Create a Mini Social Network For Your Business with Bitrix24

The power of the internet allows for startups or home businesses to quickly grow. Sooner or later, those small startups will turn into running offices, where meeting and web conferencing tools are used for daily communication.

For something more advanced than just a messaging tool, there’s Bitrix24, a service you can use to collaborate with employees to discuss and manage a business.

Bitrix24 works as an intranet – a personal communications (social) network for your business. It lets you interact with colleagues, share files on the cloud, manage tasks, organize a company calendar and much more. Here are all the cool features Bitrix24 has to offer small, medium and even large business owners.

Getting Started With Bitrix24

A first time sign up on Bitrix24 will make you the admin of your company’s network. There’s no other way to give someone else administrative rights so this account is very crucial for your network.

It allows you to set tasks for other users, edit their profiles, view their personal calendars, etc. You’ll also have to name your Intranet to allow users access with a login ID and password through this domain.

Once registered, you’ll have access to the portal and can start inviting colleagues to your personal network.

The portal allows you to:

add specific user tasks
plan a work calendar
add files to the cloud storage for everyone to access
send chat messages between colleagues
build a CRM database
even access your email accounts from providers like Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Yahoo, AOL, Microsoft Exchange or a personal IMAP.

WorkGroups

You can also manage your employees by categorizing them under "departments" so it’s easy to communicate and give them department-specific tasks.

These departments will be workgroups that act as a miniature intranet of your company. In the group, users can discuss their projects and share files that are confined only to that workgroup. This will prevent interference or a cluttered activity feed for those outside of the workgroup.

Customer Relationship Management

If your business deals with a lot of customers or a large clientele, this is a great feature you can benefit from. With the CRM tool, you can build your database of clients by entering or importing contact data and other relevant information.

Additionally, you can manage interactions and log events like phone calls or meetings between potential or existing clients with the tool. Deals that are made can also be logged in before creating an invoice (receipt) of payment. The tool also lets you create and view reports for an overall idea of how the business has progressed over time.

Multi-Platform Support

Bitrix24 is supported on both Android and iOS that allows you to access all of Bitrix24′s features including chat, notifications, managing projects/tasks, view calendar, access shared files, and your CRM data.

The desktop app is more of a messenger tool with added features, and is supported on both Windows and Mac OS. It allows you to receive chat messages, notifications of activities or incoming tasks, sync shared files on its cloud storage, and hold a video conference with up to 4 people.

The desktop program will also allows for screen sharing that will only be fully working by November 2013.

Conclusion

Bitrix24 is free for up to 12 users in a single network. Users get its basic but powerful features plus a 5GB cloud storage. Paying a monthly fee will grant you access to more features like unlimited users, higher cloud storage, records management, meetings planner, and can invite partners or clients.

Bitrix24 is probably good for small businesses and with everything stored securely in the Cloud, you won’t have to spend extra cost for a server or other hosting fees.

via hongkiat.com http://rss.feedsportal.com/c/35261/f/656072/s/31febb3c/sc/4/l/0L0Shongkiat0N0Cblog0Csocial0Ecollaborate0Ebusiness0Ebitrix240C/story01.htm

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