Mastering the art of Remote Collaboration

This year has seen businesses forced to adapt to unprecedented restrictions on working life. While the initial upset is now behind us, businesses are still required to ensure operational resilience in the face of a situation that continues to present uncertainty.

What do we mean by ‘operational resilience?’

Essentially, we mean the ability to continue operating, effectively, efficiently and robustly in an ever-changing, turbulent environment that requires remote working.

Resources – Your staff need access to the file resources they can access in the office. This means implementing secure, convenient solutions that provide secure file access.
Hardware – Your employees may require the provision of devices, peripherals and maybe even office furniture to help them work from home comfortably and effectively.
Productivity Platforms – these will let you add structure to the working day, help teams keep in touch, enable collaboration, and keep everyone singing from the same hymn sheet. The final piece in the jigsaw when setting up a remote workforce.

We’ve already explored the first 2 of these, so In this article, we’ll take a look at some of the ‘productivity platforms’ available withing the Microsoft 365 suite. There are a vast number of third-party applications in this software space, such as Monday.com, Trello, Asana and Slack to name a few. However, we’ll keep our attention focussed on the Microsoft offerings for now as these are widely available to 365 subscription customers.

Your communication needs condensed – Say ‘Hello’ to Microsoft Teams

Teams’ is an empowering communication platform that is as useful in an office environment as it is for remote workforces. For Microsoft 365 customers there really isn’t a need to look any further than Teams for your communication needs.

Communication Consolidated. Teams roll various communication media into a single intuitive interface; instant messaging, video/audio conferencing, scheduling capabilities, file sharing plus the potential to turn teams into your business’ phone system – this platform can do it all. SharePoint and OneDrive integration bring discussion and files together and real-time document co-authoring lets several people collaborate on the same document in real-time. Teams is in constant evolution, for example, the upcoming ‘Lists’ application will bring SharePoint lists into the Teams interface and allow your team to discuss topic-specific data in new ways.
‘Teams’ and ‘Channels’ let you keep discussion on-topic. Gather groups of employees into ‘Teams’ for collaboration on specific subjects. Then focus on more specific sub-topics by setting up ‘channels.’
There’s a very little learning curve. We live in the ‘smartphone age’ where consumers and business owners alike expect intuitive, user-friendly software experiences and this is reflected in Microsoft Teams. Your Team will be up to speed with the basics in an hour or 2.
Keep your Data secure with exceptional compliance management capabilities. Microsoft’s Enterprise Mobility and Security Platform act as a security management ‘command centre.’ Control access at device and application level, manage document permissions, scan for online threats, remotely manage your team’s endpoint devices and much more.
Incorporate your favourite apps for a unique, tailored experience. Adopting Teams doesn’t mean you’ll have to bin the ‘third-party’ apps you currently use as there is a good chance you’ll be able to bring them under the Teams interface. Hundreds of apps such as ‘Zoom’ and ‘Asana’ can be incorporated into Teams so you won’t have to switch between individual app windows.

Widely available as a ‘core app’ in many 365 subscriptions or as a standalone product, why not explore Teams today and find out why it’s become one of the world’s most successful business communication platforms?

Discover ‘Planner’- Simple but intelligent workflow management from Microsoft

Microsoft offers several Workflow management platforms, ranging from the elaborate, feature-rich (and rather expensive) Microsoft Project to the simple, free and feature-lite ‘To Do’ application. There are also various other options for organising workflows and managing tasks such as ‘workflows’ and ‘Lists’ within SharePoint.

Situated between the complexity of ‘Project’ and the simplicity of ‘To Do’ you’ll find Microsoft Planner; a well-rounded task management platform that strikes a good balance between features and ease-of-use.

Below are some of the main features of the ‘Planner’ experience.

Plans Think of a SharePoint site but specifically for tasks; plans are where you gather all the tasks related to one subject.
The individual jobs you set up and assign to members of each ‘Plan.’ When setting up a task you can include a start and end date, priority level, attach files, add a detailed description and once completed users can update the task’s completion status making it easy to monitor project progression.
These act as sub-folders so that you can organise tasks according to criteria that you determine. You might want to gather all ‘high priority’ tasks in a dedicated bucket so that your Team know which tasks they should focus on first.
Maintain oversight with various view modes. Planner features several dashboards that let you review task progression and look ahead to plan future work.
- Chart View. A simple but handy dashboard that displays information pertaining to task progression in the form of charts and graphs.
- Board View. The default view which displays tasks in a ‘Kanban board’ style arrangement, showing each task within ‘Buckets.’
- Schedule View. As suggested by the name, this view shows tasks in time lined calendar format. Useful for planning ahead jobs well in advance.
- Apply filters to each view to focus on specific information. For example, you might want to focus on overdue tasks or review the workload of an individual employee.

Planner is available to Premium, Educational and Business 365 customers so you may already have it at your disposal if you have one of these subscriptions. Planner gives you the features you need and provides enough insight to let you fully take ownership of the task management process. Why not give it a try today?

Scheduling meetings, launching surveys and workplace social media – There’s an app for that!

With over 30 additional apps complementing Microsoft 365’s ‘core products’ you’re bound to find a solution for your business challenges with just a little exploration.

‘Bookings’ simplifies meeting scheduling by bringing your schedule to the fore and allowing attendees to select a time that suits both parties. Automatic notifications ensure appointments are less likely to be missed and meeting schedules can be expedited by eliminating long, productivity-sapping email threads.

‘Forms’ is a simple tool that lets you generate and launch surveys, polls and quizzes in minutes. A great way to gather feedback and drive engagement both within your team and with customers.

‘Yammer’ is social media for the workplace. Ideal as a social hub for your remote workforce, ‘Yammer’ acts as a virtual noticeboard where news can be shared and updates posted.