In the past, businesses could refresh their technology every three or four years if it was hardware. For accounting software, it might be every seven years. Often, these refreshes didn’t even include training. Your team completed training only if you implemented a fundamentally new piece of software. Even in those cases, only a few people would be trained, and the rest would provide support as needed. So many times, training and configuration have been limited, with the thought being that people can figure it out as they go. If the software is user-friendly enough, they can figure out what to do with it and use only the “out-of-the-box” features as shipped.

We’re in a new world where so much has changed, and technology is doing much more. Outlook isn’t just about sending and receiving email. You have to ensure email can get through the security protocols. Instead of receiving maybe 20 emails a day, you may be receiving 200 emails a day. So, how do you focus on the ones that matter most? How do you identify what to look at? The tools are just not as simple because the world we’re working in is not as simple as it used to be. We need to keep up with the tools and these new features within the tools.

Let’s look at Outlook and some things that have happened within it. Outlook has created several capabilities to help you get more done. So what are some of those? I’ll outline four here, and then join us in our webinar to learn more about these and how to implement them so you can get more done in less time.

You can now look at your Outlook and email views simultaneously to keep track and not have to switch between tabs. Advanced search features that didn’t exist before can help you manage your email more effectively. Using capabilities like @Mentions helps highlight to users that an email has been directed at them.

Sometimes, these features don’t work the way we had expected. The Focused Inbox caused much pain for many users when it was first rolled out. They thought they weren’t receiving emails because those emails were not going to the Focused Inbox. Even today, many of our users choose to remove the Focused Inbox.

Lastly, security settings must be more robust because the world requires so much more defense than it used to. But that can also mean you don’t receive the emails you are accustomed to. Many of our customers have had challenges adjusting to Quarantine and Safe Senders to ensure that all the emails they expect to receive are received.

Keeping up with the pace of technology is just over the top now. Where training used to be a nice-to-have, it’s a must-have today if you’re going to get the benefit out of your software and also prevent problems. To learn more about how these features can benefit your business, we invite you to attend our upcoming webinar or schedule a consultation with our experts. Let us help you stay ahead of the curve and make the most of these advancements.