Microsoft Office365 is a cloud-based, subscription platform that has been hailed as the gold standard of the modern workplace. While you will be familiar and are likely to use its Mail, Word, Excel and PowerPoint apps, it offers a raft of other benefits that sometimes fly under the radar.
Microsoft estimate that 87% of all Office365 installations have yet to be developed by organisations that have implemented the latest way of deploying their Suite of Office Applications.
Is it not time to make the most of your investment?
It’s an incredible resource for SMEs, not least because of the ease of which it allows colleagues to collaborate and the ability it offers to access documents, emails and files from any device and from any location with internet access.
Your Technology Partner should be able to advise on how your business can make the best use of Office365, tailored to your own business needs – but here’s seven features we think make it ideal for businesses of all shapes and sizes.
Teamwork
The use of Microsoft Teams allows you to build a bespoke environment for your employees.
Microsoft describes Teams as a ‘chat-based workspace’ and it has been designed for internal and external groups of all kinds. Within one window, colleagues can call upon a variety of key Office365 apps and tools to help them work more effectively, including calendars and meetings, creating, sharing, editing and finding content, and chat and instant messaging. Teams is a centralised hub which comes at no extra cost – and rates well in terms of features, usability and offering.
Bookings
Many businesses find aligning calendars time consuming and that’s where Microsoft Bookings comes into its own, as the ideal tool to streamline appointment scheduling, allowing users to choose times that work for them, with automated reminders.
Microsoft Bookings is an online booking and appointment scheduling solution for small businesses. It provides businesses with a unique appointment booking webpage which allows their customers to select their desired service, appointment date and time, and staff member. It’s updated in real time, so customers can book appointments any time of the day or the night.
Microsoft Bookings automatically sends out confirmation emails to customers are automatically sent out – and reminder emails can be set too.
Collaboration
The days of emailing documents between employees are gone as staff can edit in real time across Microsoft’s online suite, like Word, Excel and other popular productivity apps.
No multiple version documents flying around from inbox to inbox by email – people can make changes in one file.
SharePoint
As a document management system SharePoint makes it easy to work on projects, organise and assign tasks, share files, communicate with colleagues in real-time.
Consider how you can streamline your business operations - automate manual processes, create electronic forms, use workflow capabilities to receive signatures, track how projects are developing and to receive approval. Timescales and reminders can be set up for staff to ensure they don’t get behind and are fully aware of ongoing work and projects.
Not everyone in your business needs to see certain files and documents: some may be confidential, others simply not relevant. SharePoint enables access at different levels, from department to an individual, so that staff have access to what they need.
SharePoint merges with commercial software, improving performance, adding function to daily tasks allowing you to streamline how a team works together.
Replace conference calls
Instead of managing traditional conference calling, Office365 includes calls in Teams to provide advanced calling and conferencing features, which provides co-workers with access to unlimited high-quality video and audio-conferencing services, regardless of their location. Share your desktop and run over a presentation with a colleague or many more in a group call or invite in external contacts to international meetings – no matter the time zone.
Always under your control - manage the budget
With a single billing service your cloud solution partner provides a single point of contact to customise your ideal modern workplace tailored to your operation. Always in control of your budget the Office365 Suite, makes administration of your IT operations easier to manage with a dynamic and changing Workforce as your businesses develops.
Always up to date
With Office365, you’ll have access to the latest versions of Office and at no additional charge. That means you get the latest features without having to uninstall and then reinstall in everyone’s machines.
And as well as being a highly secure system for a mobile workforce, your data will have the latest security updates – you don’t have the hassle of doing all these yourself.
Need a truly modern workplace? Contact us to find out how to best harness Office 365’s technology solutions for your business.