8 Best Apps for Team Collaboration

There are hundred of apps that claim to "increase productivity" and "optimize company workflow," but how many apps actually do? We've selected a list of 8 apps that actually make your workday easier, and team collaboration more enjoyable in the process.

1. Dropbox

Dropbox is the quintessential app for file-sharing and document collaboration. Through Dropbox, you can share PDFs, files and folders. When you star a file, you can access it offline later on.

The free app comes with 2.5 GB of free storage space, with options to upgrade your account at a flat rate of $100 per year for 100 GB of space. Dropbox also offers 250 MB of storage for free when you complete five out of seven Getting Started tasks.

2. Flow

Flow makes project management incredibly easy and collaborative. Many business apps try to do too much, resulting in an overwhelming and stress-inducing experience. Flow's clean, simple design, however, brings a zen-like peace of mind to task management. Plan a project by creating a folder, adding in lists for each project component and writing in an itemized task for each list. You can delegate tasks to co-workers via email, even if the person you're delegating the task to doesn't have a Flow account.

The activity log helps everyone involved in a project see when someone is assigned a task and when someone completes it.

3. Skitch

Evernote's skitch app lets you edit photos or snapshots with colorful shapes, arrows and text. With Skitch, you can caption pictures, circle meeting spots on a map or annotate a PDF document.

This app is ideal if you work in any kind of visually creative field. From planning concert brochures to laying out next month's magazine cover, Skitch makes it easy to communicate visually.

4. Salesforce

Salesforce offers an array of options for business-related apps that run on the cloud for seamless work-integration and collaboration.

The Sales Cloud is Salesforce's CRM app. Its Leaderboard feature shows each sales team member's rank. It also comes with access to a prioritized list of your top leads so that you can see them all on one page. The Sales Cloud also includes a page with customer contact information and links to their social profile so you can monitor their interaction with your brand on social media.

Social.com is a social advertising management app and is part of Salesforce's Social Marketing platform. This app helps you manage all of your ad campaigns across every social media platform, from Twitter to Facebook. Social.com helps you target a specific audience and time of day in order to maximize your social reach. It automatically runs higher performing ads, so you get the most out of your campaigns. The Salesforce Marketing Cloud recently expanded its "listening" power to China and Russia through deals with each country's primary social network.

The Service Cloud is Salesforce's Customer Service app. It brings together all of your company's customer support into one place and then directs certain issues to the appropriate channel, whether it's to a 1-800 number, email address or social media channel. If there's any problems fixing a problem, the Service Cloud has a task status feature that you can "Escalate" in order to alert your coworkers of the issue and solve the problem collaboratively. You can even facetime with customers through the app. The Weekly Agent Productivity feature provides incentive to solve situations quickly, while the customer satisfaction metrics let you know how good of a job your team is doing.

5. Dynamics Business Analyzer

Dynamics Business Analyzer is Microsoft's free CRM app. The app requires Windows 8 or Windows RT to run, and features a colorful metrics dashboard so you can copy, edit, view and refresh reports directly on your desktop. You can customize which reports you want to include on the dashboard, ranging from gross profit reports to sales per month reports. This app integrates with the Windows 8 edition of Lync so that co-workers can collaborate directly on the reports.

6. Google Apps

The Google Apps for Business suite includes the Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Docs, Sheets and Slides for collaboration in the cloud. Google offers a free 30-day trial and charges $5 per employee.

Google Hangouts is also a popular business app by Google. Hangouts are especially useful if you have employees who work remotely, as they can participate virtually in meetings and brainstorm sessions. You can share photos or emojis and add up to 10 friends per hangout.

7. Tempo

Tempo is a calendar management tool that pulls in contextual information about your daily events — from contact information to driving directions. Every day, Tempo generates a daily schedule that you can preview either in calendar or list view.

Tempo is not specifically targeted toward businesses, but it can be especially helpful for pulling in email information about meetings or corporate events. The app comes with built-in Foursquare and Yelp integration, so locating your meeting is painless.

8. Evernote Business

Evernote Business breaks down communication barriers between departments. This democratization of knowledge facilliates collaborative problem solving, which drives faster solutions. Evernote Business also makes it easier for customer feedback to influence strategy.

Evernote Business easily integrates with your existing Evernote account and grants you access to Evernote Premium. With a Premium account, you get access to 2 GB of personal memory a month, and your company gets an extra 2 GM to share in Business Notebooks.