Business Tech: You've switched to Office 365; here's how to make it even better
By David Black
More businesses are making the switch to Microsoft Office 365, allowing employees access — wherever they may be — to the latest Office applications and tools, including Skype for Business, email and productivity applications.
One of the greatest advantages of Office 365 is its plug-and-play capability right out of the box. Even as comprehensive and powerful as the suite is, utilizing add-ins is a sure way to increase productivity. Some Office 365 add-ins are free, while others are available for a small fee. With over 2,000 add-ins currently available for Office 365, there are plenty of options to cultivate higher levels of efficiency and functionality.
If you have ever wished for a magic button in Excel that would remove line breaks and extra spaces with a single click — there’s an add-in for that. How about converting OneNote creations into events and tasks in your calendar, then assigning them to your coworkers? There’s an add-in for that, too. Office 365 add-ins enable you to do these — and much, much more — without having to switch between or open multiple programs.
If you are looking to get more out of your Microsoft Office applications, here are a few noteworthy add-ins to check out:
• Boomerang. Boomerang is the ultimate email productivity tool. With Boomerang, users can send messages at the perfect time, get a reminder if their email doesn’t receive a response, add a smart calendar assistant that lets them schedule meetings and share their real-time availability — all without leaving their email.
• SendShield. If you were to send a PowerPoint document, PDF, contract or any other document that contains personal information, SendShield will alert you and allow you to remove the sensitive information before you send it.
• Translator. If your business has customers, vendors or partners in another country, being able to communicate efficiently is key. With Translator, you gain the ability to highlight text and Translator automatically translates it to or from 50 different languages. The Translator add-in utilizes Microsoft’s robust translator online service for its translations.
• Pexels. Pexels empowers creators by providing free stock photos to create beautiful products and designs. If you’re looking to incorporate an image into a report or presentation, Pexels allows you to search over 40,000 high-quality and completely free stock photos licensed under the Creative Commons Zero license. All photos are nicely tagged, searchable and easy to discover through Microsoft’s “Discover Pages.”
• Grammarly. Say good-bye to text fails. Grammarly scans your text for common grammatical errors (like misused commas) and complex ones (like misplaced modifiers). Grammarly isn’t just a safety net. You’ll get detailed explanations for all your mistakes to help you avoid making them again in the future.
• XLTools.net Data Cleaning. This tool helps you clean bulk data fast, remove extra spaces, change text case, convert text format to numbers, etc. After you paste or import external data to Excel, you may need to clean the data from redundant spaces, line breaks or non-printing symbols. If you work with bulk data, manual cell-by-cell changes take long, painstaking hours. The Data Cleaning app by XLtools will prepare your data in just a few clicks.
With a combination of the various add-ins currently available for Microsoft Office 365, you’ll have less interrupted time switching between programs during your workday, allowing you to work smarter, not harder.
David Black is the director of business development for Was-atch I.T., a Utah provider of outsourced IT services for small and medium-sized businesses.