Microsoft 365 is one of the most used software as a service (SaaS) products in the world. If you’re running a business in 2022, likely, you are already harnessing the power of Microsoft 365, especially if you have a remote workforce.
Microsoft 365 is renowned for its capabilities to facilitate productivity and collaboration, but most users just stick with the basics such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Teams, and don’t realise there are a host of ways Microsoft 365 can solve their operational problems.
Save time, streamline work processes, and put a little rocket boost in your productivity with these tricks and tips:
1. Create your company intranet with SharePoint
When employees are spread out across multiple sites, it can be tricky getting the word out about company-wide events, news, or sharing essential files to everyone all at the same time. Mass email used to be the way to get everyone’s attention but these days, inboxes are overloaded and that important update can get missed. Plus mass emails feel a little impersonal.
SharePoint takes this problem and resolves it. It’s a fast and simple way to create a company intranet, or internal facing websites within your organisation. Sharing anything you want through a web page of your design, then inviting colleagues to visit. You can even invite external parties, such as customers, to share information even faster.
If you want to keep things focused within a department or team, simple – just create a SharePoint Team site to have the same features with permissions that only allow specific teams to view it. This can be useful for specific projects, so only the team working on the project can make changes to documents.
And because Microsoft 365 is all about collaboration, if you’re using Microsoft Teams, you can view any files stored in SharePoint in the Files of a team, instead of emailing them back and forth.
2. Real-time collaboration
One of the huge features of Microsoft 365 is the focus on enabling collaboration and making it as easy as possible, with real-time co-authoring built into most of the Office tools in Microsoft 365.
A file saved in Teams, SharePoint, or OneDrive can be shared with others to view and edit simultaneously. By inviting a colleague, you can both view the document at the same time, open a conversation thread to chat, or simply make edits and see them on each other’s screen in real-time.
There’s no need to book a meeting room to discuss each alteration needed on important documents; just invite your co-workers to collaborate with Microsoft 365.
3. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a very popular tool with businesses; since its launch, Microsoft Teams has become the fastest growing app in Microsoft’s history – more than 650,000 companies using the tool and over 145 million daily active users worldwide.
As mentioned, Teams allows users to communicate with colleagues in real-time, either in chats or video calls. But you can also set up channels within Teams that are dedicated to certain projects, with a file library that hosts all the files and documents shared in the channel. This means you can easily collaborate and view files sent to you in chats, without having to switch to the dedicated app.
4. Power Automate
Many office tasks are repetitive or are low-level tasks that get pushed to the bottom of the to-do list. Power Automate is an automation tool that you can use to create custom workflows to perform tasks on your behalf, making it easier to keep business operations running efficiently, without you having to think about it,
The app is used to automate repetitive tasks, such as:
- Automatically saving email attachments to the relevant SharePoint folder, saving time having to search through emails for the one document you need.
- Manage holiday leave requests and approvals.
- Easily request approvals for new documents, then notify employees on Teams, a much faster process than having to chase up multiple members of staff.
- Keeping track of social media mentions connected to your business or projects is usually a time consuming manual activity.
5. Scheduler
The Scheduler app is ideal for the hybrid workforce, where employees can be working remotely or on-site, making it tricky to schedule face-to-face and online meetings. Scheduler takes the headache out of trying to coordinate multiple schedules, by delegating this to your digital virtual assistant, Cortana, who checks calendars, sends messages to negotiate times, schedules across time zones, and then creates calendar invites. Cortana can even attend an online meeting. All you need to do is turn up or log on when prompted.
With so many hidden gems in Microsoft 365, you might find it difficult to sort out which applications are going to be most useful to your daily business operations. Get in touch with Gold Certified Partner RODIN and our consultants can help you identify the right apps for your specific organisation to get your business working smarter, not harder.
