PhraseExpress offers some valuable productivity services. Its key purpose is to provide great text expansion tools, which allow users to write faster and more efficiently. But PhraseExpress is also an excellent tool for improving your team workflow.
If your business relies on a team of people collaborating smoothly, here are five ways PhraseExpress can help out.
What Is PhraseExpress?
PhraseExpress is a program designed to help you type faster. You can set up keyboard shortcuts for specific words or sentences. Then, when you use those shortcuts, PhraseExpress automatically fills in the complete phrases.
Explore enough online and you’ll come across dozens of different methods to expand text. For example, it only takes a few steps to learn how to create custom text expansions on Microsoft Word.
What makes PhraseExpress special is that it works in multiple places. Whether writing a report or an email, you can make commonly used phrases appear in half the keystrokes.
When joining PhraseExpress, you can start with a 30-day free trial of all of its services. After that, your account returns to a free personal account but without the cool, commercial toys.
To get these back, choose between a Standard, Professional, or Enterprise subscription. As you can see below, each package comes with more and more perks.
If you’re in a team and want to work well together, the Enterprise edition is the best choice. Its features show what an intricate system PhraseExpress is.
Access to several languages and an add-in for Outlook are great benefits to the Enterprise package, but even a Standard PhraseExpress subscription can help your team improve its workflow.
1. Team Members Follow the Same Phrasing Rules
PhraseExpress makes sure everyone’s on the same page when it comes to things like style guides. After administrators set up keyboard shortcuts for different phrases, the entire team can access and use them. Everyone can view, learn, and apply the text expansion shortcuts across all your common tasks.
PhraseExpress is also very easy to update, letting everyone see any changes to the rules.
For extra organization, you get a central client manager as part of the setup. It controls everything from program settings and server notifications to usage statistics and account permissions.
To be more exact, you can specify which person or group can read or edit certain folders. To do this, go to the Phrases toolbar at the top and click on Access Rights. Then make the relevant choices from the dropdown menus. Options become clearer as the team grows and you get to know the system better.
Program Restrictions is another tool to help manage things. The icon is right beside Access Rights and opens a similar window that lets you select the available software a folder or phrase can be restricted to or excluded from. You can also choose conditions. Then only team members using those programs under those conditions can use the text expansions.
2. A High-End Local Network Sets a Good Workflow
The local network is usually the heart of communication in any tech-based office. With Microsoft, Citrix, and NAS server support, the system PhraseExpress provides should keep your teamwork in top shape.
You can install PhraseExpress on both Windows and Mac computers, but each platform must download a different file and follow its own process. Another option is the portable version of PhraseExpress, which goes on a USB device and can move between computers.
This is useful, for example, if a team member works from a laptop with limited space.
Choose the best version for your group. After you add the necessary software to all your computers and link them to the main server, you’re good to go. This is how a network can share a program.
Making sure your local connection works well creates a strong foundation for your group’s collaborative needs. At the end of the day, each user will be able to work and write to in-house standards without missing a beat.
3. Several Safety Measures Allow Peace of Mind
Your saved phrases could include names and addresses, so security is a major priority. PhraseExpress’s online capabilities make this even more important. The restriction tools we already mentioned are a perfect way of ensuring your team shares resources safely to protect your customer privacy.
Don’t underestimate the central client manager either. It can monitor overall usage as well as controlling access rights.
On top of that, there are other measures you can take like creating passwords with end-to-end AES encryption. This prevents unauthorized people from accessing data as it moves from one user to another.
To add encryption, go to the File tab and then select Set password. A window pops up. Type in a strong password and tick the conditions you want to use. After clicking OK, the secured file will only open for people with the password.
4. Cloud Support for Next Level Collaboration
If the team is mostly based in an office, a local network will work fine. But some creative projects need people to be on the go all the time. When it comes to these remote working conditions, cloud synchronization makes PhraseExpress much more helpful to a team.
You can share phrases and folders over the internet, using every popular cloud provider out there—OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, Synology. Among all of PhraseExpress’s features, this is a winner because of how much easier it is for coworkers to collaborate across vast distances.
5. Cross-Platform Compatibility for Computer and Mobile
To boost the software’s user-friendliness further, the brains behind PhraseExpress designed it to work on as many devices as possible. There are differences, however, in which services each platform can use.
On Windows, all options are open, whether you have a personal or professional membership.
Macs see a smaller range of features, but the client-server system you get is no less efficient. All you lose are Windows-based tools like the Outlook add-in, clipboard tricks, and the option to import text expansions from MS Word. Beyond that, the performance and sharing capabilities stay the same.
PhraseExpress is also available on iPhone and iPad, with tools similar to those of computer editions. The mobile version does come with disadvantages, though. For example, you can’t create and edit macros or use an external keyboard.
Nevertheless, PhraseExpress on iOS is no less handy. Even on a portable device, users can access the team’s shared resources. Being stuck behind a desk isn’t the only way to make the most of professional text expansion.
Unfortunately, Android users are in for bad news. Due to technical problems between Google Drive and PhraseExpress programming, the Google Play app isn’t available anymore. Until that’s the case, team members on the move might want to invest in an iOS device for work.
Download: Text Expander PhraseExpress (Free, premium version available)
Share Text Expansions and Work Better as a Team
There are lots of handy tools and tricks to discover on PhraseExpress that can speed up your writing. But its value to a network of users is just as great.
Whether locally or via the Cloud, you can share folders full of phrases or even commonly misspelled words. And you can do so from a computer and iOS device, quickly and securely.
Additionally, this is a perfect program to start customizing your workflow, maybe pairing it with other solutions for text automation on an Android device.