Samepage

Opmerkingen: We were founding a young competitive sailing team. We knew that we would be a small team of people from many different places, who are already busy with tight agendas. Next to a young core team, there would be others of different background and age involved which could fluctuate. Nevertheless all need to work together and do all required tasks in order to realize a successful sailing season.
Therefore we needed a platform that would enable us to collaborate from any place, provides structural flexibility and agility, is easy to use and manages tasks - Sampage!
Since more than 6 months Samepage is our reliable Digital Mate and a great enrichment for the entire team. Although it can't sail, this special team member gives us support where ever we are and at any time. It is always up to date, reminds us for events and what tasks we have to do, documents everything relevant and liaise with all team members and externals and is also a competent knowledge base.
Samepage is focused on the essential functionalities with not much distraction, which makes it easy to get along with. With its many useful skills, almost no further tool/platform is required. Hence it enables and promotes an efficient workflow, such that we can spent more time on the most important part: Sailing!
Like all of in our team, Samepage also has areas to improve on. However, from our experience it is doing a great job in developing itself further to become a better professional – as we are too!

Pluspunten: Samepage allows different ways of how the work environment/team is set-up and we first had to find our own best way to use Sampage. This usually clarifies during the working process as the "Team"/"Sub-Team" and "Page" structure offers high flexibility and can always be adapted to meet exactly the current needs. This agility is great for start-ups, project groups and all kind of smaller NGO's.
Samepage helped us to get organized and to gain a clear overview over our activities (Trainings, Races, Maintenance, Partnerships, Finances...). Everyone can see what the current state of the project is and how everyone is progressing with their individual tasks. Due to its availability on mobile devices and with the built-in communication features, it makes it super easy to hold meetings via audio/video and assign tasks to relevant persons. The pages with live collaboration feature, allows us to work together and get work done directly. Other members can join working at the same time or take over the work at a later point. The full time availability makes it possible for everyone to work on the project, whenever it fits best.
As our team was changing and growing, Samepage showed nicely how easy members can be managed, how scalable it is and to for growing teams. and possible to only get relevant people involved.
There are steadily coming more improvements and new functionalities, which shows that feedback is taken seriously and benefits all users.

Minpunten: As Samepage can be used in so many different ways, it may be hard for new team members to get used to the established structure. The full functionalities, are sometimes a bit hidden and need to be explored. If there would be more template pages, in which all functionalities appear, users would know better what features there are and how to use them.
Although the desktop application is very self-explaining and easy to use, the mobile version is not as clear and handy. It is hard to get an overview and the navigation not very intuitive - one can easily get lost in too many layers when dealing with larger team or project structures.
It would be nice to trace where a person is working on (which "Team", "page" or file), just by clicking on a persons icon. If multiple people are working on the same page this is possible, however during a conference when everyone is working on different things, it is often hard to follow with what a person is dealing exactly and it is annoying to tell the exact path.
Having mentioned conferences: it is nice that Samepage has already included a audio/video function. WIth few participants it really works fine, but as soon the amount of people gets above 4 the quality drops. It gets very difficult to understand and follow each other. For external participants or new team members it may be handy to get an indication of who is talking right now.

Opmerkingen: I am still using SamePage even though I've moved on to a different job. I'm still a digital nomad and I find it's accountability features to be unparalleled with any other collaboration program. I got my new company to adopt SamePage rather than the crap program they were using and we're all better for it! Thanks SamePage!

Pluspunten: Most of the organizational products out there are a little difficult to navigate at first. It's hard to argue tho. In order for them to get us organized it takes a little work to understand their features. I can say with all honesty that SamePage was the easiest to understand right away. After playing with it for about 15 minutes I considered myself a SamePage pro. The best way to experience all SamePage has to offer is to create a practice group. Just a heads up! I'm a digital nomad. I work on the road and never go into a home office. I needed a program wherein I could prove to my bosses I was working and give them opportunities to chime in on what was going on--to redirect me at their discretion. Mission Accomplished with SamePage. I created weekly to do lists that listed my appointments and goals. I was able to attach pictures and documents with ease that supported my work. Once I added my supriors to the group they had access 24 hours a day to what I was doing. I never had to send them anything. It was always there for them to drop in and check at any time, any day of the week. I was able to track my progress on goals and todo's and so were they. Just ideal for a digital nomad like me!

Minpunten: There really weren't any cons. It took me a little while to figure out how to add documents. It's all a part of the on-ramping process so it wasn't that big of a deal.