The online office is here to stay - According to Workshifting.com, the number of telecommuters is slated to increase by 69 percent over the next four years.. Literally millions of Americans make their office anywhere, supported by a smorgasbord of cloud-based technologies and online collaboration tools.

The coders still haven’t invented a virtual manager – and there’s no app for good judgment – but there are plenty of online tools and resources out there that can give the human ones a serious helping hand. Management is, at its core, a very tough, very human job. But here are four ideas for using online tools and resources to become a better boss.

Once a clunky substitute for the so-called real thing, the online meeting has finally come of age. Video conferencing apps such as Skype and full-on web conference platforms such as WebEx, GoToMeeting and Adobe Connect Pro have made online meetings easy to launch, even at a moment’s notice. Our own offering, BizAnytime, incorporates online meetings with a host of other business tools, including document collaboration and project management.

Here’s one thing that can be said about business software: Companies certainly don’t lack options. With a rich selection of Software-as-a- Service (SaaS) choices available on the web and literally millions of apps in the iOS App Store and Android Marketplace, it often seems like there are as many business tools as there are businesses.

But if the selection is broad, it’s not exactly an embarrassment of riches. This kind of cloud sprawl can end up being counterproductive for businesses as they try to cobble together a system that meets their needs.

Just when you thought you’d mastered business communication, the rise of online collaboration tools and remote workgroups means that there is actually a whole new set of rules and etiquette to be learned.

Work-life balance is something we all strive for. While it looks different to each person, your own personal work-life balance is the point at where you feel completely satisfied with how much of your time is spent at work, or doing what makes you personally happy. Sometimes, people are happiest when they’re at work, so for them, balance is a 60 hour work week. Others value their time at home more, so a balance may be shorter work weeks, or the ability to do the work they love out of their home.

Online collaboration tools can be a boon to sales teams, whether their members are working remotely or not. While selling can seem like an individual act, with its endless phone calls and commissions, when it comes to supporting an effective overall sales effort, it’s very much a team sport. It’s vital that sales groups be able to share information and pool resources effectively.

Used strategically, virtual office solutions, including online document collaboration and web conferencing, can help make that happen. And that makes for both happy employees and happy management.

Excellent communication skills are one of the most important attributes of any successful team. With the ability to communicate visions, ideas, progress and successes clearly, each member of a team has insight into where the firm stands and the direction in which the firm is headed. One program some companies have used in the past to help streamline these communication efforts is Yammer. This program allows teams to chat within the firm, talk with clients and collaborate on basic documents. But business chat should encompass more than these basic functions.