In a new era of working from home, teams must find ways to collaborate online more effectively to meet project demands. But with team members scattered all over the world, managing projects together becomes a challenge. 

If your team does not efficiently organize incoming projects, you can expect inbox clutter, poor project management, and time lost from disorganized processes. To help teams collaborate more efficiently on projects, here are some email management tips to streamline project workflows.

Email Management Tips 

Email project management helps teams and managers collaborate better through their inboxes. However, as client requests come pouring in, teams need to have a successful plan to tackle workload and easily organize projects. 

Here are our top five email management tips to streamline your team’s project workflows.

1. Use a Collaborative Shared Inbox

More than likely, every project begins with an email. Thus begins the arduous process of countless emails and endless Cc’ing and forwarding. If too many team members get involved in a chain of email threads, the project management process becomes difficult.

Enter shared inboxes. Shared inboxes are a solution for companies to help manage large sums of emails coming in at once so multiple team members can address incoming emails together. 

Traditional shared inboxes have limitations. Either too many people respond to the same email, or emails go unanswered because team members assume someone else has replied. 

A collaborative shared inbox takes the features of a traditional shared inbox to the next level. For example, teams can tag colleagues, leave notes, and assign emails as tasks to turn email management into an effective project management tool. 

2. Schedule Efficiently 

Schedule coordination is critical to ensure deadlines are met and tasks remain on track. If your team uses Google Calendar, teams can view each other’s availability to carve out time to discuss project details and coordinate assignments. 

For teams that operate remotely or with a hybrid model, video conferencing tools such as Google Meet are a part of your daily schedule.  

Gmelius, an email collaboration and communication tool for Gmail, offers integration options that combine Google Calendar with Meet. Teams can insert their availability into an email with an auto-populated Google Meet meeting link. 

Gmelius also offers a meeting scheduler tool native to Gmail to help teams share their calendar availability to expedite the scheduling process and eliminate the potential for rescheduling or canceling meetings. 

3. Utilize Organization Tools for Email 

Teams can utilize email folders and labels to address incoming emails for better organization effectively. If a team has multiple emails regarding one project, emails can be categorized into a folder or label with the proper name pertaining to the assignment. Teams assigned to the project will have one folder to work out to view all requests. 

Applying filters and using labels and notes can help separate emails into the appropriate categories to declutter your inbox allowing teams to have more time to focus on projects. 

4. Use Visual Project Management Tools 

As emails come pouring in regarding a project, your team may have trouble delegating tasks. A project management tool presents tasks in a visual format so team members can: 

• view assignments at a glance 
• assign and delegate tasks 
• track project status and progress
• collaborate via one platform 
  

Kanban boards are a visual project management solution that helps employees organize emails into tasks divided into columns and color-coded for maximum efficiency. Team members can physically see their tasks and move a project from “in progress” to “completed”. 

Gmelius offers Kanban boards for Gmail so that any email conversation can be transformed into a task and managed visually. 

Team members can delegate task cards to specific teammates, add sub-tasks, priority levels, and tags for clarity. With a Kanban board, a project manager will see that each task within the campaign is assigned and is on track or falling behind. This project management method prevents potential mistakes and delayed timelines, and helps streamline workflow.

Rather than enter a separate platform to discuss project matters, teams can assign emails directly from Gmail to their Kanban board. Teams can ask questions within a task card to eliminate reaching out on another platform. Managers can see what projects are pending and who is assigned what to have better visibility on important projects. 

5. Automate Workflow

Automation can help projects stay on track by streamlining the gruntwork. For example, 

• if utilizing a shared inbox, teams can set rules and adjust settings to automatically send or assign emails and tasks to appropriate team members.
• emails can be set to send to folders or Gmail labels, so project requests remain organized. 
• reminders can be generated, so teams never lose track of when the next project meeting is. 
• teams can automate Kanban Board workflows by automatically assigning specific tasks or emails to team members.

Email Collaboration Tool for Team Projects 

A stable project workflow can help your team members stay agile. Gmelius offers valuable project management solutions to bridge the gap between emails and projects to save time and maximize productivity. 

Juggling multiple tasks is a necessity when managing projects. Gmelius simplifies this barrier by allowing teams to work from one platform within Gmail instead of shifting back and forth between applications. 

Does your team use Slack or Trello to manage projects?  Gmelius offers unique two-way integration with popular project management tools such as Slack and Trello.

With Gmelius, teams can import Trello boards inside Gmail or turn a personal inbox, shared inbox, or a Gmail label into a Kanban board and sync it with Trello.

Reduce the time it takes to communicate by using Gmelius’ Slack integration tool. Teams can integrate shared inboxes and Gmail labels, collaborate on email conversations, add internal notes to email threads, change email statuses, assign emails, and even reply to emails—all without leaving Slack.

Team collaboration on projects remains at the top of the many challenges companies face using a remote or hybrid model. Let Gmelius simplify the process by including our top 5 email management tips in your strategy to streamline company projects and build better communication and collaboration efforts for your teams. 

Check out our features and integrations and learn how Gmelius is built to improve team communication and collaboration. Ready to get started? Sign up today!

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