Virtual Assistant Management Tools
It’s been more than a year since we’ve been forced to stay and isolate in our own home which forced every team to learn how to collaborate remotely with every possible channel and tool available. What used to be a daily huddle in our offices became a weekly alignment via Zoom Meeting or Google Meet Rooms. “You’re on mute”, “Can you see my screen?” and “I lost data connection” are the usual one-liners that we get from our day-to-day lives now as we struggle with daily collaborations with our teammates. This makes us wonder if staying connected is already a challenge for teams to discuss a project, how hard must it be for project managers to monitor the team’s performance and progress without any virtual assistant management tools?
Thankfully, there are tools and software that can help project managers record, track, and review deliverables, project timelines, and the total number of outputs per team member. Once you start managing your team of talented virtual assistants, you can make use of these tools to lessen the time that you need to spend monitoring their day-to-day activities.
Here are some free virtual assistant management tools that you can explore and some paid ones that you can invest in to help manage your team of VAs:
Google Applications
Aside from getting a branded email account, each Gmail Business account is also equipped with a Google Drive application. With Google Drive, you can save up by purchasing an annual subscription for a Microsoft Office application because you can create word documents, excel spreadsheets, and PowerPoint presentations with Google Docs, Google Spreadsheet, and Google Presentation.
Google Calendar is also a great way of scheduling deadlines, and alignments, and being your guide for your everyday deliverables. With Google Calendar comes Google Meet, which is a video communication service developed by Google. Throughout the pandemic, Google Meet has evolved to include features like Zoom Meeting and the best part is that it comes free with any Google account! There are so many features and functions available for free within your Google Applications that you can maximize.
actiTIME
An intuitive timesheet software that can do time tracking, task management, billing and invoicing, and generate reports? This is like your one-stop shop in making sure you’ve got an admin staff that can take care of all the backend work for your team! actiTime can help you create custom work scopes, assign tasks, and set estimates and deadlines. Your team can fill in their timesheets, review their task progress and use Kanban boards to visualize their project progress.
To explore the full functionality, you can try actiTIME for a free 30-day trial (no credit card required). If you liked it then you can start investing by subscribing!
Trello
You’ve probably heard about this tool that’s widely used by software developers and website developers alike because of its features and functions that fit agile project management. Trello is perfect for collaboration, creating boards and cards, managing checklists, and reviewing calendar views is easy. The great thing about Trello is its flexibility and because it’s very visual, you can organize anything from your personal projects to a team level. With its simple user interface, you won’t feel overwhelmed and you can actually start creating your own boards right now and invite your team members to those boards so you can start collaborating on projects.
Trello is free but you can connect special power-ups to enhance your experience. Try it today!
There are about a hundred free tools and software and thousands of available ones in the market that you can also try for free until you find the perfect one that will suit your needs and style in managing your team of VAs. However, the tools that we’ve just listed here are the basic ones that can help you kick off and start working on your projects without requiring much of your time to monitor your team members. For a growing team, we recommend that you start with tools and software that don’t require a monthly or annual subscription so as to save on cost expenses. But hey, if you feel like investing in a tool, no one can stop you!
If you wish to have someone manage your team of virtual assistants, you can always hire a human resource administration virtual assistant to manage your team on your behalf. One of the trusted virtual assistant companies in California is Virtual Assistant Talent. Call 1-866-596-9041 for a FREE, no-obligation consultation today!