Microsoft 365 is more than the well-known programs like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams and Outlook, it’s a huge suite of complimentary cloud-based programs. However, most people are only scratching the surface when using the toolset. It really is a massive ecosystem that helps people within your business, and can also help with both customers and suppliers by controlling their data, and most importantly, staying safe.
How Can You make the most of your Microsoft 365 subscription?
The first step into making the most of the lesser-known tools is to start to appreciate what tools there are and what they do at a high level.
Collaboration Tools
Microsoft Teams is a cornerstone of collaboration in Microsoft 365. It can take a bit of effort to get adoption up but once the business has embraced its use, it will deliver some good efficiencies. By setting up channels for different projects or departments, staff can communicate effectively and share documents and most importantly, work asynchronously. Integrating SharePoint allows for centralised document management all in the cloud so it’s all accessible anywhere, even on mobile.
Customising Your M365 Tenant
Customising your Microsoft 365 environment can significantly improve user adoption. Map out your teams of people and how they need to work together, and from there you can plan your Teams and SharePoint deployment. Adding in services such as Delve which show details of who you are working with can help. Small improvements like a background image at the login screen can help make your tenant ‘yours’ too.
Using Automation
The Power Platform, which includes Power Apps, Power Automate, and Power BI, is a set of amazing tools for automating tasks and gaining business intelligence from your data. Whilst they can be made to be very complicated and do all sorts of timesaving tasks, we normally recommend starting with user account creation and changes, and expand from there once you start to get a grasp of the tools. Other ideas could include expense management, automatically processing invoices and holiday application flows.
Ensuring Data Security
Data security is critical. Microsoft 365 provides security features like Azure Information Protection and Advanced Threat Protection to safeguard sensitive information. Implementing these features and ensuring compliance with regulatory standards can protect businesses from data breaches and legal issues. We also recommend taking the basics such as MFA and expanding on them, leveraging Conditional Access to build more secure rules to protect the business.
Managing Email and Time Effectively
Utilising features like Focused Inbox and Quick Steps in Outlook can significantly streamline email management. Turning emails into tasks in Todo or projects in Planner make staff more productive.
Utilising Microsoft 365 Across Devices
Microsoft 365 apps are available across probably all of your devices, including PCs, Macs, tablets, and mobile phones. Allowing employees to access M365 from anywhere can improve flexibility and responsiveness. Trusting your staff to get the job done no matter where they are can deliver great results.
👉 Contact us if you aren’t making the best use of your M365 services and see what efficiencies can be achieved.