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Web Office Tools - The Virtual Office

By Lasa Information Systems Team

Virtual offices - where staff can be based anywhere - has become a reality. Many non-profit organisations of all sizes are exploring the concept of “virtual office” because they can save money on the expense of maintaining their own hardware and software, cost of premises, renting meeting venues and using online collaboration to reduce the cost of travelling to meetings and training.

Here we look at some practical online tools and web services to help start your own virtual office.

Cloud computing – where computing power is delivered from huge ‘server farms’ over the internet as you need it, rather than from a desktop computer – has gained in popularity, with Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and Zoho pushing their own web based services such as Google Apps, Zoho office, Microsoft Office Live Workspaces and Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Technology consultants believe that 25% of all new business software is expected to be delivered as a web service by 2011.  Computer manufacturer Dell even tried to trademark the term "cloud computing", but its application was refused.

For small organisations, moving from local storage and processing to cloud computing and the virtual office means that new storage and processing capacity can be added incrementally instead of having to buy a whole new server at a time. It also means that staff, volunteers and trustees can work from their own homes or offices, making co-ordination, document sharing and collaboration easier.  These virtual services are all available via mobile phone, an added attraction for mobile workers. Google Gears and Zoho also make it possible to work offline without an Internet connection.  For more on the benefits of using web based services see the knowledgebase article Work Smarter, Quicker and Cheaper with Online Tools.

 

Email, Calendar and Contacts:

To get started with foundations of your virtual office, there are three main choices, Google, Zoho and Microsoft Office Live.  If you need lots of storage and want to customise your email address, such me@mycharity.org.uk and have access via mobile phone - Google or Zoho is the way to go.  Google’s Gmail is free, offers 7GB of storage and basic contact management.  Google Apps Premium upgrades that to a whopping 25GB of email storage, 24/7 support and a guarantee of 99.9% uptime reliability for £35 per user per year.  If junk mail is an issue for you, Google’s acquisition of Postini has all but eliminated spam from its inboxes.

Zoho offers a complete range of office solutions from email to invoicing to project management, all free to individuals or discounted to non-profits.  Zoho Mail is free, has no storage limit and can also be accessed from mobile devices.  Contacts are managed from within Zoho Mail.

Microsoft’s newly released Business Productivity Online Suite is the latest arrival on the virtual office scene and brings together a suite of Microsoft’s more corporate online services - Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communications Online and Office Live Meeting – for £10GBP per user per month.

Cost: Free to £35 per user per year for Google Apps Premium.  Zoho Mail and Calendar are free. 

Documents:

Working with documents online has now become a practical reality for many, making it easy to upload files from multiple file formats, share notes, plans, articles or partnership bids with colleagues.  Online documents also make it easy for two or more people to simultaneously work on the same document together – so no more waiting for a colleague to email their changes to a document.  Google is often the preferred option for those looking for collaboration, sharing and mobile access above advanced document editing.

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As for storage, Google only accepts documents of up to 200k plus 2MB per embedded image, and PowerPoint presentations up to 10MB.  However, Office Live Workspace is also free and offers more editing features and allows for individual files as large as 25 MB.   As we said earlier, you should also keep copies of your online documents locally, and Google, Zoho and Office Live will export to multiple file formats.

Choosing which package to use is a matter of personal preference as Google, Zoho and Microsoft each have their own strengths and an ecosystem of integrated products and services.  An earlier Knowledgebase article compares the features of Google and Zoho amongst others. 

Cost: With Google Docs and Zoho Writer both offering a limited amount of free storage, most organisations will need to upgrade to business packages starting at £1.50 per month or less for non-profits using Zoho Writer (5GB of storage), or £35 per user per year for Google Apps.  Microsoft Office Live Workspace beta is currently free and comes with 500MB of file storage.

Online File Storage and Synchronisation:

The next step in the virtual office is to store your files in a central repository dedicated to file storage and synchronisation – making it easier for staff to access important files from remote locations and work on them without worrying about duplication or different document versions.

Microsoft’s Live Mesh is a free beta service allowing up to 5GB of files, folders and other data to be shared and synchronised across multiple devices – enough for many small organisations.  Once a folder is set for synchronisation it will be available in all of your devices, and any changes made to the contents of the folder will be reflected across all of your devices.  Live Mesh also promises to synchronise with Apple Mac. Microsoft’s other online storage service, Sky Drive, offers 25GB of free storage, but is really aimed at consumers wanting to store and share their photos.  Sky Drive needs users to download Windows Live Sync to enable synchronisation.

Similar to Live Mesh, Livedrive Pro, offers unlimited storage, synchronisation and integration with third party services like Zoho, Scribd, and FotoFlexer. 

Box.net is more of a file storage solution that allows the tagging and sharing of its storage folders.  It also integrates with many third part applications including Google Mail, Microsoft, Zoho Writer, WordPress, and Picnik for photo editing to make collaboration and sharing easy. 

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Cost:  Microsoft Live Mesh is currently free with 5GB of storage. Livedrive Pro costs £90 per year for unlimited storage for 10 PCs.  Box.net is free for personal use with 1GB of storage, or for businesses £10GBP per month per user for 15GB storage.  Others include Adobe Share with 5GB of free storage, and Microsoft SkyDrive with 25GB of free storage.

Notebook:

Many of us keep notes and ideas in different places – mobile phone, stickies, Post Its and scraps of paper.  Now that Google Notebook is no longer supported, Evernote is indispensable for collecting and organising web pages, emails from Outlook, and Word documents.  Evernote also encourages the use of tags and multiple notebooks for different subjects.

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Cost:  Evernote is free with 40MB of uploads per month or £30 per year for 500MB of uploads per month.  Other options include the free Zoho Notebook.  Connotea is also free, but is aimed at academics and researchers.

Bookmarks:

Many of us keep bookmarks of our favourite web pages on our work computer, home computer and laptop.  Keeping track of these and trying to remember a web page saved on another computer can be time consuming and frustrating.  Web based bookmarking services such as Delicious make it easy to collect, tag and share bookmarks of your favourite web pages.  You can also search popular tags such as “web 2.0” to see web pages tagged with that label.

Cost: Free

Project Management:

In your virtual office, keeping track of projects milestones and to-dos, time spent on projects and co-ordinating staff is vital.  Basecamp and Huddle are the main players here, and both offer fully featured project management suites for co-ordinating projects from your virtual office.

Cost: Huddle has a free basic version, then £13GBP per month upwards for 5 projects, 2.5GB storage and unlimited users.  Basecamp starts at £16GBP per month for 15 projects with 3GB of storage and unlimited users.  Some low cost options include Zoho Project, which is free for one project and then from £8GBP to £54GBP per month.  Clarizen starts at £15GBP per user per licence.  At the corporate end of the scale, other worthy @task, Easy Projects.NET  and Daptiv PPM are very well regarded.

Web conferences, meetings and screen sharing:

With the cost of travel and hiring venues rising, many organisations are now looking to hold meetings or deliver training online.  Adobe’s ConnectNow provides a fully featured online meeting space with facilities for chat, video-conferencing, screen-sharing, a whiteboard for notes and a unique URL for sharing your online meeting space with others.  Similar services include GoToMeeting, WebExand Yugma.  Dimdim - an open source alternative - has fewer features than the others, but does allow upto 20 people to meet online for free.

Cost: Adobe ConnectNowlets you host free meetings with up to 3 participants.  Yugma Free allows you to invite upto 20 attendees.  GoToMeeting starts at £32GBP per month for 15 attendees.  Dimdim is free for upto 20 attendees.  Prices for Zoho Meeting range from £8GBP to £16GBP per month for 5 or more attendees.

Instant messaging and Internet phone calls

You can also save money on telephone calls by using Skype, Yahoo! Messenger to make computer to computer calls.  Bear in mind that these services need the person or people you’re talking to use the same service as you.  Skype, Yahoo! and Microsoft Messenger also offer the more traditional form of instant messaging – useful if you don’t mind typing during quick online meetings.  Using Skype to call landlines and mobile phones can also work out cheaper than using your normal telephone company.  JahJah is purely web based and may be more appropriate for organisations needing to make cheap overseas calls.

Cost: Calls to from Skype, Yahoo! Messenger and JahJah are free to users of the same service.

Meeting organiser

Doodle has many uses, but it is primarily used for organising meetings, those unavoidable occasions when people do need to meet.  Doodle makes it easy to quickly propose multiple meeting dates which your attendees can then vote for, removing the stress of keeping track of emails bouncing backwards and forwards between your attendees.  The results are automatically updated and collated for you to see the favourite meeting date.

Cost:  Doodle is free.

Conclusion 

The virtual office can offer many real practical benefits and cost savings – staff can be based anywhere, documents can be accessed any time, there is no maintenance or costly hardware and software to maintain, and collaboration is easily facilitated.  Many of the tools we have reviewed are either free, low cost, have free demo versions or at least have pricing plans friendly to non-profit organisations.

However, there are many concerns over the cloud computing model that drives the virtual office, particularly around data protection, accessibility and business continuity.  For a more detailed exploration of these issues see the knowledgebase article Web based services – tales of the unexpected. As with all things – assess your needs and take the time to check out what the tools can do for you and how they can complement your existing systems.