Allow Microsoft 365 Groups To Work For Your Business

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There’s a big difference between using technology and putting it to its full potential. Microsoft is the perfect example. Apps like Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint have been around since the ‘80s, and have become more than just household names – they’re the standard that every other word processor, spreadsheet manager, and presentation builder strives towards. The apps have advanced in leaps and bounds since their origin in the ‘80s, but most people still only use the basics. And the same is the case for newer Microsoft apps and cloud solutions as well. Few businesses understand and take full advantage of the myriad of features that platforms like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams can offer.

That’s why, in this article, we are going to look at the ways that your existing tools like SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams can improve productivity, increase scalability, and see your Microsoft technology working for you.

Creating Microsoft 365 Groups

Most companies are made up of teams with very different focuses and requiring very different resources. Your Marketing team won’t need access to the same information as your Accounts team, for example. So why assign access rights and permissions to individual humans within your business, when you could be assigning them to teams of people?

This is what Microsoft 365 Groups are all about. Creating groups of people within your organisation who work closely together and need to collaborate on projects, providing them with the resources they need to do just that.

You can create a Marketing Group, for example, and ensure that they have access to the files, photographs, videos, and information that they need to successfully market your product to the world. You can create a SharePoint site for Marketing where all the necessary information is stored. You can have a Teams channel where they can discuss and collaborate on ongoing projects.

But one of the best parts about Microsoft 365 Groups is how easy it makes it to assign permissions. Where before you would have needed to provide specific access for each of your team members, now you can assign permissions to an entire group. If someone new joins your Marketing team, giving them access to the documents they need to do their job is as simple as adding them to the Marketing group. And removing an employee’s permissions is just as easy.

For growing businesses, this is a critical feature, since it means that no matter who joins or leaves your teams, you can ensure that your employees have access to the information that they need, when and where they need it, without compromising your data security.

Putting The Correct Data Structures In Place

There is little worse than knowing that there’s a file out there with exactly the information that you need, but struggling to find it.

In this modern age, businesses are dealing with a deluge of data. They’re getting it from every source imaginable. And ensuring that this data is correctly stored and accessible when you need it can be the difference between success and failure.

This is where having a data structure is critical. Not only can it see you managing your information more efficiently, but it can also reduce the risk of data becoming corrupted or compromised.

Imagine, for example, that you had thousands of pieces of paper stacked on top of each other. Without a structure for storing them, how would you find the precise piece of information that you need? And how would you tell if one of those pieces of paper went missing? While files that are stored in your SharePoint or OneDrive do have a slight advantage, since they can be named, without a naming convention, how can you be sure that you are looking at the latest information?

Creating a logical structure for naming files and storing information will make it far easier for your teams to find the right documents the first time around. This will, in turn, improve productivity and efficiency. And it will even boost security since the better organised your data is, the easier it will be to protect and keep track of.

Structuring Your Teams For Efficient Communication

Microsoft Teams is a fantastic tool for communication. Whether you’re using it for one-on-one conversations, to conduct video calls and virtual meetings, or to boost and promote your company culture, it provides practically endless ways for your teams to connect and collaborate. But many companies just want the platform to be plug and play – something that they can implement and see the results from – without putting structure in place.

When it comes to teams and effective, efficient, and meaningful communication, the structure is everything. It’s one thing to have your entire company using Teams to talk to each other. But without making the most of the tools that Teams provide, the value behind the platform will be limited.

So where does the value come in? Teams does so much more than your average chat or messaging program. It gives you a platform for your teams and departments to connect and collaborate. And in order to make the most of this, you need to create teams under Teams.

For example:

Create a team in Teams with all of your employees. Channels under this team can be all about company culture and connecting to each other – sharing company and personal news, or just things that made you laugh today.

Create a team in Teams for your Marketing team. Channels here could be divided into social media, email marketing, print marketing, or any other projects that your marketing department runs on a regular basis. This will provide them with a structured way to communicate about ongoing projects, allow you to keep track of their status, and result in a more connected team in general.
Create a team for your Heads of Departments. Channels here can include a projects channel, one for organising meetings or updating other departments on meetings that have been held internally. You can even have a channel for voicing ideas that you may need other departments to collaborate on.

While these are hardly the only options available, they do give you an idea of the scope that Teams offers when it comes to communication. But this isn’t where the structuring potential of Teams ends either. One of the benefits of having teams in Teams is that you can add tabs under the various channels which can help your team members be more productive and efficient. You can link to specific documents or websites, making them easily accessible, or you can even have a Whiteboard to share ideas for better collaboration.

Let Your Microsoft Solutions Work For Your Business

When you start seeing the potential behind solutions and the value that they can offer, that is when you change from simply using Microsoft and putting it to work for your business. This is an area that Solid Systems specialises in – helping you to get the most value from Microsoft 365 services and put them to use for your business’s unique needs.

Daniel Avinir

Head of Client Success at Solid Systems | Virtual CIO I have a love and passion for people, their minds, technology, and nature.I believe in empowering people to work in increasingly flexible and productive ways, helping them unlock the collaboration potential and leading the cultural & technological change of our time.