21 Dec
14 Powerful Office 365 Tools To Increase Employee Productivity
Given the physical movement restrictions created by the COVID-19 pandemic,we are forced into the largest remote working experiment and employees are most likely to work in remote locations, at least for some time in the near future. And while social distancing has become the norm, it has led to the widespread adoption of cloud-based collaboration tools that enhance productivity and improve communication.
Microsoft 365 is one such platform that provides a suite of the best collaboration tools and is considered the benchmark for cloud-based productivity software.
Below, we present a list of the top 14 powerful Office 365 tools to increase employee productivity in the new normal.
The Best of Microsoft 365 Employee Productivity Tools
1. Microsoft Teams
An application that has gained popularity in the remote working set up is Microsoft Teams, a chat-based workspace that supports voice and video calls for instant collaboration.
Microsoft Teams is ideal for communicating in real-time. It is useful for holding group video calls for discussions with your project teams. Moreover, it integrates with other Microsoft 365 services for a wholesome collaborative experience.
Microsoft Teams provides a host of features to improve collaboration and productivity including:
- Video conferencing, screen sharing, meeting chats and digital whiteboards
- Real-time co-working on files like Word, Excel, PowerPoint etc.
- Together mode – A video conferencing option that creates realistic virtual meetings and gives a feel of in-person conferences
- Collaborate with team members whether they are present inside or outside the organization
- Access everyday apps and tools within Teams
- View, edit, and share your files from any device, anywhere.
- Easily share files within channels, meetings, and chats using a link or by uploading directly into Teams.
- Support for 1000 participants per meeting with a full meeting experience
- Generation of post-event recording, transcript, chat and store them in Microsoft 365
- Post-meeting attendee engagement report
2. Power Automate (previously known as Microsoft Flows)
Power Automate is a cloud-based Microsoft offering that allows employees to create and automate workflows across multiple applications. For example, you may use Power Automate to connect email and instant messaging apps or copy files from one application to another.
The critical functionality is creating a dynamic workspace connecting different systems that may or may not belong to Microsoft services. For example, you can create a workflow to pull information from Facebook or push information into Dropbox, both of which are not Microsoft applications.
3. Microsoft PowerApps
Microsoft PowerApps is a Low-Code Application Platform (LCAP) that allows you to create and deploy apps. With visual tools and predefined templates, you can build your own sophisticated business app with little or no coding required.
You can then connect these apps with other enterprise software such as HR, CRM, and more using Power Automate to create intelligent workflows. Microsoft PowerApps infuses agility and enhances productivity by allowing employees to quickly deploy and share apps that cater to everyday organizational needs without any coding knowledge
4. Power Virtual Agents
Power Virtual Agents is Microsoft’s low-code chatbot builder platform. It allows you to build and deploy custom chatbots within days and without any coding knowledge or AI expertise. The platform also provides suggestions on the topics for which you can build personalized conversations using natural language understanding and entity extraction.
5. Power BI
As the name suggests, it is a suite of powerful Business Intelligence (BI) and Analytics tools used for analyzing data from databases, Excel files, and other sources, such as QuickBooks, Marketo, and Salesforce.
Power BI creates dashboards that visualize business data, which can then be shared with teammates for better collaboration on projects. Such dashboards help in extracting the required information and deriving insights quickly.
6. Yammer
Yammer is a Microsoft 365 tool used for enterprise social networking. You can think of it as ‘Facebook for your business’ where employees can share ideas, blogs, news, trends, family experiences, and communications that don’t require an instant response.
7. Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Forms is an online survey creator that allows employees to create surveys, polls, and quizzes with automatic marking.
The tool enables users to collect feedback, measure employee satisfaction, and organize team bonding activities. Survey creators can see results as they come and export the results to Microsoft Excel for better analysis.
8. Microsoft Delve
Microsoft Delve aggregates the content of four Microsoft 365 platforms – Exchange, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Yammer.
It analyzes employee activity and past interactions to deliver relevant documents and content in a personalized dashboard view. In short, it integrates elements of social media with machine learning technology.
9. OneDrive
OneDrive is an Office 365 tool for hosting and sharing your files over the cloud. OneDrive synchronizes your documents, presentations, and other files across all your devices, including PC, mobile, and tablet, and allows you to easily share it with your colleagues and team members.
10. SharePoint
SharePoint is a versatile, backend infrastructure management application. It is used to host your company’s intranet. You can better control your documents, apps, data, and projects by building an intranet over SharePoint. SharePoint based Intranets bring all aspects of your business together in a single, easy-to-use interface.
11. Word
A commonly used word processing software, Word is a standard tool used by employees to create documents.
12. Excel
Excel is the most popular spreadsheet software used to capture, visualize, and analyze data and comes even with the most basic subscription of Office 365.
13. PowerPoint
Communicating information in a clear, concise, and visually appealing manner has never been easier. Microsoft PowerPoint enables employees to display and convey information through presentations using basic slides and pictures, videos, graphics, and animations.
14. OneNote
You can capture information on-the-go with Microsoft 365’s OneNote. OneNote allows users to take notes on a device, such as a mobile, and retrieve them from any other device, be it a laptop or a tablet.
Unify Your Office 365 And Other Business Apps With A Office 365 Intranet
A Microsoft Office 365 Intranet unifies company-wide information and apps, including that of Office 365, under a single roof and delivers the right content at the right time to the right person. At Acuvate Software, we help clients build a comprehensive digital workplace through our Employee Experience Platform (Mesh 3.0). Mesh helps organizations in unlocking untapped knowledge, streamlining processes, and creates a seamless yet effective global network – providing a central hub for breaking down silos. Scme key capabilities of Mesh include:
- Cognitive enterprise search
- Content personalization powered by AI
- Flexible integrations with business apps
- Intranet chatbot
- Content management system
- Idea management
- Knowledge mining
If you’d like to learn more about this topic or planning to implement data analytics in your organization, please feel free to get in touch with one of our digital workplace experts
Poonam Chug is AVP - SaaS Strategy & Business. She has worked in various areas, right from designing and executing sales & account management strategies to reengineering digital workplace solutions. With her determined focus on our mission and progressive approach, she has achieved customer delight in the space of AI, Knowledge Mining, Content & Collaboration, Virtual Assistants, RPA and more. Backed with a deep understanding of customer needs and technology, she leads the SaaS business unit with an upshot of maximizing revenue while ensuring customer satisfaction.
Poonam Chug