As a PR executive, you most likely have multiple applications on your device to help with your productivity. The catch is that productivity isn’t just limited to things like scheduling and email. For a PR exec to operate at their best, they must have access to applications that can help them do what they need to at the tap of a button.

Naturally, several app developers have realized that offerings for productivity apps can be vastly improved and have set about doing so. To get insight into these applications, we asked 16 industry experts from Forbes Agency Council about the productivity apps that they couldn’t see themselves functioning without. Their responses are below.

1. Asana

So much of PR is about the follow-up – checking in with editors, sending over details and supplemental information, confirming publish dates, etc. Asana is a great tool to organize tasks by projects. As CEO, I love that I can pop onto a client project and get a sense of what we have going on for our clients. It keeps us organized and ensures nothing slips through the cracks. – Leila Lewis, Be Inspired PR

2. Boomerang

Boomerang is my must-have app. For Gmail users, it’s a free Chrome extension and allows you to “boomerang” emails back to you that are time-sensitive, set reminders for follow-ups and tasks, and more. – Ilissa Miller, IMiller Public Relations

3. CoverageBook

We’ve been using CoverageBook for a while to create PR reports that have a lot of automated metrics to estimate our outreach audience. Our clients love it because it’s transparent, especially on the digital publications we garner, and it’s saving so much time when creating reports. My team and clients can’t go without it now. – Sarah Hamon, S2H Communication

 

4. Hootsuite

Social media schedulers are some of the best tools. These are really great because they allow you to schedule everything you need in one place. One of the best out there is Hootsuite. It allows you to ensure that you are scheduling everything in a cohesive and easy way. – Jon James, Ignited Results

5. HubSpot

Our firm utilizes HubSpot on the marketing and public relations side to keep our communication streamlined and our data organized. We also rely on HubSpot links to track viable engagement with the documents and visuals we are sending out to members of the press and potential business leads for ourselves and our clients. – Meredith Xavier, The Ligné Group

6. Instacart

Instacart is a great tool. In the past two years, the biggest thing that has helped my productivity at work is eliminating time-consuming tasks at home. Saving hours a week grocery shopping has been a huge time saver for me personally – which spills over into professional productivity. – Melissa Chang, PureB2B

7. Jira

Jira allows everyone to track not only their tasks and responsibilities to keep us honest with deadlines, but also allows us to keep a reliable paper trail for accountability purposes. While everyone is currently working from home due to current events, we are also able to easily run through ticket numbers on a daily basis to keep us all on track and updated. – Larry Gurreri, Sosemo LLC

8. Loom.ly

I love Loom.ly for scheduling social media. It has a collaborative nature in that I can invite clients to review, approve and edit posts in a really independent way, so we become true partners in a streamlined process. It’s highly efficient, functional and it makes it easy to build content calendars with everyone involved. – Lynne Golodner, Your People LLC

9. Microsoft To Do

I use the Microsoft To Do app to keep all my lists organized. It’s a place where I can track things that enter my busy mind and help to focus on my highest priorities. I have several different lists including books to read, movies to watch and people to contact. Following the theories of David Allen in “Getting Things Done,” I try to download thoughts from my head so I am not distracted. – Nancy Marshall, Marshall Communications

10. Mixmax

Our team uses Mixmax. It’s a great all-in-one email tool to share your calendar, embed polls and surveys, track emails, schedule email sequences, and automate your busywork. – Antoine Forest, Stargazer

11. Monday.com

Monday.com allows us to streamline our content and PR workflows from ideation to execution. It helps us manage tasks and projects to hit deadlines, especially in this new world of remote workers and teams. The app integrates with all our existing tools so we get more done. It keeps our teams closely aligned and empowered as everyone has a clear understanding of the deliverables and deadlines. – Michael Fox, Corberry Digital

12. Slack

Our favorite tool in our organization is Slack. Internal communication is essential for the timely and quality execution of our work. Slack was integrated with the rest of the tools, like calendars and project management tools, to allow us to stay current on all activities. We have dedicated communication channels which involve employees and clients, and this streamlines the communication faster than emails would. – Ally Spinu, USA Link System

13. Teamwork And Slack

We couldn’t survive without Teamwork and Slack. We use Teamwork to keep track of who’s working on what and when it’s due, and we use Slack to communicate about ongoing work. There is also a Teamwork integration for Slack that enables you to assign work to team members while Slacking the assignment to them. I also just discovered Marco Polo, which helps the team share more complex ideas via video chat. – April White, Trust Relations

14. Trello

Our firm uses Trello for all our project planning. It’s the core way we organize and assign and track work internally. Trello makes it really easy to customize with due dates and it integrates with almost anything you want it to. – Seth Winterer, Digital Logic

15. Voxer

Voxer is my favorite. This app is like having a walkie-talkie in your pocket, allowing you to leave recorded voice messages for staff and clients with ease. It’s perfect for those times when you want to give updates or have a quick request for your team. It’s more personable than an email and allows you to make and receive messages while on the go. – Adrian Falk, Believe Advertising & PR

16. Zapier

We can’t live without Zapier – it connects all our favorite apps so information is seamlessly shared. Whether it’s an incoming chat on our website, an update in our CRM, or a time-off request, we’re able to automate many of our tasks and save hours of staff time a month. – Evan Nison, NisonCo