Top 5 Collaborative Tools in Microsoft 365 Drive Productivity and Innovation

In today’s fast-paced digital landscape, businesses cannot thrive without effective collaboration. Microsoft continues its unwavering commitment to business excellence, offering a suite of powerful solutions designed to enhance productivity and teamwork. These top 5 collaborative tools in Microsoft 365 are transforming the way professionals connect, create, and collaborate.

What to Look for in a Collaboration Tool

Recent years have seen hundreds of collaboration tools flood the marketplace. And with so many options, choosing the right solutions to support remote work and decentralized teams can prove challenging. Look for the following essential features in the solutions you consider:

• Real-time communication – Whether team members work in adjacent cubicles or across an ocean, they need tools that facilitate real-time interaction with a combination of chat, video calls, and flexible meeting options.
• User-friendly interface – The best collaboration tools deliver intuitive interfaces that require minimal training.
• Security – Cyber threats continue to escalate, and collaboration over distance increases the risk. Consequently, solutions must offer robust security features such as encryption and MFA.
• Scalability – As a business grows, its tools must grow with it. Look for applications that support an increase in users and larger projects without a performance hit.
• File sharing and management – Users should be able to share and manage files easily regardless of their location. They also need the ability to collaborate in real time on documents.
• Task management – Collaboration solutions should include features for tracking tasks and projects.
• Mobile access – Finally, ensure that the tools you select provide for mobile access, allowing users to work from anywhere at any time.

1. Microsoft Teams Streamlines Communication

If you have not looked closely at Microsoft Teams in a few months, look again. Microsoft continually makes improvements to Teams, making it truly the hub for teamwork across your organization.

In the first place, the platform brings together chats, video calls, and file sharing into a single platform. For instance, team members can move effortlessly from chat to video call while working together simultaneously on a document. And they can do all this without switching from one app to another.

Second, Teams offers powerful meeting capabilities such as intelligent recap for meetings, live captions, and background blur. Further, it easily supports meetings for up to 300 participants and live events for up to 10,000.

Third, workgroups can create custom workspaces for specific projects or teams, organizing conversations, files, and apps in one place.

2. Office Apps Support Real-time Co-authoring

Microsoft 365 makes co-authoring simple, allowing multiple users to work on the same Word file, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation simultaneously. Users no longer need to send files back and forth or worry whether they have the most current version. Each collaborator can see everyone else’s edits in real time and comment within the document.

3. Outlook Offers So Much More Than Simply Email

Microsoft Outlook offers superior email. But it does much more than that. For example, shared calendars allow meeting organizers to quickly find meeting times that work for all team members and then schedule meetings directly from Outlook.

Additionally, work groups create shared mailboxes for specific projects to centralize communication. From within the shared mailbox, they can then assign tasks and track progress. They can also create email filters to ensure each user sees the emails relevant to their role. And they can design email templates to ensure consistent communication and save time.

4. Planner Simplifies Task and Project Management

For task coordination and simple project management, Microsoft has rolled Planner into Microsoft 365 and amped up its feature set. Collaborators easily create plans and assign tasks. They then organize work into buckets and Kanban boards categorized by status or assignments.

Because Microsoft Planner integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps, work groups can track progress within Microsoft Teams. Further, organizations that subscribe to the Premium version of Planner gain access to advanced features. These include capabilities such as adding dependencies between tasks, setting goals, and viewing tasks on a timeline.

5. Whiteboard Takes Brainstorming to New Heights

With Whiteboard, users gain an infinite canvas for brainstorming integrated directly into Teams. For instance, users on a remote meeting co-create content together on a shared whiteboard. The app converts handwriting into shapes and text. Team members add images, web links, and sticky notes. After the meeting, they export the whiteboard to a PDF or image and share it.

To enhance collaboration, Whiteboard includes a variety of templates for SWOT analysis, brainstorming, storyboard, agile sprint planning, and more. Users customize the templates as needed, assigning tasks to team members, tracking progress, and adding comments.

Get the Most Out of the Top 5 Collaborative Tools in Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 delivers seamless, secure collaboration with a suite of integrated tools created to support your collaboration needs and business goals. Contact eMazzanti to determine the best Microsoft licensing strategy for your organization. Our Microsoft experts will also guide you through an implementation designed to optimize collaboration.