If you’re organization uses Office 365, chances are you think of it as an email application. You may also be familiar with the file sharing and collaboration available through One Drive. However, there are a other powerful features that can help your small business be more productive and stand out from your competitors.
Being a small business or entrepreneur isn’t easy. Every dollar matters. That’s why it’s important to make the most of the services you purchase. Here are 5 features of Office 365 you might not know about.
1) Microsoft Teams – Video Conferencing, Chat and File Sharing
The world we work in is constantly changing, and now, more than ever, teams are spread out, and employees are working remotely. Over the last ten years, the growth in remote work has increased by 91 percent. Video conferencing helps us bridge the physical divide and build connections with co-workers from all over the world.
Microsoft Teams lets you host audio, video, and web meetings with employees, customers, or partners providing all-important face-to-face interaction. You can also use the stand-alone chat feature as an alternative to communication tools like Slack.
2) Microsoft Bookings – Online Scheduling
Tired of endless phone calls, email tennis and manual calendar invites? You can put it all on autopilot with an Office365’s online scheduling app. Microsoft Bookings lets you show customers your availability. This means they can book an appointment themselves, which:
- Saves time. The customer can see when you’re available and pick a time that’s convenient for them. No more back and forth to find a suitable appointment
- Cuts admin. Bookings automatically updates your calendar when someone books an appointment. It can also send the customer a confirmation
- Lowers the chance of cancellations by sending calendar invites for the scheduled meeting.
- Creates more loyal customers. Given the choice, customers prefer saving time over money. So, making it as easy as possible to book an appointment is an opportunity to bond with them and win their loyalty
3) Sway – Visual Story Telling
Sway is a cloud-based story-telling application that is easier to use than PowerPoint and provides more narrative devices than simply slide after slide of bullet points. There’s a decided emphasis on storytelling, rather than presenting. Sway is designed for a narrative structure that flows, either left to right or up to down, and the presenter (or reader) can use a mouse wheel to move through it rather than a button or a click. This is a small but subtle distinction; PowerPoint feels like a series of steps but Sway feels like a journey, so it’s easier to follow the flow as if you’re reading naturally. For this reason, Sway doesn’t have slides; it has a single storyline.
To get you started, Sway provides templates for common presentations. These include subject like business presentations, portfolios, resumes, and newsletters. If you’re stuck on what to put in your presentation, Sway can even help you build an outline. Just select the “Start From a Topic” option.
When you enter a term – for example “technology” – Sway produces the outline of a presentation for you, with definitions, uses, areas to cover, suggested linked topics, images, and more. This is all powered from Wikipedia data and gives full links back to the pages it uses.
4) Microsoft Planner – Workflows
Microsoft Planner is a planning application available for anyone with a paid subscription to Office 365. Users describe it as lightweight and flexible, similar to Trello. You can easily organize workflows for projects by creating tasks, assigning resources and setting deadlines.
Once the assigned individual checks that a task is completed, workflow cascades the effort to the next person in the series. Planner integrates with Office and Calendar so individuals can track deadlines and due dates in one place. On top of that, Planner comes with dashboards. They are designed in a way that you can easily monitor the efficiencies and time frames of the assigned tasks.
5) Microsoft Forms – Create Surveys and Polls
As part of most Office 365 subscriptions, Microsoft has a tool known as Forms which can help you run an internal poll or questionnaire amongst coworkers. It’s similar to tools like Google Forms or Survey Monkey.
As the name suggests, Forms is a simple to use lightweight tool that can help you quickly create forms, collect responses in real-time, and view charts to help you visualize your data. It works from any web browser, and there’s no need to install a dedicated app. You can view responses on the web, or in Excel for a deeper data analysis.
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Referral$
If you know of a company that would be interested in the services of Invario, please email me the company name along with the phone number and email for the person we should contact.
That is all you have to do! Upon completion of the onboarding of a new customer, Invario will pay the equivalent of one month of Invario service to that customer. Recipients that cannot or do not wish to receive a referral payment may elect to have the referral fee donated to a charity of their choice or put into a company entertainment fund.