In today’s technological and managerial landscape, there are many team management apps to choose from. How do you pick apart the essential team management apps from the unnecessary ones? You might rely on reviews, feedback, or on word of mouth. You might read tech blogs, or you might just learn through the errors of other managers!

In reality, the best way to really know which team management apps might be right for you is to test them out. Luckily, a lot of the essential team management apps outlined in today’s article offer free trials! Otherwise, they offer a “freemium” model, where certain features are free. You can then purchase advanced features as an upgrade.

However, you might not want to overwhelm your team with new apps regularly, so you want to be selective about the integrations or systems that you introduce to your team. It may appear inconsistent to jump from one application to another.

Therefore, we’ve developed a list of team management apps that we believe are essential to every productive team. Most of these offer integrations, or apps, for various collaboration tools. At the very least, these apps all integrate seamlessly with Slack.

Google Drive

Every team needs an Internal Database. Whether organizations are Mac or Microsoft users, their teams often turn to Google Drive. When it comes to storing and organizing documents, it’s tough to beat.

It’s reliable, fast, and constant. Moreover, it offers a lot of storage, and additional storage can be purchased at a fairly low cost.

Furthermore, Google Drive makes file sharing between teammates so much easier. If your company uses Slack, Google Drive offers seamless integration. This app will allow you to drop files directly into Slack.

One drawback of the Google Drive App for Slack, is that organizing files remains a challenge. Nevertheless, because they can be file-linked to Slack, documents remain easily searchable.

Vacation Tracker

This Slack-integrated leave-tracking app is also known for its flexibility. It integrates with Slack only at the moment. However, it also integrates perfectly with Microsoft Teams and Google Workspace!

Vacation Tracker is a one-stop shop for all of your leave-tracking needs.

With Vacation Tracker, you can keep a log of days off, whether planned or unplanned. Administrators can set their team’s Working Days, whether they are part-time employees working only a few days a week, or full-time workers with set schedules.

Then, Administrators can program different Leave Types, such as: Sick Days, Days allocated for conference attendance, Days of Remote Work, PTO, Paternity Leave, Jury Duty, and more. Up to 25 fully customizable Leave Types can be created in Vacation Tracker. This is generally more than enough to accommodate even the most lengthy leave policies.

Vacation Tracker is practical for remote teams too. It’s also geared towards teams collaborating in different countries, across many time zones. For managers of remote teams, Vacation Tracker offers notifications and a dashboard that displays all of a team’s days off. At a glance, any team Administrator can be in the loop. HR barely needs to get involved.

For easy, accurate tracking and reporting, try Vacation Tracker today. You can start for free, or explore every feature with a 7 - days free trial, no strings attached.

Troops

With Troops, your team can manage and get an overview of the sales pipeline inside of a Slack conversation.

Troops is a Slack integration that is specifically made for sales teams. Salespeople can manage, and report on their sales pipelines. It’s a communication tool that is fun to use and offers an added level of challenge to the sales team.

As we know, these teams are notoriously always on the road. With Troops, the whole staff can be updated on meetings with leads, on potential deals, and close dates.

The app’s bot is equipped with an artificial intelligence algorithm that notifies the sales personnel when tasks need to be acted upon or updated. These alerts are chat-based within Slack. If you’re leading a sales team, this software should be at the top of your Team Management Apps list!

Polly

When a team needs to make a decision in a pinch, along comes Polly!

Polls are useful. They can be used for a trivial decision, such as a lunch order. Or, they can be used for an important decision, such as figuring out a convenient time for a team to meet with a client. Therefore, having some apps that can help you run polls in tandem with your conversations can be essential.

Polly is a frequent favorite for Microsoft Teams or Slack users. Like most survey apps, it lets you create surveys right inside your collaboration tool. With multiple pre-set templates, it’s easy to use and polls can be created quickly. In addition, results can be presented in real-time and comments can be enabled, so that everyone can make their vote and have their say.

Trello

Trello falls into the category of project management apps. It’s among the top team management apps, because it really helps to organize any kind of project.

Trello can be used independently in a browser also, but it is particularly useful as an app. If an organization is already accustomed to Trello and is running multiple tasks or projects on this tool, then it might be easier to simply get this app as an automation to their collaboration tool of choice.

Indeed, it’s another great way to view and prioritize tasks right inside of a team’s main communication and collaboration tool. Trello has the added benefit of being flexible and fun to use.

Statsbot

Statsbot is an application that updates teams on certain specific metrics, on-demand.

Especially, when you need a particular result quickly, without having to go through an entire sign-in process in a separate browser. This tool should be on your list of essential team management apps.

Statsbot integrates with a few different analytics tools and monitors your metrics constantly. You can ask Statsbot about these metrics at any time right inside Slack, by mentioning @Statsbot: followed by a data point you wish to keep track of. It even understands commands in plain language, and can retrieve the corresponding data.

Toggl

Toggl is a time-tracking and reporting app. Time management is a big topic for Teams, specifically in certain industries. It’s also very useful for freelancers who have to bill for their time. Indeed, Toggle provides teams or individuals with reports and insights about how their time is spent.

This app is available on desktop and mobile so there are no excuses for employees to not effectively track their time. Furthermore, time can be tracked in a web browser, on any phone, or on any mobile device with Wi-Fi access. All time entries can be synced between the different devices.

Next, hours can be broken down by projects, clients, or tasks. This information can then lead to valuable analysis.

Kristina Ousmanova

Kristina recently left behind fast-paced life of Human Resource Business Consulting to freelance as a Content Writer. A regular Vacation Tracker contributor, she can be found working remotely from her home in Montreal, usually while eating a variety of snacks.