Standuply allows you to conduct standup meetings and routine check-ins. But it comes with several limitations that will make you reconsider the app if you think it is your best choice for team standups. Let’s have a look.
Limitations of Standuply
1. Incompatibility with small screens
Standuply offers its standup features in a number of forms. Be it text, audio, or video. However, the deliverables would be more convenient if they incorporated both of these: flexibility and user-friendliness. Speaking of these, Standuply hasn’t yet made its features available on mobile phones. You and your team members can only use Standuply on large screens. This is in direct contrast with the idea of diverse usage options that Standuply is built upon.
So, sure, you can send and receive standup responses in a number of forms, but using your desktop or laptop only.
2. Controlled access to stand-up response history
Like other standup bots, Standuply also allows you to view standup history on its app. However, it restricts you from doing so on its free plan. If you are on its free plan, you would need to manually scan through the entire chat history on your channel to locate a response to a certain question by a specific user on a particular date.
You will gain access to locating a particular answer using relevant filters only if you subscribe to its paid plans.
3. Integration with limited chat platforms
Standuply provides you with the ability to conduct standups in several ways. However, it does not give you enough options when it comes to integration with chat platforms. It can offer you its features only if your company's designated messaging platform is Slack or Microsoft Teams.
The limited number of integrations makes it difficult for users using other chat platforms to utilize Standuply and it’s features. This is an area where most other standup bots have shown notable advancements.
4. Restricted multi-admin access
So, Standuply does offer you multi-admin access, but it is only available for two users on its flat pricing model of the Teams package, two users on its user pricing model, and five users on its flat pricing model of the Business package.
So, while it does give you control over admin access, it caps the number of users who can use the feature. This hardly seems plausible if you are part of a large organization that has a number of small teams.
5. Lack of efficient reminders
Standuply allows you to set reminders to ensure your team responds to the standup questions even if they have missed answering them at the scheduled time. But the only type it offers is periodic reminders. This means you can set reminders to be sent a certain number of times and after a certain duration. But can you send reminders as and when you require them to be sent? No.
So, what’s the way out? Looking for the best Standuply alternatives! This is what the next section will bring to you. So, hold on and read through the 3 Standuply alternatives that give you the best a stand-up bot can offer.
The 3 best Standuply alternatives for 2024
1. Sup Bot
Sup Bot has a number of stellar features that not only take care of your daily standups but also aid you with team holiday management and team surveys. Let’s have a closer look.
Add to Slack
Add to Teams
Add to Webex(i) Async meeting management capabilities
Sup Bot daily standups relieve you of multiple concerns and considerations since they come with several standup meeting management capabilities.
- It permits access control within standups.
In addition to allowing you to control access over who can manage admins, create follow-ups, and manage holidays and billing, Sup provides you with an additional layer of access control that lets you control who can see what in standups.
You can control who has access to viewing standup responses and editing the standup settings. You can decide if everyone, the follow-up members, or only managers must have access to the stand-up settings.
- It provides flexibility with the user timezone.
Managing a team that is spread across continents is not an easy task. Conducting stand-up meetings across continents is more difficult because of the timezone differences that each team member comes with. So, with a stand-up timeslot that is fixed for all, you make it difficult to attend the meeting for those who reside in timezones that significantly differ from where the majority reside.
Sup makes this easy for you by allowing you to schedule asynchronous stand-up meetings at user timezones. So, while you do have a fixed schedule for all team members, you provide them with the flexibility to respond to standups in their timezones, making it easy for yourself and them.
- It allows you to tailor the questions according to your preferences.
Sup allows you to customize the questions the way you want. It understands how you may need to tweak the questions as per the requirements of a particular department or industry.
For instance, an HR standup can have questions that look like the following:
1. How many telephonic interviews did you conduct yesterday?
2. How many face-to-face interviews did you conduct yesterday?
3. How many telephonic interviews do you have scheduled for today?
4. How many face-to-face interviews do you have scheduled for today?
5. Are there any blockers?
The first four questions above require HR to answer only in numbers, while the last question will require them to respond using a ‘yes’ or ‘no’ option or using text.
Sup makes this easy for you by allowing you to set multiple types of questions: text, number, options, date, and user. You can see a few types at play below.
- It reminds members who have yet to respond.
There may be times when your team members miss responding to the standup questions at the scheduled time, and there may be times when you require the standups to be answered urgently. Sup provides you with a solution for both of these situations. Periodic reminders solve the first scenario, and the second situation is helped by a feature called custom reminders.
Periodic reminders from Sup allow you to send automated reminders to team members who have yet to respond to the standup.
Custom reminders on Sup allow you to send reminders when you need standups to be answered promptly.
- It sends standup responses at a scheduled time.
Sup allows you to receive all standup responses in a threaded manner at a scheduled time, apart from the option to receive them as and when your team members answer the bot. This saves you from repeatedly checking the chat platform channel as and when the standup responses come in, and you receive all the responses together in a neat and organized form.
- It assesses team moods daily.
An important ability that Sup bestows on you is the ability to assess team moods daily. Sup’s mood tracking feature integrates seamlessly into the daily standups and asks your team members their mood for the day. The best part about this is that team members respond to the mood-tracking question anonymously, so they feel safe and answer the question honestly without fear of being judged.
Sup sends you the average mood for the day in the daily summary in both numeric and indicative (with an emoticon) form to help you understand the team pulse best. It also helps you with an illustrated graph in the app dashboard and sends you a weekly mood summary at the end of each week, as shown below.
- It helps you with detailed statistics and analytics.
The asynchronous standup meetings at Sup offer you what your traditional standup meetings would find difficult to give: detailed stats and analytics. Sure, traditional stand-up meetings would help you with data, but you would find it difficult to generate insights from them easily. This is where Sup helps you.
Sup aggregates the data generated from the daily async standups and presents them (from which member feels most accountable about their work to the happiest workday) to you in the form of easy-to-grasp graphical illustrations and digestible figures.
(ii) Documentation
Sup is an easy-to-use app. However, in case you find it difficult to understand and make use of certain features, you can go through the set of documented guides that ensure you are making the most of the app’s abilities. They have been made available for quick reference so that you and your team can use the app efficiently and gain maximum productivity.
(iii) Holiday or Leave Management
In addition to its asynchronous standup capabilities, Sup helps you with tracking and managing team holidays. Your team members can request a holiday, and you can find all the details, including buttons to approve or reject the same, directly on the designated chat platform.
Sup also makes the leave management process simpler for you by allowing you to select a number of leave types that can be approved automatically through its customise approval flow.
To make things simpler for your team, Sup integrates its holiday feature with its standups to pause all standups on a holiday so that your team does not get interrupted in the middle of their leisure time.
(iv) Forms and Polls
Team surveys are as important as team standups and holiday tracking. So, Sup offers you forms as another core feature that makes your daily workflow easy and simple. It allows you multiple possibilities with its diverse range of form templates. You can send surveys, run quick decision based polls to make important decisions, or run a team-building activity on Slack and Microsoft Teams.
(v) Pros
Sup provides you with the same core set of features as offered by any other stand-up bot listed here in this blog. In addition, it takes care to make them flexible, accessible, and user-friendly. Here is how.
- Export of data with advanced filters
You can use Sup not just to conduct asynchronous standups but also to generate reports of past standups. Sup makes this process easy for you by providing you with advanced filters that narrow down the data to what you require. - Unlimited number of follow-ups and follow-up members
Sup offers you the power to schedule as many follow-ups as you want with as many follow-up members as required in all its paid plans. Unlike other standup bots, it does not cap the number of follow-ups or follow-up members in any of its paid plans. - Availability of custom feature requests
Sup understands that each team has its own unique needs and that its available features may not always be enough. This is why it offers you a way to request custom features to receive features tailored to suit your team’s needs. - Unique flat pricing model
Most standup bots come with a user-based pricing model. However, Sup’s packages come with a unique flat pricing model that charges a fixed amount for your entire team, regardless of its size. So, you can continue using Sup’s features without fear of increased cost as and when your team size increases. - Leverage the chat platform for core features
In addition to utilizing Sup’s core features via the app interface, you can do the same (create standups, forms, and holidays) via the chat platform (Slack, Microsoft Teams) that your company uses officially, for ease of usage. - Ability to pause standups as necessary
Sup provides you with the ability to deactivate your active standups temporarily as and when necessary. The action halts the standup notifications to your team members but allows you to view past responses and generate past reports. - Available on multiple chat platforms
Sup lets users access its services on several messaging platforms. In addition to Slack, Sup offers its services on Microsoft Teams and Webex. - Built for large and small screens
Sup allows you and your team flexibility by making the software available on both large and small screens. This added benefit allows ease and convenience in usage. - Excellent client support
Sup understands the need for urgent support delivery and offers its users quick client assistance. Its response time can be clocked within 24 hours.
(vi) Limitations
Sup also comes with a number of limitations.
- It comes with limited integration options. Currently, it only integrates with Google Sheets, Google Calendar.
- It sends stand-up reports to chat channels only and does not email them.
(vii) Pricing
Sup offers comprehensive pricing plans to its users. It offers all its packages on a flat pricing model. Let’s have a look at the pricing plans below.
- The free plan accommodates 15 participants with one follow-up and unlimited responses.
- The Pro plan starts at a flat rate of $29 per month for the entire team.
- The Premium plan starts at a flat rate of $49 per month for the entire team.
Here is a video explaining how to run an async stand-up meeting in Sup.
2. Standup Alice
The second good alternative to Standuply is Standup Alice. It offers you several simple standup features, such as editing questions and custom time zones. Apart from these, here are the other elements it offers:
(i) Async meeting management capabilities
- It sends reminders before and after stand-up time.
- It gives you reports as per your preferred format.
- It can send you standup reports anonymously.
(ii) Documentation
Standup Alice provides you with a guide to using the bot. However, the guides do not give you a detailed understanding of all the features.
(iii) Pros
- Standup Alice allows you to pause standups anytime you want.
- The bot allows you to receive standup reports via email.
- It integrates with multiple messaging platforms.
(iv) Limitations
- It cannot create forms and surveys.
- There is no way to track and manage holidays using Standup Alice. It only allows the user to set their vacation status.
- It does not offer AI capabilities.
(v) Pricing
Standup Alice comes with three pricing plans.
- The basic plan accommodates only four users.
- The pro plan comes with a user-based pricing model of $1 per user per month.
- The enterprise plan offers custom pricing.
3. DailyBot
The third alternative to Standuply on this list is DailyBot. DailyBot allows you to run standups in user timezones with integrated mood-tracking.
(i) Async meeting management capabilities
- It allows team members to snooze the standup.
- It accords responding to a standup at the start of work time.
- It helps you gauge team moods every day.
(ii) Documentation
DailyBot has a dedicated support page where it has several FAQs listed about its usage. You can go through its list of questions or find the required query in its category.
(iii) Forms and Polls
DailyBot allows you and your team members to create forms.
(iv) Pros
- The app comes with AI capabilities.
- It integrates with multiple chat platforms.
- It offers its features in multiple languages.
(v) Limitations
- DailyBot does not allow the customization of questions.
- The team mood chart is activated only when there are three or more people in the standup.
- DailyBot does not offer holiday tracking or management.
(vi) Pricing
Let’s have a look at DailyBot’s pricing.
- It allows a free package, but that is limited to only 10 users.
- Its Essentials plan costs you $3 per user per month.
- Its Advanced plan charges you $6 per user per month.
Conclusion
Selecting the right standup bot is important for your team. But selecting the right alternative is even more important. You need to check if you are losing out on the quality of the core requirements and if there is anything more that is on offer. And all of this at a cost that fits your budget. So, review the options laid out above and select the one that suits your team the best!
