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A short guide to Microsoft 365’s Bookings featureMicrosoft Bookings is not just any scheduling app; it's a powerful tool that lets you create an effortless booking experience for your customers. What sets it apart is its seamless integration with Outlook, ensuring that you have a real-time overview of your availability and simplifying the appointment booking process. In this article, we discuss some […]

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08 Sep, 2023 / by Complete Technology Resources / in 2023september8office_b, microsoft 365, microsoft bookings, microsoft features, Office, Office 365, outlook category
A short guide to Microsoft 365’s Bookings feature

Microsoft Bookings is not just any scheduling app; it's a powerful tool that lets you create an effortless booking experience for your customers. What sets it apart is its seamless integration with Outlook, ensuring that you have a real-time overview of your availability and simplifying the appointment booking process. In this article, we discuss some of the most useful benefits of Bookings.

Enhanced visibility

With Bookings, you gain access to an innovative scheduling application compatible with desktop computers. It allows your customers to choose their preferred times and dates, all in alignment with real-time availability. They just need to input the necessary contact details, and the system takes care of the rest.

No more hassles caused by cancellations

Cancellations and no-shows can leave valuable time slots empty, resulting in lost income, unless you have a system to fill those gaps. Bookings helps prevent revenue loss by allowing you to set specific cancellation notice requirements.

Moreover, Bookings automatically sends a confirmation email to customers upon booking, followed by a timely reminder just before their appointment. If customers need to reschedule or cancel, they can do so easily. They can simply click on a link in the confirmation email and select a more convenient time for them.

Seamless synchronization

Once a booking is confirmed, it seamlessly syncs to a centralized calendar, which you and your staff can all view. This allows you the flexibility to reschedule, cancel, or reassign appointments to different staff members as needed.

When it comes to reassignment, Bookings offers a handy feature called "split view." This intuitive tool displays the schedules of all staff members side by side, making it easy to see who is booked at specific times.

Furthermore, this adaptable system accommodates various calendar services, including Office 365, Outlook, and even Google Calendar. This ensures that clients and staff can use their preferred calendaring service, offering convenience for both parties.

More than just appointments

While appointment scheduling is the primary function of Bookings, it goes the extra mile by helping you expand your company's customer database. When customers input their information into the system during the booking process, it automatically generates contact entries for them. These contact cards include essential personal details such as names, addresses, phone numbers, and email addresses, all conveniently stored for future reference.

Scalability and cost-effectiveness

As your company grows, Bookings accommodates your expansion plans effortlessly. You can easily onboard more staff members and create additional booking pages at no extra cost. What's even better is that staff members don't need Office 365 subscriptions to utilize this service, making it accessible and cost-effective for your growing team.

One way to differentiate yourself from competitors is to use a comprehensive appointment management solution like Bookings. If you have any questions about this feature or need more tech tips, don't hesitate to reach out to us.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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Understanding Microsoft 365 collaboration toolsThere are three Microsoft 365 tools that are typically used for office communication and collaboration: Microsoft 365 Groups, Yammer, and Microsoft Teams. While these three are similar, did you know that there are subtle differences that set them apart from each other? Let's take a look at some of these. Microsoft 365 Groups With Microsoft […]

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10 Dec, 2021 / by Complete Technology Resources / in 2021december10office_b, cloud, collaboration, groups, microsoft 365, microsoft 365 groups, microsoft teams, Office, Office 365, yammer category
Understanding Microsoft 365 collaboration tools

There are three Microsoft 365 tools that are typically used for office communication and collaboration: Microsoft 365 Groups, Yammer, and Microsoft Teams. While these three are similar, did you know that there are subtle differences that set them apart from each other? Let's take a look at some of these.

Microsoft 365 Groups

With Microsoft 365 Groups, every member gets a shared inbox, calendar, project planner, notebook, and document library. You can also integrate third-party apps like Twitter, Trello, and Mailchimp to Groups so notifications are sent directly to your shared inbox.

This means all relevant messages and information are sent to one place, so if your organization normally communicates via email, Microsoft 365 Groups is ideal. What’s more, HR and sales departments that communicate with external parties will also find plenty of uses for its email features.

A big downside of Microsoft 365 Groups, however, is email overload. Since all messages and notifications are sent to one inbox, users may become overwhelmed by the number of emails they have to sort through every day.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams, a chat-based collaboration platform, works with Skype for Business, so you can text, call, video chat, and share files with colleagues. Thanks to its seamless integrations with other Microsoft 365 apps, you can even work on shared files without leaving the app.

Unlike Groups, Microsoft Teams is designed for more advanced collaboration, making it great for completing projects with tight deadlines or other tasks requiring immediate feedback.

Yammer

Much like Groups and Teams, Yammer works well with other Microsoft 365 tools like Outlook and OneDrive. However, Yammer is a professional social media app designed to foster open communication and break down barriers between teams.

Yammer serves like a virtual office bulletin board: important files and announcements can be shared with the entire company through this platform. Users can also see the most popular post on their feeds, follow it, and even comment.

Yammer also takes design elements and features from social media apps like Facebook, making it a popular choice for companies with millennials in their workforce.

Although we’ve discussed the fundamental differences between Groups, Teams, and Yammer, we’ve barely scratched the surface of what each app can do. To figure out which apps you need, you must understand how your employees work, how they like to collaborate with one another, and what you want to achieve from such collaborations.

Fortunately, there's another way to find the right app for your business: ask the experts. Contact us today for an IT assessment!

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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What is single sign-on and what are its benefits?Secure logins are a necessity in business, but managing so many user credentials can get tedious. The good news is that you can simplify your organization’s login processes without compromising security by deploying single sign-on. What is single sign-on (SSO)? Single sign-on allows you to use one username and one password to provide secure access […]

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30 Aug, 2021 / by Complete Technology Resources / in 2021august30webandcloud_c, google, identity as a service, logins, Office 365, passwords, Security, single sign-on, sso, Web & Cloud category
What is single sign-on and what are its benefits?

Secure logins are a necessity in business, but managing so many user credentials can get tedious. The good news is that you can simplify your organization’s login processes without compromising security by deploying single sign-on.

What is single sign-on (SSO)?

Single sign-on allows you to use one username and one password to provide secure access to multiple websites. If you’ve ever clicked “Continue with Google” on a non-Google website, you’ve already enjoyed the benefits of SSO. It’s faster, simpler, and more secure. With SSO, small businesses can accomplish the same level of efficiency between their employees and cloud platforms.

Instead of requiring in-office and remote workers to track separate accounts for Office 365, Slack, Trello, and other cloud apps your company uses, you can give them a single set of credentials and manage what they have access to remotely. All employees have to do is come enter their designated username and password, and they’re all set for the day.

Why is SSO more secure?

There are a number of ways to set up a small-business SSO solution, but most of them focus on removing login information from your servers. Usually, you’ll provide your employees’ logins to an SSO provider (sometimes referred to as an Identity-as-a-Service provider) and each employee will receive a single login paired with a secondary authentication — like a biometric scan like iOS’s FaceID, or a one-time PIN (OTP) code sent to a personal device.

Every time one of your employees visits a cloud platform, such as Office 365 or Google Workspace, the SSO provider will verify the user’s identity and the connection’s security. If anything goes wrong, your IT provider will be notified.

Should your network or any of the devices connected to it gets compromised, hackers would find nothing but logins to your SSO accounts, which are meaningless without fingerprints or mobile devices.

How to get started with SSO

The first step is making sure you have a healthy and responsive IT support system. You need a team that’s constantly available to review suspicious alerts and troubleshoot employee issues. If you don’t currently have that capacity, contact us today and we’ll help you out!

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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Increase your organization’s productivity with Workplace AnalyticsMicrosoft Workplace Analytics is a powerful tool that gathers data from Office 365 applications such as Word, Excel, and Outlook, gleaning insights about your employees’ performance. This solution provides a better understanding of how every member of your team spends their time at work and helps improve both employee engagement and productivity. How does Workplace […]

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23 Jul, 2021 / by Complete Technology Resources / in 2021july23_office_b, collaboration, employee engagement, microsoft, microsoft 365, microsoft teams, Office, Office 365, Productivity, workplace analytics category
Increase your organization’s productivity with Workplace Analytics

Microsoft Workplace Analytics is a powerful tool that gathers data from Office 365 applications such as Word, Excel, and Outlook, gleaning insights about your employees’ performance. This solution provides a better understanding of how every member of your team spends their time at work and helps improve both employee engagement and productivity.

How does Workplace Analytics work?

A paid add-on to Office 365 enterprise plans, Workplace Analytics extracts behavioral insights from data gathered from emails, calendars, documents, and Office 365 apps. This means any data an employee enters into Office 365 can be used to assess their performance and productivity.

The data from which insights are gleaned are generated by employees themselves — how much time they spend on meetings, who they communicate with, and how much time they spend on productive tasks.

All this data can be viewed on the Workplace Analytics dashboard, where information is sorted using the following metrics:

  • Week in the life provides information on how the entire organization spends time and how employees collaborate with one another.
  • Meetings overview shows the amount of time people spend in meetings.
  • Management and coaching presents information about one-on-one meetings between each employee and their direct manager.
  • The internal networks metric shows how people within your organization communicate and collaborate with one another.
  • External collaboration provides insights into how your employees connect with individuals or teams from third-party organizations.
  • Teams collaboration takes a look at how employees and managers use Microsoft Teams to communicate with their colleagues.

What does Workplace Analytics aim to do?

Workplace Analytics is designed to solve businesses' most common problems, specifically issues related to productivity and engagement.

Using Workplace Analytics data, business leaders can develop effective productivity strategies for the entire company. For instance, if the data shows that employees spend 60% of their time in meetings, managers can come up with a strategy to make meetings shorter or less frequent so staff can focus on productive tasks. Similarly, human resources personnel can use data on employees’ work patterns to identify the causes of burnout — now a widespread issue across businesses and industries — and make recommendations to address it.

Workplace Analytics can be also used to determine how workers collaborate with internal and external parties. Suppose a member of your sales team frequently works and communicates with certain vendors. The sales team's manager can pull up Workplace Analytics data and use it to assess whether or not this collaboration is helping the team meet targets, or if it’s causing them to miss out on other, more critical opportunities for collaboration and/or making a sale. Based on this information, the manager can also identify which employees are most likely to meet or exceed their targets and set company-wide standards accordingly.

Finally, Workplace Analytics allows managers to determine an employee’s level of engagement, and whether workloads are fairly distributed among workers and/or departments.

To ensure you get the full benefits of Workplace Analytics, partner with a reputable managed IT services provider like us. Our experts are highly skilled and experienced in implementing and managing Microsoft programs and services, so you can rest easy knowing your business is in good hands. Drop us a line today.

Published with permission from TechAdvisory.org. Source.

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