The shared agenda: an essential tool for collaborative work

If your colleagues miss the meetings you organize or if you are having difficulty managing your team, let yourself be tempted by the shared agenda. An essential tool for teamwork, such an agenda is perfect for centralize information and manage projects. By streamlining communication, it promotes increased productivity and team involvement. Scheduling meetings, creating reminders and following up on deadlines are some of the strengths of the shared calendar that we invite you to discover.

What is a shared agenda?

A shared agenda is a planning tool that is widely used for collaborative work. The latter allows in fact to create, share, and view meetings, customer appointments, or any other important event. Ideal in business to facilitate communication between several people, it allows you to save time and be more productive.

This professional agenda can take the form of a common calendar in paper format or on a whiteboard. However, it is most often used in its digital form. Available then both on computer and on mobile devices, it offers everyone the opportunity to manage the calendar easily.

Depending on the software used, shared calendars can include various functionalities related to teamwork. In particular, we can mention the existence of reminders or the taking into account of time zones.

What are the advantages of such a tool?

Creating and sharing a shared calendar is a very good decision. This, because, such a tool presents undeniable assets to improve the performance of your teams.

Manage projects effectively

First, if the shared calendar includes advanced features, you can use it for project management. Scheduling tasks, visualizing milestones and deadlines to be met, or organizing meetings are some of the essential elements of such software. It is then very useful for access a global vision of the project and the schedule.

Optimizing collaborative work

Who says teamwork, says transparency and communication. By deciding to share a shared agenda with your colleagues, you give them the opportunity to access information. They can know what each employee is doing, what is everyone's availability and when the next meetings are scheduled. It then becomes easier to consult your agenda for better time management.

Facilitate communication

If you set a schedule via a shared calendar, you will have an easier time taking into account the constraints and checking everyone's availability and you can avoid scheduling conflicts and overwork. In real time, the various members of the team can consult the calendar and make changes if necessary.

Avoid oversights

One of the major problems in project management lies in potential oversights. To prevent certain tasks, even minor ones, from going unnoticed, the best solution remains a shared agenda. With automatic notifications and reminders, you ensure that each employee fulfills their duties and is present at team meetings.

The functionalities of a shared calendar

From making appointments to creating a to-do list, the possibilities of a shared agenda are numerous. They are perfect for speed up your processes and improve team productivity.

Creating events

The first use of a shared agenda and the creation of events. These can be an appointment, a videoconference meeting as well as a birthday! Date, time, and location may be provided. You can change them after they are created if necessary according to the evolution of the situation.

Notifications and reminders

Very practical to not forget anything, email notifications and notifications on smartphone or tablet allow you to stay up to date. As soon as an event is modified or if its due date approaches, then the employees concerned receive a reminder. So each member of the team is always in possession of the latest information and can react accordingly.

Time zone management

If you manage a multi-site team, this feature can be very relevant. It is very simple toorganize meetings by bringing together employees working on different sites or in remote geographical areas.

Customizing the interface

Some shared calendars allow users to modify the interface according to their desires and needs. This makes it possible to better visualize essential information by choosing colors or any other visual element of their choice.

Sharing and managing access rights

Essential in business, managing access rights is a guarantee of confidentiality. It allows you to Define access to information for each employee. The creation or modification of calendar events may thus be subject to a specific right of access.

How do you choose the right shared agenda for your team?

While a shared agenda is rich in advantages and functionalities, you should not throw yourself at the first software that comes along. You need to assess your needs and select the most appropriate agenda for your team. To do this, you need to consider a few criteria and important steps.

• Assess your needs: First of all, list your goals in detail. Identify the features your team needs and the preferences of your employees.
• Compare features: Then check out the features offered by different shared calendars and compare them. For example, reminders, access rights management and software integrations should be studied carefully.
• Check the ergonomics of the tool: It is essential that the agenda is simple and pleasant to use. A modern graphical interface will encourage the adoption of the tool by team members.
• Stay safe: The security of corporate data and the confidentiality of user data must be optimal. For example, the tool must comply with the GDPR and, if possible, have data encryption functionalities.
• Try different solutions: Before making your choice, take the time to compare several diaries by taking advantage of the trial versions. This is the best way to check the adequacy between the tool and your employees.

If you want to encourage teamwork within your department or company, the acquisition and use of a shared calendar software solution is essential. So you will be able to better communicate, plan and coordinate group activities. Finally, remember that by integrating employees into the tool selection process, you ensure faster adoption of the software you want to deploy.