EPM5700 Project Management: IT Communication Tools & Techniques

This report investigates communication management tools and techniques utilized within organizations, emphasizing the critical role of effective communication for organizational success. It details various communication applications and their features, providing a comparative study of their usefulness in project management. The report evaluates Airtable, Slack, and Chatwork based on platform support, customer base, support options, and features like SSL security, API integration, and video conferencing. It discusses the integration capabilities between platforms like Dropbox, Airtable, and Slack using tools like Zapier and Integromat. The report also addresses problems and pitfalls associated with each software, such as limitations in data visualization, notification systems, and task management. Recommendations include improving Airtable's features and encouraging organizations to adopt communication software to enhance efficiency and productivity. The analysis concludes that Chatwork offers more comprehensive features, including SSL security and video conferencing, making it a user-friendly option for team communication and project coordination.

Project Management and IT

Executive Summary
This report is about communication management tools and techniques used by the
organization. Effective communication is an essential requirement for the growth and
success of any organization.
This report provides the details about the different communication applications available
and the different features of them. It provides a study on how these applications are
useful to organizations in communication and project management. It makes a
comparison between different communication applications based on their features.
The communication management softwares help the project manager in providing the
relevant information to all the members of the team. Communication management can
be defined as a set of activities related to generation, collection and presentation of
information within the organization. This report shows integration between different
applications of communication and its benefits to employees and businesses.

Contents
Executive Summary...........................................................................................................2
Aim of the investigation......................................................................................................4
Introduction........................................................................................................................4
Significance of the investigation........................................................................................5
Various communication Softwares....................................................................................5
Review of Selected Software.............................................................................................7
Criteria for evaluation.........................................................................................................8
Justification on weighing criteria......................................................................................10
Results.............................................................................................................................10
Integration between Dropbox and Airtable and Slack.....................................................10
Problems and pitfalls.......................................................................................................11
Recommendations...........................................................................................................12
References.......................................................................................................................13
Appendix..........................................................................................................................14

Aim of the investigation
The report aims to investigate various software’s available to improve the
communication management in any organization. The report includes the comparison
between the communication management softwares. It includes the advantages of
communication software to the organization and also discusses various problems
associated with the implementation of such softwares. The aim of this investigation is to
evaluate the various communication management softwares based on their efficiency.
Introduction
Effective communication plays a vital role in the success of any organization. The
effective communication ensures timely and accurate transfer of information. Effective
communication is the backbone of decision making process. The main objective of
communication management is to establish a smooth flow of information among the
group of people (Oliver, 2011).
The objective of good communication is to create difference between reality and one’s
perception of reality. It can be considered as the media component of the project. The
communication management softwares help the project manager in providing the
relevant information to all the members of the team. Communication management can
be defined as a set of activities related to generation, collection and presentation of
information within the organization (Tutorialspoint, 2018).

Significance of the investigation
The investigation depicts the essential features of the communication software. The
reports establish interaction between different softwares used in the communication
management. The report makes a comparison between the different communication
applications and makes an analysis on the basis of consumer needs. It provides the
advantages of using a communication app in an organization.
Various communication Softwares
Join.me
It can be defined as a business collaboration application. It helps the organizations in
conducting online business meetings, conferences, presentations and enabling
everyone in the company in joining the conversation.
It is not required to install the software for this software, it is cloud hosted service
software.
Skype
Skype is beneficial for large and small corporations. It is a free service and enables the
mangers to hold online meetings. It is an cost effective and easy means of
communication software. The easy to use feature of skype makes it popular
communication system for any business.
Jive
This software was designed to meet the social interaction and communication needs of
the organization. It is beneficial for both internal and external communication. It helps
the management in making collaboration more productive by improving its
communication strategies. It is aimed to improve the communication between the

diverse team members or with customers. It is user friendly. The analytics and reporting
of the software can be customized according the needs of the user. It can be used as a
cloud service or can be implemented in the intranet of the organization
(Communications-software, 2018).
Airtable
Airtable can be defined as a smart collaboration tool which enables the managers to
manage projects, ideas and customers. It is a user mobile friendly application. It
comprised various smartphone and desktop apps. It enables the user to organize
meeting with anyone from anywhere. It is designed as a database with text fields, forms
and integrations. It supports integration with various other communication softwares like
dropbox, slack and gitihub etc. it helps arrangement of data in grid view (Getapp, 2018).
Slack
The slack provides the management to organize the project. It enables the managers to
work with public channels so that marketing team can coordinate with designing team
and sales team. It helps in connecting the tools and services of the business with
different application used centrally (Branscombe, 2017).
It removes the burden of follow up emails, and connecting between different
dashboards etc. It enables the managers with smarter way of making effective decisions
quickly (Blueprintdigital, 2018).
It provides the company with comprehensive knowledge with its automatic indexing and
achieving function. It helps in searching information easily whenever required (Getapp,
2018).
Chatwork

Chatwork is a group chat app for the organizations. With various team members
projects become complex and time consuming because of lots of emails, many files of
data to keep track of everything. The process becomes stressful and frustrating. There
should be an easier and effective communication method for the team members.
It provides the team with a streamlined way to communicate. It provides the team with
chartrooms to have conversation about each project. It makes every team member
enable to see plan, progress and all the details related to the project.
It provides the team with a user friendly and synchronized platform to work together
(Getapp, 2018).
Software selected for evaluation
The three software selected for evaluation in this report are Airtable, Slack and
Chatwork.
Review of Selected Software
Airtable
Airtable is a user friendly platform used for creating databases to make communication
more effective. It helps in collaborating information about anything like employee
directories or product inventories without the requirement of SQL. Airtable also provides
the users with the features of API. With the help of Zapier the data of Airtable can be
liked to other communication apps. The cost and accessibility advantage of Airtable
makes it more suitable for users (William Porter, 2016).
Slack

Slack can be defined as a messaging app for better communication management in the
organization. It helps the team in communicating from any place instantly. It provides
the users with the feature of sharing files with anyone. It has the built in feature to filter
and sort files according to the need of user. Slack has been categorized among one of
three top communication software products. The users have reviewed slack as a good
communication and collaborating tool (Financesonline, 2018).
Chatwork
Chatwork helps the team in sharing ideas, solving problems and maintaining bond. It
keeps conversations of team members on track from all around the world. Sometimes it
becomes a distracting place for the business communication because of various
conversations not related to the current topic. The software has in built feature of to-do-
list to mark actionable ideas as task and that task will remain in your chat view until the
check off. It helps the team in connecting and making follow up about the projects. It
also provides the user the facility to edit his own message (Zapier, 2018).
Criteria for evaluation
The three softwares are evaluated are the platform supported, customers, support and
features.
Evaluation Matrix
Criteria Weight Chatwor
k Slack Airtable
Platform supported 20% 60% 50% 40%
Online support 30% 60% 50% 70%
Integrations 20% 40% 10% 10%

SSl Security 15% 70% 60% 20%
Video
Conferencing 15% 80% 80% 0%
Score 100% 61% 48% 34%
Topic Airtable Slack Chatwork
Platforms
Supported
Web based, iphone
app, android app
Web based, iphone
app, android app
Web based, iphone
app, android app
Customers Freelancers, small
businesses, mid-
sized business,
enterprise
Freelancers, small
businesses, mid-
sized business,
enterprise
Freelancers, small
businesses, mid-
sized business,
enterprise
Support Online support,
knowledge base,
video tutorials
Online support,
knowledge base,
video tutorials
Online support
Features integration, API,
automatic
notifications,
collaborative
workplace,
communication
management, drag
and drop interface,
API, Application
integration,
automatic
notifications, chat,
collaboration tools,
communication
management,
instant messaging,
API, Automatic
notification, chat,
collaboration tools,
communication
management, file
management,
instant messaging,
video conferencing,

file management,
tagging, third party
integration,
real time data, SSL
security, tagging,
third party
integration,
real time data
SSL security,
Search
functionality.
(Getapp, 2018)
Justification on weighing criteria
Platform supported is an important feature as the users are more likely towards the
applications with online in comparison to cloud based system. The SSL Security is an
important feature for any communication system because the leakage of confidential
information may cause a huge loss to organization. Integration with the other apps
provides the user with more efficient means of communication and data handling. Video
conferencing is important for any communication application because the team
members sitting at different places would be able to discuss the issue efficiently with it.
Results
The weighing criteria evaluates that Chatwork provides more features like SSL Security,
API and other features. It provides the feature of video conferencing to the team
members from anywhere at any time. The platforms supported are online and cloud
based. It is more user friendly interface as compare to Airtable. The integration feature
helps the user to link the database of chatwork with other apps like slack, dropbox etc.

Integration between Dropbox and Airtable and Slack
Airtable has built in feature to connect with many other communication apps like
dropbox, Asana, Email and Slack etc.
The zapier will establish link between Airtable and Dropbox. The user needs to add files
in dropbox and the zapier will automatically synchronize the files between the dropbox
and airtable.
(Integromat, 2018)
The different communication apps can be connected with the help integromat. It can
transfer and transform data between various apps.
Slack integrates the messages from other communication apps like twitter, Google
drive, dropbox and maichimp etc. it helps the user to find information from one search
box across all these tools.

Problems and pitfalls
Airtable
In Airtable empty records are also counted as trigger records. The Airtable does not
provide the feature of plotting graphs or chart and API features for sorting of data. It is
an expensive system for small sized companies. It also lacks in providing scheduled
notifications and work back timelines (Getapp, 2018).
Slack
Slack is based on channel user interface and the employees are more likely towards the
chatting app like whatsapp. The notification system of slack is deficient and buggy. It
makes the processors slow down their processing speed. It provides limited content
sharing on mobiles (Captureapp, 2018).
Chatwork
The notification alert feature is not there. The task management function of Chatwork is
complex (Wpcurve, 2013).
Recommendations
The implementation of Airtable can be improved with conversations like Google docs.
The spreadsheet like data should have the feature the height of rows. It should provide
the feature of dealing with more than one formula in single cell. It should support API
sorting feature to filter data. The communication softwares should be adopted by
organizations to increase efficiency and productivity of the organization. The employees
should be motivated to join such apps to connect with their team members and be