From email to collaboration: Maximizing productivity with Microsoft 365

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Are you in need of a new IT solution? It's natural to turn to search engines to find hundreds of different solutions that require only a credit card to get started. However, you may be overlooking an amazing IT service you already pay for today, that can deliver solutions to a wide range of problems.

Yes, we're talking about Microsoft 365.

Used by over 345 million people around the world, Microsoft 365 has so many capabilities when it comes to IT solutions. Its early beginnings were very much focused on email services, and the cost benefits of moving your email to Microsoft 365 were significant. But over the years, Microsoft 365 has evolved and become much more than just an email platform.

Before the pandemic, Microsoft 365 was primarily used to make businesses more efficient and cost-effective. But in recent years, it has become an essential tool for enabling collaboration and productivity, wherever your team may be working from. Microsoft 365 now offers a wide range of tools that can help businesses take advantage of its capabilities, and in this article, we will highlight some of the most common areas that can help you when you are looking for new IT solutions, based on our experience as Microsoft 365 Consultants.

Microsoft Teams

Most of us think of Teams as a chat and call platform for our team, but did you know that Teams has excellent capabilities for creating workspaces? These workspaces are secure, backed up by SharePoint, and allow your team to converse in a hub without the need to rely on email. Teams also has additional features like file sharing and collaborative editing that make it an excellent tool for remote work.

SharePoint

SharePoint has been around for over twenty years and is an excellent tool for storing and sharing documents securely. It also provides an intuitive intranet, where you and your team can share news and updates in a variety of hubs, whether it's the latest HR policy or the next social get-together. SharePoint is an excellent solution for many scenarios and is an often-overlooked tool in Microsoft 365.

Microsoft Lists

One of the newer tools in Microsoft 365 is Microsoft Lists, which allows you to quickly create, store, and manage data in a visual way. It's perfect for managing things like customer lists, invoices, and asset lists. It even has a dedicated mobile app that lets you work on the go with your data, and collaborate on live data, without an Excel file in sight.

Planner

When it comes to managing tasks for projects or initiatives, we often reach for Excel or worse, a notepad! However, Microsoft 365 comes with an excellent planning app named Planner. Planner allows you to create, manage, and share a project plan with tasks and even automate email reminders to your team to chase them on outstanding tasks.

Forms

When you need to create a survey or questionnaire, people often turn to Word or Outlook to generate it or head to a third-party web service. However, we need to be cautious about how we collect and store the data we receive, and that's where Forms comes in. Forms gives you the ability to create great surveys, questionnaires, and quizzes to either people within your business or externally. You can store them securely, and even get automated charts and reports on your results.

Does it cost more?

Microsoft 365 is not just a one-trick pony when it comes to IT solutions. Nearly all the Microsoft 365 plans for businesses include all the services we just listed above, meaning you can take advantage of them without entering your credit card details anywhere.

Want to learn more on how to boost your productivity and streamline collaboration using Microsoft 365?

Then don't miss out on "The Ultimate Microsoft 365 Guide," our free eBook that covers apps like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Planner, and more. It's packed with tips, tricks, and real-world examples to help you make the most of this powerful platform.

Whether you're a business owner, a manager, or an employee, Microsoft 365 can help you work smarter, not harder. So why wait? Get your hands on our "Ultimate Microsoft 365 Guide" today and take the first step towards a more productive, efficient, and collaborative work environment, by clicking here.