Microsoft’s Office 365 is the pinnacle of office document management — and it’s in no small part because of its sophisticated collaboration capabilities.
Plenty of Office users simply made the upgrade and kept using it the same way they always have. Plenty more never made the upgrade, because they assumed Office 365 just added a few bells and whistles that don’t justify the price.
If you’re in either of those camps, these are the three collaboration tips you need to know about.
1: Simplify your Document Management with Co-authoring
When multiple people are editing a document at the same time, it’s called co-authoring. If you’ve ever used the Google Suite, you’ve probably seen those symbols at the top of documents letting you know there are other people viewing it.
This has been possible for some time in several Microsoft Office products — Word, PowerPoint, and Excel. All you need is a shared storage area, like OneDrive or SharePoint.
When multiple people with different expertise need to contribute to a single document, co-authoring allows them to do so all at once.
A subject matter expert can handle their section, while a different expert updates another. The graphic designer can drop in images, and a technical expert can review the numbers. Doing this without co-authoring means risking a mess of often conflicting changes, with people wasting time waiting their turn and someone becoming responsible for collecting and managing everything. Not only does it drag out the production process, it increases the risk of errors or unintended content slipping through the review process.
Co-authoring means people can work simultaneously and ultimately, get it all done faster and more accurately.
2: Manage Access with Office 365 Groups and Maintain a Shared Notebook
So how do you manage who gets to see all this stuff? You can set up folder permissions, or you can organize yourself into groups. Pull together the Outlook inboxes, calendars, and document libraries you need to collaborate on by managing your groups. Then, when you need to add or remove someone from these resources, rather than clicking through menus to get them six different kinds of access, you just pop in or out of your group.
With Office 365 Planner, you can tie in all your task-based communication together with your group. You can keep track of who’s working on what, what the status is, and know when your deliverables are due. It’s a shared notebook, and everyone can be on the same page.
3: Use Everything Anywhere
Do you have an internet connection? Great: you’re ready to use Office 365 wherever you are, whatever modern device you’re using. Mobile apps are available for Windows phones, Android, and iOS on top of Windows and Mac versions.
If a team member needs to hit the road, they’ve still got access to everything on their laptop. Or if they need to make a few quick changes and all they’ve got is their phone, they’re empowered to take charge. If your team is spread across the world and works remotely? It’s all there.
Even if you lose internet access, you can still use installed Office 365 apps offline, and continue working, ready to sync up the changes later. Ultimately, Office 365 collaboration works remotely just as smoothly as it does in the same physical location.
Get Started with Office 365 Collaboration
It’s one thing to read about the awesome stuff Office 365 can do — and another to get it deployed and bring your staff up to speed on how to actually use the features effectively.
CrucialLogics is a Microsoft Gold Partner, with particular expertise in Cloud Collaboration. Get in touch and we can help you understand your options with a quick chat.
Already got Office 365? You’ll want to make sure it’s secure. And if you’d like to explore more that the cloud has to offer, check out our eBook: The Transformative Cloud.
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