Recent reports state that Microsoft has more than 120 billion Office 365 commercial monthly active users. If you are among them, then this article is for you.
If you dig deeper, not all these users use every service they get as a part of their O365 subscription. They could have moved to the cloud to migrate their exchange workload as a first step. Using the subscription beyond that is up to the strength of the IT team within the organization. While the majority of SMBs onboard O365, it's not used much where there are no dedicated IT teams. So, this article will help you understand how you can put your O365 to real use far beyond just sending emails.
Understand the plan you are in
Office 365 comes in different flavors. From home to education, government to non-profits, home to small business, there is a plan for everyone. This means there is a bucket of services which comes along with them. You can check them out here. See what apps you can put to use in your organization. You can also mix and match the plans between your user groups. Also, do note that if you are an educational institution, you can start using Office 365 for free.
Keep watching for the new apps within O365
Office 365 is a delivered in the cloud as a SaaS offering, which means there are updates done by Microsoft frequently & the release cycles are so short that you see updates every fortnight or so. It’s so important to keep track of these updates so you get the best use of them. Even new apps are added to your subscription as part of this updates. All these apps delivered to you are targeted to improve your workplace productivity. One way to keep track with these updates is to follow the Office 365 roadmap. Your tenant admin will also receive emails to your account as and when the updates are released. Alternatively the same can be seen in the Message Centre in the tenant admin panel. Keep yourself updated and put to use the right apps for your organization.
You can build applications on top of O365
When I said office 365 is delivered as a SaaS offering, it does not necessarily mean that you can use only what Microsoft offers as services. O365 comes with a powerful platform known as “SharePoint”. SharePoint has been a server offering by Microsoft for more than a decade when it was moved to cloud with the release of SharePoint Online (started with the 2010 version of SharePoint server). From then on SharePoint is one single service which has evolved most rapidly than any other O365 services. Using SharePoint you can build a whole set of business applications, workflow processes and more. Get your in-house development team or a partner to understand the possibilities of SharePoint.
Leverage O365 to build a digital workplace
You have all the services and apps that Office 365 provides & the power of SharePoint. But are you working in silos? Do you navigate to different apps to search for the information you need? Then you are missing out on a digital workplace. A digital workplace helps you bring all your employees on one portal, find the relevant information, communicate and collaborate with each other. Moreover, a digital workplace is set to improve employee engagement and employee satisfaction which intern boosts productivity. Large organizations have empowered their multi-generation employees with a digital workplace to improve their productivity & efficiency. Office 365 is most widely used to build digital workplace in recent times. Build your digital workplace on top of O365 or buy a ready-made digital workplace & get the best use out of O365 & SharePoint.