The vast majority of businesses today use Office 365 in some capacity. It is, therefore, important that you and your employees know how to use this platform efficiently so that your team can work productively and get projects completed as quickly as possible. Considering the sheer functionality and mass of features that Office 365 brings to the table, it is likely that there are a few productivity hacks that you are not aware of. So, read on to discover how you can make your life and your team’s life much easier when using Office 365…
Collaborate on Word documents in real time –
This is an option that has been around for quite some time now, yet it is surprising how many businesses are not making the most of Word collaboration. This is one of the most beneficial Office 365 business features. Just as you can with Google docs, Word enables you to take advantage of real-time co-authoring. This means that you and your team members can work on the same documents together at the same time. With the integrated sidebar, you can directly save files to SharePoint or OneDrive within Word. This means that they will be shared immediately with other employees. Changes can be tracked in real-time, so there is no need to navigate between different applications. This makes it much easier for your team to work as one. After all, anything that boosts collaboration is great for the day-to-day running of any business.
Pin documents and applications on the taskbar –
Instead of going through the hassle of having to search to locate a document that you use on a frequent basis, do not create a shortcut or store it on your desktop. Instead, you can pin this document or application so it appears on your taskbar.
Leverage the power of Groups and Calendars –
If your business is not making the most of Groups and Calendar, you are missing out on a huge opportunity. Groups helps you and your team to stay focused and organised on both your team projects and schedules, as well as your personal work obligations. This will help you to keep everything in order so you feel like you have your life together and you are not scrambling from one task to another.
Use shareable links –
Do you still attach files to emails when trying to give someone access to a document? If so, you need to get to grips with the improved option of using shareable links. Whenever you have uploaded a file to your account, it will be saved in the Microsoft cloud. Because of this, every document is given a unique URL. You can sue this URL for sharing instead of having to go through the purpose of opening up your files, hunting down the one you need, and attaching it. Instead, all you need to do is click Share+ and this will give you the list of shareable links to choose from.
Configure DocuSign with your Office 365 account –
You no longer have to go through the hassle of printing out a document, scanning it, and sending it to the person you need. Instead, all you need to do is configure DocuSign with Office 365, and you can sign documents using your computer. Not only does this increase efficiency considerably, but eliminates the need for a scanner in the office, and so you will free up some much-needed space.
Familiarise your employees with Sway –
Do your employees need to make presentations on a fairly regular basis? If so, it is a good idea to introduce them to Sway. This is a presentation creation tool. Of course, you are probably thinking isn’t that what PowerPoint is for? True, but you can generate more creative presentations more efficiently with Sway, which is why it comes highly recommended. Not only this, but it is integrated with so many different platforms, including OneDrive, Twitter, Bing and YouTube. This means that you can integrate images and videos with supreme ease.
Use reports to understand user adoption and activity –
Last but not least, it is highly recommended that you use reports so you can understand how your workforce has adopted and used Office 365 so you can make sure they are utilising the platform effectively. This is the best way to determine whether anyone needs some extra training. Not only this, but you can also determine smaller matters, for example, whether someone’s email account needs to be purged because it is filled with too many attachments. Essentially, you will get a better grip on your company’s use of Office 365, ad this is especially important for businesses that rely on a lot of tech and use Office 365 all of the time as part of their operations.
So there you have it: some of the best productivity hacks that you and your team can make the most of when using Office 365. The capability of this platform is virtually limitless, and it is improving all of the time. Because of this, it is important to stay in the know regarding all of the new features so you can ensure your team is using Office 365 for optimal results. After all, not only will you achieve more, but it will make your employees’ days at work a lot easier too, so everyone is winning!
