In our last post, we discussed the potential that Office 365 is giving businesses. However, that was just scratching the surface! In this post we deep dive into the specifics of some of the great Microsoft tools that our business is benefiting from, and so could yours!
All of these tools are helping us stay productive, without having to spend tons of dollars. As a bonus, we’ve also thrown in a couple of our favourite extras for good measure.
Let’s get into it!
1. Microsoft Flow: Work less, do more
Microsoft Flow is a workflow automation solution designed to help businesses turn repetitive tasks into workflows. The tool works across a number of applications and services (think OneNote, OneDrive, SharePoint, Twitter, Facebook, Slack, the list can go on…)
And guess what? It’s DIY, so you don’t need a developer!
Creating a ‘flow’ is as simple as specifying the action that should take place when a certain event occurs, and you are on your way!
Need a more concrete example? Try thinking about having a flow that saves your Outlook attachments into a Google Drive… Flow can do that for you!
Microsoft Flow is a member of the Office 365 package, available to any organisation who is already using this productivity suite. Our advice? Stop wasting unnecessary time, go and give Flow a try now!
2. Power BI: Self-service business intelligence at its finest
A key member of the Office 365 offering, Power BI is Excel on steroids. Its basic capability includes the ability to take data and convert into interactive visualisations in the view of a dashboard.
Accounting for personalisation, Power BI allows for users being able to customise their dashboard depending what information is most important to their job.
Forget going through manual spreadsheets, power up your staff with real-time interactive insights, pun intended!
Refer to this case study for a review of how Power BI is helping KPMG.
3. Teams: The door into the world of productivity
Teams is your ticket to the mystical land of collaboration efficiency. And you guessed it, it’s another tool in the Office 365 bundle!
Microsoft Teams centralises all your team communication, including file sharing to one tool. It’s features includes chat, video, ability to host meetings, store documents, work on the same project in real time together, and more.
You can create different ‘teams’ inside the tool for the different teams you’re on. Because of all of it’s different features, it really is a one stop shop for all collaboration communication.
4. Advance Threat Protection: Email security made easy
Now this is a tool that could save your business, literally. Over the past several months our newsfeeds have been flooded with talks of cyberattacks, as well as cyber security. We’ve been hearing it from everyone… even our grandmothers have got wind of it!
Microsoft have swooped in again with a life-saving tool, Advance Threat Protection. This tool scans emails for SPAM before they land in your inbox. It checks your links and attachments to ensure they are safe for clicking. ATP will redirect malicious links, and block unsafe attachments making your inbox fool proof! Keen to learn more? Watch the full overview from Microsoft here.
Starting at just $3 per user per month, Microsoft’s Advance Threat Protection is a highly recommended add on to Office 365.
5. Meeting Secretaries: Make scheduling meetings a breeze
This is one of the extra tools we thought we’d sneak into this post, and you will soon see why!
I’m sure we all know the pain of trying to schedule a meeting, it can almost take as much time going back and forth as the meeting itself. But not anymore, thanks to cool new AI tools such as X.AI and Secretary Bot.
These tools act as personal secretaries, making scheduling meetings a breeze. All that’s required from you is to choose who you want to arrange a meeting with, set a meeting title and the bot comes back with a list of common free timeslots for you to choose from! Seems like magic doesn’t it?
This tool can be integrated with Teams, or used as a standalone product.
6. LastPass: Your passwords secured
Lastly, this is another little bonus tool we’ve thrown in which can stop you from losing your marbles, or passwords in this case.
LastPass is a highly secure password storing tool, where you can store all your (super secure) passwords in. When you have to log into 10 different tools to even start your day, this tool can help to keep you sane. However, not only does it store passwords, you can store important notes and documents in LastPass such as insurance information, WiFi access codes etc.
So long as you don’t forget the password for LastPass, your right!
This concludes our list of essential tools that keep our team productive, but we’re always on the lookout for more. If you have any tools you can’t imagine your life without, let us know in the comments.
