Microsoft 365, or Office 365, is one of those powerhouse productivity suites that every business needs. With many companies embracing digital transformation, especially through cloud-based services and collaboration tools, Microsoft 365 offers familiar tools like Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. However, there is more to it than just basic tools. There are lots of hidden features in Microsoft 365 you never knew were there, that, when discovered, can boost your productivity vastly, change the nature of how you work, and improve your workflow.
Whether you are new to Microsoft 365 or have been using it for years, here is a blog introducing the unknown features you’ve never known exist. For Dubai-based businesses, finding a reliable Microsoft Office 365 service provider in Dubai like Sky Tech Cyber Cloud would ensure a lot from these hidden gems.
1. Power Automate: Make Workflows Easy
One of the lesser-known features in Microsoft 365 is Power Automate, which was formerly known as Microsoft Flow. It’s used to automate repeat tasks and how work processes can be made easier between apps. Just think about the hours saved from automating all of the manually bogged-down activities like automated alerts for emails, approval processes in documents, data collection, and much more. Power Automate shares a fabulous, silky ride with other Microsoft tools: SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams, alongside others, to make processes more efficient for your organization.
For instance, you can send automatic responses to customer inquiries, automate the process of adding meeting notes to a shared folder, or even hook it into third-party apps like Salesforce.
How This Changes Your Work:
- Reduces the need for manual interventions in repetitive tasks.
- Ensuring consistency and accuracy by automation of workflows.
- Improving efficiency by connecting multiple applications to create a united working environment.
2. Microsoft Teams: Hidden Collaboration Tools
Microsoft Teams is much more than video conferencing tool. Popular for virtual meetings, hidden features of this app make team collaboration smooth and more productive. Teams works harmoniously with many other Microsoft 365 apps and you can work on documents, spreadsheets, and presentation from this app in real-time with your colleagues without leaving the app.
Apart from that, it also features:
- Private Channels: Create private channels within a team to engage in more focused discussion.
- Breakout Rooms: Organize large meetings into smaller groups and discuss in the breakout rooms.
- Task Assignment: Integrate with Planner and To-Do for task assignments and tracking right from within Teams.
- Translation: The chat function offers live translation so that teams of people who speak different languages can work together.
How this changes your work:
- Enhances communication and eliminates the need for various communication platforms.
- Increases collaboration and productivity by offering real-time document editing and task management.
- Increases efficiency to use other tools that are part of the Microsoft package.
3. OneDrive Version History: Never Lose Data Again
Have you ever accidentally deleted some critical part of your document or made changes you want to undo? Well, with OneDrive’s Version History, you can recover previous versions of your file without much hassle.
This feature is not limited to Word documents but works with Excel spreadsheets, PowerPoint presentations, and more files stored in OneDrive. With Office Online, you can access up to 25 versions of a file, so you never lose important data.
How This Changes Your Work:
- Saves you time and effort in recovering lost data or unwanted changes.
- Improves the accuracy and security of shared documents.
- Reduces stress as it provides an easy way of tracking document versions and updates.
4. Delve: Personalised Insights and Content Discovery
Delve is an AI-powered tool in Microsoft 365 that allows a user to discover appropriate content and insights to an organisation. It enables personalized content, depending on what you are working on and what your colleagues are sharing, so that you can easily find documents, conversations, or e-mails related to your projects.
Delve also gives you insights into your work habits, such as how much time you are spending in meetings or on emails, so that you can manage time effectively.
How it Changes Your Work:
- Improves efficiency by bringing the content and documents to you instead of having to search for yourself.
- Gives you insights into your work habits, thus helping you to adjust how you operate with your time.
- Works well with your peers by showing you what your team is working on, even if you are not directly working on projects.
5. Microsoft MyAnalytics: Increase Your Productivity
One feature of Microsoft 365 that is considered quite crucial is MyAnalytics, which produces personal insights into one’s work patterns. It tracks email usage, meeting time, focus time, and collaboration hours to give insights into how you are spending your time. MyAnalytics goes further, offering to improve productivity by suggesting ways to do this with actionable tips, such as cutting down on meeting times or setting aside focus hours for deep work.
The more people work from home, the more they need to keep tabs on their time management, and so, MyAnalytics could help by showing you where you’re using your time most frequently and how you might improve it.
How This Changes Your Work:
- This tool delivers data-driven insights into work habits.
- Identifies areas for improving efficiency
- Helps in maintaining better work-life balance with recommendations on focus hours and eliminating unnecessary meetings.
6. Flash Fill of Excel: Automatic Input of Data
Anyone in the field of data entry works while using Microsoft Excel, and the data entry process can be time-consuming and cumbersome. Microsoft provides Flash Fill in Excel, which is used for automatically detecting patterns in data entry and then finalizing completion for you. For instance, if you need to split full names into first and last names, Flash Fill will detect the pattern after just a couple of entries and then do the rest of the work for you automatically. This feature is especially helpful in large datasets where manual entry leads to errors and time waste.
How This Changes Your Work:
- Reduces the time spent on repetitive data entry tasks.
- Improves accuracy through automation of data entry pattern recognition.
- Increases productivity through the handling of large datasets quickly and efficiently.
7. Planner: Simplify Project Management
Microsoft Planner is an easy-to-use, lightweight project management tool within the family of Microsoft 365. It lets teams design plans, assign tasks, and track progress using simple and visually rich interface. It integrates well with Teams, SharePoint, and Outlook to help make things easier for teams to collaborate and keep on top of those projects.
You can use Planner to manage the projects of a team, set deadlines, and track the completion rate without having to invest in stand-alone project management software.
How This Changes Your Work:
- Streamlines project management through an intuitive interface.
- Boost collaboration because all tasks and updates are in one place.
- Enhance teamwork productivity by giving a clear view of the project progress.
8. Outlook's Scheduling Assistant: Find the Perfect Meeting Time
It is a fantastic discovery for users who frequently schedule meetings using Outlook’s Scheduling Assistant. It checks the availability of your colleagues and gives the best available time for the meeting based on the calendars of everyone involved. Say Bye-bye to hours spent in your inbox, trying to find that one suitable time that works for everyone.
This feature also considers the time zones, which makes it quite an effective tool for teams spread out across different regions.
How This Will Change Your Work:
- Reduce time spent coordinating meeting times
- Boosts scheduling efficiency, especially when dealing with large teams or teams working on different time zones
- Easier to find convenient times for meetings without dealing with lots of back-and-forth communication
9. PowerPoint Presenter Coach: Elevate Your Presentation Game
Delivering a presentation can be really intimidating, but PowerPoint’s Presenter Coach can help you practice and improve your skills. This AI-driven feature listens to your rehearsals and can give you feedback in real-time about your pace, tone, and even frequency with which you use those infamous words “um” and “like.”
Presenter Coach also gives you suggestions on the best ways to make your audience connect and how not to read directly from your slides, thus making it much more presentable.
How This Changes Your Work:
- Make you a more confident and effective presenter.
- Delivers you actionable feedback on how to improve your presentation style.
- Reduces anxiety so that you can practice and prepare before the actual presentation.
10. To-Do and Tasks in Outlook: Staying Organised
With Microsoft To-Do, your Outlook Tasks are your to-do list. You can create tasks from your emails, assign due dates, and organize them by priority or project. With the integration between To-Do and Outlook, your tasks will also be in sync across all your devices so you can get everything done, from wherever you’re working from.
How This Change Your Work:
- Helps keep track of things so you can all your tasks in one place.
- Ensures that you never miss a deadline, thus setting due dates and reminding you.
- Boosts productivity by helping you prioritize your tasks for maximum benefits.
Partnership with a Microsoft Office 365 Service Provider in Dubai
Discover and use these hidden features in Microsoft 365 to revolutionize productivity and the way you work. But to unlock the full potential, a professional Microsoft Office 365 service provider in Dubai like Sky Tech Cyber Cloud can ensure that your business is ready for success. Sky Tech Cyber Cloud can provide professional advice and deployment, as well as ongoing support, to help get the best out of your Microsoft 365 features and concentrate on what matters most-growing your business.
Conclusion
Microsoft 365 has many hidden features that, once discovered, can dramatically improve how people work. With the possibilities of Power Automate on automatic tasks, to working with the organized life of To-Do, Microsoft 365 offers most of the tools one needs to streamline workflows, enhance collaborations, and boost productivity. Don’t miss the secrets of Microsoft 365—Unlock its full potential with Sky Tech Cyber Cloud.
Sky Tech Cyber Cloud stands out as one of the top Microsoft Office 365 service providers in Dubai and gives unmatched expertise in offering personal solutions that enhance production and efficiency. Our services are focused on personalization, thereby ensuring smooth deployment, seamless integration and of all Microsoft 365 applications combined with continuous support offered. Our team of professionals are dedicated to helping businesses use the full power of Microsoft 365’s features, from advanced collaboration tools to automated workflows to enable your business to perform at its best in a secure and scalable cloud environment. Call us +971 2 674 0141 or +971 50 211 0019 to know more.
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