If you haven’t heard of Microsoft Office 365 – where have you been hiding?
Basically, it’s the MS Office suite of applications you know and love, but hosted online. So you can access them from your desktop, laptop, tablet and mobile all on the same account.
The best known applications are Outlook, Word, Excel and PowerPoint. – But do you use OneNote, Access and Publisher? When you subscribe to Office 365 you also get a few added extras that you may not be aware of. So read on to make sure you’re getting the maximum benefit from your MS 365 subscription.
Office online
Your subscription gives you access to online versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint, so if you don’t have access to your own computer, but can get online, you can still use these popular programs.
1TB of online file storage
Microsoft OneDrive for Business gives you access to OneDrive, which is storage space in the cloud to store, share, and synchronise your work files. And a terabyte is a lot of storage space, even if you have lots of large video or image files. You can update and share your files from any device with OneDrive for Business, and can even work on Office documents with others at the same time.
Skype for Business
This is a more robust, secure, and flexible solution than the personal version of Skype. Skype for Business lets you add up to 250 people to online meetings, provides higher grade security and is integrated into Microsoft Office apps.
It also includes Skype meetings, to allows HD web conferencing, from any device or operating system, and the ability to share screens, use the laser pointer or a collaborative whiteboard. This means you don’t need to pay for expensive video-conferencing software.
Microsoft Teams
Whilst Teams can be described as an alternative to any IM app, Teams was developed to rival Slack. What is Slack? A hugely popular chat-based application to allow users real-time collaboration where they come together to create work plans.
Teams is a cross-platform app (available for desktop and mobile, for Android, iOS and Windows Phone) that integrates Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote. In addition, Teams allows ‘Connections’ to allow users to bring in content from elsewhere, such as Twitter or RSS feeds.
SharePoint
Microsoft SharePoint is a web-based application that integrates with Microsoft Office, and is a document management and storage solution. However, it can also provide an intranet, extranet, and closer integrated team working and collaboration.
Microsoft Delve
Delve brings you information based on what you’re working on and who you’re working with; always maintaining established permissions. You don’t have to remember the title of a document or where it’s stored; Delve shows you documents no matter where they’re stored in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint in Office 365.
If you’ve got a MS365 subscription – are you making the most of it? You could save money and cover your subscription just by using some of these services instead of paying for external alternatives.
