This is a very difficult transition for most teams. They all have to redefine the way they used to operate. This applies above all to communication within the team and between teams.
It is common for any office worker to share huge amounts of information personally: quick questions, meetings, brainstorming, one-on-one over lunch, and many other ways of interacting with each other.
Effective communication is one of the most important elements of any successful team. Remote communication presents many challenges that require robust software solutions.
We cannot fail to mention here that the coronavirus pandemic has affected education systems around the world. Yet here we are confronted with the uncomfortable reality that schools, universities and colleges have almost completely closed down, and there has been a shift to distance learning.
The main advantage of e-learning is that it makes education more accessible to students worldwide and is very convenient for working students. As a result, there is a high demand for educational applications, platforms and resources, which can help teachers, school administrators, parents and students to facilitate or further their education.
Today we would like to introduce you to some free, open-source and, at the same time, highly secure and easy-to-use applications to simplify your remote work and study. Each of these applications is available on the Hidora Cloud Marketplace and can be up and running in minutes.
1. Jitsi Videoconference Server
Jitsi is a free, open-source, cross-platform software for video conferencing, instant text messaging (IM) and voice messaging (VoIP).
The Jitsi videoconference server and the Jitsi Meet application allow you to hold conferences over the Internet for free, even without an account.
It is a fully customisable, scalable, easy to control, incredibly secure and feature-rich solution, perfect for everyday remote use.
You can easily share your screen, documents and presentations with your colleagues, invite them to a conference via a personalised url, exchange messages via the integrated chat and much more.
2. Mattermost
Mattermost is an open, self-hosting and flexible messaging platform that enables secure team collaboration.
It is a good free alternative to Slack and Microsoft Teams, with file sharing, search functions and hundreds of integrations.
It’s designed as an internal chatroom that allows organisations and businesses to collaborate in a locked private network, as well as remotely via VPNs, without worrying about security or data privacy. In other words, you get all the benefits of modern collaboration without sacrificing privacy.
3. Nextcloud
Nextcloud is one of the most popular self-hosted collaboration solutions that puts your data (documents, photos, calendar, contacts, etc.) at your fingertips, under your control.
You can easily share and collaborate on documents, manage your calendar, send and receive emails, and even hold video conferences.
It is a fully on-premises productivity platform that offers all the benefits of online collaboration without data leakage or other security risks.
Nextcloud’s innovative security technologies enable a wide range of security enhancements to be managed.
4. Rocket.Chat
Rocket.Chat is a free, open source collaboration platform designed to improve team productivity and digital workflow.
You can communicate and collaborate with your team, share files, chat in real time or make video or audio calls with screen sharing for more effective teamwork.
In addition, Rocket.Chat replaces email and allows you to talk openly with your team for greater transparency.
With full access to the source code, you can fully customise, extend or add new features to meet all your needs.
5. Moodle
The icing on the cake is Moodle, an open source learning management system designed to provide educators and learners with a single, robust, secure and integrated system for creating personalised learning environments.
It is an absolutely free learning platform that allows educators to create their own private websites filled with dynamic courses.
Moodle is a highly customisable solution that offers a wide range of features including: a custom dashboard, tons of different collaboration tools, file management, an all-in-one calendar, a text editor, progress tracking, and much more.
Automatic deployment
This involves installing all the above mentioned applications from Hidora Marketplace. The whole process will probably take less than a minute. Just complete the following:
1. Log in to your Hidora cloud account.
2. Click the Marketplace button.
3. Use the search to find the application you need and click Install.
In about one minute, the deployment will be complete and you can start using your application.
This is an unprecedented situation for many of us around the world and a stressful time for sure.
We hope that this post will become an essential resource for discovering the new tools, opportunities and information you need to keep working and studying in the days ahead.
If you try the above applications, the transition to the new reality of the #WFH will be much easier and more productive.
What’s more, you can easily deploy them on the cloud site and get even more out of the combination of amazing tools with scalable and reliable Hidora Cloud hosting.
