The success of a business relies heavily on effective team collaboration. When employees are highly motivated to achieve a common goal, the results often surpass expectations. Yet creating an environment for effective collaboration isn’t always easy to achieve, especially when there are so many ways people undertake their work and the tools they use to do so. Miscommunication, missed deadlines and time wasting due to lack of communication reduce the ability to collaborate effectively and can result in project failure.
Enterprises that use Microsoft 365 are already ahead of the competition, but users can improve collaboration and avoid these pitfalls with the following tips:
Utilise OneDrive
Microsoft offers an impressive 1TB of cloud storage space for each of its Microsoft 365 accounts via OneDrive. This makes it quite effortless to store and create files in OneDrive. Additionally, it also eliminates the need to fill up your PC’s hard disk or the risk of data corruption. Furthermore, OneDrive’s cloud setup makes it simple to share content with other people on your team or coauthor and collaborate on documents at the same time. By saving your Office document (Word, Excel, or PowerPoint) to OneDrive, two or more people can work on the same file at once. Comments and notes can be shared in real time, and there is no time lag in having to wait for a user to finish editing before another user can start.
Collaborate with Teams
Teams is Microsoft’s real-time communication tool that allows teams to communicate and collaborate seamlessly. Teams speeds up communication, with chat happening in real-time rather than having to wait for a response email. Channels can be created that are organised by project for example, which allows employees to focus only on the information they need. MS365 Office files can be accessed through Teams, to allow collaborative work while communicating.
Outlook Groups
Outlook Groups is a feature of Microsoft 365 that enables users to establish a chat room and workspace based on a conversation happening on email, SharePoint, Team, Planner, and other applications. All the members of the group are added as guests and have direct access to a shared mailbox, calendar, project planner, and file library. The creator of the group can add and remove people, talks, and threads without any aid from IT personnel.
Collaborating with Planner
Planner makes it easier for teams to develop plans, assign tasks, share documents, and talk about what they are working on, while interactive visuals and email alerts keep all members aware of progress. It can be employed to control a marketing event, generate ideas for a new product, keep an eye on a school project, get ready for a customer call, or simply organise the team more effectively.
Microsoft Flow
Microsoft Flow is a tool designed to streamline processes across the many applications and software-as-a-service options that business users need. Workflows are important to ensure successful collaboration. Notifying people and informing them of any modifications to data, personnel, or programs allows a team to work together towards common objectives. Suppose you had a workflow in place where a new proposition request was posted, and a pre-established list of tasks for the pre-sales, technology, and customer success groups were created to address it without creating any unnecessary work.
Collaborating with Outlook
Microsoft Outlook can be a useful tool for communication, but it can also be a hindrance to teamwork. This is because it may be difficult to keep all the content in the inbox arranged, reachable, and searchable. Synchronise Outlook with your email services, such as Gmail or Outlook to enhance communication and collaboration. By connecting your emails, you can access all your essential data such as documents, contacts, and other facts. This means that all your emails are searchable, available, and organised. You can also share emails with your team and get real-time updates on the information you require to stay on track.
Take digital collaboration to the next level with Microsoft 365
Microsoft 365 simplifies working together in the modern work environment by offering a unified technology platform. The Microsoft 365 professionals at INTELLIWORX can assist you with the setup and utilisation of Microsoft 365 to accommodate your company’s distinct requirements and guarantee that your team is always in sync.
