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Office 365 and Your Law Firm | Tools for Success and Organization
For years, Microsoft Office has been the go-to for business operations. Make sure you are getting the most of the features for your law firm.
If your law firm has not yet migrated to the latest Microsoft Office 365 platform, you could be missing out. The latest version of the trusted platform has so many new features that can make more complex work environments a lot simpler. Take a look at some of the ways you can get the most out of Office 365 for law firms.
Microsoft Forms
Microsoft Office 365 Forms is perhaps one of the latest additions to the 365 lineup, and it is one of the best law firm resources. Forms give you the opportunity to:
- Generate questionnaires
- Create surveys
- Draft intake forms for clients
- Automatically send out and retrieve responses electronically
Also, Forms allows you to easily transport data from basic forms into Excel for further assessment or to store the results or information in a more organized way. There are a lot of ways law firms can use Forms, such as requesting feedback from prior clients, keeping in contact with employees about a corporate event, and more.
Microsoft Office 365 Groups
The average law firm has a unique business design and operational format, especially if your firm has multiple areas of practice. You may have an administrative team, various professionals working in specific practice areas, and even teams of people who work in a team effort in some instances. Groups in 365 allow you to generate workplaces in a virtual form for each circle or team, which means specific data or resources can be explicitly provided to the different groups. In an Office 365 Group, you are going to get a multitude of resources to utilize, such as:
- A designated inbox for an email with a unique address specifically for the group
- An events calendar that all group members can use to mark specific dates or make comments
- A library for shared documents that all members can add to or pull from or notate
- SharePoint team sites for members of the group
- A task or project manager platform referred to as Microsoft Planner plan
Groups are an excellent tool because you can essentially pull together people in the firm on a single platform that they can share practically. Plus, all team members can access the group from their devices if need be just by signing in.
Microsoft Office 365 Flow
If your law firm has an issue with workflow processes, bringing in Flow is going to be an advantage. Flow is specifically designed to automate specific actions and processes that may usually involve several different services or applications. As an example, you could set things up so when a document is saved in a particular place or folder, an approval requirement takes place, and the document gets sent to individual members of the team to have them take a look.
One of the more significant advantages of Flow is the fact that it can be used across multiple platforms. For instance, you may create a Flow process that can be useful across various devices, including your smartphone or laptop. Flow is also being continuously updated to allow new methods to take place.
Microsoft Flow could be used as one of your law firm’s resources because it simplifies processes that would otherwise be more complex. For instance, if you need time tracked in an Excel document, you could create a Flow process that would make all additions added notated with a time tracking notation.
Contact Us for Help with Microsoft Office Questions
Working with a business technology service to gain a better understanding of software programs can be important, even when it comes to something as familiar as Office 365. Reach out to us at ICS to find out more about what we can do to help your law firm get the most out of Office 365.
Further reading
ICS is a Texas-based 40-year-old technology company specializing in Managed IT, VoIP, Video Conferencing and Video Surveillance solutions for US and International businesses. ICS has over 4000 regional installations and specializes in multi-site businesses between 25 and 2500 employees. ICS’s customers enjoy the experience of ICS’s Total Care program which provides clients flat fee services with obsolescence and growth protection. Whether a customer elects to deploy their IT, Video Conferencing or VoIP in the cloud or on the customer’s premise, ICS can provide a full turn-key solution for our clients under one flat monthly fee.