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What is Office 365 and How Can it Help You?

November 13th, 2019

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Microsoft has been a household name for decades. We all know Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, and they’ve probably shaped the way we work. These tools are precisely what we think of when we hear Office 365. But in reality, Office 365 is much more than just those three applications. Office 365 fully unlocks the power of the Microsoft tools we know, along with giving us access to other tools we may be unfamiliar with. With 365, you can work more efficiently and productively than ever before. So, what is Office 365?

What is Office 365?

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based collection of applications and programs made to help organizations run more efficiently and effectively. 365 offers customers the staple applications we all know and love like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, along with other powerful tools like Outlook and OneNote. Microsoft offers different package offerings catered to fit your company’s specific needs. Customers pay for the service using a subscription-based model and, whichever collection of apps they choose comes with cloud storage, mobile applications, data security, collaboration tools, and more. When used effectively, these intuitive apps can transform a business and the way it runs.

What Can Office 365 Do For Me?

The biggest advantage Office 365 offers businesses is the ability to make employees jobs easier. 365 attempts to mitigate (or eliminate) the tedious and mindless tasks that workers have to deal with daily. This, in turn, allows employees to be more productive- spending more time on what actually matters. Because 365 is cloud-based, you don’t have to worry about maintaining any infrastructure. Everything lives online. The money and time commitment that comes with the upkeep of physical hardware is no longer an issue- Microsoft worries about all that. And, on top of this, Office 365 allows for more flexibility and collaboration in your workplace. Employees can access their files from anywhere at any time on any device. From mobile applications to web apps, users aren’t chained to their desks. The possibility of flexible schedules and remote work is now much more available for your organization. Another benefit of Office 365 is the improved security. You can leverage the same systems used by Microsoft and other top enterprises around the world to protect your data. With programs like Outlook, systems are in place to continually scan for malicious software and help safeguard your organization. The level of cybersecurity you have access to with Office 365 is most likely much more than your company could implement or afford on its own. So, those are the benefits of Office 365, now let’s discuss some of the different applications and programs offered and what advantages they provide organizations.

What Tools Does Office 365 Offer?

We’ve already mentioned some of the tools Office 365 offers, but let’s dive a little bit deeper into a few of the applications to see what capabilities they provide. We’ll skip Word, Excel, and PowerPoint because we’re pretty sure you already know what those programs are and how they work.

OneDrive

OneDrive is Microsoft’s cloud file storage and what connects all of Office 365. This application is what makes your documents accessible from anywhere at any time. It drives faster collaboration with the ability to share and work on documents in real-time with others. You can even customize the viewing rights of each file to allow for team collaboration. Each OneDrive account within your subscription will have 1TB of storage.

Outlook

Microsoft’s email program in Office 365, Outlook, is described as a personal information manager. That’s because this application goes well beyond email. With Outlook, you combine your email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and more together in one place. And it integrates with the other 365 tools, meaning you can share attachments right from OneDrive, access contacts, and view LinkedIn profiles.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is your collaboration hub in the Office suite. In this application, you can chat with coworkers, send files, attend web conferences, and more. And just like Outlook, the integration with other Office suite tools takes this application over the edge. The capabilities you have to communicate and work with anyone on your team- no matter where they are- are unlimited.

Sway

If you associate PowerPoint with corporate meetings full of men in freshly pressed suits comparing bullet points of numbers and statistics, think of Sway as PowerPoint’s little brother who’s a little less formal and lot more up-to-date on the latest coffee craze. By this, we mean, Sway is an application that allows you to create presentations that don’t utilize slides, but instead, focuses on beautiful designs and storytelling. Create newsletters, documents, and presentations that are professional, fun, and visually stunning.

Power BI

We are living in the age of digital data. And all this data has allowed organizations to know more than ever before about their customers and business models. Power BI is an analytics tool by Microsoft that lets you visualize your data and share insights across your organization. You can connect hundreds of data sources and view everything in one dashboard or report. Reporting has never been more insightful and fun at the same time. Those are just a few of the many tools you can access with Microsoft Office 365. The complete list of 365 products looks like this:

Outlook
OneDrive
Word
Excel
PowerPoint
OneNote
SharePoint
Microsoft Teams
Access (PC only)
Bookings
Exchange
Invoicing
MileIQ
MyAnalytics

- Outlook Customer Manager
- Planner
- PowerApps
- Power BI
- Project
- Publisher (PC only)
- Skype for Business Server
- StaffHub
- Stream
- Sway
- To Do
- Visio
- Whiteboard
- Yammer

How Can I Get Office 365?

If you’re sold on the capabilities of Office 365, you’re probably wondering how you can make the switch. Switching email providers and program offerings can be a complicated process, and if not done correctly, can result in data loss. Data loss can be disastrous for businesses and is extremely costly and time-consuming. However, with the right knowledge in hand, this risk can be avoided entirely. Qualified IT professionals will be able to help you install and transition your data and email to Office 365. If you don’t have someone inside your organization that holds this expertise, you can always outsource to any experienced and reliable managed service provider (MSP). If you want to see Office 365 in action, download this case study. The case study follows an organization switching to Office 365. It contains facts, figures, experiences, and clear statistics that show what 365 has done for them, and you’ll be able to gain a clear picture of what it might be able to do for you and your organization.