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9 Overlooked Features of Office 365

By November 18, 2018No Comments5 min read
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Microsoft Office 365 comes with a set of fast and improved productivity tools that are beneficial for both small and large enterprises. It gives them the advantage of cloud computing by providing platform-independent tools for their business productivity. Small businesses can save a lot of time and money by purchasing Office 365 for their employees. Although it may look like a simple online tool, Office 365 offers many more features than you really know.

We have compiled a list of useful tools and features of Office 365 that are often overlooked. These tools will change the way you use Excel, Word, PowerPoint and other office products. Also, this list will introduce you to the less known features of O365, that can simplify your business operations.

  1. Keyboard-Free Ink Editor:

Ink editor gives you the freedom to use gestures to edit your documents. Located under the Draw tab, Ink editor provides a keyboard-free experience. To delete a single word or a sentence, you just have to draw a line through it without even selecting the text.  Apart for easy deleting, ink editor comes with gestures for splitting words, adding new lines, inserting a word, joining words and more.

  1. Leverage the Inbuilt Translator:

Businesses often deal with people from different culture and backgrounds. Not everyone speaks English or your native language. You might have used Google translate and other online tools for translating your documents. But Office 365 comes with a built-in translator tool for Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.  For automating the translation, choose your translation language under Review-> Translate tab. With the power of inbuilt translation tool, you can serve your foreign clients easily and efficiently.

  1. Hands-Free Typing with Dictate:

 We spend more time correcting the words than typing new ones. Microsoft allows you to use your voice for writing your documents and emails. Whether you are documenting the sales or sending a thank you note to your client, use dictation for easy, fast and hands-free typing. To use this feature, you need to sign-in to your Microsoft account. Once you have signed in, you can use Dictate tool located under the Home tab in Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Outlook and OneNote.

  1. Background Blur in Microsoft Team:

Video interviews and meetings can be embarrassing with unexpected elements in the background. Your pets can intervene, your kids can disturb you or your clients may get uncomfortable with your surroundings. Working from anywhere is not easy. Microsoft 365 comes with a very useful background blur tool for Microsoft Team. You don’t have to worry about the background elements which are out of your control. You can simply blur out your background and focus on the actual conversation.

  1. Personal Research Assistance with Smart Lookup:

Office 365 products come with a smart research tool, Smart Lookup. It allows you to get insights into what you are reading or typing. Using Bing, you can easily pull in information from the web to enhance your work productivity and understand the unfamiliar content easily. To use the tool, simply select a word or a phrase, then right click the mouse and select Smart Lookup. Bing will search the word and show you relevant content on the right.

  1. Track Your Business Drives with MileIQ:

MileIQ automatically logs your frequent drives. It comes with advanced features to classify your drives as business and outside of those hours as personal. MileIQ can accurately track your mileage anytime. Your miles are automatically recorded. You get a complete record of all your tax deductible and reimbursable mileage. All you need to do is to set MileIQ to run in the background of your mobile device. Then you can swipe left or right to classify your drives easily.

  1. Turn Data into 3D Maps with Power Map:

Microsoft Power Map gives you the ability to visualize your data in three dimensions. With 3D visualization, you can discover new insights into your data tables and charts. Power Map is available for Excel. With it, you can plot cities, countries, and areas in a 3-D globe or a custom map. You can create great visual tours for presentations and share them with your teammates. The Map button is located under the Insert tab.

  1. Create Surveys with Microsoft Forms:

Office 365 subscription comes with Microsoft forms. A great tool for collecting customer and employee feedback. You can simply add your questions and provide options for the answer to create a new form. People who will receive the link to the form can take part in it using any device. Microsoft Forms provide great tools and charts for visualizing the survey. This great tool is not just limited to surveys. You can create an entire quiz to engage your customers.

  1. Professional Invoicing with Microsoft Invoice:

Designing and formatting an invoice template is a tedious task. Often people find difficulty in making a professional and beautiful document such as an invoice. Microsoft excel invoice template saves your time and efforts by creating professional invoices on the go. All you need to do is to add a customer, add items to the invoice and simply send it to the desired person. Microsoft Invoicing allows a preview of the invoice before sending it out.

What are you waiting for? Give us a call today, and let’s discuss how Office 365 can grow your business!