Best Team Collaboration Tool? (How to Use ClickUp)

Agency life moves fast. With multiple team members, clients, and projects to juggle, it’s crucial that everyone stays in sync and in the know.

ClickUp can help! It’s the best team collaboration tool out there, with features like real-time updates, automations, customizable workflows, and more. Watch our video or keep reading below to see how ClickUp can take your team collaboration game to the next level.

What does efficient team collaboration look like?

You want your team to all be on the same page. You want collaboration to be better, and communication more streamlined. But why? What does “better” look like for your agency?

Freeing up more time is a big one. Systems and processes that are outdated and tedious can waste so much time. If your team members are spending more time sitting in meetings and following up on emails, your workflows need improving.

Let me share a story about one of our agency clients. They were using Google Sheets to manage their entire system, which resulted in a lot of manual work and time wasted. After we transitioned them to ClickUp and implemented proper automations, they were able to save 20 hours per week!

Before the change, they were bogged down with repetitive tasks, constantly updating sheets and chasing after team members for updates. After implementing ClickUp, they streamlined their processes and automated many of these tasks.

The client described the transformation as a game-changer, saying, “It freed up so many hours per week I didn’t know I had!” Now, their team can focus on higher-priority projects, leading to increased productivity and collaboration. This is what “better” looks like for your agency—less time on tedious tasks and more time for strategic growth.

Having access to the information you need is another. If you’ve ever worked in another agency or company where everyone was closed off in silos, you know how tough it can be to collaborate! Your team will run better as a well-oiled machine if everyone can access the information and materials they need when they need it.

On that same note, transparency and honesty need to be top priorities in your agency for strong collaboration. Do your team members know their roles within your company? Who they report to? What their objective is for specific projects and why?

Transparency, accessibility, and productivity. Three elements of effective teamwork that can be achieved with one of our favorite tools: ClickUp.

3 ClickUp elements that improve communication and collaboration

At DaSilva Life, ClickUp is our go-to platform for collaborating, creating, and sharing information. We only ever use outside tools like Google Docs if a client doesn’t have ClickUp! The following features of ClickUp Docs are just some of the reasons why.

Real-time chat, comments, and notifications

We love the collaboration capabilities of ClickUp Docs. You can:

• Tag team members in comments
• Turn text into project tasks (no hopping back and forth between platforms)
• Create outlines and checklists
• Assign action items to others
• Link Docs and tasks together
• Share Docs securely with anyone
• Create nested docs for better organization
• And so much more

Here’s an example of what this powerful ClickUp feature can do.

Let’s say your graphic design team is finished working on a client project. They assign an action item for their creative director to review and approve it. The creative director asks about a small detail by tagging a team member in the Doc. Once that’s confirmed, the project is sent to the client for approval.

Throughout this whole process, everyone who needs to be involved can check the status of the project, see what progress has been made, and stay updated on any requests or notifications. Automatically. (More on that in a minute!)

That’s just one piece of the puzzle. Outside of Docs, you can send and reply to comments on any task within ClickUp! ClickUp also has an in-house Chat if you need to ask a question or get an answer from a team member fast.

What if you prefer Slack to Chat, or need to use Dropbox for a client? You can integrate with over 1,000 popular business tools to keep your workflows running smoothly.

At DL we personally use the Slack and Google Suite integrations the most. Because we need these other tools in our tech stack, ClickUp makes the communication between our tools as seamless as possible.

Automations

Routine tasks are boring. They can be tedious. They take up time that can be spent on more important things, especially if you work in a creative field! Unfortunately, they’re usually necessary.

That’s why ClickUp Automations are your best friend. They can keep your team projects rolling along and your team’s momentum going!

Remember our previous example of a graphic design agency? We talked about how useful ClickUp’s communication features are, but a key part of that process is also the automation options. When a ClickUp task’s status changes from “Review” to “Accepted,” you can configure ClickUp to do what you want next — like notify your client.

As long as your team members have access to the appropriate Spaces (and other parts of the ClickUp Hierarchy), everyone can make the changes and get the info they need. Automations will do the heavy lifting to ensure processes are followed and things get done!

Advanced ClickUp features for agencies

Automations and real-time updates are definitely useful for any online business, but there are certain ClickUp features we especially love for agencies!

Time tracking

Every minute counts in an agency. The more time you free up on internal, administrative tasks, the more time you can spend on revenue-generating work.

ClickUp’s native time-tracking tool is really handy for tracking work time, whether it’s tied to a specific task or not. It also lets you enter hours manually. Plus, you can change the default “non-billable” setting to “billable” for your workspace. You can even set up time blocking in ClickUp.

Goals

Your agency goals don’t have to live in your journal or on a sticky note. You can enter them in ClickUp and use the platform to:

• Break big goals down into smaller, achievable Targets, or benchmarks
• Track progress made toward your Goal
• Create a strategy to achieve your Goal

Because we’re talking about teamwork and collaboration here, we have to mention how your Goals and Targets are automatically updated, too. You can set permissions individually for each Goal, sharing progress with the appropriate team, or with your whole agency.

Let me share an example of how we’ve effectively used Goals in ClickUp for DaSilva Life. One of our overarching goals was to increase our client base by 25% over the next quarter. To achieve this, we needed a clear plan and measurable steps to keep us on track.

Here’s how we broke it down:

1. Set Key Results: We identified specific key results that would contribute to our main goal, such as launching a new marketing campaign, hosting two webinars, and increasing our social media engagement by 30%.
2. Create Actionable Tasks: Each key result was then broken down into actionable tasks. For instance, under the marketing campaign key result, we listed tasks like designing promotional materials, drafting email sequences, and scheduling social media posts.
3. Assign Responsibilities: We assigned team members to each task, ensuring accountability and clarity about who was responsible for what.

Using ClickUp made it incredibly easy to track and share goal progress with the team. We set up a dedicated Goals dashboard where everyone could see the status of each key result in real-time. This visual representation allowed us to celebrate small wins as we progressed and quickly identify any areas that needed attention.

Moreover, the integration of comments and updates within ClickUp meant that team members could easily communicate about their progress, share challenges, and ask for support without getting lost in email threads. Overall, ClickUp not only streamlined our goal-setting process but also fostered collaboration and transparency, keeping everyone aligned and motivated to reach our target!

Gantt charts

ClickUp has a View for every type of worker, whether you prefer lists, calendars, tables, or timelines. In our opinion, the best View for project management and collaboration is Gantt View. Gantt charts are super easy to build and manage in ClickUp!

Gantt charts are great for projects or tasks with a lot of dependencies. We like to break large tasks down into more achievable pieces with Gantt charts, too. The best part is, once one element of your chart is shifted, everything else adjusts automatically.

Use ClickUp for better teamwork (and happier teams)

ClickUp is the best collaboration tool for agencies, thanks to smart automations, real-time updates, and superb project management features. Nothing slips through the cracks, and no one is kept in the dark. It does more than free up your time, too. It helps your team members stay connected, improves efficiency, and encourages transparency.

Want to learn more about ClickUp’s capabilities? Ready to boost your team’s collaboration skills? Try our Systems School ClickUp Course!

Join Systems School and you gain access to over 70 on-demand ClickUp video lessons, lifetime access, and access to any course updates we make. You get bonus trainings and access to an exclusive community membership, too.

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