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As well as the tools like Excel and Word that you already know and use, Office 365 has a wealth of great apps to help you and your team every day. Simplify your day and processes with these tools and get the work done easily. No matter what device you’re on, you can be productive from anywhere. and you can collaborate with your team in an intuitive and effective way.

Here are 4 applications that will make your professional and personal life easier

1. Microsoft Planner

Teamwork has never been this easy! With this very intuitive application, create a plan, and quickly start assigning tasks to organise your team. Tasks can be broken down into sub-tasks by using checklists. The in-built dashboard shows the progress of your plan in a graphical view.

Tip: Use labels to organise your tasks by amount of effort, “quick tasks”, ‘medium effort”, “high effort”. You can easily pick a task from the “quick task” list if you have a spare 15min!

2. Microsoft To Do

Use this clear interface to set up tasks with a due date, reminder, notes and sharing files with colleagues, family or friends. Accomplish what’s meaningful for you by setting daily goals with My Day. This intelligent feature will give you personalized suggestions to update your to-do list.

Tip: To avoid stress, break tasks down into simple steps, with due dates and reminders to keep you on track! Connect Microsoft To Do with Outlook and Cortana and stay organised at work, home and on the go.

3. Microsoft Forms

MS Forms will be a huge help when you need to create surveys, polls, or quizzes. Create Surveys to collect feedback, measure employee or customer satisfaction and organize team events. Build quizzes to evaluate your inducted employees or student knowledge, determine their progress and focus on topics that need improvement. Forms also allow you to assign points with automatic grading. Use the polls to find out where the team should meet or what team building activity to organise.

Tip: You have just sent out your survey and start getting responses, but how do you analyse them? Simply click on “Responses tab” and get visual representations of all the answers, making it very easy to understand! Best of all, you can export your data to Excel for an in-depth analysis!

4. Microsoft Power Automate

Boost your productivity with Power Automate by automating business processes for the entire company. Power Automate allows for the linking of various applications to facilitate the flow of information. For example, you can set up Power Automate to create a routine for document approval, or add an entry to a SharePoint list when a Tweet with a specific hashtag is posted.

Tip: Use the Power Automate templates to quickly get started, there are templates which link a large number of applications, you will probably find the one you want with a quick search.

Learn more about these amazing features at our Free Breakfast Seminar on 19th March.

We at ATI-Mirage can help. Join us for our next workshops:

Collaborate with Office 365

Microsoft Power Automate

Microsoft PowerApps

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft OneNote Paperless Office

Microsoft Power Business Intelligent (BI)

Typically, it takes up to 6 months for a new employee to feel comfortable in a new job. As a newly promoted manager within your organisation, you may not have the luxury of time to settle in. Operational demands mean you must get on with the job of leading your team from day one.

Even if you know it will take some time to truly understand the needs of your new position, fortunately, there are steps you can take to make sure you get off to a great start.

1. Know why they chose you

Understand why you were the preferred person for the role. You hold key skills and experiences which are highly regarded. Use this knowledge to guide you during your first few weeks in the decision-making process. For example, maybe the company is going through a huge change process. You have extensive experience in managing change from previous roles. Use your experience to help guide and lead your new team.

2. Behave like a leader

Transitioning from team member to a management role can be tricky. You may have some people on your team who you also consider being good friends. Now you’re in a senior role, there may come a time when you must manage them. It’s important to behave like a leader, not a friend. When communicating be clear when you’re in manager-mode and when you’re in friendship-mode. Be open about your approach to the team, this will help them understand your new behaviours.

3. Run a great meeting

The priority is to spend enough time with your team to understand their pain points and where they need your support. Developing a reputation for holding a good meeting will provide huge benefits as it generates active participation. This leads to productive conversations and measurable results.

4. Learn how to say “no”

Before you can say no with confidence, you must be clear about why you have said no. Becoming a manager includes more extra work than you’ve experienced before. Effectively managing your workload without getting burnt out is key when transitioning to a manager role. Your team relies upon you to be present and available to them. Identify what you’re responsible for and acknowledge what’s not your responsibility. If you don’t know what your boundaries are, then you won’t be able to communicate them to others.

5. Learn from every experience

Your new role will throw you some challenges, so be open to those experiences. It’s likely you had a perception of what your new position would be like before you applied. Be prepared for these perceptions to be challenged. Take each experience and learn from it. What worked well, what could be done differently? Overtime these experiences will build your confidence. You will learn and grow into the leader you aim to be.

Know perception isn’t often the reality, it will take time to understand the demands of your new role. Adopting these tips will help you get off to a quick start while you determine what needs to be done to move the team forward.