3 ways that a good online workspace helps you to get your job done

But first – what is an online workspace?

An online workspace is a virtual environment where your teams can work together to get their job done, without physically being in the same place. At a minimum, your online workspace should have features like:

  • Calendar and Email
  • Video calling and Chat messaging
  • File sync and share with co-authoring
  • Assignable Tasks
  • Secure access from any device

We talk more about what Australian teams should look for in an online workspace over here.

Outside of the fairly standard feature set that most online workspaces offer, it’s the minute-to-minute usability of the workspace that makes a big difference to how easy it is to get your job done.

Here are the 3 ways that we think a good online workspace should help:

1. Less Clicks

This is our highest on our watch list. You want your digital workspace to help you reduce the number of clicks you need to make in order to navigate around the workspace to get your job done.

Less. Clicks.

We experience ‘clicks’ in two ways, when working within the specific app (e.g. creating or editing a meeting request or task, sharing or commenting on files, interacting in a video call) and also when navigating between different parts of the online workspace itself (e.g. moving between calendar, chat, tasks, planners, files)

When working within the specific app.

The transition to web apps in general creates a remarkable increase in the number of clicks required to get the same job done. You’ll notice this when navigating menus and fields to fill in online forms for internet banking or rego renewal for example. But these are web pages you’re interacting with every now and then. When your working online, the extra clicks become REALLY noticeable. There are a couple of frequent daily tasks that we notice have a lot more clicks compared to other online workspaces to deskonline.

File sharing. When we select a menu item that says ‘copy link’ or ‘share’, we don’t want to then have to click another button to actually…..copy the link or share.

Calendar items/meeting invites We all spend a lot of time in and out of our calendars. The number of fields or forms (clicks!) needed to create and update calendar items or meeting invites in one of the more commonly used online workspaces drives us mad! In deskonline.cloud, you are only ever ONE CLICK away from creating or editing a calendar item, either from within calendar app or from your dashboard.

But what about when navigating between different parts of the online workspace?

Some teams choose to use a collection of small (often free) cloud apps that each meet a specific need, bringing them together to create their online workspace. Other teams teams choose a specific online workspace provider and then adjust their needs to fit whatever the provider does or does not offer.

In both scenarios, this often ends up looking like a stack of additional cloud apps brought into use, often with overlapping features. This means there can be multiple ways to do the same thing. Which is great, until we realise that some features/options are not available in one of those ways of doing.

This creates a big challenge in maintaining a repeatable, sustainable workflow to support your teams in competing daily tasks. A repeatable, sustainable workflow is critical to ensuring delivery of consistent outcomes at a benchmark level of quality in the required time frames. And, if you don’t have this outlined somewhere, either in business processes or managed through apps (like Deck or our very own custom app ‘DO’), training new staff to be proficient is time consuming for existing team members and takes a lot longer than you need it to.

Additionally, the challenge grows as the team grows – it snowballs really and happens pretty quickly. How do you make sure everyone is referring to the right information when there are multiple places where that information can exist? This starts to look like a lot of work instructions and notes to make sure every team member is using the online workspace in a consistent way. It’s fine when there’s only a few people, but as the team grows, it becomes harder to corral individual work practices into a common practice that is scalable.

We think desk.online.cloud stands out from the crowd here with easy navigation to all apps all the time (apps ribbon at top of the window is always visible) and this coupled with apps like ‘Notes’, ‘Deck, ‘Tasks’, and ‘Talk’ means less clicks to get the daily tasks done. We find it really helpful that ‘Tasks’ and ‘Deck’ (kanban boards) are integrated with ‘Calendar’ and ‘Talk’ meaning, you guessed it…less clicks to create, assign and manage completion of work across teams and individuals.

2. Secure File Sharing with External Users

Second on our watch list is the ability to easily and securely share files (or folders, or folder structures 😲) with external users and with a range of permission options.  Emailing sensitive information is risky and emailing large files can be unpredictable.  File sharing is the answer but some platforms behave very differently for internal vs external file sharing.  Look for a platform that has an easy to use external file share capability along with end-to-end encryption and the ability to configure external share permissions.  We love deskonline.cloud from this point of view because it allows files, folders AND folder structures to be externally shared with password and expiration, downloads hidden, uploads only or read only access.  It also provides permissions that allow external users to make changes based on the permissions you set. Also a small thing but something that you’ll appreciate if you are sharing lots of links internally or externally – deskonline.cloud copies the link to cache once you click the ‘file share’ link.  MS Teams will have you click that ‘copy link’ button again after clicking the ‘share’ icon.  Refer our point 1 – LESS CLICKS!

3. Meet you where you are – make it easy to be both an individual and a team

Our third must have for a digital workspace is the ability for the workspace to ‘meet you where you are’.

By this we mean, if you’re working on an individual activity not related to a project or team, you need to be able to access this work area as efficiently as if you were working on a project or team activity. 

You need to be able to fluently switch between team and individual work areas.  We love that deskonline.cloud offers the ability to work in a primary position from multiple apps, always mindful of access to both individual, project and team work areas. 

So how does your current online workspace stack up?

As you’re doing what you do over the next few days, have a think about how your current online workspace is helping you with:

less clicks

secure file sharing

operating as an individual and within your team

And if your current online workspace is not being helpful, get in contact with us, we’d love to show you one that is!

info@deskonline.cloud

deskonline.cloud

https://www.linkedin.com/company/deskonline-cloud

Exciting news for Node-RED users on deskonline!

The latest update includes new functions for ChatGPT, a large language model trained by OpenAI, based on the GPT-4 architecture. With ChatGPT, you can now easily add natural language processing and generation capabilities to your Node-RED workflows, allowing for more intelligent and personalized interactions with your users.

Here are 3 examples of functions that ChatGPT can be used for:


1. Language translation: ChatGPT can be used to translate text between multiple languages, making it easy to communicate with users around the world.


2. Chatbot interactions: ChatGPT can be used to generate natural language responses to user inputs, creating more engaging and personalized interactions with your chatbot.


3. Content generation: ChatGPT can be used to automatically generate text content such as product descriptions, social media posts, and news articles.

With these new functions, the possibilities for using ChatGPT in your Node-RED workflows are endless!

Try it out and see how it can enhance your projects!

#ChatGPT #NodeRED #DeskOnline #NaturalLanguageProcessing #AI #MachineLearning

What Australian teams should look for in an online workspace

An online workspace is a virtual environment where your teams can work together to get their job done, without physically being in the same place. At a minimum, your online workspace should have features like:

  • Calendar and Email
  • Video calling and Chat messaging
  • File sync and share with co-authoring
  • Assignable Tasks
  • Secure access from any device

We talk here about the 3 ways that a good online workspace should help you get your job done.

But where is the data stored? Many online workspaces will load balance where data is stored across a range of global data centres, meaning it’s often unclear exactly where your data is being stored and how it may be accessed.

For Australian teams, in addition to all the good things we’ve talked about above, your online workspace should also offer on-shore data storage options. e.g. in Australian based data centres (like AWS or NextDC) or on infrastructure that you manage on your own premise.

deskonline.cloud was created to offer Australian Businesses and individuals an online workspace with on-shore data storage options. We chose Nextcloud as the platform to build deskonline.cloud, an Australian based alternative to Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud, Office 365 and all of the other cloud-based workspaces that don’t offer on-shore storage options.

There are two ways that deskonline.cloud can help you to transition to an easy to navigate online workspace with onshore data storage:

  1. we can work with your IT team to help you set up your own self-hosted Nextcloud online workspace; or
  2. we can do it for you and set you up with your own branded online workspace in deskonline.cloud.

Either way, we’d love to help! You can get in contact with us at info@deskonline.cloud or pop us a message on LinkedIn

ChatGPT plugin now available on ONLYOFFICE Document Editor on deskonline!

We’re so excited to share that the #ChatGPT plugin is now available on ONLYOFFICE Document Editor on deskonline!

With the ChatGPT plugin for ONLYOFFICE, users can:

  • directly input from the Word Model, making it easier than ever to incorporate natural language processing into their documents
  • quickly and easily create documents with natural language processing capabilities

Try it out today and see how it can help you create more efficient documents! #NLP #AI #DocumentEditor

What is Node-RED and how do we use it in Deskonline?

I am excited to share with you an introductory video on Node-RED and how it is an integral part of Deskonline.


Node-RED is a powerful visual tool for wiring together the Internet of Things, APIs, and online services. With its easy-to-use interface and extensive library of pre-built nodes, Node-RED makes it easy for developers to connect and control devices and data streams.


At Deskonline, we have integrated Node-RED into our platform to help our customers:

  • build custom workflows; and
  • automate business processes.

With Node-RED, our customers can create complex workflows by simply dragging and dropping nodes onto a canvas and connecting them together.

This allows our customers to automate tasks such as sending notifications, generating reports, and integrating with other systems.


Node-RED is a key part of Deskonline’s mission to empower businesses to work more efficiently and effectively. By providing our customers with the tools they need to automate their workflows, we help them save time, reduce errors, and improve their bottom line.

If you’re interested in learning more about Node-RED, watch this video by Rob Marcer (Developer Educator at FlowForge).

Deskonline allows you to integrate your Deskonline content and permissions into an automated workflow, powered by Node-RED.

Feel free to reach out to us with any questions. We’d love to hear from you!



#NodeRED #DeskOnline #WorkflowAutomation #BusinessEfficiency #InternetOfThings #APIs #AutomationTools #VisualProgramming

deskonline.cloud – Australian Owned and Operated with onshore data storage

deskonline.cloud is a digital workspace for business teams and individuals who need:

– a secure online workspace that is accessible using any internet connected device
– collaboration apps that support remote and hybrid working models 
– clever tools for managing the lifecycle of business processes, from design to optimise

It’s an Australian based solution to meet all your data security and online workspace needs. 

It’s your deskonline.

Start a free trial today


#deskonlinecloud #nextcloud #asafeplacetosyncandstore #digitalworkspace #collaborationsolutions #innovation #technology #startups #smallbusiness #team #workingathome 

6 work trends that shape the employee experience

The influence of these six trends on the employee experience highlights the need for the EVP (Employee Value Proposition) to adapt and deal with changes in employee expectations.


deskonline is a digital workspace with a focus on hybrid workforce integration that can assist your company in adjusting to these developments.

Garter released this report highlighting the 9 work trends that shape employee experience.

If you’re using deskonline as your online workspace GREAT NEWS! Here are the work trends that you’re helping to shape to improve the employee experience for your people:

  1. Hybrid work becoming mainstream
  2. Well-being as a key metric
  3. Turnover $ increasing
  4. Managers’ roles changing
  5. Gen Z wanting in-person work experiences
  6. Shorter weeks as a new EVP

If you’re not using deskonline and are looking for an Australian based online workspace to help you adjust to these emerging work trend, reach out, we’d love to talk!


#deskonlinecloud #nextcloud #asafeplacetosyncandstore #digitalworkspace #collaborationsolutions #innovation #technology #startups #smallbusiness #team #workingathome #employeeexperience #hybridworking