Contrary to what many believe, Office 365 is much more than just email. To alleviate you from misconceptions and put you closer to getting the most from your Office 365 subscription, we have highlighted some of the top features of Office 365 which you may not know.

This misconception has generally stemmed from the utterance of people who are using the same tools and applications in the same accustomed way, even after rolling out of new features. The truth is Office 365 strictly follows a holistic approach of improving the productivity of organizations by identifying what actually constitutes the core of operational functions. The strong presence of 155 Million active users can vouch for the unparalleled advantages that it offers to the organizations who are burning the midnight oil to carve a niche for themselves And the edifice of those offerings is based upon the robust foundation of office 365 support services and futuristic features.

1) Real-Time Co-Authoring:

Office 365 allows you to collaborate online and see changes your team makes to shared documents on a real-time basis. By sharing your file to OneDrive cloud storage or SharePoint, your team can access the document and make any necessary edits or updates. With the help of a handily integrated sidebar, you can share files directly from Word. You can edit accessibility settings at any time as an access giver.

Moreover, with the value-added version control that was rolled out with Office 2016 co-authoring, you can keep track of which changes were made by which contributor along with the exact time of the update. It also empowers you to revert back to a previous version of the file as per the need.  

2) Communicate With Co-Workers:

This Features of Office 365 has a very efficient Skype in-app integration. This feature can play a key role in facilitating timely communication with your colleagues, as you can use it to instant message your teammates, conduct audio or visual conversations by sharing the screen with them in meetings. Importantly, you can continue Skype conversations even after you exit from apps via your desktop or mobile version of Skype. The best part about it is your team will receive unlimited Skype minutes. 

3)  Power Map in Excel:

Considering the role that data plays in decision making which can make or break businesses, data has emerged as the new currency in today’s digital world. It promulgates a strong scenario where companies should miss no opportunities to turn data into actionable insights.

Office 365’s Power Map, a part of the powerful and interactive data visualization features in Excel, can prove handy in this regard. Enhanced with the Power BI, it acts as a solution for analyzing, visualizing and sharing data insights. It lets you turn rows of data into a 3D interactive map with Power Map, which has in-built ability to filter data using three different filters: List, Range, or Advanced. 

4) Microsoft Planner with Workflows:

Major Office 365 project management feature, Planner provides a simple way of creating workflows for projects and assigning the individual tasks in the flow over to people. It works like a cascading flow. After an employee ticks that he/she has completed the allotted section, Planner feature automatically assigns it over to the following employee who needs to work on it next. By setting due dates and calendar of to-dos, you can make all the tasks time bound.  On top of it, it comes with dashboards. They are designed in a way that you can easily monitor the efficiencies and time frames of the assigned tasks. 

5) Self- Decluttering Smart Inbox:

Recognizing the need to declutter and streamline your email inboxes, Office 365 comes with a Clutter feature. By analyzing your mailbox activities, it automatically lists high-priority messages before low-priority messages. Emails which are not highly important will be moved to your “clutter” folder, giving you an opportunity to view them at a convenient time.

Additionally, by forming a strong network through 3rd party partnerships, Microsoft harnesses the power of the simple, smart social CRM for Office 365 directly and easily within your Outlook inbox. It will bring social and business insights of contacts, prospects, and customers right at your fingertips.

6) Resume Reading Feature:

Some of the important official documents like legal ones can be of sprawling lengths. The option of not reading them is not on the table. Yet, being strapped for time makes it difficult to set time aside to plow through 70 pages. With the Resume Reading feature in Office 365, you can drop in and out of the document as and when and pick up straight from where you left off irrespective of the device type. As it automatically bookmarks the last page you were reading, it’s a more convenient and organized way of reading.

7) Send Links, Not Files:

Every email browser comes with a restriction on the size of attachments. It may make your inbox more cluttered, as your colleagues are forced to send more than one email to pass on the important documents to you. Office 365 offers a credible solution to this menace.

You only have to upload your document to Office 365’s cloud storage. Then use Outlook or the Outlook web app to write an email. Instead of attaching your document to the email, you can insert a link to the file on your cloud. Outlook will ensure that email recipients can edit the document you wish to share. Based on your convenience, you can always change permissions on any document.

 8) Lync 2010:

Office 365 goads you to download and install the new Lync 2010 client. Similar to Windows Live Messenger, Lync 2010 is an IM client that enables you to conduct online meetings. Known for providing best PC-to-PC audio and video connections, Lync 2010 is installed to your desktop. Note that this is not the case with other web-based members of the Office 365 suite.   

9) Microsoft MyAnalytics:

Office 365 comes with Microsoft MyAnalytics which helps you in monitoring and analyzing how you spend your time at work. It maintains a detailed log of your work activities, finds areas that need improvements, and provides you with the tools to make more efficient use of your time. Its add-in for Outlook presents you with activity cards based on your recent work experience and enable you to respond based on the activity. Also, through Email digests, you will receive a weekly email digest that gives you highlights of your previous week. 

10)  Microsoft Sway

A step up from PPT, Microsoft Sway is a professional digital storytelling app that helps businesses express ideas using an interactive, web-based canvas. Its built-in design engine helps in producing professional, visually-appealing reports, presentations.  More importantly, it doesn’t need extensive formatting or additional training. It makes your creation visually stimulating in any browser on any screen, and it can be shared with colleagues and customers by simply sending a link. To ease the whole process, Microsoft Sway lets you drag and drop your images, text, videos, and charts right on to your canvas.