Microsoft 365 apps

Microsoft 365 comprises the following key applications and services (in alphabetical order):

• Calendar: This app lets you view your daily, weekly, or monthly schedule, book meetings, and share meetings and event times. It also lets you view your organization’s shared calendars and the calendars of your colleagues.
• Delve: This app uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to display information relevant to you based on what you work on and who you work with. The information is pulled from different applications within Microsoft 365, such as SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. Delve is covered in the eBook in Chapter 15, Microsoft Delve.
• Dynamics 365: Microsoft Dynamics 365 offers customer relationship management and enterprise resource management services. It lets you build business applications for your organization. It comes with purpose-built data models that can then be customized as per your needs.
• Excel: Excel is one of the most popular programs that are used for organizing and manipulating data. It lets you connect to various databases and also visualize data using pivot charts and tables. With Microsoft 365, you can access your Excel spreadsheets in a web browser.
• Forms: Microsoft Forms lets you create surveys, team quizzes, and opinion polls by designing simple electronic forms using several input options. The responses received can then be analyzed individually or collectively within Forms or by exporting the responses in Excel. To learn more about Forms, check out Chapter 24, Microsoft Forms.
• Viva Insights: This app provides insights into your work habits by looking into your interactions with people. It also lets you mute notifications that might distract you and book time to focus on your daily calendar.
• OneDrive: OneDrive lets you save and share your files in one place. You can share these files securely with your colleagues, vendors, or partners. Your OneDrive files can be downloaded on any device and synchronized with the cloud to ensure that your work is never lost. You can find more details on OneDrive in Chapter 6, OneDrive.
• OneNote: OneNote is a note-taking app that can capture and organize your notes into notebooks, sections, or pages. It lets you take handwritten as well as audio notes.
• Outlook: Outlook lets you stay on top of your emails. It has features such as spam detection and auto-filter. It also has features such as attachment reminders, attendee tracking, and the ability to attach a document as a link (as opposed to a duplicate copy).
• People: People lets you maintain a list of your contacts. This includes internal staff, as well as all your friends, family, and acquaintances.
• Planner: Planner lets you manage your tasks by organizing them into plans, assigning them to individuals, and notifying people. You and your team can track tasks on a planner board and track them to completion. Planner is covered in the eBook in Chapter 22, Planner.
• Power Automate: Formerly known as Microsoft Flow, this app lets you automate business processes by using conditional logic and connecting a host of data sources. Power Automate is covered in Chapter 8, Power Automate (Microsoft Flow), and Chapter 17, Power Automate Desktop for RPA.
• Power BI: This app lets you visualize data using built-in and custom visuals, as well as building dashboards and sharing these with others. Power BI is covered in Chapter 11, Power BI.
• Power Virtual Agents: This service lets you design chatbots for your organization that can integrate with other Microsoft 365 services. Virtual agents are covered in the eBook in Chapter 18, Copilot Studio (Power Virtual Agents).
• Power Apps: This app lets you develop electronic forms that allow you to interact with your organization’s data. They can be built for both web and mobile. Power Apps is discussed in Chapter 9, Creating Power Apps and Chapter 10, Applying Power Apps.
• PowerPoint: PowerPoint lets you build presentations using visual effects and animations and share them with your colleagues. PowerPoint has both a client and a web version and supports co-authoring.
• SharePoint: SharePoint is a platform for your organization to boost team collaboration and document and content management. It lets you securely share content and information with your colleagues and partners. If you want to navigate ahead to recipes about SharePoint, consider the following chapters:
  • Chapter 2, Introduction to SharePoint Online
  • Chapter 3, Modern Sites in SharePoint Online
  • Chapter 4, Lists and Libraries in SharePoint Online
  • Chapter 5, Document Management in SharePoint Online
  • Chapter 13, Term Store and Content Types in SharePoint Online
• Stream: Stream is your company’s own video portal, where your staff can upload and share videos of classes, meetings, presentations, and training sessions. It also lets you categorize videos under channels. To learn more about Stream, check out the appendix found in the supplement eBook..
• Tasks: The Tasks app lets you manage tasks in Outlook. It lets you assign due dates to tasks and mark them as complete.
• Teams: Teams is your collaboration hub with a chat-based team workspace that lets you work collaboratively with your colleagues. It provides features for group chats, online meetings, calling, and web conferencing. Chapter 7, Microsoft Teams, covers Teams in detail.
• To Do: This app lets you manage, prioritize, and complete the most important things you need to achieve every day. We have covered this in the eBook in Chapter 23, Microsoft To Do.
• Whiteboard: Whiteboard is an app that lets you use your device as a whiteboard to ideate and exchange ideas. It supports text, shapes, and free-form drawing.
• Word: This app lets you create professional documents and share them with your colleagues. The app has a client and a web version and supports the co-authoring of documents.
• Engage: Engage is your organization’s social network that drives employee engagement in your organization. Engage has been covered in the eBook in Chapter 21, Viva Engage.
• Copilot: Your AI companion that assists with routine tasks, enhancing productivity within Microsoft 365 apps.