Microsoft Office 365 productivity applications like Word, PowerPoint, Excel, OneNote, and Outlook have allowed businesses to meet client demands efficiently, and its numerous productivity add-ons have enabled users to deliver more in less time. Here’s a handful of Office 365 extensions that help you improve workflow.

#1. Teams

Teams is ideal for organizations that collaborate frequently. It’s an instant messaging and document-sharing platform which seamlessly integrates with Office 365 programs and services. Users can create channels to work on projects, discuss topics, hold meetings, and more. And like similar programs such as Slack and Google Hangouts, Teams is customizable and accessible across mobile devices.

#2. Office Tabs

Office Tabs allows you to open multiple files in one window, which saves you from having to go through each opened document until you find the right one. It also lets you save or close the list of tabs in a single click, with an additional option to close everything except the active document. You can also directly rename files by clicking Rename, instead of going through the tedious process of clicking Save As and then changing the file name of each file.

#3. Grammarly

The last thing you want to send your clients is a confusing, poorly written email or document. Grammarly solves this by performing rigorous grammar, spelling, and plagiarism checks. It then provides vocabulary suggestions and recommends writing style changes to polish your writing further. This add-on is available in Word and Outlook, and its Premium counterpart is priced at $11.66 per month (annual plan).

#4. Pexels

Professional documents and presentations require high-resolution, blemish-free images, and Pexels helps you get them easily. Its free stock images are under a Creative Commons Zero license, meaning you can search high-quality images and use them in all your documents for any purpose with no legal repercussions.

#5. DocuSign

DocuSign for Outlook and Word lets you or a recipient securely sign a document electronically and send it through email, save it in the app, or store it in your company’s server. DocuSign complies with eSignature legal standards and is secured with end-to-end Digital Transaction Management, ensuring your files will never be leaked or breached.

#6. FindTime

Setting up a meeting time is tedious and difficult, especially if your employees have different schedules. FindTime scours every attendee’s schedule to locate open slots, and creates meeting time options for everyone to vote on. A meeting will then be scheduled according to whichever slot gets the highest vote within a specified amount of time.

#7. Translator

Businesses that deal with foreign companies will find communication much easier with Translator. This add-on recognizes and translates more than 50 different languages, including English, French, Spanish, and Chinese. Not only will you spend less time deciphering foreign-language documents, but you’ll also be able to work with clients from various parts of the world.

Start improving work productivity and make the most out of your Office 365 with Microsoft productivity add-ons. To get started or to learn more about Office 365, Microsoft add-ons, or anything Microsoft Office related, contact us today.

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Office 365, the cloud-based version of Microsoft Office, is becoming the most popular software suite used by small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs). With an ever-increasing number of organizations migrating to this solution, it's not surprising that other companies are also considering making the move. However, these five issues can cause an Office 365 migration to fail.

Slow internet connection speeds

Because Office 365 is primarily cloud-based, you're going to need a solid bandwidth connection to use it. Migrating your files and system over to Office 365 consumes a large quantity of bandwidth, which can result in slower internet speeds during the migration process. If this is being carried out during business hours, employees might struggle to do tasks that require online connection.

Office 365 is most often delivered over an internet connection rather than in-house servers. This means that the day-to-day demand for bandwidth will increase. If you are already noticing slow speeds and service interruptions before implementing Office 365, these issues will likely worsen after implementation.

To avoid this, you should ask an Office 365 provider to test your existing network connection to ensure that it can handle the migration and day-to-day operation of Office 365. If not, your provider should be able to offer you a solution.

Mailboxes and files are too big

While the business versions of Office 365 come with 50 GB of email storage and over 1 TB of file storage per user, accessing your emails and files online could take a while, especially if you have users whose inboxes are approaching the storage limit.

Larger files will cause the migration process to slow down significantly, which is why you need to prepare for this to avoid disruptions at work. Encouraging your staff to archive their inboxes and delete large, unnecessary files is a good way to ensure the migration process goes smoothly.

Uninformed users

On average, migrating to Office 365 takes around one to three days to complete, depending on the size of your business and the amount of data being transferred.

Starting the migration without informing your users that their files and email will not be accessible can lead to productivity loss and resentment towards the new platform.

To avoid this, you should inform your employees about the migration and how long it's going to take. You should train them how to use the new system to ensure that everyone is familiar with it before they start to use it. This will increase the overall chance that the platform migration and subsequent use will be successful.

Outdated software

While some versions of Office 365 come with subscriptions to the latest version of Microsoft Office, they also include built-in support for systems running older versions of Office. If your business is using a version of Office that is older than Office 2010 (e.g., Office 2003), you might have trouble using Office 365.

When it comes to web browsers, Chrome and Firefox won't give you too many problems. However, if you're utilizing their outdated versions, using Office 365 will be extremely difficult. Your provider should tell you if your existing software needs to be updated before migrating to Office 365.

Doing the process yourself

On paper, migrating to Office 365 may seem like a simple and straightforward process. This leads many businesses to believe that they can do the entire migration process without the assistance of experts. However, without proper guidance, you may run into problems that can harm vital business operations.

To ensure a smooth migration process from start to finish, contact us today. We'll show you the proper way of migrating your system to Office 365 without affecting your day-to-day operations.

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At work, we depend on apps for productivity. However, with so many tabs open in our web browsers, it can be a drag to constantly click in and out of them just to get the information we need. Fortunately, Office 365 Connectors for Groups allows you to stay on top of all the third-party services your company is using. How exactly do these connectors make life for everyone in your Groups easier? Here are a few things you need to know about the new Office 365 feature.

What can it do?

Office 365 Connectors enable users to access third-party apps and services within their Outlook groups, rather than having to scour through dozens of tabs to access a specific application.

For example, your team members can be informed about a particular hashtag your company is following on Twitter without having to separately open the app. Groups aren’t limited to one particular service. With connectors, you can use Twitter, Trello, Mailchimp, Bing, UserVoice, and over 50 other services.

Small organizations can also take advantage of connectors. Office 365 lets you develop your own connectors by embedding the Connect to Office 365 button on your site. This allows users to connect to your service and get updates on your company, as they would with other third-party services. Your Office 365 client basically becomes a hub for third-party apps that keeps your company in sync to get more work done.

Connector card

Connector cards offer a user-friendly way to interact with external applications. If a particular connector is added to a Group, connector cards are generated within the group’s activity feed. While most cards will display events in plain text, some applications like Twitter and Trello provide formatted actions to interact with the card. Trello, for example, allows you to Assign or Comment on an event card.

Who can create a connector?

Office 365 Group members can configure and use a number of connectors. Once you configure a connector for a Group, that app will be also be available for other members. However, the person who added a connector to that Group is the only one who can modify that app.

How do you access Office 365 Connectors?

Any Office 365 Mail user can use Connectors for Groups. Simply navigate to a Group from your Outlook page and click on the Connectors tab at the top of the page. From here, you can connect the available third-party services on offer to any of your Outlook groups. You can even configure the settings of your apps without having to leave Office 365. Remember to pull in the applications that you think your group will be using the most.

As your business grows, you’ll need more services to be more productive. By aggregating them all in one place, you save time shifting around apps to find the needed information. So the next time you create an Office 365 Group, help your team members work more efficiently by setting up some connectors.

If you’re interested in learning about the latest Office 365 updates, contact us today.

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