Every business strives for improving its efficiency, since that’s the key to success. Modern online productivity programs serve to reach what we need and turn truly effective. These days such digital software is extremely sought after. Thus, it would make sense to develop a time management and productivity framework to benefit from it.
But first things first, so let’s explore what those solutions are.
What a time management framework means
In the overall, time management is the process of smart distribution of hours to achieve a specific goal. Previously, we used to have only paper planners to arrange our activities, and nowadays we’re happy to take advantage of dedicated online resources. Those systems serve as convenient time management means helping us work efficiently, prioritizing tasks properly.
There exist many great platforms to manage your time and increase productivity. We shall enumerate the best online services:
- Trello represents a helpful tracker to handle projects of different types, say, business, social, or creative. It includes multiple working tools, including gamification elements. Both, free and paid functionalities are available. Kickstarter, National Geographic, and other top-level organizations are happy to enjoy Trello.
- Todoist allows prioritizing tasks by colors, grouping all missions into smaller projects and subprojects, attaching files, sending notifications, adding comments, and the like.
- Asana is a program that works online and offline. It provides advanced searching of a certain project, easy and fast access to to-do lists, convenient inclusion of new tasks and ideas, etc.
To ensure time management software undertakes its tasks, it shall provide particular features.
Key functionalities of productivity platforms
# Panel for users
Below are the functions that will be truly useful for individuals who apply an app, regardless of their purposes – business or personal ones:
- Profiles. As usual, personal accounts shall include information on a specific user, say, age, experience, likes, social status, etc.
- Boards. This section can have a different name. The point is to create a successful app you need to provide the audience with a particular workspace for each ongoing project. There should be a possibility to make several spaces like that.
- Tasks. Every task must have labels, status, deadlines, responsible person, descriptions, attached files, comments, etc.
- Calendar. It’s mandatory to include. A particular calendar mode shall allow clients to check all tasks and analyze their productivity.
- Time trackers. The audience will need tools to log in time they spend to complete a specific task in order to evaluate the speed and effectiveness of their work.
- Notification system. Users will appreciate reminders on approaching deadlines, additional tasks they receive, possible feedback they get, and the like.
- Support. Clients might face certain challenges while using time management solutions, thus, the support team shall be available and easily reached.
# Panel for admins
After having distinguished the key features for regular employees, we shall review what parameters are vital for users having higher access levels – the admins:
- Tools to manage users. Admins shall be able to add new users, delete irrelevant audiences, assign specific responsibility levels to different users, etc.
- Means to control subscriptions and payments. Dealing with sensitive financial transfers, high-level security must be ensured.
- Archive access. Archiving tools are widely applied, so admins shall have access to those archived files and instruments to handle them.
- Support. Admins can also face certain difficulties, so the possibility to contact the support team and get helped is critical as well.
# Integrations
A decent productivity framework shall provide the possibility to integrate required 3rd party systems. For instance, Trello which we’ve mentioned earlier integrates with MailChimp, Evernote, GitHub, Slack, Google Drive, Dropbox, and Typeform. That’s the reason why it’s so wanted.
# Multi-language support
That’s the key to attract wider audience. However, you can start with one language only and add other options one by one.
# Functioning offline
Users shall definitely appreciate the possibility to apply a time management program when the Internet connection is down or unavailable. A part of data could be stored on a particular device, thus, clients will be capable of viewing their boards and tasks at any time anywhere.
Moving on, let’s find out how time management software makes money.
Monetizing productivity services
Every app is built to bring money to its owners. We shall explore what options you have to keep your audience happy and to drive revenue.
Light & Pro
Here we’re talking about applying a freemium model and the subscription options. Those two means have something in common: your platform provides a cost-free (Light) package with limited productivity features, and a payment required (Pro) version when all advanced functionalities are available.
Trials
The provided approach means that users obtain the full access to all features with no charges applied. However, such an offer lasts only limited time (it’s usually 1-3 months). After that period clients have to subscribe or leave the resource.
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The mentioned option isn’t very popular for time management solutions, but still, it could be applied successfully. For instance, it could be combined with freemium strategies, when users will need to pay to take advantage of great parameters without any ads.
In-app purchasing
Obviously, productivity frameworks have nothing to do with game services with their great in-app purchases. Nevertheless, you still can come up with the creative implementation of such a monetizing option. For example, Trello’s audience can enjoy a rich gallery of backgrounds for their boards, and the greatest variants require payments.
As you may assume, there exist many decent time management and productivity programs. Thus, every system tries to stand out from the crowd to attract a large number of users. Here are some tips on how to be different.
Read More: An Eye on the Environment: 8 Benefits of Visitor Management Systems
Ideas to differ from similar productivity apps
In case you’re building your own time management online resource, we would advise you to take a closer look at the tips below:
- make functionalities and interface easy-to-use and intuitive;
- your productivity software shall operate with different operating systems;
- together with standard features, your time management platform should provide one-of-a-kind possibilities, that no other similar app has;
- it must be helpful and able to solve users’ real problems;
- your audience will trust you, so make sure you protect their personal data properly;
- it’s critical to establish wise marketing strategies using social networks and keeping in touch with clients;
- keep the UI modern, adaptive, and appealing.
If you consider the above points while designing your productivity solution, you’ll come up with a truly unique and valuable service, and your audience will enjoy it.
