Unlocking the Full Potential of Your Microsoft 365 License
If you’re here, odds are you’re already paying for a Microsoft 365 license of some kind—have you ever wondered if there’s more to what you’re paying for besides Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint?
Over the years, Microsoft has become synonymous with the digital business software space. In addition to their heavyweight product applications, they’ve added many new apps geared toward productivity, collaboration, and AI that you might not have had time to explore. The even better news: you may already be paying for these tools with your Microsoft 365 license, so if you see an app that seems like it’d be a game changer for you, it’s just a couple of clicks away.
In this blog, we’ll introduce you to some of the lesser-known Microsoft 365 applications, what they do, and how they can help make things easier for you and your business.
Background: What Is Microsoft 365?
It seems like the language regarding Microsoft is always changing, right? Currently, Microsoft 365 refers to the comprehensive suite of cloud-based productivity tools that Microsoft has developed. This suite includes well-known applications like Word, Excel, Outlook, and PowerPoint but also offers a range of lesser-known tools, like Bookings, Loop, and Clipchamp, designed to enhance collaboration, creativity, and efficiency for your business.
Microsoft 365 is available through various subscription plans tailored to specific business goals and needs. Some critical components of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications include cloud services, such as OneDrive (a cloud storage service that allows you to store and share files online, ensuring access to your documents from any device) and Microsoft Teams (a virtual collaboration platform that integrates chat, meetings, calls, file sharing, and more) as well as security features like advanced threat prevention and device management tools for enterprise organizations.
From businesses of any size to education and nonprofits, Microsoft offers the 365 suite in a variety of plans to ensure that organizations of all sizes can find a suitable solution that meets their specific needs. If you’re interested in learning more about specific licensing needs for your organizations, contact us.
9 Microsoft 365 Apps You Should Start Using
1. Teams
If there’s one app on this list that you’re already familiar with, it’s probably Teams—since the COVID-19 pandemic and the rise of remote work, Teams has become synonymous with business communications and collaboration.
Microsoft Teams helps facilitate pretty much everything businesses need communication-wise to get things done, including video conferencing, meetings, and calls. Teams also integrate with the Microsoft 365 suite for file sharing and tools, allowing you to collaborate on documents, manage projects, and streamline workflows.
2. Whiteboard
Whiteboard is Microsoft’s “digital canvas” that gives businesses a place to collaborate in real-time—it’s perfect for brainstorming sessions, project planning, and creating virtual presentations.
As a Microsoft 365 application, it integrates seamlessly with other tools, making it easy to share ideas and manage projects, even when working remotely. If needed, Microsoft Whiteboard allows you to export the projects you’ve been working on as a PDF.
3. Planner
As this app name suggests, Planner is a tool that helps you organize tasks, assign them to team members, and track your progress on projects. Using Planner, you can manage workflows, create plans, build task lists, and set deadlines. You can also organize tasks into different “buckets” and categorize them with labels for easy tracking.
To further collaboration, Planner allows you to share comments and attach files to tasks. Planner also integrates directly with Loop, Outlook, and Teams to help ensure you stay on task.
4. Sway
Microsoft refers to Sway as a “digital storytelling app.” If that sounds overwhelming, there’s no need to fret—Sway includes templates to help you get started creating content.
Using a built-in design engine, Sway helps you enhance the appearance of your creations, including presentations, blogs, and newsletters. The app also allows you to access important content from various sources, including OneNote, Bing, and other Sway presentations. Furthermore, it integrates with other media services such as YouTube and Facebook.
5. Bookings
Bookings is an appointment scheduling tool that gives your business the tools it needs to manage customer bookings. One of the most attractive features of Bookings is that it integrates directly with your Outlook calendar to avoid conflicts like double bookings. Also, it can send automatic confirmations and appointment reminders to customers to make sure they never miss a meeting with you.
Through Bookings, customers can book appointments online. Additionally, Bookings is compatible with Facebook so that you can receive requests from multiple touchpoints in one place. Within Teams, Bookings allows you to create pages, schedule your availability, add team members to appointments, and manage appointments.
6. Loop
Loop is a collaborative workspace that allows teams to work together on documents, notes, and tasks in real-time. It integrates with Microsoft Teams and other 365 apps, ensuring that your team stays connected and productive.
Think of Loop like a big, shared workspace for co-creating. When you’re in the middle of a large project, this ensures that all team members are always up-to-date and focused on the important tasks at hand. With its integration into more familiar tools like Teams and Outlook, Loop helps streamline project management and enhance productivity by keeping everyone aligned on tasks and goals.
7. Clipchamp
Touted as a user-friendly video editing tool, Clipchamp is designed to help you create professional-looking videos easily and quickly. It offers intuitive drag-and-drop editing, AI-driven tools like text-to-speech and auto-captioning, and a vast library of royalty-free media.
With customizable templates and advanced audio-visual controls, Clipchamp empowers users to create professional-quality videos for any purpose. Its simplicity caters to beginners, while its depth satisfies more experienced editors, making it an ideal choice for personal, educational, or business video projects.
8. Forms
Forms is a versatile tool for creating surveys, quizzes, and polls. It is helpful for gathering feedback from customers, conducting market research, or engaging employees and students. The responses are automatically collected and can be analyzed directly in Excel, making it easy to interpret data and gain insights.
Forms is a valuable tool for HR departments, educators, and anyone needing to collect and analyze data efficiently.
9. Copilot
When it comes to the hot topic of AI, Copilot is Microsoft’s answer.
Copilot leverages AI to enhance productivity across the Microsoft 365 suite. It offers features like automated content generation in Word, real-time transcription in Teams, and email summarization in Outlook. For businesses, Copilot can streamline repetitive tasks, improve content quality, and provide data insights, saving time and increasing efficiency.
We Make Things Easier.
As your technology partner, we’re happy to show you how you can get the most out of the technology and software products your company invests in. By exploring these lesser-known Microsoft 365 apps, we hope you can unlock the potential of your subscription to significantly enhance your productivity, collaboration, and creativity.
If you’re interested in learning more about our Managed O365 offering or need help managing your IT environment, please reach out to us—we’re happy to share how we can help.