Many view Office 365 as being very similar to the standard Office suite including Excel, Word, Powerpoint and more.  As well as giving access to regularly updated versions of these products the Office 365 subscription also provides access to many extra apps with some extremely interesting and useful tools.  Depending on the subscription version you have you may not have all of these or may have others that are not shown here.

Teams

A collaborative area to share files and conversations with a group of people.  These teams can be subdivided into channels for the specific projects a team are working on.  All the information related to a team or project can be accessed in one area.  Different combinations of people are added to different teams as they need access to different files.  This is far more sophisticated than network drives that have to be configured by the IT administrator allowing for a more flexible way of working.

Delve

A search tool that doesn’t just search for files but also for people from one location.

Yammer

Social media for businesses.  Information can be available to the whole company or a group for specific individuals can be created for certain information.  Examples of this could include an area for IT technical issues that only the IT department can accessor a group that only members of the social club can view.

Stream

An internal video platform which is used for live streaming or to store uploaded videos in groups and channels.  Similar to YouTube but designed specifically for business.

Microsoft Forms

A form creation package with many different types of questions that can be produced.  The forms can be shared with individuals and the results collated.  Question types include multiple choice, text, ratings and rankings.

Flow

Automates procedures that would otherwise need to be performed manually.  Can save huge amounts of time and effort on repetitive procedures.

Microsoft Planner

Helps provide a structured approach to Project planning.  It links to Outlook so tasks are seen on the calendar.  Tasks that have been done are moved to the completed section.

Sway

Presentation tool.  Has far fewer options than PowerPoint but tends to be quicker to produce.  Perfect if you don’t have much time and need to produce a presentation.

To Do

This app helps keep track of the tasks you need to do.  Each day you add certain tasks to the “My Day” list but all other tasks still remain in the list to be completed.