Most business professionals have access to an Office 365 subscription. But are they making full use of the best that Office 365 has to offer? Office 365 is more than just email, in the same way that Spectrum bundles are more than just internet plans. When it comes to enhancing collaboration and productivity, Office 365 comes with specially built tools to do just that.
Microsoft’s vision is to make work efficient and easier for every single worker in an organization.
What does Office 365 offer?
Yet, too many people are guilty of sticking to the same applications and tools while having an Office 365 subscription. They remain blissfully unaware of the new updates rolling out periodically that aim to improve the overall user experience. If you use PowerPoint, Excel, Word, and Outlook every day this blog is here to help you make the most of the Office 365 experience. Here are five extremely helpful Office 365 features that you may not be aware of:
- Yammer
- Sway
- Real-time Collaborative Editing
- Word Editor
- Email Templates
Yammer
Yammer is a virtual location for employees to come together even when they are mobile or remote. It provides a platform to talk, share and follow activities, making it essentially social media for work. But Yammer also offers more than a social work-based platform. Yammer is integrated with other applications including One Drive for Business, Skype for Business and Outlook. This allows you to join video conferences, create and collaborate on documents and easily schedule meetings and appointments. The benefit to larger organizations is obvious. Many corporations have employees based in different locations. Some even have employees who travel for business a lot. These employees can easily make use of Yammer’s cloud-based services to stay updated, regardless of physical location.
Sway
Many of us stubbornly refuse to move on and keep making our presentations on PowerPoint. But if only for a second, we move away from PowerPoint and look at Sway, our opinion can change. Sway is perfectly suited to create professional, sharp newsletters, presentations and press releases. Sway has a large number of professional, well-polished templates that allow anyone to make high-quality material. In fact, objectively speaking, any employee can create great-looking material without much aesthetic sense. Sway focuses on three factors regarding the information: it is displayed in an attention-grabbing manner, it is easy to digest, and it looks great.
Real-time Collaborative Editing
One useful aspect of Cloud is that applications within it are accessible by users anywhere, regardless of physical location. In keeping with this, Excel, PowerPoint and Word have been updated with a feature that allows real-time editing. This allows colleagues to collaborate and co-author documents. It also allows users to see the editing happen in real-time, so you can see changes happen as they occur. This is very useful when creating comprehensive reports that borrow from different departments. Or when collaborating on marketing copies. Or just about any document that requires the input of two or more people. And the best part is, collaborators do not have to be in the same geographical location to collaborate. Cloud is really making life easy when it comes to business correspondence.
Word Editor
Writing isn’t everybody’s strong point or forte. While it is advisable to work on your writing skills, Microsoft has added an assistant to help you out. After the recent updates, Microsoft Word now has the Editor feature. But what is Editor? It is an intelligent and intuitive cloud service based on language processing and machine learning. Editor does much more than simply point out your typos and errors. It provides assistance with spelling, grammar as well as writing styles. It is so smart that it can provide suggestions based on the specific context of your writing! Essentially, Editor helps both with better results as well as productivity, making it a very useful aid in writing.
Email Templates
Have you ever left your desk to go for a one-hour meeting and return to 50 emails sitting in Outlook? A new update to Outlook is meant to assist your productivity with situations just like this. This new feature is email templates. It helps reduce time spent in email correspondence, freeing it up for more productive activities. All you have to do is select an email that you want to use as a template. Select the file and save it as a template. You can even give it a specific name like “Weekly Update” or “Monthly Progress”. Choose the location you wish to save it and you’re done. You now have an email template for a regular email you send, saving precious time you would otherwise spend drafting.
Office 365 is bent on evolving the traditional work process and environment. To do this, it makes continuous improvements and rolls out regular updates. It is best to have a reliable, secure internet connection to make full use of Office 365, especially real-time editing. If you’re looking to switch to Office 365, look into high-speed Spectrum internet packages or other similar providers to complement all the exciting features. Hopefully, you will have learned some new things about Office 365. Don’t be shy about sharing them with others.
