Most Microsoft Office 365 users are familiar with this product’s popular applications, such as Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel, but there are dozens of lesser-known apps offered by Microsoft as well. This article will explore eight Microsoft 365 apps that you may not know about, as well as how they can be used by professionals across industries.
What is Microsoft Office?
Microsoft Office is a suite of server and client software, applications, and services. Office has a plethora of uses, from performing advanced spreadsheet calculations to creating engaging presentations for business partners. This versatile resource is currently being used by 1.2 billion people around the globe.
8 Lesser-Known Microsoft Office Applications
The following are eight Microsoft Office 365 apps some users may be less familiar with, as well as a brief description of what they can do:
- Microsoft Whiteboard is a digital, cloud-based canvas application that helps teams collaborate and explore ideas. Whiteboard users can simultaneously work on the same whiteboard, even from different locations. Those working on Whiteboard can use their keyboards or touch-screen pens to create drawings. In addition, other features can be added as well, such as sticky notes or images. All Whiteboard users are able to see changes in real-time, which ensures that everyone is on the same page with the creative process. For this reason, Whiteboard provides a powerful tool for visual brainstorming. It also fully integrates with Microsoft Teams and allows Team meeting attendees to share Whiteboards so that Teams members on the call can directly collaborate on the project.
- Microsoft Stream is a corporate service designed for video sharing that provides a platform through which those at an organization can safely upload and share videos. Stream has a variety of applications; it can record class sessions, work meetings, training sessions, presentations, or other collaborative endeavors. Stream users are able to easily comment on videos, as well as tag descriptions or timecodes that pertain to a specific moment in a video that they wish to discuss. Because it is a secure service, Stream users have control over who views their video content. This app integrates well with others in the Microsoft 365 family, such as Yammer, OneNote, SharePoint, and Teams.
- Microsoft Kaizala was created to help users manage work tasks and provide them with a secure outlet for messaging. It facilitates collaborations between those within an organization, as well as external stakeholders. Kaizala users can send instant messages to one another, submit invoices, manage tasks, and engage with others, regardless of location. In addition, Kaizala is useful for scheduling work tasks, creating training material, and sharing attachments such as images, videos, audio files, and documents. Kaizala Actions is a feature that can be used to distribute surveys or polls to dozens or even thousands of people, then automatically aggregate them into a report.
- Microsoft Bookings is a scheduling tool that was created to help small companies manager their scheduling needs. This tool can be used for both internal as well as external scheduling in a variety of industries, such as law firms, spas, financial institutions, and healthcare providers. Bookings is considered to be very user-friendly; it allows customers to easily schedule or reschedule appointments, and provides them with email reminders of their appointment date and time. In addition, Bookings provides an overview of staff members’ schedules and appointments. All appointments cread through Bookings can be synced to Google calendars or other central calendars. Bookings incorporates automation so that users don’t have to repeatedly send out appointment confirmations, thus saving users time and cutting down on busy work. Because it is part of the Microsoft 365 suite of applications, Bookings integrates well with other Microsoft apps, such as Skype and Teams. Appointments made through Bookings can also be set to sync with calendars in Outlook.
- Microsoft Sway is an online application designed to help users create personal stories, newsletters, interactive reports, or presentations. It was made so that users could create websites for storing content like images, videos, and text. Sway focuses more on the storytelling component of a presentation rather than the presentation itself. Instead of incorporating slides like PowerPoint, Sway presentations use a narrative structure that flows naturally from left to right, or from the top to the bottom. This helps to create a narrative journey for audience members, which is more likely to keep them engaged. Sway users can select from pre-designed templates or can customize their creations. Best of all, the content created in Sway can easily be shared with family, friends, coworkers, or classmates. It can also be published on the web.
- Microsoft Delve is used for data discovery as well as collaboration. It relies on a combination of social networking and machine learning as it searches through Office 365 applications to find needed or relevant information. Delve offers a helpful way for users to look for information and people within the Office 365 suite, as well as tools for organizing professional information in a manner that is useful for future retrieval. Delve automatically extracts material from various Office 365 apps and presents it in one view; Documents in Delve are shown on a content card that provides a title, image, and short description of recent activity, details that help the user know if the document is relevant. In addition, Delve users can create boards so that any needed document can be accessed at a later time. Content can be pulled from apps such as Yammer, SharePoint, PowerPoint, Sway, and Outlook.
- Microsoft To Do is a task-management app that was designed to help users organize their daily tasks. To Do’s “My Day And Suggestions” offers intelligent suggestions based on the user’s lists so that they can stay on top of projects and day-to-day tasks. Because To Do integrates with other Microsoft365 apps, emails in Outlook containing tasks can be flagged. This user-friendly application includes customizable features, such as colored themes, emojis, and dark mode, among others. Lists that were created in To Do can also be shared with friends or colleagues. Some of the most popular uses of To Do are for shopping lists, bill management, notetaking, and task management.
- Microsoft Forms was created to help users create surveys, quizzes, and polls, as well as to execute marketing initiatives. Forms users can record data in real-time. They can create surveys that evaluate customer or employee satisfaction, polls that gather feedback from both internal and external stakeholders, and quizzes that have applications for training new employees. With the help of artificial intelligence, Forms learns from users’ habits and patterns and can offer recommendations based on their patterns of use. Forms also includes a “Responses” feature that provides users with a snapshot of information as it is being collected, which is useful for collecting insights even before a poll or survey is submitted.
The above eight applications are just a few of the many helpful tools Microsoft Office 365 currently has available to help manage tasks, increase work efficiency, and promote collaboration.
Start Learning Microsoft Office with Hands-On Classes
Proficiency in Microsoft Office can open professional doors across industries, as well as lead to upward career mobility. A great way to begin learning about Microsoft Office is to sign up for one of Noble Desktop’s Microsoft Office courses. These small group classes are offered in-person in Manhattan, as well as in the live online format. For students and professionals on the go, there are also in-person and live online Microsoft Office courses available through Noble Desktop or one of its affiliate schools. A variety of course options are offered, varying in length from three hours to three days and costing between $229 and $1,785. Those who wish to study close to home can also browse in-person Microsoft Office classes to find nearby learning options.