Most business users have grown used to Microsoft’s flagship productivity software products such as Outlook, Word and Excel; but have you checked out Office 365?
Office 365 has all the familiar software you use and love, but Microsoft has continued to enhance and add to their capabilities within the desktop software itself as well as the Office 365 online suite. They have mixed in the cool factor with a dash of practicality to make you more productive. Here’s a taste of just some of the enhancements Microsoft has introduced in the past few months:
Real-time Skype for Business chat in the Office 365 web experience. Imagine you’re editing a Word document on your machine and want to collaborate with a colleague. Now, both of you can simultaneously edit the document and chat real-time in Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote Online. Use Chat to communicate immediately; for example, ask a quick question, perhaps discuss how to best divide editing responsibilities, topics to add/remove and more. Keep in mind the Chat history is not saved (you could copy and paste the Chat history if desired). Want to save your comments? No problem. Use the Comments feature (found under the Review tab on the ribbon) and your comments are saved in the document for future reference or review. The comments can be replied to, marked as done or deleted. Working together just got even easier…Chat, comment, collaborate!
Do things quickly with Tell Me. Don’t remember where to go to change the font color, add highlighting or change the margins? Office 2016 added a new text box to the ribbon where you can type a few words of what you’re trying to do and it will quickly show you the features related to your question. You no longer need to poke through the ribbon options to find the feature or action you want. How minty cool is that?
Archive and de-clutter email. Ready to de-clutter your Inbox without worries of losing items? You can quickly move an item stored in your Inbox or any other folder to an archive folder. Once moved, the archived items remain accessible and searchable across all devices. Even better, if needed, they can easily be restored to their original location. The first time you use the Archive option, it will prompt you to set a folder as your Archive and then you’re all set. Note: This Archive feature will not reduce the size of your mailbox. You must use other archiving features to remove items from your mailbox to conserve space. Happy archiving!
These are just a few of the features that Microsoft recently added to the Office 365 platform. So, go ahead and take a bite of Office 365 and be sensational!
First published in our November 2016 IT Radix Resource newsletter
