A Gmelius review for global teams

Whether it’s a tech startup or a well-established company, flexibility has become a true asset for employees and their collaborators. With the ability to work from anywhere, teams have looked for tools and features that enhance communication, keep accountability and organize the workflow. Through this Gmelius review, we will explore one of these tools and how it works.

According to an industry report, global teams and flexible work schedules have been on the rise for the past few years. In fact, 54% of decision makers predict a geographic spread of talent within their companies. 

This is aligned with a few issues companies face: the need for 24/7 customer support, case studies directed towards different markets, partners across the globe and the search for a more inclusive and diverse team culture.

With this new form of team building, a few concerns arise. What does a digital, fully global workspace look like? Which tools can be implemented to make it more efficient? How can a team be more productive even when working asynchronously?

In this article, you’ll learn more about these challenges, find a review of Gmelius, one of the tools global teams can use and a few alternatives.

What do teams need to grow?

With the rise of global teams, there are a few important steps to take when establishing your workflow. From being able to assign tasks to each other to setting up a good emailing system, the companies that know how to grow can create a better environment for their collaborators – which, in turn, creates a more efficient team.

A clear inbox

This is one of the key aspects of a healthy workspace. Inboxes can get cluttered fast, especially when you use your email for helpdesk or client management. A good customer support team, for instance, needs to stay fully updated on incoming messages, to avoid confusion on the other side and create an environment where queries are answered quickly.

But this issue isn’t exclusive to customer support. An HR department, especially one that oversees people across the globe, needs to have an easier inbox so that they can follow up concerns, manage hiring, set up training and organize the onboarding process.

Task management

Another key point for remote global teams is knowing who is responsible for what. Given that a lot of people work across time zones, it’s important to let your team know what tasks are being done and by whom.

So the ideal workspace includes a task management system, which allows people to view the progress and organize their deadlines accordingly.

Easy-to-find references

When you’re working remotely, you might need to find a file or guide that another team member has worked on in the past. If the workspace isn’t well-organized, you run the risk of having to browse through a lot of different folders – or even losing the information entirely. This causes delays and isn’t really efficient for the company.

For example, if the sales team needs an email template of your FAQ to send clients, where is it? Knowing what to look for and where is one of the main time savers in the workplace.

What is Gmelius?

With these concerns in mind, Gmelius is a Gmail extension that can be installed into your browser. It connects to your Gmail account and turns it into a digital workspace with tools like a shared inbox, task management, email assignments and more. 

Let’s review Gmelius:

A review of Gmelius installation process

The first step to add Gmelius to your Gmail account is to access gmelius.com and click on the “Sign up with Google” button. It will redirect you to a new window to set up the account.

After that, Gmelius will ask you which email address should the shared inbox be for. You can pick between a regular Gmail address or a Google Group. Then, give the shared inbox a name and share it with your team.

From there, the process is pretty straightforward: every email that comes into this account is visible to all team members, who can manage the tasks associated with it and reply to messages from this account.

Gmelius review: the pros

One of the main features of Gmelius is transforming emails into tasks. Then, sorting them into a board. You can customize your task board according to your project management needs. A To-Do x In-progress board, for instance. This allows users to move the cards as steps are completed. Everyone can follow the progress, even those who aren’t directly involved.

That way, users can stay in the loop. Everyone understands the bigger picture when it comes to team projects and deadlines. 

Your boards can be accessed right from your Gmail inbox. Just find the Gmelius icon on the left menu. Then, customize it to your team’s needs.

Tip: Gmelius allows users to instantly send a message to a board. Just click on the top-right menu directly from the inbox.

Another pro is that managers can use Gmelius to enhance their delegation process. It’s easy to assign an email to someone else. Click the “Assign to user” button on the top-right menu. Then, find the user you need to pick up the task.

To make it easier, Gmelius allows users to set up automations. Immediately assign messages containing specific words or from specific addresses to an user. Turn emails into tasks instantly and add them to a board. Filter customer support messages and send an automated reply.

Gmelius review: the cons

This review of Gmelius’ features found a lot of features that help companies create a better workspace setup. But there are a few concerns surrounding this tool. So to understand why Gmelius might not be the ideal solution for your needs, keep reading.

Duplicated emails

The main concern around Gmelius is its shared inbox capabilities. While a shared inbox allows multiple users to access the same inbox from their own Gmail accounts, cutting down on context-switching, it should keep said emails right into this account.

With Gmelius, they are sent to the shared account and to allowed users. That means emails are duplicated and can be forwarded and replied to from other accounts on your team.

This is a cause for concern because if a user replies or forwards from their own email account, it won’t automatically be shared with everyone else. That is, the conversation keeps going, but the team isn’t in the loop. The consequence is loss of context, miscommunication and lack of clarity around what tasks are being done and by whom.

Card systems

When you use Gmelius, you can add tasks as cards to your boards, then move them across the columns. But there are a couple of missing tools, like adding notes to these tasks, uploading files on them and merging cards when they aren’t needed.

Without these tools, your boards can get cluttered pretty fast, which can be confusing, so your team needs to clean them up manually as they go.

Label confusion

A key aspect of Gmelius is that it relies on Gmail labels to work. Task assignments and management is done through the label system that users already know, but this causes a specific concern: what happens to other Gmail labels?

AKA, when you need to use labels to actually filter your incoming messages, they won’t work well with the Gmelius system. 

A review of Gmelius alternatives

Through this review of Gmelius’ features, users might have found a few tools that will help their global teams, no matter the department or concerns, work better. With a good task management system going on, your team won’t have to focus on decluttering or updating each other. Instead, they will focus on actually getting to work on their specialties. 

Here are a few alternatives to Gmelius you might want to check out:

Project management software

If you are interested in creating boards to organize your projects, there are a few alternatives. With tools like Trello and Asana, you can create custom boards and follow different project management systems to understand what works for your team.

Gmail filters

Gmail, in itself, can be a very useful tool for project management. Through Gmail labels, you can create your own rules. For instance, if you receive invoices from your freelancers, you probably need to send them to your accounting team. So you could set up a filter for emails with the subject “Invoice” and add a rule that they will be forwarded to the accountant’s address.

DragApp

Drag is a Gmelius alternative that allows users to work together no matter where they are. It turns Gmail into a Team Workspace so that team scan manage multiple workflows directly from their inbox.

A shared inbox extension can be the ideal digital workspace for remote teams. Including tools like task management, email assignments, file sharing and much more, Drag is built right into your Gmail inbox. With an intuitive interface, you can use Drag to enhance your team’s productivity and workflow.