LINAGORA is present in several countries. To enable us to work asynchronously, we have our favourite tools. What do they have in common? They're all free and open source. Some are the fruit of the hard work of our developers, others are tools from the open source community. Today, we're sharing the ones that make it easier for us to work together and do business every day.

1. Twake: Our collaborative platform

Twake is the smart workplace we've been developing for the past two years. It is first and foremost a corporate messaging system with discussion channels for organising conversations by subject.

We can use Twake to communicate with each other as well as with external partners. It's an essential feature for communicating with our suppliers, customers or freelancers...

On these channels, it is possible to create tabs. Among these tabs, in addition to the conversation channel, we can, for example, add a tab dedicated to the conversation's document directory. This is a way of bringing together all your favourite documents on the same subject. These document folders are connected to Only Office. Finally, these tabs can also be used to add a task manager for keeping track of projects in a simple way. Like Trello, tasks are organised into cards arranged in columns. We can assign the cards to team members, attach a document or image, and fill in tags. These boards, organised in lists or Kanbans, can be used to track the progress of any project.

Twake is the tool that allows us to keep abreast of what's going on in the company, to monitor projects and also to stay connected to our team members at all times.

2. Only Office: The online office suite

Only Office is an online office suite that lets you edit documents simultaneously. Word processing, spreadsheets, presentations. All your documents are in one place, so you can collaborate easily in real time. This means we always have the latest versions of our team's documents. The publishers ensure compatibility with Open Document, Microsoft Office, etc. The Only Office suite lets you manage your documents by deciding what level of access your collaborators have to certain documents (edit, read-only, review, comment, etc.). In addition to the classic functions of collaborative suites, there's a Gantt chart-style tool for tracking the progress of projects and organising teamwork. You can manage the performance of your teams and allocate tasks and sub-tasks. You can also manage your customer relations by creating a high-performance database for keeping track of exchanges and issuing invoices. The latest features include a diary, e-mail and internal communication tools (forums, blogs, surveys, etc.).
 

3. Jitsi Meet: Video conferencing

Like many of us over the last 18 months, we have seen an explosion in online meetings. Everyone has jumped on the most publicised systems, which often pose problems of security and control of personal data. At LINAGORA, we use Jitsi, the open-source videoconferencing software. During COVID, we launched the https://avecvous.linagora.com/ platform using Jitsi to give users free access to a videoconferencing platform that respects their personal data. This service guarantees us high quality audio and video, making it easier for us to exchange information remotely, such as during our weekly Fantastic Meeting, where we bring together all the staff from the different entities to share company information.

The concept is simple: to create a meeting on Jisti Meet, choose a name for your meeting and the link is automatically generated. All you have to do is send it to your participants. Strictly speaking, there is no limit to the number of participants. However, it all depends on the power of the servers and the bandwidth you use. Chat, screen sharing and the collaborative text editor are highly appreciated for facilitating exchanges during these meetings.

And once again, when it comes to security and control of your personal data, you won't find anything better. The tool offers advanced security settings with systematic data encryption to ensure the confidentiality of your discussions. Some conferences can even be password-protected.

4. Linshare: file-sharing platform

Linshare lets us share large documents. A secure, open source platform. It has convinced the European Parliament, which has been using it for several months. With Linshare you can share files internally and externally. You also have a personal space where you can store files. A very practical feature for team collaboration is to create a common sharing space. This way, the team has access to the same document and can store them in the same place. On Linshare, all your activities are tracked in the activity log and you receive email notifications to find out when and which members of your team have viewed, downloaded or commented on your files. Since July 2021, a new version has been available that allows you to preview documents directly on the platform. Lastly, data is stored in France, in compliance with RGPD regulations. Linshare is developed by LINAGORA.

5. KeePass XC: Robust password manager

One of the essential tools for ensuring security in your company is the password manager. Free and open source, at LINAGORA we use KeePass XC. Among the features we like: browser integration so you don't have to manually copy and paste passwords, strong password generation to ensure security, and fairly 'old school' ergonomics so it's easy to get to grips with. In terms of security, KeePass Xc also supports the use of 2FA (multi-factor - TOTP) codes. Interoperability is also a plus, as it runs on Windows, Android, iPhone, OS X and, of course, Linux. We store all our passwords on KeePass XC. Thanks to the password export or import function, new employees have direct access to the passwords they will need from their first days in the company.

6. Open VPN

Open VPN is, as its name suggests, an open source VPN. It establishes a private connection between our server and our VPN client. Open VPN is a VPN project that is supported by the open source community and guarantees a high level of security, since data is now encrypted and therefore not readable. It can also bypass many firewalls thanks to its support for multiple ports. Security, speed and safety are all part of the package.

Apart from LINAGORA's wifi, we can't access our documents online without this VPN connection. This VPN gives all our employees the opportunity to access a local network from anywhere, while protecting the company's data.

Thanks to all these powerful tools, LINAGORA can work with talent from all over the world very easily.