A Business Agility e-book. Office 365: A guide to all its apps

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1 A Business Agility e-book Office 365: A guide to all its apps

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3 Business Agility is expert in the delivery of solutions built on Office 365 and SharePoint. 3 We build solutions to both the common and the uncommon. This can be anything from: Intranets, Document Management Systems, workflow processes Migrating you to a new version of SharePoint Planning your information architecture around SharePoint Hosted SharePoint, SharePoint Online and Office 365 Building industry-specific solutions Business Agility Consulting Ltd

4 Do you have Office 365? Do you know what each and every app does? Well, let us shed some light... This guide has been written for those that have some, little or no knowledge of Microsoft s productivity platform. The aim of the guide is to firstly explain what Office 365 is and why you d adopt it. Secondly, it s to go through all the applications available within it explaining what function they have and where you d apply them. Thirdly, on some of the descriptions we ve offered some advice on the application of an app - hopefully these nuggets of information will help inform your use of the platform itself! What is Office 365? Office 365 is Microsoft s Productivity Suite in the cloud. It comprises a set of class leading communication and collaboration tools, integrated into your day to day desktop working experience, licensed on a flexible per user, per month basis. It s important to note that there are four business plans available for Office 365: Office 365 Business Office 365 Business Premium Office 365 ProPlus Office 365 Enterprise E3 For this guide, we ll talk about Office 365 Enterprise E3.

5 Office Online apps 5 Word PowerPoint Excel These are the three most commonly used Microsoft apps. You re most likely already well-versed in using them in your day-to-day business lives. When using these apps through Office 365 you have wider access to them with the ability to use them online and in the Cloud on any device, anywhere. Highlights: If you have spreadsheets, documents or presentations that multiple people need to collaborate on, this can easily be achieved through multi-editing capability. The collaboration is taken to another level as these apps integrate with other apps in Office 365 (such as SharePoint, Skype, Outlook). It doesn t matter what device people are working from either it s entirely mobile-adaptable. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

6 Microsoft Access 6 Microsoft Access is a tool to help you quickly create browser-based database applications. This is done without the need to write code or already being a database expert. The benefit of this app is if you have an idea for a database or web app to help your team work more efficiently, you don t have to be a developer to implement it. You can swiftly spin up a DB. All data is automatically stored in a SQL database, so it s more secure than ever, and you can easily share your applications with colleagues. Highlights: Good if you need to gather structured data and report on it in several different ways, It takes data collection and reporting to a higher level available in Excel It s for people with large amounts of data that need to be cross-referenced Point to note: Access has a very specifc toolset and purpose. Mainly used by those responsible for pure data in an organisation. We won t classfiy it as a general office tool. Microsoft Delve business-agility.com Microsoft Delve is a data visualisation and discovery tool that incorporates elements of social networking and machine learning with the search capability of the Microsoft Office 365 suite. It enables users to search for and discover content across Office 365 based on personalised insights. Delve is the first experience to be powered by Office Graph. Manage your Office 365 profile, and discover and organise the information likely of most interest to you. Highlight: It s great for organisations of any size who want to discover, surface and share lots of different types of information.

7 Microsoft Dynamics CRM Microsoft Dynamics CRM (Customer Relationship Management) is a really powerful tool (to some businesses it s the bedrock of their sales and marketing effort). It s an integrated solution that improves how you interact and do business with your customers. It manages and maintains customer relationships, tracks engagements and sales, and delivers actionable data. 7 The app combines powerful servicing, sales and marketing tools to give you a clear view of all your customers: from initial contact to post-sale support. It s heavily data-driven and can be hugely intelligent for your organisation when used correctly. Highlights: If you work in sales and you need to keep track of your leads (from proposal all the way through to an actual sale) CRM is the one for you. If you have multiple people in your team working on the same lead list this ensures communication is flawless. Point to note: If you are in a large organisation with a large sales/marketing force, ensure you implement the right level of permissions in your CRM. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

8 Dynamics Dynamics 365 is the same as Dynamics CRM but in the cloud. If you re using your own servers, we believe you should put it in the cloud. Dynamics works much better as an Office 365 tool. Highlight: You get the same perks as Dynamics CRM but in the cloud. If it s configured correctly by your organisation it s easily accessible and allows fluid communication. Microsoft Exchange Server Microsoft Exchange Server is Microsoft s , calendaring, contact, scheduling and collaboration platform. Exchange and Outlook work hand in hand to provide , scheduling, contact, and task management capabilities within Microsoft Office and Office 365. Exchange is a pure IT product rather than an end-user product. Highlights: To get the most out of Office 365, you will need to be running Exchange Server. Exchange Server in the Microsoft cloud provides a service that is easy to set up, reliable and covered by Microsoft s Service Level Agreement. business-agility.com

9 Microsoft Forms Microsoft Forms is a lightweight app that lets you easily create surveys, quizzes, and polls. Mainly applied in educational scenarios; it can be used to create quizzes, collect feedback from teachers and parents, or plan class and staff activities. 9 You can invite others to respond to it using any web browser and on mobile devices. Highlight: It s a great (and simple to use, i.e, non-techie) way to get viewpoints, simple data and opinions. Good for students and small businesses. Microsoft Flow Microsoft Flow is a cloud-based software tool that allows employees to create and automate workflows across multiple applications and services without the need for developer help. You can use Flow to connect and IM alerts, synchronise files between applications, copy files from one service to another, collect data from one app and store it in another, and more. Templates are available too to get you started. Highlight: Flow is a great, user accessible workflow tool. It s not limited to working only within Office 365 either; it will benefit anyone who wants to automate the consolidation of their data. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

10 Office Graph API 10 Office Graph is a platform that sites quietly in the background and connects multiple Office 365 services. It s the brains behind the Office 365 experience. The API has only recently been released to allow developers to build custom applications that tap into the Office Graph. It s still early days, but look out for big things being done in the Office Graph world. Please note: This is not an end-user Microsoft product. This is something (Certified!) Microsoft developers can leverage, so if you want to leverage Graph API, please come to us for a few points/helping hand! Microsoft Groups Microsoft Groups is a collaboration feature to manage and facilitate communications, coordinating group efforts and sharing information. Groups allows users to create and manage ad hoc groups for joined up working. Groups are open by default to enhance discoverability and sharing, but users can also create private groups for sensitive content. Highlights: Like Teams (mentioned later in this doc), Groups is a great social communication tool for businesses to share their information and more. Point to note: If you are in a large organisation with large project teams, ensure you implement the right level of permissions. business-agility.com

11 Microsoft InfoPath Microsoft InfoPath is an application for designing, distributing, filling and submitting electronic forms containing structured data. 11 It the part of Office 365 suite where you can design, share, fill out and submit electronic forms containing certain data. Highlights: Presenting or collecting data in an electronic format is the forte of InfoPath. It s great for all kinds of internal forms like Purchase Order forms, invoices, business card request forms, appraisal forms etc. Microsoft OneDrive for Business Microsoft OneDrive for Business provides a cloud-based location where you can store, share, and sync your work files. You can update and share your files from any device with OneDrive for Business. In a world where we need everything to be in the Cloud so we can flexibly work, OneDrive for Business is essential both for convenience and safety, as it s highly secure (as long as you follow the rules!). Main points: It s good if you need to work on files whilst on the go or working from home; you don t need to be physically in the office connected to the company network to access these when using OneDrive for Business. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

12 12 Point to note: OneDrive for Business has no policies to govern how it is used OneDrive for Business makes sharing easy however this is a double-edged sword. Good information can go the wrong way. Sharing is down to the user rather than the organisation. Microsoft OneNote Microsoft OneNote is used to gather and create free-form information with multi-user collaboration functionality thrown in. It gathers users notes (handwritten or typed), drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network. You can make notes on any device. It s collaborative and cloud-based. You can make handwritten notes, drawings, and more. Plus you can access it from anywhere (with connection). Highlights:It s very helpful for grabbing raw data/content and taking notes from a meeting, or if you have an idea whilst on the go! It s especially good for initial research on a topic as anything you drag and drop onto the OneNote page from the web, will automatically capture the URL where the content came from. This is true for both text and images. It s used in many universities, so it s great for students and researchers. business-agility.com

13 Microsoft Outlook Microsoft Outlook is the world s most popular platform, providing a full management, along with an integrated calendar for setting appointments and task lists for tracking the activities that need your attention. It has been a standard feature in Microsoft Office for years. 13 Outlook also integrates with Skype for Business allowing you to drive your meetings right from your desktop. Microsoft Outlook is the world leader in day-to-day and meeting management. Microsoft Publisher Microsoft Publisher is a low-level (ie, it s for non-designers) desktop publishing application. It s different from an app like Word, in that its focus is on page layout and design rather than text composition and proofing. Publisher has been around for a while. It s an application that is typically relied upon to design and create documents such as flyers, posters and more in-house creations. Highlights: It s great if you need to quickly design a document, eg., a poster. If you don t have lots of experience in design, Publisher has plenty of templates for you to choose from and adapt depending on what you re producing (anything from invitations to address labels). But remember, this isn t a professional publishing tool it s not Adobe InDesign! However, it s good for small businesses and school projects producing creative content on the fly. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

14 Microsoft People 14 Microsoft People is your address book of contacts either online or offline on desktop. It s rolled into Outlook when on desktop and a separate app when using Office 365. Point to note: One danger that the People App presents is the risk of siloing important business contacts. For this reason it has limited value as a business tool. Microsoft Planner Microsoft Planner is a lightweight Work Management Application. It lets you organise projects by creating tasks, assigning them to members of the team and setting deadlines. It s graphical overview page makes it easy to monitor the progress of the tasks. As a business tool, it gives users a way to visualize their teamwork. Teams can create new plans, organise and assign tasks. Planner also offers the ability to associate documents with specific tasks, edit them together, and have conversations around tasks. Highlight: Microsoft Planner is great for distributing tasks within clearly defined teams. business-agility.com

15 Microsoft PowerApps Microsoft PowerApps is a browser based tool that allows you to build mobile-enabled forms to display SharePoint List and Library data. It empowers users to build display forms to show existing data as well as forms for creating and editing data in a list. It s designed for end-user development. No technical skills are required to use it. 15 Highlight: Any organisation with a mobile-heavy workforce will love PowerApps. Microsoft PowerBI PowerBI is a business analytics service that enables you to visualise and analyse data with greater speed and efficiency. It connects users to a broad range of data through easy-touse dashboards, interactive reports, and compelling visualisations that bring data to life. Essentially, it s an in-depth reporting tool. It s great for technical folk and end-users to create visually appealing dashboards containing lots of data. You don t need to have a large amount of technical knowledge either. Highlight: Great for departments that rely heavily on reporting PowerBI fosters a results-driven environment hooking into multiple data sources and surfacing relevant, reliable and real-time information. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

16 Microsoft Project 16 Microsoft Project is a project management application. It is designed to assist a project manager in developing a plan, assigning resources to tasks, tracking progress, managing the budget, and analysing workloads. Residing in Office 365, Project is tied to SharePoint (but it is still a separate app that sits on top of it). It s specifically for running projects. It allows you to collect project information, project timelines and enterprise platforms. Highlight: Large organisations that are project-based would benefit from using this; e.g. manufacturers, consultancies etc. Newsfeed Newsfeed (an app that s integrated into SharePoint) delivers a personalised news feed based on an individual s activity, the sites and people they follow, the tags they use and, in a social context, the times they are mentioned in other people s posts. It even makes suggestions based on what is discovered by the Office Graph. No modification or customisation needed what you see is what you get. It essentially aggregates information that s relevant to the end user. Highlight: It s good for all businesses when you want to know where you are within the organisation. It can be a very useful landing page for people who spend a lot of time in SharePoint. business-agility.com

17 Microsoft SharePoint SharePoint is a web-based, collaborative platform that integrates with Microsoft Office. SharePoint is primarily a document management and storage system, but the application is highly configurable and usage differs significantly between all types of organisations. 17 Our viewpoint..well, it really warrants it s own ebook to go through the incredibly rich and functionally wide applications of it. SharePoint is great in many scenarios, but is best for collaboration and the sharing of information; eg., it works well when you have multiple teams needing to access a lot of information and collaborate on numerous documents. You can tailor SharePoint to suit the individual needs of your business. If you want to create a specific structure around your data or wrap a security layer around it, then SharePoint is ideal. It s commonly used as a platform for Intranets, Document Management Systems, workflow applications and project collaboration but you can easily apply it to uncommon processes, e.g. Records Management, Document Transmittal, Business Intelligence reporting and many, many, many more! Microsoft Skype for Business Microsoft Skype for Business is a Unified Communications (UC) platform that integrates common channels of business communication and online meetings, including Instant Messaging (IM), presentations, voice over IP (VoIP), voic , file transfers, video conferencing, web conferencing and . With one click, anyone can join your online meeting, from any device. You can choose to Business Agility Consulting Ltd

18 meet right away, or schedule from Outlook for later. 18 Main points: Skype for Business is great at organising meetings between people who are in multiple locations and on varying devices (phone, laptop etc.) it simplifies online meetings with little to no hassle. Microsoft StaffHub Microsoft StaffHub is a cloud-based application that lets workers and their managers use their mobile devices to manage schedules and keep in touch. Employees can use StaffHub to request time off, trade shifts, and communicate with other employees. Our view: It s a great idea, but in our opinion it s not something that s fully developed yet. There are many other time management tools for workforce management available. This is an app to watch though (once its weaker areas have benefited from more development!) Microsoft Store business-agility.com Microsoft Store is the channel for you to buy third party Office 365 applications. You can switch this functionality on or off in your organisation, so it s easily governed. Some apps are free, some paid, some useful and some, frankly, are useless (!). Highlight: If you have a well-informed workforce then it s useful to switch on the Office 365 store - to aid productivity.

19 Microsoft Stream This used to be Microsoft Video, however it s been redeveloped and now looks much nicer and has significantly more functionality. The app allows you to upload, share and discover videos across your devices powered by Microsoft Azure Media Services. 19 Highlight: If you want to communicate your ideas broadly in an effective and easily customisable manner, Stream is great for this. If you re quite technically-minded, there s plenty for you to play around with. Microsoft Sway Sway is a digital storytelling app for businesses. Sway s built-in design engine helps you produce professional, visually-appealing reports, presentations, and more without the need for extensive formatting or additional training. Sway makes your creation look great in any browser on any screen, and it can be shared with colleagues and customers by simply sending a link. Highlight: If you want more customisation when giving a report and/or presentation but don t have much technical knowledge, Sway is helpful. Business Agility Consulting Ltd

20 Microsoft Tasks 20 Microsoft Tasks sits inside Outlook (if you re using it on desktop). It has its own application if you re using it in Office 365. Tasks does exactly what it says on the tin. You can prioritise your work, set deadlines and reminders through this simple yet handy feature. Highlights: Good for a task-driven organisation and great for managing deadlines and enhancing productivity. Microsoft Teams Microsoft Teams is a platform that combines workplace chat, meetings, notes, and attachments. That might not sound that amazing, however when you have large scale, multi-faceted projects then this is a terrific cloud-based app. Teams brings together people, conversations and content along with the tools that teams need so they can easily communicate, collaborate and achieve more. Like Groups, you can collate your information whenever and wherever you like. Great for conferencing. Highlights: Teams is all about instant communication between teams of people. It gives users an informal platform that allows them to communicate in the way they feel most comfortable, whether that is written, spoken or visual communication. business-agility.com

21 Microsoft Yammer Yammer is Microsoft s social media tool within the Office 365 suite. You can update others on what you re working on, connect with relevant folk as well as sync it seamlessly with the rest of Office Highlights: This is a great tool to use on a day to day basis with co-workers you may not be directly working on projects with but want to keep in the loop. There s more to talk about for each Office 365 app, of course. However, we hope this guide has given you a good idea about what each app is there for and how you might (or might not!) want to apply them within your business. As with anything there s going to be a learning curve involved. Sometimes it s steeper for others, but with the right level of training, encouragement and collaboration then the sky s the limit. Our advice, ultimately, is seek advice and ensure you re trained and have good governance in place. It s much, much less expensive to front-load your project/s with planning and guidance than it is to go it alone and try to correct your course mid-project. Remember, you want to maximise your investments, not minimise them! Business Agility Consulting Ltd

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