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Microsoft 365

Business Premium Is Your Next Smart Move

Running a business comes with challenges you might not expect, like phishing emails, stolen devices, or ex-employees still accessing your systems.

While Microsoft 365 Business Standard is a great package for getting work done, it doesn’t offer the advanced security and management tools needed to handle these risks.

That’s where Microsoft 365 Business Premium comes in.

Business Premium gives you everything you love about Business Standard – apps like Word and Excel, email hosting, Microsoft Teams, and OneDrive for cloud storage. And it adds powerful features to keep your business secure and efficient.

Take cyber threats, for example. Phishing emails, designed to trick you into clicking dangerous links, can install malware (malicious software) that locks your files or steals sensitive data. With Business Premium, Microsoft Defender for Business scans for these threats and stops them in their tracks. It’s like having a 24/7 security guard for your data.

Device management is another big advantage. If an employee loses their laptop, Business Premium’s Microsoft Intune lets you remotely erase company data, protecting your sensitive information. You can also set policies to ensure every device connected to your business is secure.

And then there’s protecting your confidential information. Business Premium uses Purview Information Protection to label sensitive files and control who can access them. Even if an email gets forwarded outside your company, the protections stay in place, safeguarding your data wherever it goes.

These tools aren’t just nice to have, they’re essential for modern businesses facing growing cyber security threats. The added cost is a small investment for the confidence that your team, data, and reputation are protected.

Upgrading to Business Premium can help prepare your business for the future. If you’re ready to take that step, it’s worth every penny. We can help you get started – get in touch.

SETUP CHECKLIST FOR MICROSOFT TEAMS

Microsoft Teams is a lot of things.

It’s a video conferencing tool, a team messaging channel, and a tool for in-app co-authoring, just to name a few.

During the pandemic, the popularity of Teams skyrocketed.

You can think of Teams as a virtual office in the cloud. It’s a centralized hub where teams can communicate, collaborate, and manage tasks. There is also an external communication component to Teams.

You can use the app to video conference with anyone. You can also invite guests to a chat channel.

Here are some of the features of MS Teams:

  • Set Up Your Teams/ Departments
  • Add Team Members
  • Set Up Team Channels
  • Set Up Team Tabs
  • Schedule MS Teams
  • Training

 

MEET MICROSOFT VIVA SALES

Data entry can be a real drag for salespeople. The time they spend on administrative tasks is time away from customer interactions. But that data is vital.

It’s important to capture customer orders, quotes, needs, and more. Lead and sales reporting help sales managers know where to direct their attention.

Analytics also help drive more efficient ways of closing the deal.

Microsoft has taken up the mantle of this challenge. It is about to launch a new digital experience for sales teams. Microsoft Viva Sales is part of the “Viva” line of applications. It is a “CRM helper” application, but not designed to replace your current CRM.

Microsoft Viva Basics

• Eliminate Forms
• Powerful Data Leveraging
• AI-Driven Help
• Interconnected Interface

Tag to Capture Sales Interactions

Salespeople can use the familiar tagging function to capture data from another M365 application for a prospect or customer.

Collaborate

Viva Sales makes it easier than ever to collaborate with your team.

Call Summaries & Integrated Data

Viva Sales brings all that customer engagement data together into a single view.

This allows the salesperson to see call summaries and capture call action items.

Download & Customize

Download lead and customer lists. Customize the application per the organization’s needs.

Take Advantage of Microsoft Viva Automation

Microsoft built the Viva suite of digital experience apps for productivity. These apps help employees find information faster, feel more connected,
and work more productively.

A Love Letter To Microsoft Teams

We’re massive fans of Microsoft Teams, and believe it has huge advantages for most of the businesses that we support.

We all know that successful businesses have great teamwork. And with everything that’s happened over the last year, Teams has been the number one app to keep everyone working together.

Microsoft brought it out almost four years ago, in 2017. It was their answer to alternative platforms such as Slack that let you collaborate and communicate more effectively.

However, because Teams integrates with the rest of the Microsoft 365 platform, it has a real edge over Slack (the deep integration is AWESOME!).

If you’re using Slack, it also means you can cut down on yet another monthly expense and take advantage of the enterprise level security features Teams has. Here are the three things we most love about it:

Project management

Teams allows you to focus in on just the project you’re currently working on.

Information is partitioned into separate channels, so you can view messages, documents and meetings just related to a specific project.

That removes the hassle of wading through an inbox full of noise and clutter. And it’s surprising how productive that kind of focus can make you.

Easy communication

No need just to rely on email anymore. With Teams, you can post messages in channels, again with the context of the project you’re working on. It’s easy to get the attention of any colleague by giving them a @Mention. You can also arrange one to one or group video calls easily.

The interface makes it easy

Microsoft has done a really good job here. It’s intuitive and easy to use. It’s so easy to find the information you are looking for and to move between different projects. Even if you’ve never used Teams before, the interface is so intuitive you’ll pick it up right away.

If you’re not using Microsoft Teams in your business and you’d like to learn more about how it can help you better communicate internally with your team (and externally with your clients), give us a call at (734) 457-5000, or email us at info@mytechexperts.com.

Four Useful Features in Microsoft OneNote

OneNote is a brilliant tool for staying organized and on top of all of the bits of information you collect throughout each day.

But are you using the Microsoft 365 app to its full potential? Here are four useful features you may not have tried out yet.

Integrate it with other apps

OneNote integrates very well with the rest of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Did you know there are also a load of third-party apps that integrate with it?

From Zapier to Feedly, it’s worth exploring the ways that OneNote can work better with the rest of your technology.

Turn on dark mode when the lights go down

If you’re burning the midnight oil and the bright light of a white screen gets a bit too much, OneNote has an excellent dark mode feature. It turns everything dark while still maintaining enough contrast to make it easy to keep working.

Password protect private sections of your notebook

If you’re using OneNote to write or organize information you want to keep private, you can password protect individual sections of your notebook.

This can make it difficult for others to view things you’d rather they didn’t see.

Be careful though… adding a password doesn’t encrypt it. And if you lose your password you lose access to your notebook.

Extract text from images

OneNote supports Optical Character Recognition. This lets you throw a picture into OneNote and have the software automatically extract the text for you.

This can save a lot of time if you need to get hold of text from an image and then paste it into other documents. It can make quick work of a stack of business cards, avoiding the need for you to type all of the phone numbers and email addresses into your computer.

Microsoft 365 Is The Best Thing For Staff Productivity

Thomas Fox is president of Tech Experts, southeast Michigan’s leading small business computer support company.

Pandemic + Work From Home = relying on technology more than ever before.

The tools available in Microsoft 365 have developed to help us stay productive wherever we’re working.

If you’ve been using Microsoft’s software for years, now’s a good time to discover new features.

If you haven’t started exploring yet, you’re missing out on loads of ways to boost productivity and make your life easier. Here are some of the main things to explore.

Microsoft Teams
Teams has made communication and collaboration even more effective than traditional ways of working face-to-face. [Read more…] about Microsoft 365 Is The Best Thing For Staff Productivity