This post was originally published on 30 April 2019, updated on 16 March 2020 and 30 April 2021 and adapted for GoDaddy's Canada blog on 8 July 2021.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of people working outside a central office has risen sharply, with more than 30% of Canadians now working from home. If you’re working from home or ‘out of the office,’ the right remote work apps can help you keep your days running smoothly.
If you’re looking to keep your work fluent, functional and sustainably successful, having the right tools matters.
In this guide, we’ll be covering remote work apps within Microsoft 365 that you can use to streamline your workday. Let’s take a look.
Related: 7 tips on surviving the summer while working at home with kids
1. File-sharing and note organization
Remote work apps that enable file sharing with partners, colleagues, collaborators, clients and customers with ease is essential for anyone working remotely.
As part of Microsoft 365’s business package, you can share, store and modify files securely through an in-built cloud drive called OneDrive.
Also, with OneNote, it’s possible to make notes, leave comments, share ideas and provide valuable information with real-time collaboration— giving you a wealth of scope to communicate and collaborate wherever you are in the world with a laptop and a WiFi connection.
Moreover, as you can sync your calendar, emails and contacts, all of your documents, details, projects and data is automatically backed up in the cloud, so even if you lose a device or two during your travels, you’ll be able to login and access them — pure peace of mind.
Microsoft’s recent OneDrive update also offers access to brand new features including:
- Added cloud storage
- DarkMode and additional design features that improve performance, reduce eye strain, and conserve battery power
- PDF document viewing bookmark functionality
- Extensive email events invite content summary options
2. Real-time conversations
Expanding on our previous point, Microsoft 365’s real-time collaborative tools and communication tools or functions are the perfect remote work apps to ensure quick and easy work-based conversations or even more comprehensive face-to-face meetings without a lot of hassle while you’re moving from place-to-place.
Between March and June 2020, Microsoft became the go-to professional meeting app, with an epic growth of 894%. That’s huge.
With reliable, robust and accessible communicative tools including Microsoft Teams, scheduling conversations with clients and collaborators on a remote basis is quick and stress-free.
This allows you to progress through proposals and projects from wherever you might be working.
Related: How to get the ideal home office setup
3. Multi-device flexibility
When you’re working away from the office (temporarily or permanently), having the right remote work apps to access your calendars, emails, files, promotional assets, notes and projects from multiple devices is a must.
With Microsoft 365’s superior syncing capabilities, in addition to its cloud-based functionality, logging in and accessing your work is entirely feasible — saving you time and effort.
Wherever you are, you can check in on emails, share files and even work offline with a laptop, tablet or smartphone. This means that you will never miss a beat, thus helping you avoid missing deadlines or missing vital communications that could ultimately make or break your career.
4. Content creation and marketing
Whether you’re a content writer, a graphic designer or you’re a local dog trainer, it’s vital to maintain a professional image and keep the work flowing, at all times.
That means creating engaging content for your audience — while keeping your blog, website and social media channels up-to-date — is not an optional luxury; it’s a necessity.
Microsoft 365 comes with a host of intuitive, time-saving and completely savvy co-authoring and research features.
The recent Microsoft 365 Roadmap (a hub that showcases recently launched platform features as well as those currently in development) shows that more extensive shared calendar features are being rolled out and improved text prediction functionality as well as Excel data visualization capabilities (for content ideation and research) have just been launched. All invaluable tools for effective content collaboration and creation.
And if you really want to dig deep and understand your audience to better tailor your marketing efforts, it’s now possible to take advantage of business intelligence and data analytics platforms.
These tools help to make data and insights actionable, reducing repetitive tasks and helping you to solve problems easier and get your work done faster.
The best remote work apps are all right here
Microsoft 365 is designed to help freelancers and remote workers produce an exemplary standard of work outside of the standard office environment.
By utilizing the features, functionality and platforms offered in Microsoft 365, you’ll have the remote work apps to keep your tasks organized and timely. You will find it easier to work in the remote age—and you will thrive in the long term.
