It’s often said we only use 10% of our brain capacity! What! Can you imagine what we’ve been missing out on?
Well I think the same concept can be applied across many computer applications, and no better example can be found in the Microsoft Office suite of products. Microsoft go to extraordinary lengths to jam pack each version with more features that most people will never use. Seems a bit crazy and wasteful, but this is what has kept Microsoft the forerunner in desktop productivity applications for decades.
Recently I was looking through our Office 365 subscription and was struck by the same thoughts. There are many things that we are not using and to be honest would never need to use. The temptation, and trap, is “I have paid for it – I want to use it” but realistically this would be a great distraction to the business.
O365 is a popular platform for businesses and the subscription is more than the Email Sharepoint OneDrive. Three O365 products that are often overlooked worth considering that will benefit your business quickly PLUS you’re already paying for them!
Planner
As the name suggests this application is a simple, yet effective way to organise tasks and in a visual way. For those that have not seen Planner, it is like Trello or Postit Notes. It is a great way to organise small projects, tasks, share files and collaborate with others. The big advantage is that it is integrated into other O365 applications such as OneNote, Sharepoint and Email which makes it far more efficient than using an alternate platform.
OneDrive for Business – IRM
Okay you probably use OneDrive, but did you know that OneDrive for Business has Information Rights Management (IRM) capability? This feature not only allows you to encrypt information on OneDrive, but it also allow you to apply a policy to files to govern the actions that internal and external people can perform. For example, you can allow recipients to edit and print, but restrict them from forwarding to others. This policy is attached to the document, so it is applied no matter where your document lives, whether it’s in transit, on your laptop or a mobile device, or is a USB key, IRM lets you assign policies to email, SharePoint Online libraries, individual Office documents and other file types.
Flow
This is a workflow tool that can automate many day to day tasks. You can be up and running quickly as Flow comes with a variety of connectors and ready to go templates to a host of social media platforms (Twitter, YouTube, Facebook), business applications (Dropbox, Eventbrite, SurveyMonkey, etc) and of course other Office 365 applications
Examples of some of the templates available are:
Save Office 365 email attachments to OneDrive for Business. Track your business Facebook wall messages in an Excel table Automatically unarchive the zip files uploaded to a folder in your OneDrive for Business
If you aren’t getting the most out of your Office 365 subscription get in touch with the team at Starboard IT to assess if we can assist your business efficiencies.
If you’re looking for consultancy services to help design your own IT business processes, contact Starboard IT to find out what we can do for you.
