Are you a multitasker and are you currently a part of several groups? Are you frustrated by the countless amount of time and effort spent in reading group emails, Facebook group updates, phone calls, and text messages? Do you want a solution to ease your frustration and facilitate better group collaboration?
That was what the folks at Cornell University thought. So they sat down, dumped all their thoughts, time and technical expertise into a magic pot, said “abracadabra”, and out came Wiggio. Or so it seams. Wiggo is an easy to use, full-fledged web solution for group collaboration, one that just might be what you need to make your team collaboration really work without overwhelming everyone.
Signing Up
Easy and Free
Wiggio touts itself as the easiest and free way to work in groups. With an impressive list of features, Wiggio can help you manage everything your group could need. From conference calls to to-do lists, polls to text messages, there’s hardly a thing you could think of that’s not included in Wiggio. For free! That’s definitely impressive, right from the start.
Inside Wiggio
After a simple signup, you will be taken to your home page consisting of a tabbed dashboard. The Wiggio dashboard is neatly organized and easy to use even for a less tech savvy user. The tabbed dashboard has three views.
- Feed View: This is the default view. It lists all the activities of your groups. You can filter the feeds as per each group. The Feed View also allows you to start a conversation with your group, reply to posts and attach files, links, etc to your conversations.
- Calendar View: View your event schedules via the Calendar View. Click on a day to get a detailed view on that date. Filter your schedules by group.
- Folder View: Lists the files and links added to a group.
The Three Views
You can choose to specify your mobile number in your profile so that you will be able to receive text messages from your group members. To do this Click on “Manage Profile” and specify your mobile number and cellular carrier. I was disappointed that this facility is not applicable in India as Indian cellular carriers are not listed, but then, it’s rather common for web apps to target the US market.
Features
Wiggio comes bundled with a plethora of features that provides you with everything you would need for group collaboration. Let’s take a look at each of them.
Create Groups
The first thing that you would do in Wiggio is create a group. To do this,
- Click “Create Group”.
- Specify your group name, password and notification preferences and click “Create”. Wiggio creates a group email address and web address for your group.
- Select the category of your group.
Once you’ve created a group you can invite people to join your group. Wiggio allows you to invite members by specifying their e mail addresses manually, invite your Facebook friends or import from your mail or a spreadsheet document. You can also paste the group invitation link wherever you want to. As if this isn’t enough, Wiggio goes an extra mile by allowing you to create subgroups for each group.
Create Group
File Upload and Sharing
Imagine your group is working on a report. Rather than opt for a traditional and tedious way of sending and receiving your report document via e mail, you can upload your report document to Wiggio which can be accessed and edited by your group members. Wiggio also allows you to create text documents and spreadsheets online. Your uploaded files can be accessed from the Folder View where you can organize them into sub-folders, just as you’d expect. It’s perhaps not as simple as Dropbox and not as featured-filled as Google Docs, but seeing as it’s integrated with all the rest of your collaboration suite, it’s a handy feature.
Files, files, and more files
Schedule Meetings
One of the best features of Wiggio, and one that sets it apart from others, is the ability set up conference calls, virtual meetings and chatrooms. For conference calls, Wiggio uses Rondee, a free conference call service. You can also create private text chatrooms between multiple participants. Combine these together with other enhancements such as video and audio conferencing, sharing your screen with other participants in a conference and you’ve got yourself a Virtual Meeting. Then, much like GTalk or Campfire, Wiggio lets you search through your chat history, so your conversations won’t be forgotten the second you’ve said goodbye.
Private Chatroom
To Do Lists
Wiggio acts as an excellent group task manager. You can create and manage To Do Lists via Wiggio to keep track of assignments, tasks and milestones. Using the To Do Lists, you can easily assign tasks to individuals in your group, set due dates, etc. Wiggio may not be a big player in terms of project management like other websites destined for that purpose, but it is more than enough for managing small projects.
Easy Task Management
Wiggio Poll
A feature that I like in Wiggio is the ability to create polls. Wiggio polls can be used to gather opinions from group members on a particular topic, take a survey, etc. Wiggio allows you to create polls consisting of three types of questions, viz, Yes/No questions, Multiple Choice questions, Open Response questions. You can invite an entire group to take part in the poll or invite specific members within and outside a group.
Wiggio Poll
Events
If you want to hold a meeting or a party, you can schedule it via Wiggio. Wiggio serves as an easy way to invite people to your events. Combine it with a Wiggio Poll and you can schedule a group meeting based on their feedback. Event scheduling configuration options include specifying date and time, remainder options, etc.
Event Scheduling
Wiggio Message Utility
You can use Wiggio to send messages to your friends via text messages or e mails. You can also record an audio or video message and send it via Wiggio. You need to give your mobile number in your profile to be able to receive the text messages send by your Wiggio group members.
Final Thoughts
Wiggio is an excellent tool for group collaboration. While it may not perform better at a specific task as other web apps dedicated for that task, as a whole, Wiggio is worth trying out and certainly easy to use. It puts everything together in one place, and the time you’ll save by not having to jump back and forth between different apps just might seal the deal.