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5 ways chat topics streamline your team’s workflow

Typetalk Staff

Typetalk Staff

May 16, 2018

Chat apps can sometimes be a contentious subject. Often, these helpful tools are used incorrectly, which usually means one of two scenarios: people are using them too much or not enough.

If underutilized, it can feel like these apps don’t hold anything important. If overutilized (without proper organization), it can feel impossible to find what you need. However, you can avoid both of these scenarios with a simple feature: chat topics.

Chat topics keep your conversations focused and organized. They make it easy to search for relevant information. And you can decide which topics to attend to regularly and which to ignore, freeing up valuable time.

While its value may often be simplified or overlooked, chat topics are key in streamlining workflows and enhancing team cohesion. Here are the ways chat topics help.

Chat topics keep your information organized and accessible

The daily workday throws a lot at us. From meetings to working sessions to constantly changing task lists, your headspace is flooded with priorities throughout the day. This balancing act is sure to lead to even the most important details slipping our minds on occasion.

Chat topics eliminate this worry. By keeping information in dedicated topics, you have a searchable database of information you can refer to when completing tasks. You can readily recall conversations and attachments by simply scrolling through your topic or searching for certain keywords.

If all of your conversations happen in one topic, it’s much more difficult to revisit old information. For this type of easy searching to take place, your team needs multiple topics with their own dedicated subjects. You can further organize conversations with threading, talks, and mentions that keep everyone in the loop and up to date.

Establishing your topics is the first step; you also need to make sure your teams only discuss relevant conversations when chatting in these topics. Don’t be afraid to tell someone to take a conversation to a different topic if it starts to veer, or your chat app could easily become a distraction.

Chat apps keep conversations focused

With numerous projects running simultaneously, it’s no surprise that teams lose track of their chat conversations. Without focused topics, you end up with a barrage of unrelated requests, general discussions, and gifs. Continuing a logical conversation becomes impossible.

However, chat topics keep conversations focused, as long as you hold yourself and your team members accountable for to adhering to the theme of each chat. Side conversations can go into direct messages, fun conversations can have their own topic, and all other work should take place in a dedicated area.

If you find that your conversation doesn’t fit into a current topic, make a new one! Invite only necessary members. Everyone will appreciate your dedication to not sidetracking other topics.

Chat topics keep your work secure

We’ve all made the mistake of forwarding an email chain with information that properly shouldn’t have been privy to the new recipients. With chat topics, all the information in your app is safe and secure. You can clearly vet information through discussions in your chat topics before sending out any emails.

If your chat app is cloud-based, you can also rest easy knowing these programs are secured by top-notch data centers for trusted web hosting. Through strict security measures, your information is protected by your chat app at all costs.

With a quality app, your data is treated with care. All information is backed up, so even if a catastrophic event happens, your workflow won’t be halted. With multiple data centers and 24/7 security, your team can work at all times with the assurance that they are supported by a quality chat app.

Chat apps enhance team management and unity

Chat apps allow teams to easily manage new and old members. Adding and subtracting names to a project is as simple as clicking a button. And while building them into the culture takes a bit more work, chat apps and their informative topics certainly help.

When bringing someone new on board, they will have immediate access to the history of the project. This saves valuable time you would otherwise dump into compiling scattered emails, attachments, and shared docs. As they start working, these long-standing logs of information can quickly help them fill in informational gaps they come across.

App integrations streamline work

Chat apps continue to make your workday more efficient with helpful app integrations. Instead of alternating between your team’s preferred apps for documents, file sharing, Internet hosting and much more, bring it all into your chat topics.

Additional API integrations make it easy to post messages from other apps or vice-versa. You can also create your own bots thanks to open APIs and Webhooks to deploy code or even tell you the weather. Bots are especially helpful with system alerts and social media management where notifications can be more useful than typical social media suites.

By integrating your favorite team apps under one roof, you continue to push for the most optimized, efficient team possible.

See the benefits for yourself

The benefits of chat topics and apps are immense. Together, they keep teams focused, informed, and productive.

By keeping information aligned and easy to sort, you can save time while hitting deadlines. With API integrations, top-notch security, and other excellent features, teams can work anytime from any device.

Additionally, organized chat topics make the free flow of information less overwhelming. Team members can feel encouraged to let their personality show a bit through off-topic channels and the occasional gif. At the end of the day, chat topics aren’t just good for efficiency, they’re good for morale.

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