Office work has undergone a significant change in recent years, to which small and medium-sized companies also needed to respond. In many cases, employees work both at the office and at home, face-to-face meetings have been replaced by hybrid or fully online meetings, and people not only use company-owned devices, but their own personal devices as well. The changed work environment has brought many new opportunities, such as effective, flexible work anywhere and anytime, while exposing companies to higher data security risks at the same time.  Microsoft 365 Business offers solutions to these problems for companies with up to 300 employees. In addition to the popular Microsoft Office services, which can be used online or on a desktop, the Business Premium subscription also includes a number of key security technologies that allow the company to fully protect its data estate. Discover the less-used applications in Microsoft 365 Business Premium to take your business performance to the next level. 

Microsoft Meetings

Organizing meetings within your organization using the Microsoft Scheduling Assistant application is a quick and effective solution as, depending on the settings, you can check your co-workers’ calendars and schedule a meeting while being certain that your colleagues are also available in that time period. What can we do, though, if we’d like to involve external partners and want to make sure that we schedule the meeting at the most appropriate time for everyone? This is where the Microsoft Outlook Scheduling Poll (previously known as Find Time) add-on, which can be used to start a vote on possible meeting times, can help. This plugin effectively helps you to find the optimal time to meet all your invitees, by allowing the organizer to send multiple scheduling options so you can minimize sending emails back and forth about selecting a time.

The Scheduling Poll dashboard can be accessed via Mail or Calendar online, as well as via Mail in the new Outlook for Mac. Scheduling Poll will be available in Outlook for Windows soon, though in the new Outlook for Windows preview the feature will be available in the same way as in Outlook on the Web.

Learn more about using Scheduling Poll: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/create-a-scheduling-poll-34176e59-c87a-4a19-85a4-bb35050ace02

Microsoft Bookings

Microsoft Bookings makes it easy to organize meetings and provide services within your organization. As it integrates with the Microsoft 365 calendar, employees and customers can easily find available times to avoid double bookings. In the Bookings app, you can specify when the colleague is available and for how long, depending on the type of meeting. Bookings includes a booking page where customers can schedule appointments with a customer service agent or representative, as well as a web app where Bookings calendar owners and administrators within the organization can configure meeting types and details, manage staff scheduling and availability, set business hours, and customize how appointments are scheduled. With Microsoft Teams, Bookings meetings can also be set up as an online meeting. Since the Bookings app is linked to the Calendar, you can rest assured that you don’t have anything else to do at the available time period booked by others. 

Learn more about how to access and use Microsoft Bookings: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/bookings/bookings-overview?view=o365-worldwide

Microsoft To Do

There are many ways to track your to-do lists within Microsoft 365. As a practical and easy-to-use organizer, Microsoft To Do is a prominent one of them. Microsoft To Do breaks down task management into five steps:

• Adding tasks to your days
• Setting up new to-do lists
• Taking care of the most important tasks first
• Collaborating with team members
• Integration with other applications

Microsoft To Do allows you to set up any number of lists, making it a powerful tool for managing tasks at work and keeping track of tasks at home, too. What’s more, it’s easy to share lists with others and synchronize tasks within the group. The app also integrates seamlessly with other Microsoft tools such as Outlook or Planner, making task tracking even more efficient. 

The Microsoft To Do application is available on Android, iOS, macOS and Windows. To learn more, visit: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-to-do-list-app

Microsoft Planner

Microsoft Planner is used to keep track of more complex projects and tasks involving more participants. With Microsoft Planner’s help, you can effectively assign and organize appointments and tasks, set deadlines and share files, while enabling team members to keep in touch throughout the project. Its basic unit is the plan, to which different task groups can be linked, and the task groups can be further divided into steps. You can assign owners and set deadlines for each task, and keep track of the progress of the project and individual tasks. Of course, Planner can not only be used to collaborate with a team, but also to map out a more complex project with tasks and deadlines for yourself. 

Learn more about Microsoft Planner here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business/task-management-software

Microsoft Forms

The Microsoft Forms application enables you to create questionnaires and forms to obtain information online from stakeholders and store these data securely in the Microsoft Cloud. The forms can be used easily and securely to learn about customers’ feedback and service-related needs, conduct market research, measure employee satisfaction, register attendees for an event, or even test students’ knowledge, among other things. You can create a questionnaire from scratch, or you can choose from a number of templates offered by Microsoft. Microsoft Forms is a more secure solution for creating surveys compared to other online platforms, as both the survey and the data collected are stored in the Microsoft Cloud, so they are completely controlled by the owner of the Microsoft subscription. 

Learn more about Microsoft Forms here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/online-surveys-polls-quizzes

Microsoft Whiteboard

The Microsoft Whiteboard digital whiteboard app is an essential tool for online meetings. Meeting participants can draw, take notes, and even add shapes, text, and other elements to the boards. It is the perfect solution for sketching, tracking and saving your ideas. Microsoft Whiteboard can be used as an online app via a web browser, as a desktop app for Windows, or as a mobile app for Android or iOS devices. However, it can be used most effectively as an integral part of Microsoft Teams, as a whiteboard created during a Teams meeting can be used by participants as a shared workspace for synchronous or asynchronous collaboration. After the meeting, the whiteboard notes can be saved, shared, or even modified or expanded later. 

Learn more about the Whiteboard app: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/microsoft-whiteboard/digital-whiteboard-app

Data Loss Prevention

Companies have a lot of sensitive data that can cause significant damage if leaked. So, in order to protect sensitive information, you need a solution to help prevent employees from accidentally or intentionally sharing such data with unauthorized people. Data loss incidents can be prevented by using Data Loss Prevention (DLP). DLP is a security solution that identifies and prevents unsafe or inappropriate sharing, transmission, and use of sensitive data by others. By creating DLP policies within Microsoft Purview, the company can define the security settings for different types of content by creating tags. By using DLP, your organization can watermark documents and block the opening of documents or emails to employees or external partners who do not have permission to access data according to DLP’s settings. 

Learn more about Microsoft Data Loss Prevention here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/security/business/security-101/what-is-data-loss-prevention-dlp

Microsoft 365 Business Premium is the perfect choice for companies with up to 300 employees. If you have any questions about the service, please contact us, and we will be happy to help you with ordering subscriptions, and provide customized training to your employees as well.