Task Integration with Teams: Planner is integrated directly into Teams, allowing you to manage and discuss tasks within the same platform. Use Planner tabs in Teams to provide a central view of team assignments and keep everyone on track.
Microsoft Outlook remains one of the most widely used email platforms for businesses, but with new updates and features, it’s more than just an inbox. Outlook can be used to streamline communication and manage time more efficiently.
Calendar Integration: Sync your calendar with Teams and Planner to have a unified view of your tasks, meetings, and deadlines. Outlook’s built-in scheduling assistant makes it easy to find meeting times that work for everyone.
Microsoft has expanded its Viva suite, which integrates with Outlook to provide personalized recommendations on improving work habits. Viva Insights can offer suggestions to schedule focus time, set boundaries, and optimize meeting schedules based on your activity patterns.
In a data-driven world, businesses need real-time insights to make informed decisions. Power BI, part of the Microsoft 365 suite, allows you to analyze and visualize data from multiple sources, providing actionable insights.
Data Dashboards: Create custom dashboards to visualize key performance indicators (KPIs) and track the metrics that matter most to your business. You can pull data from Excel, SharePoint, SQL Server, and other databases to create a comprehensive view of your business operations.
Automated Reports: Set up Power BI to generate automated reports on a regular basis. These reports can be shared with stakeholders or embedded in Teams channels for easy access.
AI-Driven Analytics: Power BI’s built-in AI tools allow you to run predictive analytics, uncover hidden trends, and forecast future performance. This helps you stay ahead of the competition and make proactive decisions.
Use Power BI Goals, a feature introduced in recent updates, to set, track, and manage business goals directly within your reports. The tool integrates with Microsoft 365 apps, making it easy to tie your data insights to actionable outcomes.
To summarize, Microsoft 365 offers a comprehensive suite of tools that can transform how your business operates. From facilitating collaboration through Teams to automating workflows with Power Automate, there’s no shortage of ways to boost efficiency with the power of Microsoft.
Ready to take advantage of Microsoft 365 but don’t know where to start? Turn to TechNet UC. Our U.S. based team of engineers offers extreme responsiveness and are there where you need them, when you need them most. We’ll not only help you integrate your existing data with Microsoft 365, but we’ll also facilitate training with your team members and make sure everyone hits the ground running in 2025. Our goal is to free up your team’s time and resources for what matters most - providing a flawless experience for your customers.
While it’s not always advisable to have your head up in the clouds, your data absolutely should be. As illustrated by Forbes, operating in the cloud isn’t just an option to consider for small businesses, it’s essential for their long-term success and sustainability. Migrating to the cloud can seem like a daunting task, but with a well-structured plan, a reliable platform like Microsoft Azure, and a U.S. based team of Microsoft certified software engineers to assist every step of the way, the transition will be smooth and the results will speak for itself. Microsoft Azure offers a robust suite of services to support various types of workloads, enabling businesses to enhance scalability, improve security, and reduce costs. Ready to dive in? This guide outlines a step-by-step approach to ensure a seamless migration to Azure, so you can hit the ground running and start reaping the benefits.
Before beginning your Azure migration journey, assess your organization’s readiness. This involves evaluating your current infrastructure, identifying dependencies, and understanding the applications, databases, and workloads that will move to Azure. You’ll also need to define your goals for migration, which could include:
Identify which approach is appropriate for each application or workload. If your objective is to migrate quickly, rehosting may be ideal. For applications that need modernization, refactoring or rebuilding may be better suited.
Create a Landing Zone: A well-architected landing zone provides a secure, scalable foundation for your workloads in Azure. Use Azure’s best practices for governance, networking, and security.
Before migrating production workloads, conduct a test migration to validate your plan and uncover potential issues. Azure Migrate offers features to help simulate the migration and test applications in the cloud:
Test and Validate: Validate the functionality and performance of the migrated workload. Test various scenarios, such as backup, recovery, and scalability, to ensure everything works as expected. A successful test migration allows you to gain confidence in your plan and fine-tune it before migrating production workloads.
Executing Migration: Use Azure Migrate to streamline the transfer of data, applications, and workloads. For large-scale migrations, consider using Azure Site Recovery for disaster recovery and business continuity.
Monitor and Support: Monitor workloads during the migration process using Azure Monitor. Ensure that all applications are functioning correctly and that any performance issues are addressed quickly. For database migrations, Azure Database Migration Services can assist in ensuring seamless data transfer with minimal downtime.
Technet UCAfter migration, it’s crucial to establish robust backup, monitoring, and security practices to protect your data and applications. With a few best practices in place, your Azure environment will remain secure, resilient, and high performing.
Your team’s familiarity with Azure is vital to a successful cloud transition. After migration, invest in training to help team members fully utilize Azure’s tools and services. An organization that adds value without maxing out on spend with the transition to Microsoft can offer assistance with Azure training and certification programs to upskill your employees. Encourage the team to adapt processes to align with Azure’s best practices, ensuring that operations, security, and compliance requirements are met effectively. It’s always a good idea to conduct regular workshops and review sessions to keep your team updated on the latest Azure features.
Cloud migration is not a one-time project but an ongoing journey. As technology and business requirements evolve, periodically review, and adjust your cloud environment to meet changing demands. Here are some key considerations:
Migrating to Microsoft Azure is a strategic move that offers flexibility, scalability, and security to support your organization’s digital transformation. By following this step-by-step guide and leaning on the guidance of our experienced team at TechNet UC, achieving a seamless transition to the cloud is possible. Our dynamic team stays up to date on the latest trends, training and features available to small businesses, so business owners can consistently stay ahead of the competition and the customer’s needs.
With Azure’s complete suite of tools and services, your organization will be well-equipped to leverage the benefits of a robust and scalable cloud environment. Let’s get started on your journey to a more empowered workplace today!
For small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), the ability to boost operations, optimize workflows, and make quick, informed decisions can be the difference between thriving and surviving. According to a 2024 study conducted by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, 74% of small business owners believe that using AI-driven tools and technology to streamline processes has a significant positive impact on their bottom line, giving them a crucial edge over competitors. Sounds great in theory, but what about the underlying fear that leveraging technology means incurring significant costs and unnecessary complexity? Unlike major enterprises, small business owners don’t always have the luxury of large IT teams or bottomless budgets. Our in-house team of certified Microsoft experts at TechNet UC can help.
If you’re scratching your head on where to begin, or continue, you’re not alone. Your business can reap the benefits of automation without maxing out resources. Allow us to introduce Microsoft Power Platform—a powerful, scalable, and cost-effective solution that allows small businesses to drastically improve their overall efficiency without maxing out on extensive IT resources.
Microsoft Power Platform is a suite of tools designed to help businesses automate processes, analyze data, and create custom apps—all with little-to-no coding required. If it sounds too good to be true, we’ll share more on why it makes a perfect fit for SMBs that want to harness the power of technology without signing away their bank account.
The beauty of Microsoft Power Platform lies in its flexibility and scalability. Whether you’re looking to automate your invoicing process, build a custom app for tracking employee performance, or develop a chatbot to assist your customers 24/7, Power Platform has the tools to get you there - all without the need for a large upfront investment or specialized tech skills.
Now that we’ve covered the basics, let’s dive into the real value of Microsoft Power Platform for small businesses. Next, we’ll explore how each component can help your business streamline operations and enhance your overall customer experience.
As a small business owner or leader, you likely wear many hats—accounting, HR, marketing, and more. Handling repetitive tasks across all these areas can be time-consuming and prone to human error. Power Automate (formerly known as Microsoft Flow) solves this problem by automating routine tasks, freeing up valuable time for you and your team to focus on what truly matters.
Power Automate enables you to create “flows” that connect apps, services, and data across your business. These workflows can be triggered by specific actions, such as receiving an email or updating a spreadsheet, allowing you to automate manual tasks with ease.
By reducing manual input, Power Automate helps eliminate inefficiencies and bottlenecks, making your business run more smoothly and freeing up time to focus on what matters most: the customer.
For SMBs, quick and accurate decision-making can be a game changer. Power BI empowers you to make data-driven decisions by providing real-time insights into your business’s performance. Whether you’re tracking sales trends, monitoring customer behavior, or analyzing financial data, Power BI transforms raw numbers into easy-to-understand reports and dashboards. And let’s face it, we can all benefit from a little less time spent in spreadsheets.
Power BI’s drag-and-drop interface allows you to create custom visualizations without needing advanced data skills. Additionally, because it’s cloud-based, you can share your insights with your team anytime, anywhere, ensuring that everyone is working from the same set of numbers.
By leveraging the power of data, SMBs can not only make better decisions but also react quickly to changes in their markets, setting themselves up for long-term success.
