With the Pandemic, many government agencies have had to learn how to work remotely.  Organizations’ number one concern is ensuring that work continues efficiently.  Establishing methods for effective collaboration is one way to ensure that remote work doesn’t reduce productivity.

But why is collaboration so important?  According to Kellogg’s Benjamin Jones, individuals have become more specialized due to the complexity of information.  This complexity means that to be effective, you sometimes need to bring together teams of specialists to produce results.  Teams simply can do challenging things better than an individual can because of the diverse skills each person brings to the table.

Ascendant has developed software tools for government agencies to ensure that remote workers can effectively collaborate.  For example, colleagues can be brought into conversations quickly and receive notifications about communication with clients, regardless of source (email, text, call, or in-person) through the use of comments and mentions.  These collaboration tools work with people in the office, out of the office, or even outside the organization.

For example, a caseworker may add a field director to a conversation with a constituent.  That field director will be kept up to date so that the citizen doesn’t have to repeat information later.  Similarly, the caseworker can hand off the constituent to another staffer without losing the case history. Each team member has access to the same information to collaborate without interrupting work or losing data.  This means that citizens can get answers quickly without repeatedly being asked to explain their needs.  Future inquiries by that same constituent will be linked to their record to create a holistic picture.

Ascendant has many tools to facilitate collaborative and productive communication either in person or remotely:

• Collaboration, notifications, and commenting
• Reporting and Analytics
• Constituent database with 200M+ cell phone numbers
• Smart Messaging SMS communication tool
• Email communications, topic tagging, duplicate response check, and response scripting
• Many other tools to help communicate with constituents

Ascendant was designed to be intuitive and easy to learn. Created by former congressional staffers, interns and professionals can use the software.  Ascendant support staff work with customers to ensure that they are able to jump in and start working after just a couple of days.

Remote work can be challenging; encouraging open communication is vital. Ascendant team collaboration tools pull together your team members by creating shared conversations with relevant information.