Learn How Microsoft Productivity Score Can Improve Your Team’s Effectiveness

Are you one of the 651,000+ US business users of Microsoft 365? If so, how do you know your team is using the application as productively as possible?

Most likely everyone is using Excel, Word, Outlook, and PowerPoint, and maybe even Teams, but effective use of cloud tools goes beyond just using the app. To get the most out of all-in-one platforms like Microsoft 365, it’s important that employees know how to use apps in the most efficient ways.

What does that mean exactly?

Here’s one example from Microsoft based upon a study by Forrester research that a KPI in its tool is based on.

One of the reports in Microsoft Productivity Score looks at how employees are sharing information and whether they’re emailing file attachments as opposed to sending cloud links to share files. The Forrest report shows that 100 minutes can be saved per employee, per week by sending links instead of file attachments.

All Productivity Score Images, Credit: Microsoft

By seeing a report that shows you a majority of employees are still emailing attachments, a little instruction to your team to encourage links could end up saving approximately 6.5 hours in productivity per month, per employee.

Let’s dive into Microsoft Productivity Score a bit more to see how it can help your team boost their daily productivity and get more out of your M365 tools.

Microsoft Productivity Score Overview

Productivity Score gives you a dashboard in your Microsoft 365 Admin center from which you can see an overview of eight different productivity metrics separated into two categories.

• People Experiences (5 metrics): This area looks at how your team is using best practices for interacting with their work and each other through the different apps in Microsoft 365.
• Technology Experiences (3 metrics): This area looks at how well your network and hardware are supporting team productivity as well as potential security issues.

For each of the 8 total productivity metrics, you can score a total of 100 points. The tool allows you to see your team’s progress over time as well as comparison to peer benchmarks in each metric.

We’ll go over the people experiences first, which gives you reporting on five core functions.

Teamwork

This category looks at the use of Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Exchange Online. Teamwork is a key pillar of company productivity, with more collaboration typically providing better end results.

The primary insight you’ll get under Teamwork is how your team is engaging in their shared workspaces and how consistently they’re collaborating. This includes activities like sending messages in Teams, emailing through group mailboxes in Exchange, and reading and creating content in SharePoint.

Communication

Communication is vital to ensuring everyone stays on the same page. Microsoft productivity and overall organizational productivity can be significantly improved if employees are using the communication tools they have in M365, like Teams and Yammer.

This area provides reporting on how many people are using more than one channel for communication, and it also breaks down your volume of communication per each channel.

Content Collaboration

The content collaboration KPIs are where you get reporting on email attachment use versus links. You also can see how many people in your organization are reading, creating, and collaborating on content with others.

Another helpful insight on collaboration is how many people are saving files in OneDrive as compared to SharePoint.

Mobility

Another indicator of good productivity is if employees are taking advantage of mobility for their work. For example, are they reading email only on their desktop or are they also reading it on their smartphone?

Mobility looks at how employees are taking advantage of using Microsoft 365 and Outlook, in particular, over multiple devices or whether they may need more coaching on mobile app use.

Meetings

Most business owners understand that meetings can be a positive or a negative. Productive meetings move projects forward and keep everyone on the same page. Unproductive meetings devolve into going way over the expected end time, and people just talk without adding much value.

The meetings metric helps companies gauge how productive their meetings are and whether they are using best practices. One best practice that Microsoft notes is that when people use online meeting tools effectively, such as sending follow-up information post meetings, they can save 104 minutes per week.

Technology Experience Metrics

There are three core technology experience metrics that ensure your team has the tools they need to be productive.

• Microsoft 365 Apps Health: Looks at how many devices have the latest copies of M365 apps and whether they’re properly secured
• Endpoint Analytics: Detects health and performance issues with endpoint hardware and software and offers remediation suggestions
• Network Connectivity: Identifies and recommends remedies for any network problems that could be impacting your team

Get Help With More Productive Cloud Workflows from Quantum PC!

Quantum PC Services can help your Sturgeon Bay area business boost productivity through customized cloud setups and employee training.

Contact us today to learn more! Call 920-256-1214 or reach us online.