In this day and age, many employees spend an exorbitant amount of time on email. For some employees, they spend the majority of their time working on email. In addition to centering commerce around email, a lot of companies also use a variety of applications to connect with social media accounts, send mass communications to customers, and track sales and contacts.
Microsoft realized that employees spend a lot of time toggling between tabs or windows moving back and forth between applications and email. They also recognized that users often spend even more time logging in and out of applications (and/or finding passwords that they have forgotten to gain access to different accounts on different platforms).
Microsoft decided to create a solution that could merge email and third party applications into one centralized location; enter Office 365 Connectors. Part of Office 365 Groups, Office 365 Connectors are plug-ins that connect your most important applications to Office 365. Users can access these through the Office 365 Groups dashboard. Simply click on Office 365 Connectors and then select from a growing list of Connectors for popular applications.
Connecting Social Media, Marketing, and Business Productivity
Right now, Office 365 Connectors exist for social media applications such as Twitter and Microsoft Yammer, CRM applications such as Salesforce, and marketing and communications applications such as email marketing software, MailChimp. Instead of having to toggle back and forth between email, calendars, and internal communications hosted in Office 365 Groups, users now have direct access to their most important applications.
With Office 365 Connectors, user cans import application feeds right into their Office 365 Groups. Employees can update Twitter, follow different Twitter accounts and/or Hashtags and collaborate with team members by sharing Tweets and other important information. Contacts from email can be imported directly into Salesforce, and email copy that team members collaborated on within Office 365 Groups can be imported directly into MailChimp. These connectors save a lot of time and improve collaboration on tasks that have to take place outside of the Microsoft Office product line.
Office Connectors are also available via the most recent, standalone version of Outlook, Outlook 2016 as well as through the Outlook Web App.
Availability on Mobile Applications
For employees on the go, moving between applications on a tablet or smartphone can be difficult to do as you don’t have the same screen space and control as you would with a larger computer (and mouse). Luckily, Office 365 Connectors can be found in the Microsoft Office Group app for iOS, Android, and Windows Phone. Additional information on Office 365 Connectors, its availability, and which third-party apps have Connector support can be found on the official Microsoft Office Blog.
Do you or your company need assistance with moving over to Office 365, building Groups in Office 365 and connecting your most important applications through Office 365 Connectors? Contact Roan Solutions today to speak with one of our IT experts who can assist with getting your business onto Office 365.
