New Microsoft 365 for Small and Medium Businesses: Features Your Team Will Appreciate - Lifehacker
Vindovs Technologies / / December 29, 2020
What is Microsoft 365 Small and Medium Business
Microsoft 365 is the new name for a number of Office 365 products. Microsoft 365 Business Standard Subscription includesacquaintances Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook, Teams with mobile and desktop versions of applications, Exchange and OneDrive services. At the same time, new opportunities have appeared in it, which will help you run your business even more conveniently.
A subscription will allow you to organize work, securely store important data and communicate with clients, as well as give free access to all upcoming updates. The cost of Microsoft 365 remains the same even with new features.
What's new in Microsoft 365
We've selected a few examples in apps and services. There are a lot of new opportunities, they appear monthly. Availability of new features depends on the update channel of your Microsoft 365 subscription. Therefore, some of the listed options may not be available on your devices yet.
1. Dynamic arrays in Excel
The feature, which became available in the spring of 2020, greatly facilitates actions with formulas and makes it easier to process data arrays. Previously, you could reference a single value in an Excel cell, but to use a range of data you had to wrap it in a formula. Now - in one Excel cell, you can refer to the required data range and perform the necessary actions with the entire range. When you press enter, Excel will automatically resize the output range and place the results in each cell in that range.
Dynamic arrays make it much easier to work with many Excel functions. The new option is available for subscriptions, including Microsoft 365 Business Standard.
2. Ability to insert information from an image into Excel
The new feature allows you to load data into an Excel spreadsheet directly from an image. This will help you in two clicks to transfer information from a photo to cells without the need to retype something. It is enough to copy the picture and then use the paste function from the image in Excel. The feature makes it possible to check the transferred information for errors (Review option). The feature is currently available in Excel for Mac and Excel on Android / iOS. The list of supported languages can be clarified here, there is no Russian among them yet.
3. ViewX (XLOOKUP) function in Excel
This new Excel feature replaces a number of previous ones and makes it easier to extract the items you want from a set of information. With its help, you can return not only the value from the table, but also the data range. At the same time, working with the function itself is very easy. You simply specify two columns: the one with the search word and the value to be returned. Don't worry if you love and use VLOOKUP - this feature won't go anywhere. It's just that its "successor" "ViewX" (XLOOKUP) is in many ways more flexible and convenient.
4. Library of media content and templates
Microsoft 365 subscribers receive a generous supply of quality assets to create beautiful documents, spreadsheets, and presentations. Among them there are 8,000 pictures, as well as 2,800 icons and 300 new fonts. These materials can already be used in Word, Excel and PowerPoint. By the way, for PowerPoint's Designer feature, which helps you get the slideshow design "on click", not only new photos are available, but also 175 looped videos from the Getty Images stock. In addition, the subscription includes the ability to use premium templates for these programs: for work, creative and educational projects.
5. Corrector Microsoft
The new AI-powered service helps you write easy-to-read and literate text. The Proofreader finds spelling and punctuation errors in Word and its web versions. The function is already available to many users. You can also install the "Proofreader" as a plug-in for the Edge or Chrome browsers - for checking texts on any sites. The advanced service experience is for Microsoft 365 subscribers only. For example, you can analyze the style of the text and get recommendations for improving it.
6. Together Mode in Microsoft Teams
This is a new Teams experience that allows conference participants to feel closer together. It harnesses the power of AI and puts everyone in the video call into one digital environment. This creates the feeling that the conference is taking place in a single space. In an era of isolation and remote work, the ability to see colleagues and feel like a part of a team helps to stay on the same page.
7. Dynamic view and filters in Microsoft Teams
This technology allows for more flexibility in displaying what you see during the meeting, whether it is live content or webcam images of participants. For example, you can display up to 49 people at a time. In addition, other features have been announced: the ability to combine meeting participants into small groups (for example, for brainstorming) and filters designed to make your image clearer.
8. Synchronizing work and personal calendars
Combining business and personal life can be difficult. A new feature in Outlook Web App will help a little with this. Now the service allows you to associate a business calendar with a personal one, so that colleagues and partners can evaluate your availability even after hours. At the same time, they will not be able to see what exactly you are doing during your personal hours. In addition, such a bundle of calendars will allow you to manage all your to-do's in one service.
What the Microsoft 365 SMB ecosystem includes
Let's talk separately about how the system is organized as a whole. Microsoft 365 includes tools for interacting and managing all office tasks. Including remotely. The set of options depends on the subscription option. For example, for each user "Microsoft 365 Business Standard" will be available:
- 50 GB Outlook email with its own domain. With business mail, even a small company looks more professional and inspires more confidence than one that uses free mailboxes.
- OneDrive cloud storage with a capacity of 1 TB with the ability to securely transfer information between users. You will have access to important data from any device, not just from your work computer.
- The Microsoft Bookings tool allows customers to book online for the services your company offers. And also the tool takes care of the scheduling and sending out reminders about the recording time.
- Microsoft Teams collaboration platform. Here you can collaboratively edit documents in real time, hold conferences, video calls, chat in chats and solve other work tasks.
Why buy a Microsoft 365 license
One licensed version "Microsoft 365 business standard»You can use it on multiple devices (up to five computers, as well as tablets and phones). You will always have the most current version of the program, since the software is updated automatically. In addition, the license includes support - you can rely not only on quality and safety, but also on round-the-clock assistance from Microsoft specialists.
Softline guarantees the legality and performance of subscriptions. And if you have any questions or problems, the operational support service will help you at any time.
Subscribe