Microsoft Office 365 is the universal solution known to add simplicity to any business and improve overall productivity. The cloud-based platform offers a variety of built-in tools to help employees to help your business thrive. From being able to collaborate better with your team to working on the go, the possibilities are endless. Despite many companies purchasing the tool because of the pandemic, many saw the benefits and are still using it today, even when they're not working from home. Here are a couple of hidden features Microsoft has to offer to help you make the most out of your Microsoft Office 365 licences:

MyAnalytics:

MyAnalytics is a Microsoft Office 365 application that provides employees and managers with an insight into how they are spending their time. The MyAnalytics app can be used to obtain personal figures on the way you work, as well as providing suggestions on how you can improve the way you work.

The app is designed to see ways on how employees can improve their productivity while putting an emphasis on employee wellness. The wellbeing section provides your staff with how well they are disconnecting from work during their time off. This also comes with suggestions on ways to reduce stress and burnout, helping to improve the welfare of your staff, allowing them to work to the best of their ability without becoming exhausted due to their working habits.

Boomerang:

Boomerang is a feature within Outlook that allows users to schedule emails, automatically send follow-up emails, and receive reminders if your email does not receive a response. This handy tool is a great way to keep track of important conversations, whether that be about an important project with your team or a sales conversation with you and a potential customer. 

Boomerang gives you the ability to send a follow-up email at the perfect time to make sure the conversation is always relevant. This is significant because studies show that sending a follow-up email can increase response rates by up to 48%. Boomerang read receipts notify you when a recipient has opened your email and also when they click on any link in the message. This allows you to identify the recipient’s level of interest, which is incredibly useful when sending sales emails.

Microsoft Forms:

Sending surveys and forms has never been easier with Microsoft Forms. Microsoft Forms is a powerful business tool that allows you to easily create forms and collect real-time responses. This handy tool allows you to send forms to staff and customers, to gain an understanding of their satisfaction rate and also gather feedback, to help you make more informed business decisions.

With Microsoft Forms, you won’t have to look elsewhere for a survey creator tool, which helps to save you both money and time. The data collected from these forms can be visualised using the automatic charting function. This can be used to compare previous data and see the changes made over time. Microsoft Forms is a great way to increase communication between you and your team, by making it easier to gather feedback and advice on a specific aspect of the business.

Microsoft Bookings:

Microsoft Bookings is an appointment bookings app, that allows customers to schedule appointments online, based on your availability. The booking app allows you to customise appointment details and booking requirements, to best fit your business. The seamless integration with Outlook, allows customers to book a time that best suits you and your team. The Microsoft Bookings app allows you to easily save time on arranging meetings with important customers and eliminates double-bookings.

Co-Authoring:

The Co-Authoring tool enables multiple people to collaborate and work on the same document at the same time. Everyone will be able to see the changes occur in real-time, across all devices. This is an excellent way for multiple people to work on the same project at once. This eliminates the need to send over multiple documents, in order for another member of the team to do their part of the project. This ensures employees are more productive and for projects to be completed quicker.

Microsoft Planner:

Microsoft Planner is an easy-to-use work management tool that can help you easily manage and allocate tasks to you and your team. The user-friendly tool makes it possible to plan tasks and handle small projects without the need for complex planning. Microsoft Planner has a clean and simple interface, which makes it easy to view tasks and active projects from a single window.

Microsoft Planner also integrates seamlessly with Outlook, giving you the ability to view tasks within your Outlook calendar and receive email notifications on the progress of certain tasks. This provides users complete control over their ongoing tasks, and better manage their time.