How To Use Microsoft Office 365 To Boost Your Business Productivity

Efficiency is one of the keys to every business’ success story. An effective business can create, collaborate, and communicate seamlessly and effectively.  Having access to productivity tools like automate document generation allows businesses to be more adaptable and competitive in their industry. These tools, like Microsoft 365, aid workers to accomplish their jobs more easily.

Microsoft 365 offers a set of features that help your employees become more productive. Most users have been accustomed to different keyboard shortcuts. It’s easy to fall into old routines when you’ve been using Office apps for a long time. With Microsoft 365, you can use the same programs, but better.

Here are some of the ways that you can enjoy Microsoft 365. We listed below some of the features that give your business a better edge in the market.

9 Microsoft Office 365 Features that Help Boost Your Productivity

Excel is one of the applications that you can use with Microsoft Office 365. It has proven to be an essential tool for every business. If you like its many features in the old version, you’ll certainly love the improvements it has in Microsoft 365.

For example, VLOOKUP is a function that is widely used in businesses. If you’re not familiar with what this function does, you can look for a VLOOKUP Excel tutorial online. There are blogs and videos to help you understand how to execute this function.

Basically, it is used to locate data in a table, together with the MATCH function. It’s extremely helpful especially when you have a huge amount of data. Just imagine how long and a waste of time it will be to individually search for the data you’re looking for. With VLOOKUP, you can do this in less than a minute.

However, with the old version, it takes time to get a result. In the latest version, there is a significant change in speed. More specifically, you’ll get results within seconds. It gets the job done easily, and you’ll have more time in your hands now

Here are other cool features of Microsoft 365 that you can use for business operations.

1.   Real-Time Collaboration

In Microsoft 365’s Word, you can collaborate online and view each other’s changes. And the best part of this is you can see the changes as they happen. Employees don’t need to download, save, and email a new document to incorporate changes. And this feature is available for Word, Powerpoint, and Excel.

You can just save your document to OneDrive, allowing others to collaborate on it. Additionally, because of the integrated sidebar, you can share it right from the app.

2.   Linking to Files for Easy Collaboration

You know how difficult it is to send files using email. Sometimes, you thought you attached the file but didn’t. And you’ll only find out about it the next day. And sometimes, the file is corrupted when it is sent to you.

With Microsoft 365, you can use links to the file uploaded to its cloud storage. By doing so, you’re granting your team permission to edit the document. Additionally, you have complete control over the permissions.

3.   Organize Your Inbox With Focused Inbox

There has been an estimate of 306.4 billion emails that were sent last 2020. It’s a huge figure, but not as surprising as it can be, especially looking at your overflowing inbox.

Microsoft 365 found a solution to this and added the Focused Inbox feature in its email app. It made use of some features of its earlier counterpart – the Clutter.

The tool prioritizes emails based on their content and who you communicate with. As a result, your email will have two tabs: a ‘Focused’ tab and an ‘Other’ tab. This separates auto-generated emails from your work emails.

For example, an email from work will be routed to your ‘Focused’ tab. However, a newsletter email from a blog you subscribed to will be routed to your ‘Other’ tab.

You’re still going to get notified when you receive an email from the ‘Other’ tab. The difference is that important work emails won’t get buried under several of these.

4.   In-App Text, Voice, and Video Conversations

Microsoft Teams is now integrated into Microsoft 365. This means that you can chat and conduct audio or video interactions with others. Not only that but you can also share your screen with people in the team.

You don’t need to exit the application you’re using. Even if you close the app, you can continue the chat on your laptop or phone using Teams. It helps your team do two things at the same time: talk while editing the document.

5.   Put Off Unimportant Conversations on a Busy Day

When things get busy and you need to focus on something, you can ignore conversations. The Ignore function in Microsoft 365 functions the same as Google’s Mute button. It lets you send messages from your Outlook inbox into the trash.

6.   Notes Can Be Transformed Into Calendar Events

The notes you have in your OneNote can be converted into tasks on your calendar. After that, you can assign them to your employees. And, you can even put deadlines and reminders for each task you assign.

With this, you can make sure that each employee in your team has a task on their calendars. More importantly, they know when the tasks are needed to be done or submitted.

Aside from this, employees can also use OneNote to create minutes of a meeting. Similarly, the details like date, venue, and attendees are automatically sent through emails.

7.   Power Map

Power Map is an Excel add-in that is a part of the Microsoft Power BI. It expands the capabilities of Power View, which allows users to see data in 3D.

It is such a powerful tool that lets you analyze, visualize, and share data insights. You can transform your data in Excel into an interactive map set in 3D format. Additionally, the data can be filtered using three distinct filters: List, Range, and Advanced.

By doing so, you can gain new insights into your data. If you want to learn more about this feature, you can head over to Microsoft for their Power Map guide.

8.   Create a PowerPoint Presentation Like a Pro

With Microsoft 365’s PowerPoint Designer, you can create presentations that stand out. Rather than wasting time improvising a graphic design, you can rely on this productivity tool. There are different things that you can do with this feature. For example, you can better position a selected image within the document.

Another feature to make your presentations better is PowerPoint Morph. This tool provides smooth slide animation. It’s really simple to use. Simply copy a slide and rearrange your icons on the second slide before playing the slideshow. The end output looks like a GIF, with icons and 3D forms that move around automatically.

9.   Access Data From Anywhere Using Any Device

With your Microsoft 365 subscription, you can access your cloud files wherever you are. More importantly, you don’t need to use the same device to have access. As long as you’re connected to the internet, you can work on your files with any device at hand.

The apps are also available on mobile so you can use your smartphone to access the files, as well. They’re free and you can get them through the app store.

Make the Most Out of Microsoft Office 365

Every business needs to look for ways to improve its processes. By doing so, they’ll be able to meet the demands of their customers. Additionally, it helps them stay competitive in the market.

Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote are some of the best tools that help businesses. And Microsoft Office 265 just made them better than ever.

The list mentioned above is just some of its best features. You can explore more with a monthly subscription to Microsoft Office 365. Fortunately, they offer different plans that are appropriate for different business sizes. Whether you’re a small or a medium-sized business, you can apply for one.