MURAL (formerly Mural.ly) from Tactivos (DBA MURAL) in San Francisco is described by the vendor as a digital workspace and visual collaboration tool, designed for creative teams to make the process of design more efficient for distributed teams, working remotely.
$12
per month
Pop
Score 9.7 out of 10
N/A
The makers of Screenhero now offer Pop, a remote collaboration platform with features like multiple mouse cursors, voice chat, and high definition screen resolution. Pop supports voice and video collaboration, screen sharing, multiplayer meetings, drawing and highlighting, and the ability to interact from a variety of devices (Mac, Windows, Linux, mobile devices, etc.).
I've recommended MURAL to a lot of people in a lot of fields. This is a great tool for any group of people that might stand around a white board if they were in person. Even if they are in person, I still recommend it pretty often because, unlike a white board, MURAL is virtual, so it can go offline with you. I've recommended it to other Software Teams, individual software developers, engineering teams, Sales Managers, Office Staff, Manufacturing teams, and more.
Copy/Paste works flawlessly from my computer to another screenhero users computer.
Screenhero works with screen-recording software, so not only can I pair-develop, I can take video of a pair development session.
I can't think of any reason why Screenhero wouldn't be suited for any situation. I would say that they need to bring back the option for a native app capability outside of the slack app like they did during the Slack merge transition.
enables easy for all collaboration especially in the hybrid environment
makes brainstorming better as users can create digital sticky notes, draw diagrams, and add images to visually represent concepts and ideas
it helps to visualize data effectively - users can create charts, graphs, and diagrams to present data-driven insights to team members and stakeholders
EASY! A simply to use and understand UI cannot be understated. I needed no additional training and did not need to reference and support documentation to pick up and use Screenhero with my team. It's easy to add new folks to connect with, easy to call them, easy to end the call, and so forth. I would liken the UI to a more sleek Yahoo Instant Messenger (for those who remember that service!).
Painless. I rarely ever had connectivity issues or grainy audio/video quality. When I did occasionally encounter that (rough guess maybe 1 in 20), it usually cleared itself up after a few seconds. I think it's only ever "locked up" on me twice, meaning I had to disconnect and reconnect in order for the issue to be resolved. Overall, a painless experience.
I'm not sure how to sign up right now. I guess until it's integrated into Slack as a full-blown feature it'll stay like that.
Most probably it'll be monetized as an extra feature.
This is true for most of the remote management solutions: security concerns. Slack had some break-ins in the past, giving remote control to your computer can be dangerous.
Another issue which is problematic for similar product too: watch out if there's an extra remote server is involved. Say you and your client you want to guide with Screenhero both log in to a remote server through RDP. Both the RDP and Screenhero capture hotkeys, and depenfing on if your other peer logs into screenhero on the server itself or his machine, things like copy-paste won't work because the RDP is interfering with the remote management software.
Overall, MURAL is really easy to use, but there are a couple downsides. It's really easy to make areas of the board consistent because double clicking adds stickies that match those around the current one. It's really easy to connect the elements. And it's really easy to organize elements. Inconsistent controls, Panning, Line Connections, and latency are the only issues I had. My biggest issue is that the MURAL mouse buttons are very different from most similar software. This always causes me problems switching to a graphics software or 3D modelling software. Because MURAL uses the same button to pan and move elements, it's really easy to move things when panning around. The lines can also be a (sometimes huge) problem because thew will occasionally disappear or connect to things incorrectly. I think this is tied to latency issues which, in addition to causing phantom lines, can sometimes cause confusion to your team.
Mural was easier to use and share compared with Whiteboard. Whiteboard's functionality is limited. It is also integrated into Teams in an odd way that makes it difficult for team members to refer to old whiteboards. Mural as a stand alone web app is better.
Screenhero being acquired by Slack was honestly the primary reason we selected it over TeamViewer. Our organization is heavily invested in Slack's enterprise solution, so choosing Screenhero was a pretty easy decision. On top of that, Screenhero delivers very well on its core competencies, so there doesn't seem to be a very good reason to not use it given its relationship with Slack.
