7 Common HIPAA violations and how to avoid them

The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) is a federal law that requires healthcare providers and other covered entities to protect the privacy and security of patient health information. HIPAA is a common topic in the medical field, but sometimes it can be difficult to track what it refers to and how to avoid violations. Complying with HIPAA rules requires constant effort and customization.

Jira Work Management Monthly Minute: March 2023 | Atlassian

Get the latest Jira Work Management updates in our Monthly Minute. This month, we've made it easier to bring all your work together in one place. Now you can link Confluence pages into the list view and add shortcuts to your most-used resources. Jira Work Management makes it easy for business teams to collaborate, align, and deliver work, all in one place.

Creating an equitable workplace culture - Interview with Suman Gopalan

This episode features an interview with Suman Gopalan, Chief HR Officer at Freshworks. Suman has spent her entire professional career in HR, holding positions at publicly traded companies like The Nielsen Company, Dell Technologies, and Whirlpool. At Freshworks, Suman pilots the global people strategy to develop and engage their employees. In this episode, Amanda and Suman examine diversity in the workplace. They discuss Suman’s passion for women in the workforce, key elements of workplace culture, and why it’s better to hire people that add to that culture versus fitting in.

Achieve work-work balance with this guide to asynchronous collaboration

As companies have adopted more remote and hybrid models, the ways we work continue to change. Research finds that up to one-third of meetings are unnecessary, which means companies are wasting millions of dollars as workers contend with ongoing screen fatigue and burnout. Like most things in life, humans need balance, and it’s becoming apparent that teams need to be more intentional about collaboration.

On-premise solutions: 5 reasons why they're getting more popular

Lately, on-premise solutions are experiencing an upsurge. Although many companies choose cloud computing for its convenience and scalability, organizations prioritizing airtight security, complete control, and privacy prefer leveraging on-premise solutions. On-prem deployment has many unique benefits businesses can capitalize on, such as in-house storage of data and software, lower network bandwidth cost, easier compliance, and more.

9 best on-premise chat solutions for secure business collaboration

Given the widespread use of instant messaging and chat apps for communication in 2023, organizations are prioritizing control over data exchanges on these platforms. MarketsandMarkets reports that the on-premises collaboration market is projected to grow at a CAGR of 12.7% during the forecast period, with an expected market size of USD 85.8 billion by 2026. What drives this growth? It is the increasing adoption of cloud-based and on-premises collaboration solutions by organizations!

6 Communication Plan Templates With Examples

Effective communication plans are critical to any business. You need to describe your specific business messages and who should say them across business situations. This can help ensure your staff and stakeholders take your desired action. The result is that you reach your communication goals. The thing is, certain business situations crop up more than once.

Automate Slack and Microsoft Teams Notifications using Python

Messaging apps are essential for internal collaboration and critical notifications such as reminders, alerts, and other time-sensitive updates. While integrating with the Slack and Microsoft APIs is fairly straightforward, implementing these tools as a part of a full-featured notification system that embeds with your app experience can be far more daunting.

Part 1: Why Measuring Customer Satisfaction & Sentiment Matters

B2B customer support has become more complex than ever…in a good way. With the evolution and amount of tools available for measuring customer health, B2B companies can gain a much greater understanding of how their customers are feeling. Managing B2B customer relationships is very different from managing individual consumers (typically B2C).

New Courier Inbox: Add a full-featured notification center to your app in minutes

Email and SMS are becoming increasingly busy channels. Sometimes, there’s no better way to reach a user than by sending a message to a notification center right inside of your app. However, building an inbox experience like this, from scratch, was a significant engineering effort. Today, we are announcing a major update to Courier Inbox, a solution for developers to add an in-app notification center to their web application in a matter of minutes.

Mattermost Boards How-to: Project Management

Whether you’re working on a small feature or a large cross-team initiative, you’ll need a way to track tasks and keep everyone up-to-date. Managing projects on spreadsheets isn’t optimal for most teams, and specialized project management tools may lack flexibility and robust communication options. With Mattermost Boards, you can create fully customizable boards to fit your project needs.

How can air-gapped networks offer airtight security?

With the advancement in technology and rapid digitization, the potential risk for cyber crimes has also increased to a great extent. These risks often incur a data loss, negatively impact assets, and in some extreme cases, lead to plant shutdowns. In order to mitigate such risks, many businesses are now shifting towards adapting the air-gapped network strategy. This security measure ensures that systems and their stored data are protected from unauthorized access.

The Future of IT service Desk: Moving Beyond Traditional Service Desk

What is Workativ? Workativ is a FREE no-code SaaS platform for companies to quickly build, automate, and deploy conversational AI chatbots with app workflow automation out-of-the-box in less than 60 mins. No coding is required. Workativ differentiates itself by focusing on employee IT & HR support for digital and hybrid workplace transformation. Along with the chatbot, Workativ has a powerful app workflow automation engine and out-of-the-box automation marketplace with prebuilt bots and 600+ pre-built app workflows for the chatbot.

Introducing Interactive Presentation Mode, now available in Miro

Back in November at Distributed ‘22, Miro’s annual virtual conference, we teased the beta of our new presentation mode to an excited (virtual) crowd. Now, we’re excited to release it to all our users! But what is Interactive Presentation Mode and how did we build it? Keep reading to learn more.

Pros and Cons of Self-Hosted software Over The One in Cloud

Like it or not, cloud services have entered our lives. Kids play online, adults upload photos to the cloud, IT professionals create sophisticated software, and big businesses like Google, Amazon, and Microsoft have long relied on big data centers. The only question left is which is better: self-hosted software or the one in the cloud. On the one hand, a self-hosted server gives you complete control, but on the other hand, the maintenance costs are much higher compared to computing in the cloud.

What is Workation? Exploring the Benefits of Combining Work and Vacation

Workation is a portmanteau word that combines the words "work" and "vacation" and is also occasionally spelled workcation or worcation. By this point, I hope you have comprehended what is workation. I am sure you know about the workplace, motivation, and fun at workplace prominence, but allow me to elaborate on them since every element imbues into workation.

101 Productivity Quotes to Keep You Inspired at Work

Being productive at work means getting more things done in less time. One of the best productivity motivators is inspiration, but it’s not easy to get inspired while working from an office or even from home. That’s when productivity quotes come into play. We’ve picked 101 motivational quotes that we hope will inspire and motivate you to accomplish more. But remember, no single quote will help you overcome unproductivity overnight.

Connecting the dots to build a thriving workplace - Interview with Victoria Dew

This episode features an interview with Victoria Dew, CEO of Dewpoint Communications. In this episode, Amanda sits down with Victoria to discuss how the pandemic affected DE&I, what we can learn from Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, and why to stop waiting for a seat at the table.

Building A Customizable User Notifications Preferences Center

Respecting user preferences is crucial to building a successful web application and maintaining high engagement and user retention over time. Engineers behind Courier’s new Preferences Designer talk about their experience building this out of the box solution and demonstrate how to get it up and running in minutes.

WhatsApp Web: A Detailed Guide on How to Get the Most Out of It

Remember when texting someone required a huge bill to pay? We couldn’t even send in group messages, interact with teams to discuss some important updates, or chit-chat with a group of friends from different countries together. Over-the-top messaging apps, like WhatsApp, came in to solve the problem since they allowed us to send texts while using our internet connection. It has now been acquired by Meta (previously Facebook), which improved the security and added some interesting features.

Employee Experience: The Neglected Pillar of Future Readiness

Employee Experience: The Neglected Pillar of Future Readiness All companies are consistently working to improve both their company culture and their tech stack. However, it isn’t often that those two priorities overlap. According to Peter Fasano, a company’s ability to respond to change “lies at the intersection of technology and culture, and an organization investing in one may be woefully neglecting the other.”

What constitutes a quorum?

Derived from the Latin word that means who, a quorum is the minimum required voting power of an organization’s body. These board members must be present in an assembly for the organization to be able to conduct valid business transactions. Among the responsibilities of the quorum are voting and participating in the decision-making process made during the board meeting.

What's new: What we launched in February 2023

2023 continues to be a big year for Miro, with more on the way! We kicked off this year strong by launching Miro in four new languages—Spanish, German, French, and Japanese—making it easier for you to collaborate with your global teams. We’ve also doubled down on improving agile practices to support the 86% of product development teams that use agile in their day to day.

New RudderStack Integration: Create Actionable Data Insights

Are you looking for a way to gain a clearer picture of your users and use that insight to improve your communication strategies? We've got some great news for you! Today, we're thrilled to announce an integration between Courier and Rudderstack, a customer data platform (CDP) that allows businesses to collect, process, and route customer event data across product, marketing, and analytics tools for better decision-making.

How to drive cohesive employee experience across thousands of miles without a desk

When Hannah Bolte joined Lozier Corporation as Director of Marketing and Communications, one of her goals involved keeping employees connected. This was hard because they used a printed newsletter that HR sent out every three months. Learn how this mode shifted from a manual process to a mobile app, along with challenges and tips learned along the way, in our latest Cohesion Podcast!

6 benefits of open source software for enterprise businesses [+10 best tools]

The days of the old-school proprietary software are gone! Open-source is the new kid in town. And it's taking the business world by storm — including enterprise businesses. Businesses of all sizes are increasingly adopting open-source enterprise software as the digital landscape continues to evolve. Traditionally, we've seen open-source projects being adopted by smaller companies with limited budget or niche software needs.

Building Your Brand From the Inside Out with Sophie Hamersley, Manager of Internal Comms at HubSpot

This episode features an interview with Sophie Hamersley, Manager of Internal Communications at HubSpot. With over a decade of experience under her belt, Sophie has held positions at fully integrated agencies such as RF|Binder and Image Unlimited Communications. Sophie joined HubSpot in 2018 as the Communications Manager of the Culture Team where she helped attract talent through storytelling.

Maximize Your IT Support With the Best IT Service Desk Software

Effective IT support is one of the most important pieces of operating a modern business in today’s ever-evolving digital landscape, but delivering this kind of support at a high level can be complicated. To help streamline complex IT support measures, more businesses are relying on IT Service Desk Software. By using IT Service Desk software, today’s businesses can improve their communication and collaboration while also being more productive and satisfying their customers.

Customizing the Basecamp Project Tools

One of the best ways to personalize a Basecamp project is to customize the project tools. In this video, Kimberly from Basecamp's Customer Success team walks through how to change and rename the tools inside a Basecamp project as well as why you might want to use duplicate tools in a project. We'll even give you a glimpse into how the team at Basecamp has organized a few projects with multiple tools.

Benefits of Horizontal Communication in the Workplace

According to Michael J. Papa, the author of Organizational Communication, “a corporation that focuses on horizontal communication places more importance on fostering collaboration than managing work. When a company expands, lateral or horizontal communication is an intelligent approach to maintain a sense of unity and have all of its parts work towards the same objectives.”

8 Useful Template Ideas for an Hourly Planner

Working remotely can be more convenient, but staying ahead of your schedule in the comfort of your home may be a challenge. With so many opportunities to procrastinate or take up home errands instead of working, our performance at work can suffer. What can remote employees do to be better at daily planning and get on top of their productive efficiency? And this is when an hourly planner comes in handy.

Employee Experience: The neglected pillar of future readiness for enterprise organizations

I’m hard-pressed to think of another period in my 20-plus-year career when future readiness was a higher, more urgent priority for enterprise leadership than it is today. A multitude of disruptive forces—ranging from experimenting with generative AI to prioritizing diversity, equity, and inclusion policies and programs to implementing hybrid strategies—are coming to a head, and we can truly only speculate about what the world of work might look like a decade from now.

Webinar Recap: 3 Pillars to Boost Employee Experience

Employee experience, put simply, is what it feels like to be in an organization. The goal of those entrusted with creating an optimal employee experience is to cultivate a work environment where everyone can flourish, no matter their location. A strong employee experience leads to an optimal work environment where your employees and your organization can flourish.

Why digital communication matters for education?

In 2023, many schools and universities are increasingly leveraging digital communication to further the goals of effective teaching and assessment. However, many institutions are yet to implement such forward-looking changes. Their efforts are often limited by a lack of funding, outdated infrastructure, or resistance to change. Digital transformation is changing how industries and sectors work, bringing transparency, efficiency and speed to manual processes. The field of education is no different.

How to implement an employee wellness program

The pandemic gave people time and space to think about life and work like never before, and work-life balance and health and well-being became paramount to survival. These days, well-being and career go hand in hand, and many prospective employees will look to a company’s wellness program before signing up. These programs have quickly become critical components in a company’s success. Let’s explore.