Working from home has its perks – and its perils. We’ve chosen our favorite Zoho CRM Zapier integrations for working from home, covering the majority of the unique demands of the work-from-home user.
Video Conference
Video conferencing is fast, becoming an essential medium for business conversations around the world. It has only been growing in popularity by putting aside the sudden uptick in video conferencing encouraged by social isolation orders.
A good substitute for in-person contact is video chats. You might think of them as occupying the mostly-empty middle ground between a phone call and a face-to-face conversation. That makes them useful for salespeople, who are often seeking low-commitment ways to pitch their services to a potential customer.
Zapier integrations to consider: Zoom, GoToMeeting, WebEx
Productivity Timer
If we want to control something, we must measure it. If we’re going to control how we spend our time, we must track how we spend our time. In this age of computational assistance, there is perhaps no greater profusion of poorly-constructed and badly-executed apps than within the productivity sphere, with timer applications at the top. Avoid all the garbage and skim the cream right off the top.
There are two basic strategies for timers: voluntary and involuntary timing. In a voluntary timing system, the application only tracks the time when the user starts the timer. Toggl and Harvest both follow this approach, starting the timer only at the user’s request. On the other hand, involuntary timers require nothing from the user but permission to run in the background. Once that is granted, these applications track time usage without input from the user. RescueTime follows this approach.
If you need help with billing and accounting for time spent on specific projects and tasks, voluntary timers like Toggl are the most useful. If you need help with productivity and procrastination, involuntary timers like RescueTime will serve you better.
Zapier integrations to consider: Toggl, Harvest, RescueTime
Text Messaging & Chat
Communication among members of your team is essential. While email provides a crucial link for longer communications, its inherent letter metaphor has enforced a tonal formality that rejects user attempts to informalize the media. As a result, most companies have settled on some form of short text exchange system for informal and sometimes formal communication between members.
Zapier integrations to consider: Twilio, TextMagic, Slack, Blink
Task & Project Management
Depending on how your organization works, you may have your task management tools chosen for you. In organizations that use task management as a tool for billing or time tracking, you’ll likely be locked into their program choices when it comes to tracking your work. But if you have some freedom of choice in the matter, explore your options. If you currently use pen-and-paper tracking, you’ll quickly see how much more effective an always-available, never-outdated task list floating in the ether alongside you.
When working from home, you need to press every advantage to stay on task and remain productive. Task management is one way to “hack” your thinking processes into being more productive. The naturally productive tendency to enjoy “checking things off” bleeds into habit formation. But if there’s no list to check, there’s no way to incorporate those benefits. Don’t worry about finding the perfect to-do application: that way madness lies. Instead, look for an application you can make work. If it covers about 80% of your needs, consider it settled.
Zapier integrations to consider: Todoist, Wunderlist, Trello, ClickUp
Calendar & Scheduling
Tracking your time is one thing, but planning it is another. Whether your job requires it or not, it would be wise to plan out the broad strokes of your day in some kind of scheduling application. For many of us, that’s Google Calendar. But others prefer a more controlled or broad approach. Whatever tools you use will shape your ability to implement a system, so find an application that matches the philosophy you have towards scheduling, with the appropriate flexibility, reminders, and integrations into other tools.
Zapier integrations to consider: Google Calendar, Calendly, Artichoke
Document Signing
If you’re required to get signatures as part of your role at your organization, your organization has likely settled on a digital system for collecting and storing those signatures. DocuSign retains the advantages of the market leader, but Zoho Sign offers additional features that ease-of-use affordances that shouldn’t be overlooked. Balance your options before marrying a document signing service, if you have that freedom.
Zapier integrations to consider: DocuSign, Zoho Sign, HelloSign
Webinar
A webinar is slightly different from a video chat in the sense of the audience. In a video chat, the audience participates with the speaker in some way, either freely throughout the call or during proscribed intervals. In a webinar, information transmissions are typically one way. If video chats are like phone calls, webinars are like podcasts. While some specific modes of interaction might be preserved, they typically are read-only media. The webinar works best when you’re communicating qualitative information to a large audience without the need for interaction, and when information does not need to be preserved for long after the initial broadcast.
Zapier integrations to consider: GoToWebinar, Crowdcast, Livestorm
Other Must-Have Integrations
Even though these integrations aren’t as precisely targeted toward the needs of work-from-home users, you might consider adding these essential integrations to your Zoho CRM experience.
