Like many other covid-era businesses, we operate on virtual communication. Monday morning standups, CC’d emails, Zoom calls etc. It’s how it’s done. But perhaps we’re all in need of some consolidation. An all-in-one super hub bringing the office to life. Allo may just be the one. An online workspace and collaboration tool designed to cover all bases of your business straight from your dining room/home office. 

Allo isn’t exactly an original idea, we’ve reviewed other collaboration and management tools in the last 12 months, like Productivity Lab. Saying that, it’s no surprise such services have sprung up in the situation we find ourselves in. Like Productivity Lab, there is a paid version and a free trial. The price is a modest £78 for the year, not bank-breaking but definitely try the free trial first. To join Allo, sign up on their site - you can login with Facebook/Google if you so desire (we signed in with Google) which took no time at all. Once an account is connected, you need to select the template that best fits your work needs, we went with Daily Standup, once done, give your workspace a name and you’re in. We named ours ‘Jamie’s CODspace’ which the internal gremlins of Allo didn’t seem to like very much [see image], so maybe steer clear of apostrophes.

The interface is clean and contains template boxes for you to add your ‘Projects’, ‘Calendar’, ‘Examples’ box (we like this addition) and ‘Tutorials’ for staff training or education (again, nice touch). These boxes are down the left-hand side of the screen but additionally the centre of the screen akin to Google Drive. Allo likes to promote emoji-laden news above your workspace which in all honesty we found a little distracting but it’s inoffensive. 

Compared to Productivity Lab, there are definitely fewer intricacies within each workspace i.e. an online whiteboard for real-time collaboration which was a real selling point for that service. Allo seems to be more of a general hub in comparison to a purpose-driven tool like Productivity Lab - different strokes to different folks? Allo borrows from Google Drive again with a ‘Shared with me’ section for quick access to files you’re not an admin for. You can also add ‘Favourites’ to mark standout projects or files - we would probably use this as a makeshift quick access. Additionally and interestingly there is a ‘Private Projects’ section beneath the standard side window, presumably you can use this for internal or pet projects, neat. Allo has certainly included all the features you would come to expect from a service such as this and it’s nice and simple to use. It lacks clutter (other than the emoji news) and is easy to navigate. Maybe it just lacks the wow-factor, but in all honesty, all of these services so far seem to lack that. Par for the course with work-based services?

All in all, Allo is a solid effort in the online workplace market, it’s fairly priced, works nicely and project creation and management is painless to do, and it has some good features like Tutorials and Examples. Is it exciting? Not really. Allo might benefit from some colour to jazz it up a bit, all white can be somewhat clinical looking, especially for a creative workspace! We like it, but we don’t love it.

Allo, you get 👍🏼👍🏼👍🏼/5!