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The importance of organisation within the workplace cannot be understated, as without an adequate standard your business can fail. It can be a difficult goal to achieve without the correct tools that are fit to do the job, and this is true no matter the industry you work in. For example, if you are a plumber with eight boilers to fit, all of which need to be done on different days and times that suit the clients’ needs, are different types of boiler, and all need to be picked up from the plumbing merchants on the day they are being fitted due to lack of storage space, without top levels of organisation completing these tasks to top standards and within your time schedule would be a near impossibility.

A particularly good way of ensuring you have some level of organisation to the way you do things is through the use of a to-do list. To-do lists can be a great tool to ensure you keep a level of decorum to your workday, can guarantee you look focused and guarantee you stay reliable as opposed to getting caught up in the carnage and disorganisation that comes with not having order. Microsoft 365 has an application that gives you the platform to do exactly this.

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) has been at the top of its game in providing tools to assist us in our day-to-day lives – both when working and at home – for over 30 years now. To get a fair representation of the success of 365 you need to take a look at Microsoft Teams – released in 2017, it jumped to popularity at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic and has since amassed a daily average user count of 115 million; an astonishing figure unobtainable by any other competitor on the market.

Microsoft developed an application to organise your workday; it is called ‘Tasks’.

Tasks

Yes, you are correct that Microsoft 365 has already released multiple task tracking applications (‘To-do’ and ‘Planner’ to name just a couple). What makes Tasks unique is that it consolidates the two together, allowing you to see both group tasks and individual tasks all in one place.

Day-to-day working with Tasks

Using the example used earlier, let’s take a look at how Tasks can help you daily. If used correctly the Plumber can use Tasks to organise his day accordingly to ensure his tasks don’t coincide or have any detrimental impact on one another. This allows him to be more flexible and guarantee customers certain time frames for his services.

Microsoft sees its task management applications as living in an ecosystem. They see their task-related apps and services in three different categories: task engines, first-party apps and then task hubs.

Let’s break those categories down and see what each one means.

Task engines

Task engines are where tasks are stored. These engines are Planner and To-Do. They are the staple of the task management system.

First-party apps

These are the ones that allow you to save tasks while you are working. One example is Microsoft Word – you may be working on a document, resulting in a task which you then want to save back to Planner or To-Do.

Task hubs

These are apps like ‘Teams’ and ‘Outlook’, where other work takes place, but you want the ability to capture tasks whilst doing it.

Your technology partner

At Elixis, we offer a one-of-a-kind service 24 hours a day. Top quality IT support is just a phone call away. We guarantee to keep you up-to-date with the latest advancements in tech, whilst supporting you in implementing new strategies within your team on how to help them use said tech most effectively. Our team of experienced engineers are waiting for your call and are primed and ready to support you now and into the future.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.

Microsoft 365 is at the top of the pile when it comes to applications of its type. It provides effective office and remote working tools for people all over the globe. For many of us, Microsoft 365 (formerly Office) is a staple of our daily lives and has been since we were children, and its range of features has revolutionised the way we see technology and its capabilities.

Cloud services are used internationally for a variety of different purposes. Previously it was impossible to get your Cloud services to work in unison, but there is now a way.

Introducing Power Automate.

Power Automate

With Power Automate you can create a workflow with a multi-step flow across a variety of applications.

Power Automate makes it possible for you to receive a text message saying someone important has emailed you, when previously you would have had to continuously refresh your email folder, for example.

We will now take a closer look at this in more detail.

For example, when someone tweets about your company it is essential you acknowledge the tweet in a timely manner – this can be very difficult with our busy workdays and, depending on the influx of messages, can be a near impossibility to keep up with. Power Automate makes it possible to set up a flow that follows them, sends a reply and also adds their details to a spreadsheet that gets emailed over to you automatically for your approval. Using this example, Power Automate allows you to minimise response times, in turn, giving you more time to reply in person as necessary or get on with other tasks, all culminating in retaining your good reputation as a company.

The Power Automate app for mobile

Power Automate also makes it possible for you to manage approvals on your phone, by email, or on the web, whilst on the go. The approval process works with data in Microsoft 365, SharePoint, Twitter, and many other services.

Power Automate gives you the power to take control of your time management and ensure that your employees are using their limited working hours as effectively as possible. It also ensures that they are not wasting time on monotonous tasks that are beneath their skill set.

Power Automate – How does it work?

The concept of business process automation is working from an initial trigger action, be that prescheduled or because of a prior human action. A series of pre-scripted steps will follow. To give you some level of control you have the option to define your own parameters.

Automation has the ability to revolutionise your workday – with its ability to ensure effective time management and the reallocation of resources away from the mundane, it should be an integral part of your workplace infrastructure.

Want to introduce automation to your business?

Is your tech up to standard, both for security and productivity purposes?

Your technology partner

At Elixis, we offer a one-of-a-kind service 24 hours a day. If you want to be certain you are getting the most from your IT then look no further! We guarantee to keep you up-to-date with the latest tech, so you don’t have to. Our team of experienced engineers are waiting for your call so contact us and find out how we can help you – both now and into the future.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.

As mentioned in the previous blog in the series, Microsoft 365 has revolutionised the way we work, both in office and when working remotely, since its conception as Microsoft Office in 1990. Most of us have been part of its rise to the top by using its range of tools and features every day.

A tool that Microsoft have introduced is ‘Lists’.

Lists gives you a platform to create lists and organise information from – it allows you to also share lists and work together on said lists – through collaboration with others. It sounds similar to a spreadsheet list, but Lists has many features that make it very unique.

Unique features of Lists

Lists has multiple different uses, and can be used as an inventory, issue, or asset tracker.

Lists allows you to define parameters of your list and decide which parts are visible to others. It also allows you to view your data in a variety of different ways, including a standard excel format, a card format, and a calendar format. Lists gives you a lot of control over the presentation of your information.

You can use Lists to track team and solo tasks, but Microsoft Planner and To-do specialise in this and have views specifically catered for these uses whilst Lists does not. As we previously mentioned Lists’ uses are much broader.

Lists within Teams has been described essentially as an evolution of the popular application SharePoint Lists. As part of the evolution, as well as seeing similarities between the two, we will see new features – features that have the ability to change work practices massively.

Another feature to this evolution is the introduction of the Microsoft List app that will aggregate all the lists you already have on your computer. This will act as the one and only place you need to access to see existing lists or to create new ones, thereby eradicating the time-consuming task of remembering which SharePoint site has the list you are trying to find, making things much easier for you – the user. You can author, create and edit new lists – all with prebuilt templates that are varied for event/asset management and all within the app whilst on the go.

Lists is even available within Microsoft Teams! Lists allows you to create new lists and edit them all without leaving Teams.

Lists also connects to Power Automate (see other blogs in the series). Power Automate adds necessary data to lists and can then post over to Teams to let your colleagues know about the new data – automatically!

Your technology partner

At Elixis, we can guarantee that you will get the most from your IT. With our team of professionals, we ensure top quality service with a friendly approach to you and your team. We approach IT proactively, seeking out any issues before they arise and assure measures are put in place so that the problem does not rear its ugly head again. Contact us to find out how we can help you.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.

Problem: Organising meetings can be tedious and time consuming

Solution: Microsoft Teams ‘Meetings’ tool

Microsoft Teams – as mentioned previously – is revolutionary – it is no wonder an average of 115 million people worldwide log in to the application daily. One of the key features of Teams is the ability to hold virtual meetings. Audio/video conferencing is one of the main attractions of Microsoft Teams; it allows you to hold a meeting with up to 300 participants, and ‘live events’ with up to 20,000! Teams is designed and perfectly equipped to unite a workforce no matter their geographical location.

Let us dive straight in – past the beginner level functionality – and explore what may be useful to you when using Meetings.

No matter the size of your workforce, scheduling meetings can be a frustrating, time consuming task. Teams provides a solution, with its easy-to-use scheduling assistant.

Meeting Scheduling and the Scheduling assistant

The scheduling assistant can be accessed through the ‘new meeting’ option in the calendar tab.

To arrange a meeting, navigate to the calendar tab on the left. Then, select ‘new meeting’ located below your user icon in the top right. You will then see a form into which you can enter all your meeting requirements. Enter the names of those you wish to attend, select a start and end time, link the meeting to a channel, set the meeting to recur if you wish, and so on.

Now for what makes Teams unique.

Once having entered the names of participants invited to attend the meeting, you are presented with suggested times (just below the date and time section of the form). Teams cross references the schedules of all participants and offers times that best suit everyone’s schedules, potentially saving you hours of organisation time.

Another good addition to Teams is ‘In-Meeting Chat’

In-Meeting Chat

In-meeting instant messaging makes it possible to communicate with another participant of the meeting without interrupting the speaker.

To display the chat interface, select ‘show conversation’ from the menu of actions at the top right of the meeting window.

Another tool to note is the ability to ‘raise your hand’ in a meeting.

‘Raise your hand’

For a tool that lets you get the speaker’s attention without interrupting, select the hand icon from the menu of actions, select ‘this action’, then * (star).

This action will then appear as a notification in the ‘show participants’ tab. Attendees that raise their hand have an icon displayed alongside their name.

Teams can make you rethink what levels of teamwork your team can achieve when working in office or remotely. If used correctly Teams can allow the levels of productivity and organisation displayed in office to be mirrored in a remote setting. It would be beneficial to delve deeper into Teams and play around with its features; the platform can improve most work processes if used correctly.

Elixis Technology is here to help

At Elixis Technology have the expertise to guide you in a personally tailored direction that best suits your business. We can ensure you buy the correct tools to support a remote work setting, thereby helping your employees to thrive – whatever the setting. Contact us to find out more today.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.

Problem: Working together on the same files can prove difficult

Solution: Co-Authoring with Microsoft 365

Microsoft Teams; the go-to application for connectivity, collaboration and productivity. With 115 million people using Teams on average worldwide each day, the appeal is its functionality, ease of use and extensive features designed around productivity.

A particularly good feature of Teams is Co-Authoring.

Co-Authoring

“With Office and OneDrive or SharePoint, multiple people can work together on a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation. When everyone is working on it at the same time, that’s called co-authoring.” ¹

Before this revolutionary feature it was difficult to stay organised when multiple employees wanted to work on a document. After having all made their own alterations to their copy of the document, everything must then be consolidated into one ‘master copy’ – a time consuming and resource-wasteful process.

This method forced employees to work alone on their alterations, which is unproductive – if you have a team that normally work on the subject matter at hand you want them to be able to communicate and work together like in the office setting – teamwork makes for a better result.

Co-Authoring makes it possible for more than one person to edit a document simultaneously in real time.

Now let us explore how to use this feature.

How to Co-Author

The following part of the blog instructs you on how to co-author with Microsoft Word, but the same instructions apply to PowerPoint and Excel.

Previously, if you needed help with a document your only option was to email to its recipient, and they would send it back. This made for a very time – consuming experience, made worse if there were multiple people needing to edit.

Open a Word document.

Then put the document into the Cloud to allow everyone to work on it simultaneously. At first the terminology used is a ‘local copy’ as it is on your own desktop. To do this go to the top right of your screen and click ‘Share’.

Once having clicked Share an option appears in the centre of your screen to upload to OneDrive.

On selecting OneDrive, it will upload the document for you. Now it is in OneDrive you can share the document with others.

In this section you can decide who is allowed to see and edit the document.

You have now got to the stage where it is possible to co-author on the document you have made available to your colleague.

You both have the document open simultaneously.

You can also see what part of the document they are on by the name above their cursor.

We can be sure you make the most of your tech, and help you to utilize everything it has to offer.

Elixis Technology is here to help

At Elixis Technology have the expertise to guide you in a personally tailored direction that best suits your business. We can ensure you buy the correct tools to support a remote work setting, thereby helping your employees to thrive – whatever the setting. Contact us to find out more today.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.

Problem: Needing a place to chat and send documents securely that is easier than email but more secure than a social network app

Solution: Microsoft Teams ‘Chat’ feature

Microsoft Teams is one of the fastest growing applications Microsoft have ever released. Teams’ daily users rose to an average of 115 million as of November 2020. Using Teams is your next step to maximizing your productivity levels as it has many features that can assist you in this.

Businesses across the globe are seeing how much it contributes to improvements in productivity and are adopting it as a vital tool to continue achieving targets during these uncertain times.

Let’s take a look at the Teams Chat feature.

Chat

Microsoft Teams ‘Chat’ feature allows you to be in contact with anyone in your team from anywhere. As similar as this sounds to a normal application designed around casual chats to friends, this has some major differences that put it head and shoulders above others.

A particularly good feature that is made available by Chat is the ability to attach files directly from OneDrive, easily allowing the recipient to amend the document.

You can do this by first finding the Chat option in the top left of your screen and clicking on it.

Pick your recipient, then find and click the paperclip below the message box.

Once having clicked the paperclip an option for either ‘OneDrive’ or ‘Upload from my computer’ appears. Pick the one you want.

Combining a secure environment for file sharing with a relaxed chat feature is a revolutionary concept. The combination makes it easy to use for the less IT literate as everything is in one place.

Another interesting part of Microsoft Teams is the ‘Activity feed’. The feed allows you to see every place that a certain recipient has posted within Teams, allowing you to locate something you have misplaced or just keep track of the activities of that individual.

You can do this by first selecting the person whose activities you want to check. At the top of the screen you have the options; Chat, Files, Organization, and Activity.

Click on Activity. A list will follow of all the places they have shared something on Teams. This facility allows you to be more productive with your time.

Another feature that is worth looking at is the ‘Add a tab’ option. This allows you to add a tab to your dashboard, giving you easier access to selected files, etc.

As when going to Activity, choose the recipient you wish to add a tab to the conversation with, go to the top of the screen and (next to Chat, Files, Organization and Activity) is a + sign – click the +.

Once having clicked the + you are presented with multiple options to choose from as to which tab you want to add to your dashboard (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc). Click to select.

In the next and last blog in the series, we will look at how to use the ‘meetings’ feature of Microsoft Teams, how to ensure you get the most from it, and how it can alleviate the usual stresses of organizing a meeting.

Elixis Technology is here to help

At Elixis Technology have the expertise to guide you in a personally tailored direction that best suits your business. We can ensure you buy the correct tools to support a remote work setting, thereby helping your employees to thrive – whatever the setting. Contact us to find out more today.

For more information, feel free to send us a message.