As more and more businesses spring up every day, it is essential to stay ahead of the competition and work harder and more efficiently. Those who are taking advantage of the technology available are the same businesses or companies taking over the market. They take advantage of cloud computing to access and share data faster, to improve collaboration, and personalize their systems.
Office 365 is one of the well-known cloud-based apps that is helping teams enhance their productivity. Making popular Microsoft office programs online and accessible to multiple team members at once has changed the game.
But while there’s so much, you can do with a Microsoft 365 subscription. There are still ways you can push it to the edge. That’s precisely the purpose of this article – to show you how you can improve the productivity of an already existing office 365 account, in just three simple ways.
Using Sharepoint to improve your collaboration
Increasing your team’s overall collaboration can go a long way in improving your productivity. Office 365 has a feature called SharePoint that always keeps you and your team connected and updated. How exactly? When using Office 365, your SharePoint version is automatically updated, ensuring you’re still up to speed with the latest technology.
Of course, there are several things you can do with SharePoint to make your workflow a lot smoother. You can customize your business tools to fit your needs. A good example would be using the tools available to run surveys and even a blog to keep your customers in the loop.
Yet another great feature is that you can plan and monitor several projects at once. Sharepoint allows you to sync and share calendars, task lists, and other tools. What’sWhat’s so great about this, is everyone is updated. Your entire team can be aware of the ongoings of a project or event in real-time.
The best part of Sharepoint is that it also allows you to connect and create different documents. That means several of your employees can edit and update a single record at once. In addition to the co-authoring feature, you can even video-conference and have important virtual meetings from anywhere in the world.
Apart from updating your colleagues in real-time, you can even help them form stronger bonds. Rather than Sharepoint, this is through socials like Yammer and Skype. But it is still just as effective at improving engagement and collaboration.
Automating business processes to improve time management
They say time is money, so the more of it you can save, the better it is for you. Part of what makes Office 365 so convenient is that there are several operations you can automate. By making specific tasks automatic, you can save several hours or even days and direct the time to other tasks. You can connect your Office 365 to many third-party cloud solutions, and perform other operations.
One of them is generating digest emails for outstanding Microsoft Planner tasks. So it’s a way of automatically reminding your team of the unfinished tasks. As explained earlier, you can edit the tools to suit your business. That means you can create and automate notifications on specific projects. For example, you can adjust your settings to notify a party when a document that needs their approval is uploaded. So even if the two or more parties involved aren’t working in the same time zone, the moment something is uploaded or edited, concerned parties are instantly notified. You can even have all your email attachments uploaded to your OneDrive cloud storage for safekeeping or as a form of backup. It also helps automate the implementation of security policies.
Syncing the GAL to iPhone to improve accessibility
GAL stands for Global Address List. It refers to the universal contact information your organization has acquired; it’s like an address book for everyone in your company. Office 365 allows you quickly and easily SyncGAL to iPhone. Syncing your company’s GAL to iPhones can be a very effective means of increasing collaboration. It means your employees have access to all the contacts they may require for their job. The beauty of this is it saves a lot of time and effort. People don’t have to try so hard to get in touch or find information about another employee. This feature is mostly useful for large companies and the backbone on which mail delivery within an organization works.
The sync also ensures that any changes or updates made are automated and communicated. That way, there is no hitch or interruption in your workflow due to outdated information. The bonus of syncing it to an iPhone means everyone carries the contacts they require at all times. Remember, all connections are centrally managed, so you can even do a reverse search on individuals.
Office 365 can transform the efficiency and productivity of your business. It gets even better when you genuinely maximize all its features. To recap the three ways we discussed on how to improve your productivity:
● Through its co-author, sharing, and customizable tools, SharePoint can significantly impact your team’s collaboration.
● You can save a lot of time by automating many of your business processes. Time saved can now go to other tasks that can help your business grow even further.
● Lastly, by syncing your companies GAL to iPhones, you can create a more accessible platform for all employees.
