I work for a non-profit where we are in different offices and used to constantly email each other large files, send multiple emails to arrange meetings, and had other issues that caused us to be unproductive and waste time just waiting for others. Due to the nature of the work and trying to save costs, we share offices with other companies. One of them blocks facebook access, another blocks google due to an issue several years ago that the IT guys have never got over and another has a limit on our email accounts to allow files under 1MB, so many typical solutions for us to work together are not possible.
For many years, we used Airset, it was affordable and worked for us – including the people who are not very tech-savvy and don’t have a facebook or google account to sign in to many of the organization & cloud sharing apps and websites we looked into.
When Airset shut down we were at a total loss. We spent months trying different websites, making sure they are accessible from all of our offices, usable by everyone, preferably with an app for the majority of the staff who are always on the go and do everything from our phones but simple enough for the people with very little tech-knowledge. I recently had the opportunity samepage.io and it has definitely come closest to replacing Airset for us but more than that, I love it for personal use.
You can use samepage for almost anything! I set up a samepage for my blog, made a list of upcoming blogs to do, uploaded photos so I can work on them when I am not at home, made a task list to check off as I post a new blog etc. The calendar option makes it super easy for me to plan the month (and year) ahead. I can add files, contacts – pretty much anything I could ever need. Look at all the options they give you for uploads:
I also checked out other pages to see how to best set up my work samepage. As you can see above, samepage.io can be used for any group or personal use. I added another samepage to organize contests I am entering. I have a list of links with end dates that I can just click to enter daily, a list of the links I need to paste into entries, a list of wins I am waiting for so I can track them arriving – a great tool to keep on track!
Other pages include recipes including a check off grocery list and possible coupon match ups, a hiking group who share availability, teams, upcoming hikes and maps of the route, a family who shares calendars, menu plans, important numbers and more, a work team who use samepage to share files (very similar to how we would use it at work) with each user having their own page with cloud files and more. Another interesting page was a party planning group with tasks for each person, dates, photos for users to vote on choices for banners and colour schemes and more. It is really amazing just how adaptable samepage is and the variety of ways it can be used.
The Pros of Samepage.io
- Accessible & easy to use
- Ability to upload and share files (even with those outside of the group or team) including from cloud services like Dropbox, Google Drive, Box and OneDrive. You can also pull in Google Maps and videos from YouTube.
- Add teams within a group to share only with those people without bothering everyone
- Comment section for notes that everyone might be interested in but is not worth sending an email
- Has a page calendar and ability to find times that work for people for meetings + separate your events from other team events
- Apps for iOS & Android plus mobile friendly web access for everyone
- Free for small groups (up to 10 users)
The Cons of Samepage.io
- No auto reminders from events
- $10 per user for larger groups (with 16 people, this matters to us – $160/month prices it out of the market as a non-profit watching our budget)
The price would probably be the major downside for work. For bigger companies, $10 is well worth it, but with a small budget we try to keep costs low. The auto reminders were nice, but since we already learned to live without them, would probably be fine (plus you could always add events to your phone’s calendar).
I will definitely be using samepage going forward for my blog planning and contests though. I love the ability to add snippets of HTML I may need without the added step of opening a text document, the many task lists and ability to have everything I need on one page – not various other sites or google apps. Plus the ability to add due dates to my tasks and check them off and see they are all done is great and I can upload photoshop files without zipping them first!
Click here to try out samepage.io
Samepage.io is free and has a trial business account. I received compensation for my time trying samepage but all opinions are my own.