Truth be told, as long as taxes are filed with no issue and bookkeeping records are complete, most of your customers and prospects won’t see much difference between you and other accountants. So how do you grow your accounting business? You need to make sure that you truly stand out from your competitors.

Beyond the usual ways to get the word out, such as running ads and getting involved with your community, you also need to exude an image of expertise and create a seamless customer experience for future referrals.

Here are five ways that you can do that.

5 Ways to Grow Your Accounting Business

Show up as an expert and thought leader.

You want to be known as the go-to accountant for anyone who needs help within your community. To do this, you need two things:

1. Useful accounting knowledge to share with others.
2. A public platform to share the knowledge you have.

If you develop your expertise in accounting and share it with others, people will consider you an industry thought leader. Now you may be thinking, “ I’m already an expert, but how do I share that with other people?” In other words, where do you find a public platform, or how do you build one?

There are many ways to build your presence as an expert within your community and online. You can write blog posts, white papers, and books that offer helpful, easily digestible accounting advice. You can also offer commentary on the latest financial trends and news in the form of videos or articles for magazines and newspapers. Podcasts are another great way to establish presence and reach new people.

As you can see, becoming an accounting thought leader can require a significant investment of time and resources. However, once you have found a process what works for you and built your platform, the rewards can be unimaginable.

Offer valuable content.

Related to becoming an industry thought leader is offering valuable content to your community and the world at large. Once you have created long-form content like a blog post, white paper, or book, the easiest way to get people to read it is to share it on social media and through an email campaign.

Take advantage of the various social media channels to connect with your customers and get your prospects’ attention. A great platform to try is Twitter. Building your audience and nurturing them on Twitter means that you will have the opportunity to share valuable content with them. You can also encourage them to retweet your posts to help spread the word.

Accounting Content Creation Tip

No matter what content types and platforms you choose, always remember who your intended target market is. Who are the people most likely to pay for your accounting services? What age range are they, how do they find information, and what are their interests? While most of your content should be accounting-related, you can also mix in some fluff, like jokes or holiday posts, that resonate with your target audience.

Use automation for your business.

Automation for your business is essential. By automating as many of your business processes as possible, you are freeing up time to focus on what matters, whether that be solving tough accounting problems or spending time with family. The work you do will also be more accurate and efficient.

There are many apps out there that let you automate various aspects of your business. When it comes to content creation, Grammarly can make writing and editing much less of a struggle. Buffer or Hootsuite are great social media scheduling tools that can help you post to your social media automatically. And AirSend, with its easy file sharing and template function, can make onboarding new clients a snap.

In addition to saving you time, using the right technology will also impress your customers and make their experience better. An excellent customer experience will lead to our next tip on growing your accounting business: referrals and recommendations.

Get referrals and recommendations.

Another way to grow your accounting business is to maximize the use of referrals and recommendations. Consider the big picture. If you were looking for lawyer, doctor, real estate agent, or other service provider, you would ask your family and friends, right? The same goes for other people looking for an accountant.

Making sure your current customers are happy is one of the best ways to grow your accounting business. Then you can ask those happy clients to remember to refer you to people who might need your services. You can also ask them to write a positive review for you on Google or Yelp and/or provide a testimonial for your website and social media pages.

Always try to exceed expectations for every customer that you have. This way, they will be more likely to take the time to talk positively about you, whether that be in-person with family and friends or online through reviews and testimonials.

Finally, always stay in contact with your past and current customers through occasional emails and phone calls. People can’t refer you to others if they don’t remember who you are.

Grow your network.

Whether you do it online or in-person, expanding your network is important for any type of business owner. There are a lot of ways to do this. You can volunteer, host dinner parties, attend networking events, and more. The possibilities are endless when it comes to meeting new people.

When networking for business purposes, always remember to bring multiple copies of your business card and show up in a professional manner. Remember that you are there to let people know that you can help them with accounting. Not to unwind, drink your troubles away, or gossip about your neighbor’s new boat. New acquaintances should leave the interaction with your business card and the impression that you are knowledgeable and pleasant.

Final Thoughts

Growing any small business can be hard, especially in the beginning when your client list is small and business processes are still uncertain. However, once you get your bearings, the possibilities are endless! We hope that this post will help you achieve your goals as an accountant and business owner.

Since Discord was banned in the UAE, many users previously on the platform for gaming and team communication have had difficulty finding a new service to replace it. The problem is that finding a service that closely resembles the features, functionality, and UI of Discord so that they do not have to learn a whole new platform from scratch can be a time-consuming and frustrating process . Unfortunately, team communication solutions are often different from each other, and it is virtually impossible to find an alternative that is similar in every way.

However, there are quite a few Discord alternatives in the UAE that sport reasonably similar features and work for the same use cases with just a few tweaks. If team communication features are what you need the most, these alternatives will work perfectly for you.

Let’s take a look at some of the best Discord alternatives in the UAE.

What are the best Discord alternatives in the UAE?

Google Meet

The new video conferencing and team communication solution replacing the older, phased-out Hangouts, Google Meet is a capable contender that can fill in for Discord in the UAE with a host of convenient capabilities. Over time, the Google Meet platform has become enriched with updates and new features. Currently, it is one of the most popular team communication solutions in the market.

Text communication on Google Meet is very similar to other team chat apps, and the platform supports audio and voice calls and conferencing with up to 150 participants. Recent additions to the feature set include hand raising during conference calls and breakout rooms for categorized communication.

A significant new feature is tile view, enabling participants to see tiles of all other users in a call. The platform now also includes support for creating polls and Q&A segments. Overall, this is a viable alternative for Discord in the UAE thanks to its easy access and simple interface.

AirSend

A relatively new solution that is already gaining popularity due to its excellent feature set and easy usability, AirSend can be a great choice if you are looking for Discord alternatives in the UAE. AirSend brings many features to the table, including voice and video calling, integrations with third-party services like Office 365 and Gmail, and collaboration tools that can be put to good use for many different use case scenarios.

With AirSend, you get a clear and simple UI that is easy to understand. This is great if you want a chat and collaboration solution that is quick to transition to from Discord. There are Channels in which you can invite users and share a chat space, voice and video calling with screen-sharing, task management space, and other tools.

One great feature in AirSend is the ability to create public channels in addition to the usual private channels. This allows you to create communities with people both inside and outside of your circle by sending an email invite or sharing a channel link. The generous free tier contains most of the essential features, and every new user gets one year of the Pro plan free of cost.

Steam Chat

For gamers, an excellent Discord alternative in the UAE is Steam Chat. Many gamers already use Steam as their game platform of choice, and the Steam app has a chat client built directly into it. This contains many of the basic features of Discord and can be pretty helpful during intense team gaming sessions.

With Steam Chat, you can announce your online presence and maintain a list of friends while receiving notifications when they come online. You can add friends, manage friend invites, and add favorites for quick access. From there, you have the option of starting a group chat during a gaming session. You can also create voice chats for both individual friends and groups with the help of voice channels. Since this is already integrated into the most popular gaming platform globally, it can be used as a viable alternative to Discord in the UAE.

Jitsi Meet

If you are looking for a Discord alternative that focuses on voice and video calling, Jitsi Meet can be a solution worth considering. It is a simple video conferencing tool that allows for group audio and video chat and conferencing without most of the other options’ added features.

While this solution initially launched under the reputable 8×8 brand, it was soon branched off as Jitsi Meet – a simple, plug-and-play conferencing solution that can be used from a web browser on any device without the need to sign up or create an account. With Jitsi Meet, you get end-to-end encryption for secure communication and free video conferencing and chat with up to 100 users at one time.

Other valuable features include the ability to screenshare, which can be used by multiple users at once. Jitsi Meet also supports user remote control of the desktops of other participants. If you want to use this for business use cases, you can easily integrate it with several popular services from Microsoft, Google and Slack.

A paid upgrade to their premium offering, 8×8 meet, can bring meeting moderation, analytics, closed captioning, recording, transcription, and phone-a-guest features for those looking for more advanced capabilities.

Key Takeaways

With Discord banned in the UAE, both gamers and business users need to find alternatives that work for them. With this list of Discord alternatives in the UAE, you have a plethora of options, each with unique features that can replicate the feature set of Discord while also bringing new capabilities to the table. We hope that this blog post will help you choose the right Discord alternative for you.

Perspective: You have been turning the web inside out looking for a team communication solution that is more reasonably priced, user-friendly, and responsive than Slack, but to no avail.

If that is you, then you have come to the right place. Though very popular with business use cases, Slack is somewhat beginning to lose its position as a viable team collaboration tool. Be it because conversations get deleted after a limited 14-day period or that you get as much file storage as you pay for, past which files begin to get removed, you may find that Slack just isn’t working for you.

It is of paramount importance that team collaboration tools are highly intuitive and designed to ease users’ minds. If you feel that Slack does not quite live up to your expectations or meet your needs, it is time to look for a suitable alternative. We have compiled and reviewed a comprehensive list of the top Slack alternatives for you to choose from.

Why is Slack so popular?

With roughly 12 million daily users, Slack has come to lead the team collaboration industry over the years. Several factors contribute to Slack’s thriving user base.

1. The primary purpose that Slack serves is that of a comms tool. Allowing teams to collaborate over remote distances is a job that Slack does rather well.
2. Slack’s integration function enables users to receive notifications from all their work apps within Slack and, as such, boosts organization and efficiency.
3. If sifting through heaps of messages regularly is part of your job, Slack’s powerful search function can make it significantly easier.
4. Aside from all its practical uses, Slack partly owes its popularity to the fact that it is trendy. To a certain degree, it is a status symbol or a standard to determine how hip your company is.

The Best Slack Alternatives

Microsoft Teams

This business collaboration tool is targeted towards enterprise companies as their primary user base. One of the strongest suits of Microsoft Teams is its ability to integrate with Office 365 impeccably, something that can be extremely useful for businesses that are subscribed to and dependent on the Office 365 suite.

A predominantly chat-based collaboration platform, Teams facilitates all vital business communication functions such as video conferences, document sharing, and much more. This feature-rich application supports as many as 300 users divided across teams and channels. A freemium version of the tool makes it possible for individual users or small businesses to access the rudimentary team chat features such as instant messaging, audio and video calling, and integrations.

The audio/video communication features can accommodate up to 250 concurrent users. There is a 2 GB storage allotment for each user and a combined storage offering of 10 GB for team storage. Teams allows users to record complete meetings or calls, capturing video, audio, and screen sharing activity.

Google Chat

This Slack alternative is not just built into Gmail but deeply integrated with the various Google Workspace tools. It is a team messaging application with support for document and file sharing, video/audio conferencing through Google Meet, and so on. One of the most remarkable features of this application is that it facilitates viewing files from Google Drive and Google Docs directly within the conversation.

Not unlike channels in Slack, Google Chat has Rooms wherein conversations are put into threads. These rooms are private by default and only visible to those who are a member or are invited to the room. You can send both private and group messages using this tool, or you can simply hop on audio/video calls using the Google Meet icon. Other highlights of Chat include the ability to add bots to rooms. The application also allows over 50 integrations and supports 28 languages. Up to 8000 members can be added to each room.

Though quite versatile and easy to use, Google Chat does not have a freemium version.

AirSend

A product of CodeLathe, AirSend is another Slack alternative that allows for people-centric collaboration across remote distances with clients, teams, and customers. This service is free for the first year for professional service firms and SMBs. Having been developed by a global remote-working team incorporates numerous features that make remote collaboration a breeze.

The Dashboard feature of the application is essentially an organized workspace where the user’s active channels and the various clients, projects, and teams are visible at a glance. This boosts efficiency and convenience as it reduces the need to switch between applications while working. The individual channels incorporate chat functions, file organization functions, track open items, build wiki pages for sharing key information, and a plethora of other features.

There is absolutely no file size limit, and the Pro version of the application has as much as 100 GB of storage on offer.

Chanty

Though newer than Slack, Chanty is up there with other viable Slack alternatives with its intuitive, neat, and easy-to-use interface. It brings together some of the key features essential to a team collaboration tool without over-crowding the application. 

One of its standout features is the Teambook feature which facilitates the managing and viewing of shared links and files. The built-in task manager that enables users to convert any message into a task and share it with team members is a great touch.

Chanty is more responsive and significantly more affordable than Slack and even offers a freemium plan. Even in the free tier, users are allowed an unlimited number of messages and message backups. Besides audio/video calls, Chanty also has support for voice messages. Allowing for quite a few third-party integrations such as Zapier, the application is quite robust and perfect for small team collaborations.

Key Takeaways

If you are on the lookout for a team collaboration tool better-suited for your needs, thankfully, there are many options for you to choose from. This article touches on a few of those options to help you assess the pros and cons of each application so that you can end up with one that will enhance your work-from-home experience.

One of the great things about Airsend is that you get to organize things the way that you want. There are so many different ways that you can arrange Channels, folders, files, notes, and actions. For example, some people organize Channels by project, others organize Channels by customer name, and yet others name Channels after internal teams such as Engineering, Marketing, and HR. This blog post is going to show you five different ways that you can organize your AirSend Channels.

Why It’s Important to Organize Your Channels Correctly

The vision that launched AirSend was that we wanted to create something to help you increase productivity by reducing context switching. Context switching is the act of juggling multiple tasks and apps at one time and can be a real productivity killer, not to mention expensive. By putting everything in one place, our goal is to save you time and money.

One of the ways you can increase your productivity is by organizing your AirSend Channels in the best possible way. What that will look like depends on what you are using Airsend for. An accountant’s Channel organization will be different from a writer’s Channel organization, which will in turn be different from a student’s Channel organization.

Five Ways You Can Organize Your Channels

Now we’re going to go over the five most common ways that you can organize your AirSend Channels so that you can get some ideas and choose or design the best Channel organization method for you.

Organize Your Channels by Project

Organizing your channels by project may be the way to go if you are a freelancer, small agency, creative, or any other profession that works on a project to project basis.

For example, if you owned a freelance writing business, you could name Channels like this: “Web Copy for KB,” “Blog Posts for Accounting Website,” and “SM Posts for Coaches.”

Doing so would make it much easier to stay focused while working. Instead of having to check your emails and waste time searching for notes and drafts when starting work on a certain project, all you would have to do is click into the AirSend Channel where all of your messages, notes, and files for that project would be in one place.

Organize Your Channels by Customer

Another common way to organize Channels is by customer. Let’s say that instead of a lot of one-off projects, your work is more customer-based. This can be the case for accountants, lawyers, and asset managers. You consistently complete work for a certain set of clients.

If this is you, a good way to arrange your Channels could be by customer name. You would name Channels like this: “John Smith,” “Jane Doe,” and “Big Ben.”

That way, everything you have for each customer is in one place. If a customer needs a certain file, you can easily find it in the files section of that customer’s Channel. If you’re in a meeting with her and you need to take notes, you can open up the wiki section and get right to it without the extra steps of making sure you label and store the notes somewhere where you’ll remember later.

Organize Your Channels by Team

If you are part of a larger organization and are using Airsend mostly for internal collaboration, then organizing Channels by team could be the way to go.

Your Channels would be named like this: “AirSend Engineering Team”, “FileCloud Marketing,” and “Human Resources.”

At Codelathe, creator of AirSend and FileCloud, our entire remote-working company of 60+ employees runs on AirSend. We use a hybrid Channel organization method that combines three out of these five methods: Teams, Project, and Subject. But team Channels are our core workspaces where we share ideas, have meetings, and store files and notes. It’s a great way to keep everyone in a team on the same page and stay connected, especially in a remote work setting.

Organize Your Channels by Access

Although there is overlap between this method and some of the others we’ve discussed, arranging Channels by access is more flexible. What it means is that you are creating and labeling Channels based on who you want to have access to certain information and files.

You could have Channels named “Myself,” “Smith Family,” and “Romantic Corner (Hubby and Me),” alongside Channels like “Dissertation Readers” and “Work Friends.”

Organize Your Channels by Subject

Finally, if you are using AirSend for school, research, or as a place to store personal files like vacation photos, you may want to organize your Channels by subject.

If you’re a high school student, you could have a Channel for each subject and add classmates that take those classes with you. Your Channel names might look something like this: “Algebra,” “AP Biology,” and “History.”

Can I Change My Channel Organization After the Fact?

Now you may be thinking, I like some of these ideas, but I already have my AirSend Channels a certain way. How can I change them? Thankfully, it’s very easy to make these changes.

The easiest way to adjust your Channel organization is to change the Channel names and remove or add access to Channels based on your wants and needs. Changing a Channel name can be done in 3 simple steps.

1. Click into the Channel.
2. Click the three cogs icon at the top of the Channel.
3. Type in your new Channel name and click save.

What Now?

Now that you’ve seen five different ways you can organize your AirSend Channels, you should have a clearer idea of how to arrange your Channels to best suit your needs. You may even choose to use a hybrid of several different methods to achieve optimal productivity.

Happy Working!

The AirSend Team

Collaboration is the bedrock of productivity and performance in most business settings. The ability for teams to communicate freely and conveniently, coupled with other important features like audio and video communication, file sharing, and integrations with third-party tools can transform any workflow and lead to a more productive team. In this day and age, online collaboration tools are used frequently by businesses all over the world. Many of them are also free to use or have free tiers that pack in a lot of features and functionality.

In this blog post, we talk about 5 free online collaboration tools that can help you create and support productive communication and workflows for your business. Each of these tools brings unique features and is a perfect fit for specific use cases. Depending on what you want to accomplish and the features you are looking for, you can easily choose between these to facilitate simple, seamless, and effective collaboration free of cost.

Microsoft Teams

An immensely popular collaboration tool, Microsoft Teams was designed initially as an added feature for businesses with Office 365 subscriptions. Over time, it has grown and evolved and currently features a free plan for small businesses and individual users. One of the most important features is seamless integration with Office 365, a platform most businesses use.

Teams supports up to 300 users and allows unlimited channels, messages, and search queries. It also has support for audio and video communication with up to 250 concurrent participants. It includes a generous storage offering of 2GB per user along with 10GB for team storage. Currently, it has native integration for more than 140 services and apps, most important among them being Microsoft’s own solutions.

With Teams, you also get a host of innovative features like the ability to record complete meetings with automatic meeting transcriptions and support for inline translation of messages. However, many of the advanced features only become available if you opt for an Office 365 paid membership.

Discord

Well-known in the world of gaming, Discord is a communication and collaboration platform that focuses primarily on voice communication. You have the option of putting multiple channels on one server to keep your conversations organized. With a voice channel, there can be seamless communication among a virtually unlimited number of people.

The free tier packs in a ton of features, including video conferencing with up to ten participants, easy screen sharing, unlimited texts and voice channels, and unlimited file sharing with a size cap of 8MB per file. You can use the push-to-talk feature to be heard only when you want and the text-to-speech function to have the program read out whatever you type.

Certain features, like high-definition audio and video communication and an increased file sharing size limit, are available when you subscribe to the premium Discord Nitro plan.

Slack

One of the most popular collaboration tools for businesses, Slack has a lot going for it. Slack divides communication into workspaces, channels, and threads, making it exceptionally easy to categorize and organize conversations meaningfully. Coupled with a powerful search function, this makes recall a breeze. The free plan supports unlimited users and a history of 10,000 messages.

Audio and video chat capabilities are built-in but are limited to one-to-one use as a part of the free plan. There is also a total of 5GB space for file storage. While one of the most powerful features of Slack is its nearly 1400 integrations with third-party utilities that can make for a highly efficient, feature-rich solution, the free plan only includes ten integrations for apps and services. While this is a limiting factor, you can choose wisely and still benefit from Slack.

Support for guest accounts and multi-user video conferencing requires you to upgrade to a paid plan. There are several tiers of paid plans that add more features and functionality.

AirSend

While a fairly recent innovation, AirSend is an exemplary product that has a lot to offer in terms of easy, convenient, and highly productive collaboration. AirSend has simple text messaging, audio chats, and video calls integrated into the ecosystem. It also includes a highly effective task manager that allows users to plan and track tasks.

One great feature is the ability to create public communication channels and invite people to view or join them using just an email address. This gives you the ability to interface with people both inside and outside the organization without having to leave the platform. The UI is fresh, simple, and easy-to-use.

While not as extensive as Slack, AirSend also bundles multiple integrations that can help add features and cross-compatibility and serve to create a more unified workflow. Integrations with popular solutions like Gmail and Office 365 really enhance the experience of using AirSend. While the free tier includes many of these options, the Pro plan is relatively inexpensive. Moreover, all new users receive a one-year trial of the Pro plan free of cost, making it an excellent alternative to more popular collaboration platforms.

Chanty

Chanty is built with simplicity in mind. It promises to deliver simple communication abilities in a neat, attractive package that is extremely easy to use. The Teambook feature allows teams to easily view and manage shared files and links while the integrated task manager allows users to turn any individual message into a task and share it with team members.

Chanty’s free tier is particularly attractive, with unlimited messages and message backups. The platform has support for voice messages, audio chats, and video calls. Chanty already has support for several third-party integrations (including Zapier) which opens many doors in terms of features. The development team is well-known for providing regular feature and usability updates. The premium plans offer excellent value and come much cheaper than alternatives like Slack.

Verdict

While these are all excellent free online collaboration tools, they all have particular strengths that may come in handy for your specific workflow. The best way to go about making a choice is to understand the pros and cons of these solutions while keeping your requirements in mind.

Two team communication solutions that most people know about are Discord and Slack. While Slack has long been a favorite for business use cases, Discord is more known for providing an optimized voice communication experience that is popular with gamers. Both Slack and Discord can be successfully employed for a variety of use cases, and businesses use both tools regularly to ease team communications.

In this blog post, we take a look at these two solutions, and analyze their strengths and weaknesses, focusing on special features and abilities. This information should make it easier for you to choose between the two, although you should keep in mind the aptness for your particular use case.

Features and Capabilities

Slack and Discord Overview

Both Slack and Discord feature a channel-based system of communication. With Discord, you use one login to access all your servers, while with Slack, you can have multiple workspaces which require separate login credentials. This can be good for keeping work responsibilities categorized and separately arranged. To this end, another Slack feature lacking in Discord is threads. You can directly reply to a message in any channel to create a separate thread. This can keep conversations organized, prevent clutter, and make it easy for you to retrieve and consult old communication.

Slack Voice Calling

When it comes to audio communication, Slack operates similarly to any standard voice calling and conferencing solution. You can initiate a call with any user on a particular channel using the call button. Channel-wide calls are also possible but are only available in the paid tier. You can create a shareable link for channel calls, and a maximum of 15 participants can join.

Discord Voice Calling

With Discord, voice channels are separate from other channels. The voice communication experience is simple, seamless, and intuitive as the voice service runs in the background and remains active. Voice channels can accommodate up to 99 participants at the same time. One interesting feature is “push to talk” which allows the microphone to capture audio only while a button is pressed. It can also operate automatically. Therefore, you have the option of hands-free operation or choosing to be heard only when you want.

Slack and Discord Video Calling

As far as video conferencing is concerned, this is possible on both platforms. On Discord, you can initiate this by starting a group DM and then calling on the video chat feature. In Slack, the process is the same as initiating voice calls. Both platforms offer you the option of screen sharing during calls but Slack provides a markup option that allows you to annotate, highlight, and take notes.

Slack Integrations

One aspect that is important in most workflows is integration with third-party services. This is where you find a wide range of options with Slack. There is a huge library of almost 1000 native integrations that allow you to bring in connections with popular solutions like Google Drive, Google Docs, Office 365, Trello, Zoom, and more. These native integrations can help bring in important features and functionality according to what you want to accomplish with the platform.

Discord Integrations

Discord has very few native integrations and most of them are geared towards the gaming community, although you can find helpful integrations like Skype, Reddit, Facebook, Twitter, and Spotify. However, a much wider range of integrations can be brought to the table through the use of a unique feature – Discord bots. Bots are integrations that are developed by the community. Bots can serve a wide variety of functions and can be invited to any server. Apart from bringing more integrations, bots can also moderate communication channels and automate simple, repetitive tasks.

User Friendliness

Both Slack and Discord employ modern, minimalistic UIs which are pleasing to the eye and deliver most of their information and settings in a single screen. However, there is a lot more under the hood with Slack and you might have to navigate through a large tree of options to reach specific settings. Also, it is important to remember that Slack has a lot of added functionality. Depending on whether those functions are central to your workflow, you might consider Slack to be more user-friendly.

Discord Wins in Voice Calling

If you are looking for seamless audio communication without hassle, Discord is a clear choice. Since it has been constructed to facilitate easy voice communication, the integrated features can be used to create hands-free or low-intrusion voice communication workflows that can be perfect for certain use cases.

Slack Wins for Business Messaging

If you are looking for a collaborative platform for business messaging, Slack is a better alternative for many. It has robust file sharing options and the presence of channels and threads can keep conversations organized, easy to find, and easy to search. Slack also gives you 1GB of file sharing with no limit on file types while you can only share audio and video with Discord.

Price

Discord Pricing

Price is one area where Discord is hard to beat. Most of its functionality, including text messaging, audio communication, video calls, and screen sharing, are available entirely free of cost. This means that you can communicate with a very large number of people and teams using Discord without having to pay anything on top of the free plan. They do have a paid tier called Discord Nitro, which brings higher file upload limits and high-definition audio and video chat to the table. For one Discord server, the cost of Nitro is $9.99 monthly or $99.99 for a whole year.

Slack Pricing

Slack, on the other hand, can be cheap or expensive depending on your requirements. A limited number of features are available free. However, to get access to a comprehensive portfolio of features, you need the standard paid plan that typically costs $6.67 per month for every user. There are several higher tiers of pricing that bring more features, like multiple workspaces and DLP. The larger your team, the more you pay for Slack and its features.

Final Verdict

With clear strengths in different areas, Slack and Discord are two very different products which focus on different features. For a business environment, Slack has a lot of dedicated solutions and comes with complete security compliance. Its large number of integrations makes many workflows possible. On the other hand, Discord is hard to beat when it comes to its free functionality and its voice communication features. Keep your requirements in mind and choose wisely.

Have you been looking for an alternative to Google Hangouts?

In these times, there is more need than ever for an easy-to-use, feature-rich, and efficient messaging app. For a long time, Google Hangouts has been a popular solution, both among personal users and businesses. However, a lot of its adoption has to do with users looking to remain in the overall Google ecosystem and some of its cons have been on display for a while.

Enter AirSend, a new alternative that has excellent features, a modern design and UI, and a simple, user-friendly workflow. In this blog post, we take a detailed look at how AirSend compares with Google Hangouts in terms of features and capabilities, user friendliness, and price. This analysis can help you with the relevant information and insight to make up your mind.

Features and Capabilities

Google Hangouts Overview

Google Hangouts was created as a messaging platform that integrates easily with other products in the Google ecosystem. Its functionality has always been basic, with only a few new features added along its development cycle.

With Google Hangouts, you have the ability to have text-based conversations, either one-on-one or in a group. There is an option to integrate the SMS functionality of phones within the Hangouts app for a centralized display of messages. During the conversation, the rudimentary feature set allows for the sharing of photos and the use of emojis.

Google Hangouts Integrations

As far as integration with the ecosystem goes, Hangouts can be accessed from within Gmail, through dedicated mobile apps on Android and iOS, and from the Google Chrome desktop browser using a browser extension. The Hangouts API has been shut down and the version of Hangouts in the G Suite product portfolio has already been replaced with two separate applications – Google Meet and Google Chat.

Google Hangouts Voice and Video Calling

Users can directly audio call other Hangouts users and can even use the app for landlines and phones for an extra charge. Initially, the app had a live streaming component, but that was disabled and absorbed into YouTube in 2016. There is support for group audio and video calls for up to 25 users.

Google Hangouts Security

Apart from this very limited feature set, one important issue is that the platform does not use the open standard XMPP protocol, preventing third-party integrations. It has also received criticism for having key security issues, including a lack of documentation for the security design, no option for users to verify contact identities, and no support for independent code review.

The most important thing to remember about Hangouts is that it is being gradually phased out for newer solutions.

AirSend Overview

AirSend brings many modern features and functionalities to the table and is truly  a collaborative tool thanks to its wide feature set. It implements the creation of public and private channels, the ability to share and organize files internally, a complete task management solution, and communication through audio and video calls.

AirSend Integrations

AirSend has native integration with Office 365, allowing users to open and edit documents. It also has built-in email integration that allows for easy communication with users who are not on the platform. One of the most interesting features is the ability to create public channels that are accessible to anyone with a link, enabling them to easily be shared through email. This way, users can invite other users who are not on the platform to work inside AirSend without the need for complex permission management or administration.

AirSend’s built-in actions management system is well laid-out and efficient, preventing the need for third-party integrations to achieve the same functionality.

User Friendliness

AirSend UI

AirSend brings to the table a modern, minimalistic UI where all the important UI elements are prominent and accessible, making usage a breeze. The large text bar, located at the bottom of the screen, makes it easy to instantly start communicating without a learning curve. A dedicated file tab lets users browse through shared files in chronological order. Audio and video calls are also easy to accomplish with clearly marked designated buttons.

Similarly, the channel-based model allows for easy categorization of communication. Within each project-related or group-specific channel, users can easily create and manage tasks, have individual or group discussions, upload important files, and create a fully customized workspace. Moreover, AirSend can be used seamlessly through both the dedicated mobile app and on the web, with a fairly simple login process.

Google Hangouts UI

In comparison, the Google Hangouts UI feels dated and a little clunky, with several important options hidden behind obscure menus. While its integration with the broader ecosystem can make it accessible in various ways, the limited functionality and the dated design can definitely be a turnoff for those looking to use it regularly and for important work. Moreover, since it is on its way to being phased out, no major feature updates or UI enhancements are expected to occur.

Price

Google Hangouts Pricing

Hangouts is free for individual users still using the legacy version of the product. For business users, a freemium model is employed. The free tier is limited to 100 participants at one time with 15GB storage per user. The basic business plan comes with a 14-day free trial and costs $8 for each active user monthly. This comes with a pooled storage of up to 2TB with 100GB available per user. These plans come with much-needed features like dial-in phone numbers and automatic cloud backup of meeting records. Pricing for the highest tier is decided on a case-by-case basis.

AirSend Pricing

AirSend, on the other hand, has a free tier with no participation restrictions. 5GB of storage is on offer. The Pro plan brings 100GB storage and custom branding for $4 per month per user while the Business plan contains a host of added features and 2TB of storage for only $5 per month per user. Most importantly, AirSend is currently offering its Pro tier for one year for new accounts, entirely free, with the option of users signing up for multiple accounts.

Conclusion

While Google Hangouts continues its journey towards being phased out, it can be a great time to look for alternatives that bring modern features and better usability to the table. If the Hangouts experience and its close integration with the Google ecosystem is all that matters to you, it might still be viable. If anything else is your priority, a modern, full-featured solution like AirSend would definitely serve you better.

The AirSend team was recently interviewed by App of the Day! You can read the full interview here.

When we first started on our journey to create AirSend, our goal was simple: create a simple contextual workspace where people can get work done all in one place. Over the past year, we worked tirelessly: talking to customers and adding, removing, and refining features. We are happy to say that with the latest update, we have finally accomplished our original goal!

The latest AirSend update was a big one. We added many features that our customers asked for, including the ability to create website contact forms that link to AirSend, a Kanban view for Actions, the ability to group Channels, and more.

Here is a blog post talking about all of those exciting new features, as well as reviewing some lesser known things you may not have known were possible in AirSend.

Without further ado, here’s a tour of the new, most recently updated AirSend!

Simple AirSend Account and Channel Capabilities

Create a New Channel Using the Channel Sidebar

You can now make a new Channel by clicking the blue plus button on the upper left side of the sidebar. A window will pop up where you can name your Channel.

You can also write a description and choose a Channel template by clicking “Advanced.”

After clicking “Create Channel,” you will be taken to the inside of your new Channel.

Run a Comprehensive Search

Using the search bar in the upper right corner, run a comprehensive search of all messages, actions, files, and users in your Channel.

After you have run a search, you can click the “Show All” button at the top right of each search result category. A window will appear with a full view of all of your search results.

Switch Between Light and Dark Modes

Click the profile name in the upper right corner to switch you between AirSend’s light and dark modes.

You can also choose “Auto Color Schema,” which will match AirSend to your preexisting settings.

Change Account Settings

You can also choose “Settings” in the same menu as above to see where to change the profile name, phone number, email notification frequency, and audio and video settings.

This is also where you can change your password, delete their account, or create a contact form to add to your website that links to AirSend Channels.

More AirSend Channel Capabilities

As you may already know, a Channel is where you can collaborate and get work done all in one place.

There are five main areas of a Channel: the Channel bar, the messaging space, the Actions tab, the Files tab, and the Wiki tab. Let’s explore these areas a little further to talk about what’s new.

The Messaging Space

The messaging space is the biggest, most prominent space in a Channel. This is where you can send and receive messages, photos, videos, documents, and more.

The Channel Bar

The Channel bar is on the left side of the Channel. This is where you can see a list of all of your Channels and direct messages with notifications.

You can also pin Channels, display Channels with a simplified or full view, and create new Channels or Channel groups here. You can click the highlighted icons to explore the bar’s capabilities.

Finally, you can collapse or display the Channel bar using the wall and arrow icon next to it.

The Actions Tab

Now let’s look at the right side of a Channel. The first tab on the right side of a Channel is the Actions tab. We’ve made many highly requested updates to this tab, including a full Kanban view.

Create an action by typing something in the “Add Action” bar, then click the plus icon.

After creating an action, hover your cursor over the action to find the icons to create subactions, assign responsibility, and add a due date.

You can also move an action to another Channel, edit its details, or delete it.

After exploring what you can do to individual actions, click the four icons highlighted below to sort by person, date, and completion status, and to enter the full Kanban view.

The Files Tab

You can click the Files tab to see all of the files in the Channel. The three icons in the top right of the tab let you upload a file, enter a full Files view, and create or download folders.

Now, click the three dots icon that appears when you hover your cursor over the file name and click “Share.” You can use the link that appears to share that file with someone else.

Quick reminder: AirSend provides automatic versioning, meaning it automatically updates and saves all versions of a file that you change and upload again.

To test this out, feel free to change any file you already uploaded and upload it again. Then, click the three dots icon that appears when you hover your cursor over the file name and click “Previous Versions” to see all versions of your file.

The Wiki Tab

Finally, we come to the Wiki tab. This is where you can take and keep notes. You can now click on the blue icon on the top left corner to see all existing pages.

Next, feel free to explore the three highlight buttons to share Wiki files, enter the Wiki full view, and edit the Wiki. We made some UI changes here to make your experience even smoother.

What’s Next in the AirSend Journey?

We hope you enjoyed the tour and are grateful for your time and interest! Although we’re proud of the progress we’ve made, the AirSend journey still has a long ways to go. Have any features in mind that you think would be great for AirSend? Let us know here.

If you don’t already have an account and would like to sign up for one, please visit:

www.live.airsend.io/signup

Thank you from the AirSend Team!

Over the past few years, Agile has secured considerable popularity and is being adopted by many organizations. The Agile methodology introduced advantages that were not possible with the traditional “Waterfall model.” With an Agile approach, teams can deliver powerful features in short delivery cycles. These quick deliveries are why Agile can increase customer satisfaction.

Though many software vendors are using the Agile approach, there is still a lot of confusion about the difference between Agile and Scrum. This blog post is going to provide an overview of each and compare them. 

Agile vs. Scrum

What is Agile?

Agile is a set of principles that teams use to guide the delivery of a software project. As there isn’t any detailed planning of a project, it is more adaptable to changes in software application requirements throughout the project. There is an iterative and incremental approach in Agile where cross-functional teams work on product iterations over a set time-span.

12 Principles of the Agile Manifesto

Agile refers to an approach aligned with the following 12 Agile manifesto principles:

• Customer satisfaction is the highest priority and will be achieved by delivering valuable software continuously to customers.
• The team welcomes changes in software requirements even during the later stages of software development.
• The team can deliver working software, even on a short timescale.
• Outward-facing employees and developers must coordinate together daily until project completion.
• Build projects around enthusiastic team members and provide more support if needed.
• Face-to-face conversation is essential to convey any important information to and within the development team.
• A project’s progress is measured by working software.
• Users should maintain a constant pace indefinitely to promote sustainable development.
• Technical excellence and good design should be the primary focus.
• Simplicity is essential.
• The best architecture and design arise from the self-organizing teams.
• The team should reflect on how to become more effective and adjust to the behavior regularly.

Approaches to Implementing Agile

• Scrum
• Kanban
• Extreme Programming
• Feature Driven Development
• Adaptive System Development
• Dynamic systems development method
• Lean Software Development
• Crystal Clear

What is Scrum?

Scrum is the most popular Agile methodology, which helps manage software development with an iterative approach. The fixed-length iteration is known as a sprint which allows teams to ship software frequently. A sprint will last for one or two weeks, and a meeting is conducted at the end of each sprint by team members and stakeholders to discuss the next steps.

Scrum Roles

Product Owner

The PO is the primary member who is in charge of the project vision. This person mediates communication between the stakeholders and scrum team to build and manage the backlog.

Scrum Master

The Scrum Master is responsible for organizing meetings and dealing with challenges that arise in a project. SM is responsible for making sure that the team follows the Scrum process and interacts with the PO to ensure that the product backlog is available for the next sprint.

Scrum Team

The Scrum Team consists of people with various development, testing, engineering, and documentation abilities. It usually contains 5-7 members. The ST plans the amount of work to be completed in each iteration.

Scrum events

Product backlog

The Product Owner and Scrum Master work together to prioritize the stories properly based on user stories and requirements. The developers refer to the product backlog to complete tasks during each sprint.

Sprint planning

Sprint planning keeps track of the work that needs to be done in a sprint. The scrum group completes this step together. The group plans what feature will be delivered in the sprint and determines how to code the functionality.

Daily Scrum

A 15-minute stand-up meeting is conducted daily. This is known as a Daily Scrum and is used to check if the team is on track. During these meetings, the team members discuss development goals and challenges.

Sprint Review

At the end of a sprint, the team conducts a Sprint Review to check development progress and discuss the next set of action items.

Sprint Retrospectives

During a Sprint Retrospective, the team discusses all of the successes and challenges of the Scrum process faced during the last sprint and the improvements required for the next sprint.

Agile vs. Scrum: What is the final verdict?

As you can see, Agile and Scrum are the two types of process management methodologies that are used in software development. 

In Agile methodology, instead of using a detailed plan at the beginning of projects, it implements an approach that encourages customer feedback and development changes regularly throughout the project cycle.

Scrum methodology is an iterative process of Agile that concentrates on delivering high value in a minimal amount of time. The project is broken down into smaller builds (sprints) with a specific time frame. The time duration is generally one or two weeks and involves daily stand-up meetings to check progress on goals and discuss challenges. Once the sprint is finished, the team gathers again to discuss an approach for the next sprint.  

Now you know that Scrum is a subset of Agile, and therefore, we can’t say if one is better than the other. However, the Agile approach implemented using Scrum methodologies far exceeds the output of the traditional “Waterfall model.” And it will continue to bring greater customer satisfaction and agility to development teams everywhere.

Written by Soumya Turlapaty.

AirSend is a versatile digital workspace to share files, send messages, have voice/video calls, and complete tasks. Click here to see how AirSend can help you.

Hello friend. We’ve been busy making improvements to AirSend recently and some of those updates are in the Actions tab. The purpose of this brief blog post is to take a closer look at the cool things you can do with AirSend Actions now.

Expand to a Kanban View

You can now expand your Actions tab to a full Kanban view to more clearly see and organize your to-do list. Simply click the window icon in the upper right corner of the Actions tab.

Quickly Add Actions and Subactions

You can now quickly add actions with the “Add Actions” bar and add subactions by click on the “Add Subtask” icon that appears when you hover your cursor over an action. Break things down to reduce stress. No task is too complicated for AirSend to help you handle.

View Actions Assigned to You

Easily switch between seeing only the actions assigned to you and seeing all of the actions in the Channel. This reduces visual clutter to help you quickly see exactly what you need to get done.

Sort by Due Date or Date Created

You can also sort actions by due date by clicking on the calendar icon in the upper right corner of the Actions tab. If there are no due dates assigned, the actions are sorted according to the date they were created by default. Never forget a deadline again.

Sort by Completed or Incomplete Actions

If you want to see what actions are completed and what actions still need to be done, this feature is perfect. Simply click on the checkmark icon in the upper right corner of the Actions tab to switch between completed and incomplete actions.

Quickly Search

Last but not least, you can now quickly and easily search for actions using the convenient search bar located right in the Actions tab. That way nothing can slow you down while you’re in the zone.

We hope this update was helpful to you!

AirSend is collaboration space where you can share and store files, send messages, have voice / video calls, and organize tasks. Click here now to learn more.