11/5/2020

The 6 best Microsoft 365 Add-Ins for efficiency

Is your company already setup on Teams and SharePoint to make remote working easy?

Microsoft 365 is doing a lot of work keeping teams connected during times of social distancing and working from home.

But for all the efficiency-boosting brilliance of 365’s apps and tools, there are even more extra options you can add in (literally – they’re called “add-ins”) to make Microsoft’s collection of productivity apps even more useful for your business.

Here we’ve collected 6 of the very best Microsoft 365 add-ins you might like to take out for a spin:

1) Boomerang

Emails are one of the worst time-sinks in the modern workplace. Boomerang lets you do a couple of really handy things to keep your productivity levels up by shooting down some of the major hits to “getting things done” which emails throw into the mix:

1. You can pause notifications – no more ringing dings which distract you from doing what you were doing.
2. You can schedule emails – to be sent as and when you choose. Write that email. Set it to be sent three hours from now. Ideal when you don’t want someone to be emailing responses at you all day.
3. You can get an availability grid – Boomerang presents your own schedule to you so you can instantly tell someone via email when you’re available in just a couple of clicks.

2) Template Phrases

Sticking with whacking email troubles on the head, we have Template Phrases.

As you might expect from the name, this nifty little app lets you create templates you can quickly click into place. This means no more re-typing the same exact paragraph over and over again in a hundred emails.

Think how many seconds you spend on writing ‘hope you’re well in these unprecedented times’ in each email you send… Now think how many seconds that is every day and every week. Instead, you could be using Template Phrases and spending the time saved on a multitude of other business activities!

You can even search for phrases that you need for a given purpose and find everything neatly organised by topic. Problem solved.

3) Woodpecker

If you have the same repetitive message-typing irritations with Microsoft Word that you do with emails, Woodpecker is going to be your new best friend.

Create templates for standard documents which you send out all the time, then simply search and replace the relevant sections (names, dates) for each new use.

4) FindTime

Ever find yourself struggling to arrange a convenient time to do things with colleagues?

Have everyone vote on the best time for meetings with the perfectly-named FindTime and get invites sent out with the winning time attached. No more endless emails or chat conversations debating when everyone’s free.

5) DocuSign

Pretty much every business needs to sign documents. These days, they often have to sign documents which are on the screen in front of them.

More of a trouble-saver than a time-saver, DocuSign is an easy way to create digital signatures and add them to any digital document.

6) Invision Freehand

Microsoft 365 has become increasingly useful while more people are working from home and otherwise out of traditional office environments.

The handy collection of apps lets you and your team communicate as clearly as they could when working in the same room. Plus, it comes with a huge range of built-in tools and the brilliant Microsoft Teams to help you all keep in constant touch.

But a criticism which some people level at having their team working in separate locations is that it can make it more difficult to collaborate on projects.

Microsoft 365 goes a long way to solving this on its own. But the Invision Freehand add-in gives you a purpose-designed space to brainstorm in. Essentially an empty space where everyone can draw things and add their ideas to a shared blank page, it’s actually quite fun as well as being a seriously useful add-in.

Want to know more about how Microsoft 365 can help your business get ahead?

Sign up to our newsletter by clicking on this link and we’ll drop a handy “things you need to know” update into your inbox every month (feel free to hit “pause” on Boomerang so the updates arrive at a convenient time.)

You can also get in touch with us directly to chat with one of our Geeks about your current set-up and see how we could save your time and money.