5 Office 365 tips and tricks that supercharge productivity

5 Office 365 tips and tricks that supercharge productivity

The world’s favourite cloud-based productivity software suite, Office 365, empowers millions of organisations all over the world to achieve more. With full cloud capabilities, Office 365 provides everything that today’s remote workforces need to work effectively together across geographical boundaries. In fact, recent years have seen a rapid rise of entirely location-independent businesses that don’t even have a physical workplace. Instead, they’ve figured out how to build organisational structures that operate entirely in cyberspace. Here are five ways you can use Office 365 to achieve the same:

#1. Take notes on any device with OneNote

Technically, OneNote isn’t part of Office 365 anymore, since it’s provided by default with any installation of Windows 10. However, power users may still want to use OneNote 2016 thanks to its robust set of features. Nonetheless, OneNote for Windows 10 integrates perfectly with the Office 365 ecosystem, and it automatically saves all content to OneDrive. Business users can take notes using any internet-connected device, either through the desktop-, mobile-, or browser-based version of OneNote, and have them synchronised automatically. It offers a great way to take notes on the move, whether it’s writing shopping lists or gathering research materials for your next big project.

#2. Collaborate in real time with Skype for Business

Skype for Business is now an integral part of the Office 365 environment. People can work on the same documents simultaneously while holding meetings on Skype. Its screen-sharing feature enables faster support and stronger collaboration, allowing teams to co-author the same documents and chat with collaborators in real time without having to open a separate app or window.

You can also use Skype for holding video conferences and mobile employees can easily transfer business calls to their smartphones. Furthermore, all calls can be recorded and played back for future reference.

With Skype for Business at your disposal, you can do away with your desk phone and landline for good.

#3. Visualise your data in Excel

For most of us, it's hard to make sense of sprawling numbers and figures and it becomes even more complex in the age of data overabundance and increasingly enormous data sets. Fortunately, Excel provides tools to help you visualise your data for faster and easier analysis. All you need to do is select the relevant tables and choose the type of chart you want to present your data. Excel supports line, bar, and pie charts among others.

#4. Navigate through complex documents in Word

If you’re working on a lengthy document such as a whitepaper or an eBook, Word leaves a lot to be desired at first glance. However, if you know where to look, it does provide some handy navigation features that make it much easier to work with documents of almost any length or complexity. The navigation pane provides several options for locating specific content in your documents, thus allowing easier searching and replacing. You can also search for objects like tables, comments, footnotes, endnotes, graphics, and equations. You can make navigation even easier in future documents by applying consistent, predefined formatting styles to your content.

#5. Schedule tasks in Outlook

Many users don’t look beyond Outlook as being the industry standard in business email, even though it’s capable of so much more. Outlook is also a highly sophisticated calendaring and scheduling system with native support for Skype for Business. For example, you can schedule Skype meetings, check availability, and add appointments to your calendar with just a few clicks of the mouse. The built-in scheduling assistant gathers information from across your team to help you find time slots that are suitable for everyone. You can also preload meeting attachments so that everyone has access to the same information once the meeting begins.

Total Calibration is an authorised Office 365 reseller that helps take businesses to new levels of productivity with enhanced collaboration and simplified management. Call us today to get started.