When’s the last time you ran a project that didn’t involve some type of software tool? High school? 

Project management tools keep us organized, productive, and collaborative. They’re the means by which we execute tasks, assign work, and get our most important initiatives across the finish line. And now, with so many people around the world working remotely, it’s hard to imagine getting anything done without them.

But sometimes the software tools meant to help us stay organized and productive actually create new challenges and blockers which slow down project execution — especially when not everybody is using the same tool.So how can you hit project deadlines while working across tools and teams? Teamwork and Unito offer the perfect solution.

If you use Teamwork, you’re already ahead of the pack when it comes to project execution. You can quickly create tasks, exchange updates and feedback, and see at a glance what’s on track and what’s falling behind. 

But the biggest projects in your business tend to involve the most stakeholders. With more cooks in the kitchen, you’re bound to run into different styles and tools. So while you’re trying to manage the project from your Teamwork project, your collaborators are doing the same from Jira, GitHub, or Trello.

While everyone should be able to use the tools best suited to their specific needs, when it comes to cross-functional projects this can create time-consuming hiccups:

  • Key project information is distributed across multiple tools. This creates tool silos that slow things to a crawl. The average employee spends about eight hours each week just locating information. All of that time spent searching for things could be spent actually completing tasks. Worse, by the time you find what you were looking for, it might already be outdated or incorrect.

  • Project stakeholders need to communicate on third party channels. In the current work environment, this tends to lead to endless email chains, constant Slack notifications, or a calendar that’s jam-packed with Zoom meetings.

  • Information silos and poor communication lead to misalignment. Maybe two members of the project team are doubling up on work. Maybe things come to a standstill as everyone waits on approvals. Or maybe you come to the end of the project only to realize it isn’t what your leadership team had in mind. 

There are a few potential solutions to these challenges. You can force everybody onto a single tool, but that’s not ideal for developers or others in specialized roles. You can pay somebody to spend all day copying and pasting information across multiple tools, knowing it’s not the best use of their time. Or, you can find the perfect integration solution. 

When you use Unito to integrate Teamwork with other tools, everybody can work where they’re most productive while still collaborating with other stakeholders. Unito ensures that project information is updated in real-time across every tool in your workflow. Communication — including feedback cycles and approvals — can happen asynchronously within your tasks, reducing the need for meetings. And project managers and business leaders can track progress and maintain alignment from start to finish.

It’s no wonder that 73% of business leaders see ease of integration as one of the top three factors to consider when choosing a project management tool. 

It only takes a few minutes to set up an automated workflow that syncs Teamwork to your other project tools. 

Start by creating your Unito account. There’s a two-week free trial so you can try before you buy.  

Once you’re signed up, you’ll be taken to the visual workflow designer. You can also access the designer by clicking “Create a workflow.”

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From there, click anywhere on the screen to add a block. You’ll be prompted to connect an account, which allows you to select Teamwork from a list of popular work tools.

Log in to your Teamwork account and grant access to Unito.

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Then specify which project you’d like to add to the workflow. 

Repeat the process for your Jira or GitHub repos, Trello boards, or whatever tool you’re connecting to Teamwork.

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Once you’ve added all of your blocks to the designer, drag and drop a line between them to create a flow. Click the plus sign in the middle of the line to customize how information travels between tools. You can set specific field mappings, create rules to filter information and more.

Then save and close to set your workflow in motion!

In just a few clicks you’ve connected all the work tools involved in your project, and that’s only the beginning. With Unito you can map out and organize your most complex workflows, using Teamwork as a hub.

What does this look like in practice? Let’s dive into two common examples.

Anyone who works in an agency has encountered this problem. You land a new client, you’re kicking off a brand new campaign, and you immediately hit a roadblock: they use a different tool.

So, you’re left to negotiate the right approach. Will your team use the client’s tool? Will the client use yours? Or will you both use your own tools and just meet daily or weekly to provide updates? 

None of these options will help you deliver projects quickly and efficiently. They either involve training people to use a brand new tool that may not be suited to their job or spending hours and hours in meetings.

Reimagine your client project workflow with Teamwork and Unito. You can use Teamwork as your project hub, building out all the tasks and tracking their progress. Your updates can then be synced to your client’s tool of choice. Tasks can be assigned and reviewed by all stakeholders in the tool they already use. This means getting real-time updates, faster feedback cycles, and quicker turnaround times. 

Here’s what an agency workflow with Teamwork might look like in Unito:

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Of course, these tool challenges don’t only happen with clients. They’re a regular occurance when working with people outside of your organization. This pain is frequently felt when internal teams seek external support for design or development. 

Designers and software engineers need specialized tools to execute their jobs. They can’t simply swap tools, so they’re often put in a position that requires them to copy and paste information or rely on email, chat, and meetings for updates. 

Building out cross-tool workflows with Unito allows you to keep working out of Teamwork without putting additional strain on external collaborators.

In the case of engineers, version control tools like GitHub and GitLab are essential parts of their toolkit, and they often rely on Jira for project management. You can easily build workflows to triage development requests from Teamwork to Jira, track work as it moves through development sprints, and more. This makes the entire process seamless for both parties, and saves headaches when it comes to information sharing between technical and non-technical teams. And you can build this connection with as many Jira teams or projects as you need.

Here’s what a development workflow might look like in Unito:

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Now imagine you need to outsource your design work for a major website project. The freelancers you reach out to use Trello’s public boards to share information with their clients. But your team works within Teamwork, and you don’t want them to have to jump into Trello for updates. So, you build out a workflow in Unito syncing the Trello board to Teamwork. This allows you to give feedback on design tasks and communicate with your freelancers without ever leaving your tool of choice.

With these two workflows in place, you can close the loop. Your freelance designers can share new website designs in Trello that sync automatically to your Teamwork project. If you’re happy with those designs, you can tag them as ready for development, and Unito will automatically create a new issue in Jira for developers to execute. Your work flows seamlessly across teams, and you have a 360 view of progress the entire way. No signing in and out of accounts. No copy and paste. Magic eh? We think so!

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Stop letting tool disparity slow down your projects. With Unito and Teamwork, you can empower better collaboration and communication across teams and tools in just a few clicks. Try it out Unito and Teamwork today.