Increase Productivity! One of the benefits of moving to a cloud-based solution with a company like eSoftware is that you and your business get access to the newest technology without needing to upgrade systems. In July at the yearly Microsoft Inspire premier partner event, Microsoft revealed an Office 365 update rolling out to their customers by the end of the year. Below are some of the best new features that will help you and your business increase productivity.
1.. By far the largest announcement was the release of Microsoft 365, which provides the suite of Office programs already available by the user account license, and adds Windows 10 plus Enterprise Mobility + Security in one service. The new service works seamlessly across all Windows devices, providing an all-in-one solution for management and applications, along with Microsoft’s enhanced security features. For businesses, this represents a shift from having one set of management capabilities for desktops and mobile devices and can help maintain security by enforcing system updates and monitoring.
2.. For those businesses with Microsoft Office 365 Business Premium, additional features have been released to assist with newsletter building, brand management, and more. Microsoft Connections is a service allowing businesses to create beautiful and functional email marketing campaigns to reach new and existing customers. Microsoft Listings gives you an all-in-one look of your brand across Facebook, Google, Bing, and more, tracking analytics of search results and helping you maintain your business information across multiple sites. Finally, Microsoft Invoicing allows you to create functional invoices and send to customers. It connects with PayPal so you can be sure you and your clients’ payment information is secure. All of these features, along with other previously announced features Bookings and Outlook’s Customer Manager, are consolidated on the Microsoft Business Center, a dashboard that gives you a bird’s eye view of how the public views your business.
3.. For clients with basic Office 365 accounts, there are new benefits rolling to you as well. Microsoft’s workhorse presentation software, PowerPoint, received an upgrade with the inclusion of Timelines. Now, PowerPoint will take dates, times, and topics and create a professional-looking and customizable timeline. All Office apps now come with support for 3D images, and Microsoft Word now has a text-to-speech capability. For anyone who’s ever sent an email and seen a typo after, the new Read Aloud function will help cut down on typos. Microsoft Outlook also received some user experience upgrades, with a new conversation view in Outlook for iOS application and other updates to the Outlook desktop program.
Microsoft continues to tweak and add to their service catalogue, so these new services will be joined by others soon.