The latest Office 365 updates come with good tidings of reduced costs, increased functionality and promises of burgeoning productivity for your business.
Microsoft has been hard at work developing features you didn’t realise were possible, or necessary. Extra applications are available for download from the Microsoft website at extra cost, like Project Lite and Office Mix, while changes to OneDrive and Enterprise Grade Cloud Services have been automatically rolling out since May.
“The ongoing improvements in the Office 365 cloud suite for business are great to see. Organisations are now receiving the benefits of a maturing suite of cloud productivity tools, which will empower users to become more mobile, and enable their users to be more efficient” - Managing Director of R & G Technologies, Gordon Tan.
Here are four updates, which further extend the productivity suite’s capabilities.
1. Project Lite
This companion offering for Project Online is for business owners wanting to bring their whole team onto the project management software, without breaking the bank.
Project Lite streamlines communication and collaboration between project managers and team members. The application ‘enables team members to manage tasks, highlight issues and risks, submit timesheets and collaborate with each other from variety of devices, all in a lightweight way’.
Efficiency increases because team members are given the capability to work concurrently, resulting in less version conflicts, easier coordination of changes, and much more. Team members can notify their project manager of imminent risks and issues in real time, reducing the likelihood of delays and additional costs.
Business owners are still required to purchase at least one license for Project Online, but remaining team members can subscribe for $7 per user, decreasing the total cost of ownership (TCO).
Organisations electing to purchase this Office 365 update are actually buying a solution to productivity roadblocks. The application will not only reduce costs, it will decrease time-consuming manual processes, miscommunications, and the spread of inaccurate information. Find out more about Project Lite here: http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/project/project-lite-FX104310999.aspx
2. Office Mix
When an employee misses a meeting or presentation, the consequences thereafter are rarely confined to one person. Office Mix enables presentations to be recorded exactly as they were delivered, ensuring absent team members don’t miss out.
Presenters are able to create visuals, add audio, and insert interactive activities within Microsoft PowerPoint, saving them the trouble of opening and closing innumerable applications.
The functionality appears as a new tab with several features. ‘In essence, you’re able to capture the entire experience of giving your lecture, complete with visual and audio aids, with the added bonus of interactive content like quizzes or activities’.
Once the ‘mix’ has been made, it’s uploaded to the Office Mix website and transformed into a playable, interactive presentation, viewable from any device, which is only accessible when shared.
In a nutshell, Office Mix is a user-friendly application, which makes it possible for absent or travelling employees to experience presentations and meetings as if they were really there. To get started with the application, click here: https://mix.office.com/
3. OneDrive for Business Updates
Subtle changes to OneDrive for Business will make you faster and more efficient, in the form of Simple Controls, Site Folders and smarter Search.
‘Simple Controls’ are now listed above personal work document folders. ‘With one click or touch, you can create new Office documents, upload files, initiate sync to take your files offline, share your files internally and externally, and more’.
Other changes include a ‘Site Folders’ link to the main OneDrive for Business web view. Thus, rather than having to navigate to document libraries within the SharePoint sites you’re following, you’re able to access the content more efficiently.
Lastly, smarter Search initiates the search as soon as you start typing. It’s also scoped to the content, documents and folders, which have been shared with you, and the files in your Site Folders, retrieving more relevant results at faster speeds.
Updates have already commenced across the globe, enriching the user experience of OneDrive, and supporting a more effective, efficient, workforce. To find out more please visit: https://blog.onedrive.com/onedrive-for-business-updates-web-user-experience/
4. Enterprise Grade Cloud Services
Enhancing security without impeding the fluidity of an application has always been a big priority for Microsoft. Thus, you won’t notice, but Microsoft has implemented new encryption technology, and plans to make data loss prevention (DLP) available in SharePoint Online.
Your data is now protected by encryption technology, which delivers a unique encryption key for each file, and any subsequent updates afterward. According to the company’s blog, every file stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business is encrypted with its own key.
In addition, the existing DLP capability in Exchange will soon include documents stored in SharePoint Online. DLP prevents the sharing of sensitive content either inside or outside an organisation using deep content analysis.
The company is unceasingly cultivating security measures to protect organisations, without sacrificing user experience. Therefore, while you may not see or feel this update, it’s definitely playing its part to increase uptime and subsequent productivity. To find out more, please visit: http://blogs.office.com/2014/05/12/enterprise-grade-cloud-services-a-high-bar-required-for-security-compliance-and-privacy/
Office 365 helps organisation in ways they’ve never thought of. The productivity suite’s new features will continue to run behind the scenes of the business landscape, reducing costs, streamlining internal processes, and increasing the security around sensitive information.
For a full list of all updates, visit Microsoft’s blog: http://blogs.office.com/2014/06/02/whats-new-may-2014/