Even if you have not seen our 2016 article on Microsoft Office 365, by now, you have either heard a great deal about this cloud platform and the benefits it can bring to your organization – or, perhaps you are already experiencing them and can attest to the value of these services. With its integrated email, communications, and storage capabilities, it makes a great deal of sense for organizations to make the move to Office 365 sooner than later, especially if you are planning upgrades or replacements for your current on-premise infrastructure. But are you aware that the Office 365 platform is an interactive product that is constantly receiving upgrades and updates as well as additions of brand new products? And that many of these new products do not have an On-Premise equivalent? At the end of 2017 there were over 30 services and applications available in the Office 365 Suite, with quite a few of them added or changed in 2017.
Microsoft Teams Workspace
The beta version* was introduced late 2016, the Teams product has fully matured into a valuable collaboration product for any agile company or team. Utilizing a modern interface, and integration with all other core Office 365 services, you can communicate with your team, co-author documents, and hold meetings without ever leaving the application. In chat rooms you can also quickly search in past group conversations to find information and previously answered questions.
*testing phase.
Visio Online
No more printing your Visio Documents to PDF to share them with coworkers or clients that do not have Visio. Simply provide them a link to your Visio Online document and they will be able to open the document in read-only mode. And with an Office Visio License you and teammates will be able to co-author the same document, at the same time.
Microsoft To-Do
With the Microsoft acquisition of the popular to-do application, Wunderlist, they have redesigned and integrated it into the Office 365 platform as Microsoft To-Do. With desktop and mobile versions of the application, you will never be without your task list.
Microsoft Stream
Want to publish your own training videos for staff and clients, or possibly videos of your corporate events, but do not want to deal with the public nature of video sites such as Youtube? Microsoft Stream solves this by giving you an internal video streaming service, with the option to share them out publicly if you so desire.
Outlook Mobile
Outlook for iOS and Android has been publicly available for some time, but in 2017 the mobile applications underwent major changes that provide you several benefits. Enhanced calendaring, access to shared mailboxes and delegated calendars make it easier for you and your team to work together while on the go.
Generally, when new products, or additions to existing products are released, a business needs to work with their IT department or out-sourced company not only to establish budgets, but plan implementations and potentially schedule painful service outages. When organizations such as yours subscribe to Office 365, you automatically get these new products bundled into the cost per user and without any service interruptions. This can save your business lost time and productivity due to issues that inevitably arise after a migration project, as well as the costs associated with implementing large infrastructure upgrades. For more information and pricing, take a look at Microsoft’s website or, better yet, contact us.
