Office 365 Tips and Techniques

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Are you looking for one service to handle almost all the needs for your business? Office 365 is the perfect place to invest your money.

Microsoft’s subscription service is growing like crazy. Reports show that there are currently 155 million active business customers using the service.

Are you concerned that you’re not getting the most out of your Office 365 subscription? Keep reading to learn about 10 Office 365 tips that will help you get the most out of your product.

1. Make Use of Mobile Apps

You’re probably used to using your office suite on your desktop computer. After all, that’s where most business gets done.

What most people don’t realize is Microsoft has developed mobile versions of their Office products. If you have an Office 365 subscription, your team can download these applications to their smartphones.

Make sure you’re utilizing the mobile version of your subscription so your employees can do their work, no matter where they are.

2. Look At Your Permissions

It’s easy enough to get your entire team on the Office 365 platform. The problem is, what happens when people have access to data they shouldn’t see?

Take some time to explore the permissions given to you by Office 365. Your goal is to create roles that give your team access to only the documents they need to do their job.

Permissions are even more important if you work in a regulated industry. If the wrong people have access to sensitive data, your business can end up facing fines.

3. Set Up Email Recalls

Sometimes we are so caught up in an email that we click send without double-checking everything. This practice can lead to embarrassing mistakes.

You aren’t out of options if you hit send and immediately regret your decision. Set up your recall settings to allow your team to stop their email from going out.

It won’t work if you take too long to hit recall. However, it gives you a window to stop a mistaken email from going out.

4. Automate Recurring Tasks

Do you regularly send emails to the same group of people? How about moving and deleting messages?

If you do this often, you can waste a lot of your time.

Office 365 gives you the ability to automate a lot of these tasks. You can find this option in the quick steps menu.

Try to automate as much of your workflow as you can. You can potentially save hours of work every week.

5. Work Offline

Having access to an Office suite online means you can work from anywhere. Unfortunately, this doesn’t work well if you don’t have a reliable internet connection.

The good news is that Office 365 has an offline feature. The software will save copies of your documents to your local device. Doing this means you can access and modify these documents, even if you don’t have an internet connection.

Once you connect back to the internet, Office 365 will upload all your changes to the cloud.

6. Use Plugins

You aren’t limited by the functionality that Microsoft provides. There are several plugins out there that will extend the functionality of Office 365.

Take a look at some of your most common business functions that your team handles. If you can find a plugin for your team that allows them to do everything in one place, you can save them the time from switching back and forth between programs.

7. Use Version History

Having files stored in the cloud means people can access and change anything at any time. This is a problem when someone makes a mistake.

Office 365 gives you the ability to use version history. It will keep track of all recent changes to your documents. If you want to roll back to an old version, check your version history and click on the version you want to go back to.

8. Get Used to the Scheduling Assistant

Setting up meetings can be tiresome. If you need a lot of people, you’re going to have to do a lot of work to make sure everybody is free during the meeting time.

Office 365 has solved this problem. It has a feature called the scheduling assistant that will help you figure out what times your team is available.

You can find it in the ribbon when you are setting up your meeting. It will show you the blocks of time the meeting attendees have available.

9. Get Started With SharePoint

Office 365 is a lot more than an office suite. It also comes with Microsoft’s SharePoint service. This software is perfect for companies that are looking for developing their workflows.

You can create dashboards to run your entire business. However, keep in mind that it will take more work to get things set up the way you want them to be.

Make sure you find out more about how to get SharePoint up and running for your business. If things are too complicated for you and your team, get in touch with a SharePoint consultant to help get things running smoothly.

10. Use the Clutter Feature

Dealing with email can get overwhelming. Our inboxes are constantly filled with information that isn’t important. A lot of time is wasted going through and cleaning things up.

Office 365 has a clutter feature that will help you manage your inbox. It will examine your email patterns to figure out what email is important to you.

When you’re ready to clear your inbox, let the clutter feature tell you what’s important, so you don’t waste time looking at unimportant emails.

Don’t Stop Learning Office 365 Tips

There aren’t many products out there that can help your organization as much as Office 365 can. Make sure to keep an eye out for more Office 365 tips, so you can keep getting the most from your subscription.

Are you looking for more tips and tricks for running your business? Head back to our blog to read our latest guides on staying productive at work.

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