Microsoft 365 is made up of a bunch of applications. We’ve all heard of Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, and Excel – but what about all the other apps in the M365 family? Microsoft 365 is all about improving productivity, and some of these apps are truly game-changing.
There are different license options for Microsoft 365, but we’ve made sure to only include apps that are available on business licenses.
We’ve put together our top 5 underrated M365 apps that you’re probably not using, but you definitely should be.
Loop
When I asked the rest of the Techcare team what they thought the most underrated M365 app was, the vast majority said Loop.
When we say that Loop is revolutionary, we’re not exaggerating. Loop is built with collaboration at its heart and it brings teams together to work in a truly seamless and intuitive way.
It’s very similar to OneNote, another M365 app, but it brings note taking from the present-day into the future.
Service Delivery Manager, Lewis Lydiard, said “Loop incentivises collaboration by making it so natural. It’s really easy to bring other people into the Loop, and, added bonus, it makes my brain dumps look presentable without much effort.”
Power Automate
We’ve spoken about Power Automate before, and to no surprise, it focuses on process automation. It takes those repetitive and mundane everyday tasks and automates them, giving you more time to focus on more interesting tasks.
It’s cost-effective (free for business users), easy to use as it is low-code/no-code, and it can seriously improve your productivity,
Read more about Power Automate
Planner
Planner is my personal favourite and is the ultimate organisation and productivity tool. It’s another level up from Microsoft To-Do, and I feel like I’ve been looking for it for years.
As with To-Do, you add all your tasks to a list, and you tick them off when they’re done. It integrates with Teams and Outlook to save time, and you can have an individual Planner board or a shared board. Add deadlines, notes, sub-tasks, tags, and stages to each task, and personalise it to your taste.
Personally, it keeps me up to date with all my tasks, whether they’re upcoming, in progress, or on hold. It also shows me what I’ve done across the month, so it’s easy to refer to when it comes to reviewing progress.
Viva Insights
Viva Insights, part of the Viva group of apps, is a really underrated Microsoft app. It’s not one of those apps that you’ll use every day, and it won’t save you loads of time and money. But it will give you a good overview of your employee’s wellbeing.
It shows managers if any employees are working outside of their core hours, or if there are too many meetings. It also shows you who you collaborate with the most, how many hours are spent focused vs communicating, and it encourages praise and mindfulness.
Bookings
Bookings is another lesser known M365 app which can save you heaps of time. Its purpose is to make booking meeting quicker and easier and it does a great job.
It integrates with your Outlook calendar, and allows you to send your availability over to your contacts. That way, they can choose when works for them instead of emailing back and forth to find the best time. This is especially useful when you need to book separate meetings with several people – such as monthly or quarterly reviews. It would usually take loads of time to arrange all the meetings, but with Bookings you can just send them your availability and wait for them to pick the time.
So, there you go. Get cracking with these underrated apps and watch your productivity, organisation, and efficiency improve.
Drop us a message if you need any assistance with any of these apps, we’d be happy to help.
