When businesses subscribe to the many applications and services of Microsoft 365, they expect to use familiar applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, and Teams within their organization. While these core applications can certainly provide a seamless work experience, Microsoft 365 offers additional applications and services that can further enhance workflow and productivity. Below are useful M365 applications that deserve to be highlighted: OneNote, Planner, To-Do, Whiteboard, and Power Automate.
OneNote
OneNote is a multi-purpose digital notebook or binder that allows you to collaborate or work individually. OneNote allows users to divide their notes into sections and pages while providing easy navigation and search function. These features allow easy access to notes taken during meetings, brainstorm sessions, and many other processes.
OneNote is more than a notebook; it can also highlight content within the notes and add tags. Additional features include using mixed media functions (audio notes, online videos, files) and drawing your notes instead of typing them during brainstorming sessions with coworkers. Finally, you can easily share your notebooks with coworkers for collaboration.
Planner
Incorporating Planner into your organization makes it seamless for you and your team to share files, organize and assign tasks, create new projects, communicate, and check progress and completion of tasks. The application is easy to use and can be launched and optimized in a few easy steps. Planner focuses on visualization, meaning you can categorize tasks based on projects, people, and other functions. Its minimalist and simple design allows you to visualize your tasks and projects, and its drag-and-drop function is paramount to organizing and assigning projects within the organization.
Specifically built for Microsoft 365, users can attach files on tasks and collaborate on multiple tasks. Planner lets users communicate within the platform, gathering all discussions and updates into one place instead of using multiple applications. Planner is especially useful for employees working on the same projects, regardless of whether they’re in the same department or not. Individually, users can stay organized with their tasks and easily provide updates on the go.
Microsoft To-Do
While Planner helps with extensive tasks and projects, To-Do offers a smart daily planner, useful for completing simple work tasks in the organization. To-Do is a cross-platform task manager, which lets users manage their to-do lists online at home, at work, or even while traveling. It’s accessible from anywhere, free, and syncs with iPhone, Android, Windows 10, and the web.
To-Do is useful in the workplace for its ability to integrate with Outlook Tasks. Employees can manage all tasks in one place and keep tabs on updates. Users can set due dates, set reminders, and make daily checklists to keep themselves and coworkers on track.
Microsoft Whiteboard
The new Microsoft Whiteboard is the perfect tool for brainstorming sessions with your team. Jot down your ideas, drawings, thoughts and transform them into professional-working charts and visualizations with an interface designed for pen, touch screen, and keyboard.
Users don’t need to be in the same meeting room – Microsoft Whiteboard lets users collaborate in real-time regardless of location. The virtual canvas can be used across devices and transcend borders. This cloud-based application allows users to automatically save and resume at any time – perfect for meetings, brainstorm sessions, and sharing ideas within or outside your organization.
Power Automate/Flow
Microsoft Power Automate, also known as Flow, promotes a better, more efficient way to complete tasks within your organization using digital and robotic process automation. Power Automate boosts productivity by helping to build time-saving workflows. This can be from routine individual tasks (e.g. email notifications for internal surveys) to larger-scale systems (e.g. post messages to Microsoft Teams when a new task is created in Planner).
Using Power Automate will enable everyone in the organization to build secure workflows easily, with no coding experience necessary. The cloud-based services provide data loss prevention and are secure for identity and access management services. By automating time-consuming manual tasks with built-in AI capabilities, using Power Automate will allow users more time to focus on more strategic and higher-value opportunities.
Microsoft 365 offers more applications and services that are useful, but the five mentioned above take the cake for providing a seamless work experience, regardless of location and skills. It’s recommended to integrate these applications with M365’s core services to optimize workflow and improve your overall work experience.
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