Microsoft 365 / Office 365: Which tool is right for the job?

What are the Purposes of Office 365 Tools? And, How Should We Use Them?

By following these simple guidelines we’re taking the guesswork out of which Office 365 tool is best to use for particular jobs/tasks/purposes, ultimately resulting in maximum efficiency.

Microsoft Teams

Definition: Microsoft Teams is a secure platform that allows users to communicate and work together in one location. Users can chat, host video meetings, share documents and customize their digital workspace with integrated apps. It is the latest progression of Microsoft Skype for Business and is a competitor to services like Slack.

Use: Essentially, Microsoft Teams allows colleagues to communicate in real-time, from any location or device, particularly when an instant response is required. But in reality, it is much more than just chats and meetings.

Yammer

Definition: Yammer, put simply, is very much like Facebook but for businesses, an enterprise social network, if you will. It is a relatively straightforward and intuitive platform for sending large-scale messages within an organization, it also includes lots of ready-made graphics, memes, and videos.

However, the key difference between Yammer and Facebook is that messages on Yammer are protected from the outside world and your IT department has a general overview of employee usage.

Use: Essentially, this tool is great for sharing ideas and sending messages that don’t require an instant response. It’s a place for activities like brainstorming and news updates.

Planner

Definition: Microsoft Planner is a focal point for users to create, plan, organize and assign jobs. Using the Japanese Kanban-style manufacturing system as inspiration, Microsoft Planner allows individuals to monitor the status of tasks through a dashboard and provides visibility of progress to the entire team. It is one of Microsoft’s answers to organizing tasks and team working; it is similar to programs like Trello.

Use: Microsoft Planner is the perfect tool for lightweight task management and gives a simple visual display of your jobs. If you require something more customizable or more in-depth for more complicated projects, we suggest using Microsoft Project.

Microsoft Projects

Definition: As the name suggests, Microsoft Project is a project management software product, designed to empower Project Managers to generate schedules, assign resources to responsibilities, track progress, manage budget and analyze workloads.

Use: With a wide range of support and capabilities, Microsoft Project is the heavyweight of task management, it has far more features than Planner, which makes it better suited to enterprise-level projects.

SharePoint

Definition: Over the past couple of years, Microsoft seems to be working towards turning SharePoint into a repository for front-end applications like Microsoft Teams. SharePoint is basically a back-end infrastructure management system for business documents, data, and projects. By using SharePoint as the foundation of your intranet, you can improve usability and benefit from an easy-to-use interface.

Use: SharePoint is used by many organizations to build intranet portals that ultimately manage and search through your organization’s internal communications, documents, policies and data.

OneDrive

Definition: OneDrive is a cloud-based service that allows you to save and sync files securely, on any kind of device. Users are able to upload, share and set permissions for documents whether they are on, or off-line. And, although OneDrive is not designed for collaboration per se, it does allow you to share documents and co-author them. 

Use: When you are the only user, OneDrive is your ideal file-saving solution. You can sync your desktop and OneDrive so that all your documents are available wherever you are. But, if you’re intending on saving documents that you want others to have visibility of, we recommend using SharePoint. 

This guide names but a few of Microsoft’s tools, however, when you’re using the correct tool for the job, the gains are clear. Office 365 offers lots of business benefits like saving money, assisting growth and improving productivity.

Quickfire benefits:

• Office 365 enables clear communication across employees and departments
• You’re able to access data from any device at any time and in any location
• It enhances collaboration amongst users through web-enabled access
• Employees can edit resources in real-time and save versions for future reference
• Microsoft provides top-class support and services including:
  • Privacy controls
  • Geo-redundant data centers
  • Application standards
  • Vigorous security
  • Disaster recovery
• With everything working via the cloud, it ensures that imperative business applications are always available

Ultimately, when you have your Microsoft Office 365 applications dialled in, it results in better business outcomes.

Work Smarter in Office 365 / Microsoft 365 With Orchestry

At Orchestry, our mission is to make work simple in Office 365 and Microsoft Teams, by empowering your IT Administrators and employees to define a winning Microsoft 365 adoption and change management strategy that provides a roadmap of what to use when, for what purpose. Orchestry increases usage and adoption while empowering through governance and simplifies through intelligent provisioning in Microsoft 365, organization-wide at a fraction of the cost, on a subscription basis.

To see Orchestry in action, send us an email at hello@orchestry.com or start your free access now!