Microsoft 365: How to ensure productivity – Co-Authoring

Collaboration - an essential piece of the puzzle that makes up a productive workplace. Your team working as one and using their individual skills to enhance each other’s work should be a major part of your company ethos.

Unfortunately, collaboration was in short supply for quite some time for most companies last year. With the immediate lockdowns imposed by the sudden arrival of Covid-19, business owners were not prepared for a sudden shift in the way we work and were more worried about continuing trading than getting the most from their employees.

Although what many do not realise is that, with the advancements in technology, and with companies like Microsoft gradually mirroring the office in a remote setting, remote working has been gradually increasing over the last decade.

With new methods of working come new challenges; these were only accentuated by the arrival of Covid-19. One of the main challenges posed to business owners was how to guarantee consistent levels of communication and collaboration that can match the office setting.

Microsoft 365 can help to alleviate the stress of this challenge.

Microsoft 365’s solution – Co-Authoring

“With Office and OneDrive or SharePoint, multiple people can work together on a Word document, Excel spreadsheet, or PowerPoint presentation. When everyone is working at the same time, that's called co-authoring.” ¹

How can Co-Authoring help you?

Co-Authoring makes technology your ally. It allows your employees to work as a team from any geographical location. Your team can access documents simultaneously with each other and communicate effectively whilst co-authoring.

How does co-authoring work?

Instructions for how to use Co-authoring are as follows.

Once your file is in OneDrive you can share the document you wish to co-author with others. You then decide who to give authorisation to see and edit the document, and it is also possible here to restrict document entry through the application of passwords and authentication protocols, etc.

Once having reached this point, co-authoring can begin. Once all authors have opened the document you will be working on it at the same time. In the top corner of the document, you can see which team member(s) you are collaborating with. You can also see what part of the document each co-author is working on by finding their cursor on the screen. A nice feature is that the name of said co-author(s) will be exhibited above the cursor, which can make for an easier experience when working with multiple colleagues at once.

Co-authoring is revolutionary in many ways, and if used correctly can allow your team to match - and perhaps even increase - levels of collaboration comparable to when working solely on-premise.

Whether working down the corridor, down the street, or on the other side of the globe, co-authoring lets you share your ideas amongst your team. Both remote and on-premise working has changed forever due to Co-authoring. Never again do you have to be ‘out of the loop’ or miss out because of bad weather, for example.

Do you need help guaranteeing collaboration?

Which tech can help you achieve top standards of remote working?

Use the tech specialists!

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