Microsoft 365 consistently brings out new and innovative apps that the everyday business owner can use to enhance their workflow. The problem is, Microsoft 365 now comes with so many applications it’s hard to know where to start. As you can tell from their product list, they continue to grow and expand every year. To help you decide, we’ve ranked our top five favourite apps to use within Microsoft 365.
1. Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is the foundational software of Microsoft 365 and is used for business project management and communication. Chat with team members, collaborate on documents and set up video meetings, all within Microsoft Teams. It also integrates many of your favourite third-party apps.
To learn more about Microsoft Teams, watch this full tutorial for beginners for an inside look at the software and some of its capabilities.
2. Microsoft Bookings
Microsoft Bookings is a booking system which integrates directly into your Outlook and Microsoft Teams calender. Never be double booked or miss an appointment again! It also seamlessly integrates with all other Microsoft 365 apps.
With Microsoft Bookings, you can set up a booking system with your business information, create services and link staff members to the appropriate services you offer. You can even set reminder emails to be sent to your customers before their appointment.
Check out this Microsoft Bookings App Tutorial to learn more!
While this software has many pro’s, it’s important to note that Microsoft Bookings does not currently offer a payment gateway solution. Hopefully, this is rolled out in future updates.
3. Power Automate
Business process management tools like Power Automate, are fast becoming an important asset to business owners, saving them a huge amount of time and money. Automate everyday tasks within your Microsoft 365 applications. Connect up your favourite apps and create flows to be triggered when certain events occur.
Power automate simplifies business processes and helps you manage them more effectively. You can customise pre-made templates or create your own flows from scratch.
You can create many automation tasks, which are triggered by an event such as:
- SMS reminders
- Emails reminders
- Email automation
- Create tasks in Microsoft Planner
- Post messages in Microsoft Teams
- Save email attachments
- And much more
Your automation flows can be as complex or as simple as you like.
4. Microsoft Planner
Microsoft Planner is a project management application you can use within Microsoft Teams. You install it within a channel, create tasks, and view your team members’ progress and the task itself. Each staff member gets notifications when a task has been assigned to them and email reminders when a task is soon due.
Download the application to your smartphone or access it inside your Microsoft 365 account.
Watch this Microsoft Planner tutorial so you can see it in action.
5. OneNote
OneNote is a digital note-taking app you can install into Microsoft Teams whilst using it simultaneously on your cloud system. Connect it to any channel within a team you have created. Create sections and pages, tag important notes, make drawings or pin images. OneNote is a great collaboration tool for you and your team on any project.
Summary
There you have it, our top five favourite Microsoft 365 apps we use regularly. Microsoft is consistently renovating existing applications, building new ones and developing new and innovative applications to do the tasks we usually find so mundane. It is a good time to be a Microsoft Partner.
On top of the apps we have mentioned, you still get access to your tried and true Microsoft products such as Word, Excel and Powerpoint. These are great, but we felt no need to tell you about those.
If you want to learn more about how Microsoft 365 can help transform your business book in a free 30-minute consultation with one of our experts.
These spots are limited as we can only take on a few Microsoft clients each month.