Microsoft 365 contains a wide range of business productivity applications that are used on a daily basis by millions of users. With this array of applications, it can be difficult to keep track of what’s new for the suite and how users can make the most of them. April had several new features added with more coming up soon. In this blog we’ll cover some of highlights Microsoft 365 users can look forward to using.

Many users prefer to use “Dark Mode” in their Office applications as it reduces the amount of bright white light on screen that can get quite uncomfortable after a while. Luckily, Microsoft Office has themes that can be used to change the color appearance of Office applications like Word and Outlook to be, for example, black.

In the past, the black Office theme has kept Word documents white while turning most of the user interface to the darker color. However, it seems that Word has recently started turning the documents of some users black as well.

Over two years ago, Microsoft announced that Skype for Business Online would be retired on July 31, 2021. Now that we are a mere three months from that date, Microsoft is providing more details and information for moving existing Skype for Business customers to Microsoft Teams. It’s important to note that the retirement of Skype for Business Online does not affect the Skype consumer service or Skype for Business Server. These services will continue to operate as normal.

For the people familiar with Microsoft Teams, it is known largely as collaboration tool for businesses to quickly communicate via text and audio/video calling along with group file management and editing capabilities. However, Teams can also be utilized to host live events. Live events like webinars are a great way to engage with audiences in an online setting.

These are events where the communication is largely conducted as one or more individuals presenting to a large group that viewing the presentation and interacting with chat, polls, or questions.

Time is the most valuable resource for any employee. For employees who have been working from home for the past year, managing time to ensure work gets done and personal life doesn’t take a hit can be sometimes difficult.

The goal of Microsoft 365 apps like Outlook and Microsoft Teams is to help manage time and ensure communication is efficient. Specifically in Outlook, the calendar can be used to effectively manage meetings and work life balance in a user-friendly way.

Here are some new features in Outlook employees can use to ensure they are taking time for themselves while still getting the job done.

Microsoft Teams continues to receive monthly updates bringing more functionality and collaboration features to the already robust communication application. With all the updates, it can be hard to keep up or notice changes as they are applied to the app.

We’re here to break down the most notable updates coming to Microsoft Teams like approval request processes, live transcriptions in meetings, a new meeting recap feature, and increased integration with Outlook.

A major benefit of implementing Microsoft business applications like Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 is the interconnectivity between applications and data. Microsoft Excel is currently one of the most popular software applications available for viewing and manipulating data.

For users of Dynamics 365 Business Central, the integration between Business Central and Microsoft Excel provides the ability to view and edit financial data from Business Central directly in Excel and import it back into Business Central.

With many organizations still operating in a work from home environment, digital communication is integral to maintaining on the same page. In a recent update to Microsoft 365, there are new ways for team members to interact and improve that sense of comradery that is often missed is a digital setting. Let’s walk through three ways Microsoft 365 apps are now integrated into Microsoft Teams to help employees stay connected.

Microsoft Teams stands tall not only as an effective method for businesses to facilitate internal communications, but also as a way for them to collaborate on their work. Teams allows for seamless collaboration in a variety of applications, especially with other Microsoft applications such as Word, PowerPoint, Excel and SharePoint.

Teams has an integration to work with Dynamics 365 applications such as Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Marketing. This integration is receiving some new features as part of the 2021 Dynamics 365 Release Wave 1. They’re expected to be coming with the first part of the release wave next month.

Microsoft Teams is a great tool for facilitating internal communications and ensuring every member of the organization stays up to date. It keeps teams focused and advancing towards the same goals. SharePoint is a file management system that gives secure file storage to the entire organization.

SharePoint can be customized and structured to best fit the needs of the business. These are both great products that help facilitate effective collaboration within an organization.

If your organization already uses Microsoft Teams for internal or external communication, you’ll be happy to know that Microsoft continues to release monthly updates for the application that greatly advance the collaboration capabilities. If you haven’t used Teams before, it is included in most Microsoft 365 packages and integrates with the Office storage applications like SharePoint and traditional Office applications like Word and Excel. We’ve put together a list of the latest updates to Microsoft Teams that will encourage collaboration among your staff.

Back in August, Microsoft announced the official end of support for Internet Explorer coming in late 2021. This announcement also included a slew of end-of-support dates for Microsoft 365 application support of Internet Explorer. As of November 30, 2020, Microsoft Teams no longer supports Internet Explorer 11.

This is an update to a previous blog detailing the default opening behavior of Office 365 app files in OneDrive. The process has largely changed since the original blog post. The purpose of this blog is to show how to set OneDrive up to automatically open Office 365 files in the desktop app, rather than the online app.

Microsoft Lists, a recently released Microsoft 365 productivity application, has proven to be a catalyst to help companies organize and track tasks. On its own, Microsoft Lists allows users to create and share lists with members of their organization to view, edit, and complete within the app - even on mobile. However, where it really shines is in its integration with Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft recently announced that Internet Explorer Internet Explorer 11 will no longer be supported by Microsoft 365 applications. Don’t panic – Internet Explorer users have until August 17, 2021 before the tried and true browser is officially retired, however it is important for organizations using Dynamics 365 and Office 365 to begin developing a plan to use another browser for day to day access.

Since Microsoft originally released Microsoft Teams as a successor to Skype for Business, they have been consistently improving the application with regular updates designed to make communication and collaboration easier for organizations of all sizes. With the recent situation surrounding COVID-19, many organizations have begun to rely more heavily on Microsoft Teams to help their staff communicate and collaborate while working remotely.

We’ve put together a few of the most beneficial features Microsoft Teams has to offer to organizations looking to take advantage of the communication app in a more effective way.

Microsoft Teams gives users the ability to record their meetings. Recording meetings can be useful for training sessions or webinars that you want to reuse in the future. When a meeting is recorded in Microsoft Teams, it is automatically uploaded to Microsoft Stream, the default video player application in Microsoft 365. It is very easy to share videos uploaded to Microsoft Stream with members of your organization, but there is currently no way to share videos in Microsoft Stream with external users. So what should you do if you need to share a recorded Teams meeting with someone outside of your organization? This blog will go through the easiest workaround.

Microsoft Forms provides multiples ways to customize forms in a way that make them your own or adhere to brand standards. Updating a form theme or background with custom images or colors will help legitimize the form for your audience and make it look more appealing.

Smaller retailers like hair salons, auto repair shops, boutiques, and other small to midsize retailers who don’t have dedicated teams to implement advanced COVID-19 response operations can utilize appointment booking software like Microsoft Bookings to safely open their business to their customers.

Within Microsoft Teams, Teams are the highest level of organizations for groups of users. Teams can be used to communicate with groups of people, store relevant group files, or even just post notifications. Typically we see Teams be created for departments, project teams, specific office location staff, or group interests, but Teams can be created for just about any group type.