Collaboration is one of the most valuable components of an effective team. When you have a group of highly skilled individuals working together on a common goal, it’s easy to see how they can create something amazing. However, creating an effective collaboration environment isn’t always so straightforward. This is especially true when you factor in the different ways collaborators approach their work and the various applications and services they use daily. In this blog post, we’ll cover some of the best practices for improving collaboration in your organisation with Microsoft 365.
What is Microsoft 365?
Many organisations are already acquainted with Office 365, the collection of productivity programs including familiar productivity apps such as Outlook, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, among others.
In 2017, Microsoft released Microsoft 365, the cloud-based unified collection of Office 365 in addition to Windows 10 Enterprise, Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS), and other solutions.
Collaborate with Microsoft 365 Groups
Groups works with the Microsoft 365 tools you already use to create communities to share files, exchange ideas and form virtual team rooms with your colleagues. Groups is a great tool for distributed teams who want to collaborate on projects without having to keep everyone in the same office. You can also use it to create communities where people can share files, work together on projects and hold regular meetings. When you create a group, you can assign members and set up an access policy so that only invited members can join the group or access shared content. You can even create a group around a specific topic, such as a team for architects or a group for teachers to share resources.
Use Teams for chat and video collaboration
Microsoft Teams provides a flexible environment for teams or departments who want to collaborate easily and quickly. One of the nice things about Teams is that it integrates with other M365 services, such as email and OneNote. This means there are fewer silos of data and more avenues for collaboration. You can use Teams to communicate with remote colleagues, create meetings, and assign work, creating a single, central place for all your communication and collaboration.
Hosting meetings and remote presentations through Teams allows you to share information, collaborate and engage with colleagues. You can use the built-in features such as virtual whiteboards, together mode, or meeting recap, to enhance collaboration further.
Turn on sync for Outlook to collaborate with email
Microsoft Outlook can be an important means of communication, but it can also become an obstacle to collaboration. That’s because it’s often difficult to keep all the information in the inbox organised, accessible, and searchable. Sync Outlook with your email services, like Gmail, Outlook, or Office 365, and you can streamline communication and collaborate. By syncing your email, you can access all your important information, such as documents, contacts, and other data. This means that all your emails are searchable, accessible, and organised. You can also share emails within your team and get real-time updates on the information you need to stay on track.
Create a shared calendar to coordinate activities
With a shared calendar in Outlook or Teams, you can create a central hub to easily track and manage events. Once you create a calendar in Teams or Outlook, you can invite other team members to view it. They can then join discussions, add events, and manage reservations on the calendar. In addition, you can share calendars with other applications, such as SharePoint and Google. This means you can collaborate on a calendar and add information from other applications.
Get in the cloud
Having the ability to access information or data from anywhere in real-time infinitely increases the possibilities for collaboration between team members. With Microsoft 365, you can access files stored online wherever you happen to be. Your team can store documents on the browser or the desktop app and then sync them to their computers. You can also save Office files to the cloud, which means everyone who needs to is working on the same version of the file at the same time.
Leverage Microsoft 365 collaboration
Microsoft 365 makes collaborating in the modern workplace easier by providing your team with a unified technology platform. The Microsoft 365 experts at INTELLIWORX can help you set up and implement Microsoft 365 to suit your unique business needs and ensure your team is always on the same page.
