Office 365 – More than just Email

When you mention Office 365 to office staff who are vaguely aware of its existence, the first thing that usually comes to mind is email. The main reason is most people only ever have contact with Office 365 as an email system delivered through Outlook on their Desktop or Outlook Web App. For the most part that’s perfectly fine. Most people’s experience of Office 365 is through work email provided by their employers, a communication tool that helps them conduct their day to day tasks that keep their world ticking. This was very much the case in 2008 when the Microsoft Office 365 predecessor, known as Business Productivity Online Services or BPOS was breaking ground in the online services sector. Back then its main constituent parts were Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, and Microsoft Office Live Meeting. Fast forward 8 years, and you may be very surprised what Office 365 can do now.  In this article I am going to briefly run through three of my favourite features that Office 365 has to offer. With the right kind of subscription, you might find you have more tools at you fingertips than you originally thought.

First Things First – Email

That’s right, email! Or Exchange Online to be more precise – a cloud-based Exchange class email system that most who use Office 365 are very familiar with. It’s the feature we use the most. In fact, for some it’s the only feature they use, either because it’s the only thing they are aware of or, they are too afraid to venture further into the multitude of other offerings from Office 365. Exchange Online on its own is great. You get email anywhere you have a browser and internet connectivity, with enterprise-level security without paying the enterprise price tag, and you don’t have to invest in large expensive servers with adequate security, backups, maintenance and very limited storage. How many times have you had to call your IT support to beg for another 100MB on your storage allowance only to have them tell that you “You need to clear out your deleted items, it’s not a place for storing emails”? With Office 365 you get a luxurious 50GB mailbox, which you’ll be hard pressed to fill anytime soon, but no doubt some will try.

OneDrive for Business – Business-class online personal storage

The next feature I use the most after emails is OneDrive for Business. For those who don’t know, this is Microsoft’s entrance into the cloud storage race. For me this is the second best thing about Office 365. With certain subscription plans Microsoft bundles 1TB of online storage for your personal use. For me it’s become a secure way to remotely access files like reports, spreadsheets and presentations anywhere I have a browser and internet connection. If I know I am going to a meeting, and I don’t want to lug about documents that I might need for support during said meeting, then I can simply place it in my OneDrive for Business cloud storage. When it comes time for me to dig out that document I can connect my laptop to the guest WiFi, login to OneDrive for Business, and get access right there and then. If I need to do some basic collaboration work, I can also share files like Word documents or spreadsheets with colleagues to review or edit. What’s even better, I can edit the same Word document or spreadsheet at the same time as my colleague. Different coloured cursers on the document tell you who else is editing your document and what part of that document is being edited.  This feature has come in handy when a colleague gave me a hand updating an invoicing spreadsheet. I gave him access by first sharing the spreadsheet with editing rights. He then accessed the spread sheet through a generated link, and we both got through that invoicing in no time.

Skype for Business

Office 356 is really geared for collaboration. With the right guidance and understanding you can really make these tools work for you, like the example with OneDrive for Business. This leads me to my next most frequently used and favourite feature, Skype for Business. Now most people know what Skype is – a communication tool to instantly message, call, and video to friends and colleagues, from one room to another or from country to country. Before Skype for Business, Microsoft offered a cloud based instant messaging tool that came as standard with most Office 365 subscriptions called Lync. This was another one of those features that many people overlooked. But not me. At times I felt we were the only ones in the world that even used Lync. And it was a really good communication tool. A more-than-adequate instant messaging app for your desktop that allowed you to ping a quick question to a colleague about a report he’d written or asking if they had got the latest KPIs upload. It was a tool we used all the time, until Microsoft purchased Skype back in 2011. Skype for Business has replaced Lync and we now have access to a feature-rich communication tool that allows us to make calls, send instant messages and the amazing feature of sharing your screen with a colleague. Just perfect for those times when you need help with a function or feature of Windows for example, and nothing else will do but to share your screen so a knowledgeable colleague can see what you’re seeing. It also links in with your Outlook calendar, and lets your colleagues know when you’re busy or out the office, to let them know a reply is not likely to be instant. These are my top three favourite features of Office 365. There are a lot more to cover and explore.  As it can be a bit daunting knowing what a feature does or whether it is suitable for you, I aim to follow up this article with more in-depth analyses of the above features and others with examples of how they can be used. In the mean time I really do encourage you to explore what features your Office 365 subscription gives you.