Microsoft 365 (formerly known as Office 365) is one of the most popular cloud productivity platforms in the world. In the U.S. alone, it’s used by over 650,000 companies.
The platform gets upgraded regularly and has all kinds of productivity “secrets” that you can use to boost efficiency and short-cut your workflows.
One way that companies operate more efficiently is to use business IT managed services, and another way is to learn those valuable tricks in the cloud tools they use that can totally change the way they work.
If you’re a Microsoft 365 user, we’ve got several productivity tips & tricks below to make the most of this tool.
Keep Track of Meeting & Equipment Reservations in Outlook
Are you still using paper forms on a clipboard or a spreadsheet to keep track of meeting room reservations or who has your projector checked out? This can be done much more efficiently by using resource mailboxes in Outlook.
For each meeting room, vehicle, or other reserved equipment you have, set up a Resource Mailbox in the Exchange Admin Center.
Then, when a user wants to reserve any of these resources, they can use the meeting planner in Outlook to do it.
They’ll simply add the resource to a scheduled meeting as an attendee, just as they would any other attendees.
They can quickly see if the resource is available, without having to go through someone else, by clicking Scheduling Assistant in the “create meeting” window. This will display reserved and available time slots.
They pick an available slot and send the meeting invite, and the resource is reserved under their name. Settings can also be added to allow resources to be approved first before they’re confirmed to be checked out or reserved.
Auto-Fill Your Datasets in Excel with Data Types
Data types in Excel is a powerful feature, yet very easy to use. The concept behind data types is that you designate a certain column of data as a particular type, such as geography.
You can then pull from a database of connected information that will fill data in automatically.
Here’s an example:
Say you’re doing an analysis of major U.S. cities. You can save tons of research time by using the preset geography data type in Excel.
Just highlight your city names, click the Data tab in Excel, then click Geography to convert your city names to the geography data type.
You’ll see a small icon at the top of the first selected cell. Click that to reveal the data you can have populated into the next available column.
What makes this even more powerful is that you can create your own data types pertinent to your organization.
Use OneNote to Keep Your Projects Organized
OneNote comes free with a Microsoft 365 subscription, but often it’s overlooked. This tool can be used to organize all your project information, planning, meeting notes, etc.
You can use text formatting (bold, bullets, etc.) and collect websites, images, video, emails, and other types of information into shareable online notebooks.
A neat meeting trick is to use the audio recorder in OneNote to record meetings so you can be present verbally instead of having to furiously take notes.
Take Advantage of Free Stock Images & Illustrations
If you’ve been using Microsoft Office products for a decade or so, then you probably bypass any stock images (they haven’t always been the most helpful).
But around the time that the name was changed from Office 365 to Microsoft 365, thousands of free, high-quality stock images, icons, and illustrations were added to the platform. And many of these are business images.
You can save a lot of money on images by searching from inside Word or PowerPoint the following, Insert > Pictures > Stock Images to see if there are free images that fit your needs before buying them elsewhere.
Get Help With Instant Proofing in Word
There are two great tools in Word that can shortcut your proofing time for documents.
● Read Aloud: One is the Read Aloud feature on the Review tab. Just highlight the text to be read and click the Read Aloud option. Hearing your words read back can often help you hone the language to be easier to understand.
● Editor: From the home tab of a document in Word, you can access Editor on the far right. This not only includes the standard spelling and grammar corrections, but also includes suggestions for clarity, conciseness, formality, vocabulary, and more.
Save Typing Time with Quick Parts in Outlook
Inevitably, there are certain things you end up typing over and over again in an email. It might be directions to your office or your standard meeting invitation intro.
You can save yourself a lot of typing time by using the Quick Parts feature in Outlook. This allows you to save a block of text from an email.
Then, when you need that same text later for another email, just insert the entire block from the Quick Parts tool.
To save text into Quick Parts:
● Highlight the email text
● Click the Insert tab
● Click the arrow under the Quick Parts area
● Choose Save Selection to Quick Part Gallery
To use your Quick Part text:
● Place your cursor to the place you want to insert the text
● Click the Insert tab
● Click the arrow under the Quick Parts area
● Choose the appropriate saved text from your Quick Part Gallery
Get Expert Help With Cloud Workflow Solutions!
Phoenix Edge Technologies can help your business optimize your use of the cloud to improve efficiency and productivity.
Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 415-651-5110 or reach us online.
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