Monday.com is an online work management platform and collaboration tool. It is a web-based application that can also be accessed on mobile devices, but with so many workstations and cloud-based collaboration tools on the market, what makes Monday.com stand out?
Some say that Monday.com is nothing more than a web-based spreadsheet – something like Google Sheets or Microsoft Excel. But, although there are similarities, Monday.com offers much more than these basic platforms, including analytical tools and collaboration networks.
Those familiar with work management tools might also be familiar with Asana and Airtable that feature many of the same services and integrations. In this review, you will get an overview of Monday.com and some insight into how it out-competes similar software solutions.
Table of Contents
What is Monday.com?
In short, Monday.com is cloud-based workflow management software that allows companies and freelancers to organize their content, schedules, and collaborations.
Monday.com can be accessed as a web or mobile application, and there’s a paid premium following a free trial.
Although Monday.com looks like a sophisticated project management tool – which it is – the technology behind it is commonplace. The Monday.com platform could be described as a user-friendly version of Google Sheets or Microsoft excel. But Monday.com offers a lot more.
Instead of spending time learning the basics of sheets or excel, Monday.com provides a simple user-friendly interface that can be learned quickly by anyone. In addition, the platform offers a wide range of features and applications for different industries and freelancers, including CRM.
Advantages of Monday.com
Monday.com has similarities to Google Sheets and Microsoft Excel, but the comparisons are somewhat unfair because Monday.com is more focused on user experience and understands its target audience better than the big two. It also provides analytical features.
With Monday.com, you use boards rather than sheets. These boards can be constantly tracked, feeding you real-time information of projects, collaboration, and results. So as well as being an organizational tool, Monday.com is also a digital workspace with analytical capabilities.
Monday.com is also fully customizable, an important aspect of any modern collaborative platform. It’s not enough to use generic templates anymore; companies have to tailor their projects to specific aims and objectives, something that’s made possible by Monday.com.
Disadvantages of Monday.com
Monday.com offers companies and freelancers a full suite of services to streamline and integrate their projects and collaboration processes. That said, there are some drawbacks to using this platform exclusively. For one thing, there is a lack of integration with third parties.
If you want to sync up your Monday.com calendar with Outlook, for instance, there might be some issues, but it does link up well with Google calendars. But if you’re a Microsoft user, you can expect better results in future updates as more Monday.com integration is expected.
Another drawback that’s worth flagging up is the pricing and plans available at Monday.com. Initially, you can expect a free 14-day trial, which is useful; however, 14 days might not be enough time to learn the skills required to get the most from the platform.
Monday.com Pricing and Plans
In some ways, the Monday.com pricing and plans are fairly standard and reasonable, but there are some issues around pricing that it’s helpful to be aware of. The Monday.com journey begins by signing up to the platform and agreeing to a 14-day free trial – no credit card is required.
At the end of your trial, you will have to sign up for one of the Monday.com plans. These plans are part of a complex pricing rubric that you will have to navigate and decide on the most optimal one for your business. Prices depend on the size of your team, along with service tiers.
Monday.com has a slightly different approach to pricing than other web applications. Since Monday.com is a collaborative platform, it deals with teams more than individuals; this is reflected in the pricing, which offers different plans based on the number of team members.
Getting started with Monday.com
When you arrive on the Monday.com signup page, you will be asked to select from a palette of options relating to your aims for the platform. At this point, you can be as narrow or as broad as you like, but remember, the choices you make affect the optimization of the website for teams.
Once you have entered your email address and selected your purposes, you will receive a welcome email and an email confirmation. Your free 14-day trial has begun, and it’s now possible to use the platform freely; you will have to select a plan when the trial period ends.
Monday.com is all about using boards to create calendars, schedules, and collaborative workstations. Although the platform takes some time to master, you can get the gist of it quickly and invite other team members to join, helping you organize complex tasks easily.
Notable Features on the Platform
After you have signed up and got your first taste of Monday.com, it’s time to experiment with some of the obvious features and others that are less noticeable. At first, you will encounter a spreadsheet-like default board. This offers a calendar view or a map view for navigation.
Since Monday.com is focused on collaboration, it offers plants of options to communicate with team members. Within a panel, for instance, you can chat with colleagues about the panel or the project. You can also post updates, leave comments, and have full conversations in chats.
One often overlooked feature of Monday.com is its integration and automation capacity. Monday.com allows users to connect to over fifty external apps, including Slack, Outlook, Gmail, and lots more, meaning you can move information effortlessly across channels.
CRM Features
CRM stands for customer relationship management, which is a platform used to organize interactions and relationships with customers. While Monday.com is not a dedicated CRM, it does offer many of the functions of a CRM, and in many ways, it’s indistinguishable from one.
One function of a CRM is to analyze and track customer data and interactions to improve the performance of the business and increase customer satisfaction. Monday.com achieve this by using an analytical dashboard that tracks and records patterns in data and provides results.
Monday.com is also useful to growing businesses and larger businesses as well as startups and freelancers. The software has a tier system that allows businesses to adapt their CRM functionality based on enterprise. That said, Monday.com is fundamentally project-driven.
Work Flow and Project Management
A distinction can be made between work management and project management; web apps and cloud-based apps tend to fall into one camp or the other. However, there are often overlaps and grey areas around these classifications, and it can be hard to identify the location of a platform.
This is undoubtedly the case with Monday.com. The platform is wide open when it comes to practical applications, so why should companies decide on Monday.com rather than a platform that’s more focused on their industry requirements? But the choice might be a simple one.
In fact, Monday.com has more in common with a work management tool than a project management platform. Project management platforms tend to have a start and end date and are focused solely on target projects. Monday.com is far more flexible and integrated than that.
Overall Viability
As a work management platform, Monday.com has a lot to offer. It is simple to set up and offers a 14-day free trial to help you learn the ropes. Some might say 14-days isn’t quite enough to learn the basic settings, but most people have an idea of its viability at the end of this term.
Monday.com offers users a full suite of services to suit any business. While the choice can seem somewhat overwhelming at first, it is appreciated after finding what you’re looking for. Many of the services offered on Monday.com are basic, but many add value to projects.
A further advantage to using Monday.com is the integration and automation of the platform that is second to none. So naturally need to integrate third-party applications with your work management platform nowadays, and Monday.com allows you to connect with over fifty.
Final Thoughts
If you need a work management tool for your SML business, you could do a lot worse than signing up to Monday.com. The free trial gives you full access to all the Monday.com tools so you can quickly optimize the platform to your team and communication strategy.
It’s worth taking this step even if you are still to be convinced by Monday.com. In the end, you will only get a convincing idea of its viability if you sign up for it wholesale. While the pricing plans won’t suit everyone, Monday.com offers some excellent value-added features for its price.