Collaboration is fast becoming the new norm in the workplace. COVID19 has brought this crashing down on us.
No longer can we work together in groups warm comfortable offices with all our resources at our finger tips. We are now forced to work cut off from one another, but at the same time are needed to work just as closely together. Collaboration allows us to improve efficiency and increase our productivity but only if you have the right tools for for the job.

The best tool for providing collaboration currently is Microsoft 365.

You all may have MS365 email and a subscription for this. Most of us do not know the additional power of MS365 as a collaboration suite. Let’s look at what it can provide.:

• Sharepoint
  A means of quality controlling documents and projects within teams of people inside or outside the organisation. (Quite an old technology and not everyome likes it but Microsoft have release many other tools to substitute for it.)
• Office Online
  Office Online is the Office suite with enhanced collaboration. You can work with your team on presentations in PowerPoint or reports in Excel simultaneously using a mobile app, browser, or desktop-based Office suite. Office Online is version controlled and governed by the very same policies that manage Office 365.
  In case you didn’t quite get this – you can edit Excel sheet at the same time as your colleague and what’s more, on your copy of your sheet you can see their mouse and typing in real time. So you know if they are editing the same cell as you. Cool!
• Microsoft Flow
  Microsoft Flow is a service for automating workflow across the growing number of apps and SaaS services that business users rely on. Workflows are essential for effective collaboration. Timely notification and information about changes to content, people, and applications bring a workforce closer towards achieving common goals. Imagine having a workflow defined so that a new request for a proposal is published, and a set of predefined tasks for pre-sales, technology, and customer success team is created to effectively work on a response without bringing in redundancy.
• One Drive for Business
  One Drive for Business  is an integral part of Office 365; it provides a place in the Cloud where you store, share, and sync your work files. You can update and share your files from any device with OneDrive for Business. You can also work on Office documents with others at the same time. It provides the much-needed ability to control your documents and content and share internally and externally at the same time with the right set of permissions. OneDrive provides sync client for desktop, mobile, and tablets with the selective sync option to optimize your storage and share your content effectively. Your users can modify the content in real time based on their access permissions.

• Office 365 Video
  365 Video is similar to YouTube, but for business. You can create multiple channels secured for access where users can tag people for easy findability. It is a new, dynamic video portal available to Office 365 customers. It enables easy uploading, sharing, and playback of video messages securely throughout your company. The portal is designed to meet the requirements of IT and win the hearts and minds of users.

• Planners (and Calendars)
  Planner is your everyday work management tool. With Planner, teams can create new plans; organize, assign and collaborate on tasks; set due dates; update statuses and share files, while visual dashboards and email notifications keep everyone informed on progress. Planner offers people a simple and highly visual way to organize teamwork. Planner makes it easy for your team to create new plans, organize and assign tasks, share files, chat about what you’re working on, and get updates on progress. Planner can be used to manage a marketing event, brainstorm new product ideas, track a school project, prepare for a customer visit, or just organize your team more effectively.

• Microsoft Exchange
  Exchange (most of you have this) allows you to accomplish more with a rich, business-class email experience on phones, tablets, desktops, and the web. Office 365 and Exchange Online provide the following rich features that can help your end-users easily collaborate via email:

  • Site mailboxes – A site mailbox is functionally comprised of a SharePoint site membership (owners and members), shared storage through an Exchange mailbox for email messages, and a SharePoint site to store and share.
  • Public folders – Public folders are designed for shared access and provide an easy and effective way to collect, organize, and share information with other people in your workgroup or organization.
  • Shared mailboxes – A shared mailbox is a mailbox that multiple designated users can access to read and send email messages and share a common calendar.
  • Groups – Groups (also called distribution groups) are a collection of two or more recipients who appear in the shared address book. When an email message is sent to a group, it’s received by all members of the group.
• Skype for Business
  Skype allows you to connect with coworkers or business partners in your company or around the world.

• Teams
  Teams is the new chat-based workspace in Office 365. Microsoft Teams is an entirely new experience that brings people, conversations and content together—along with the tools that teams need—so they can easily collaborate to achieve more. It’s naturally integrated with the familiar Office applications, such as Skype for Business, Exchange, OneNote, Planner, Delve, and SharePoint and is built from the ground up on the Office 365 global, secure Cloud.
• Delve
  Delve is an employee profile and content discovery for easy collaboration, finding the right person and the right content at the right time.  It acts as a tool to curate all your necessary business content in one place.

I hope this provides some ideas to assist your business work together whilst isolated. If so – please contact us to discuss their implementation.