This is a quick summary of all the Microsoft 365 apps. Let's go!
In April 2020 Microsoft rebranded office 365 as Microsoft 365. It is primarily a name change
but over the years these name changes and new products have created a great deal of confusion.
In this video I will summarize every app included in Microsoft 365.
In a future companion video I'll show you how the apps are grouped into the various Microsoft
365 products so be sure to check that one out as well. Let's get started. Microsoft 365 Core Apps.
Microsoft 365 includes nine well-known core apps. Except for publisher and access
all of the apps can be used on a mac or pc desktop, as an online service in multiple browsers, or as an
iOS or android mobile app. Publisher and Access are desktop apps only for the pc.
Word is a word processing app designed primarily for text-based documents.
It allows you to enter and format text, save, and print. Over the years word has added many new
features including basic publishing functions and the ability to collaborate live with other users.
It was the very first app for office originating in 1983. Excel is used to manage spreadsheets
containing cells of data. It has built-in formulas to manipulate financial, date and time,
statistical, text, database, logical, engineering, and other data types. Newer versions of Excel
include charts and graphs and links to external data sources. PowerPoint is used to create and
share presentations using a series of slides. Slides can contain text, graphics, audio, and video
all of which can be imported from other software. PowerPoint includes templates, themes,
animation tools, slide transitions, drawing tools, and other features to help create these slides.
Outlook is used to send, receive, and store email. It also includes contacts, calendars, tasks, and notes.
Outlook primarily connects to mail accounts on Exchange Server but can connect to other
external mail systems as well. OneNote is used to take notes and gather information containing
text drawings, tables, screen clippings, and audio. There is no layout or structure, so it allows
freeform additions to the canvas. OneNote allows for multi-user collaboration across many apps.
OneDrive is a cloud-based storage service linked to your Microsoft account.
It provides synchronization to local files on your computer or mobile devices. Synchronization allows
you to share files between multiple apps and from multiple locations. Even when disconnected from
cloud storage you can work with files offline and sync them later. Teams is a unified communication
and collaboration platform. It allows you to send and receive chat messages, transfer files, attend
live video meetings, and even make VoIP calls to other Teams users. With phone system integration
you can make and receive calls to mobile phones and the public switch telephone network (PSTN).
Teams also can provide video conferencing integration into room-based meeting equipment.
Publisher is an entry-level desktop graphic design app. It is like Word for text and formatting but
focuses more on page layout and design. Publisher includes templates for address labels, business
cards, events, photo albums, invitations, brochures, stationery, postcards, and other design sets.
Publisher is easier to use than more expensive graphic design programs but
lacks many of the features. Publisher is only available as a desktop app for Windows pc's.
Access is a database management system (DBMS) that allows you to develop software and manage
basic relational databases with a graphical interface. Access is designed for small databases
and the GUI interface is easier to learn but lacks the capabilities of enterprise level
systems. Access is only available as a desktop app for Windows pc's. Microsoft 365 Business Apps.
The business versions of Microsoft 365 include all core apps just mentioned as well as cloud
services. These cloud services provide advanced threat protection, device management, and enhanced
collaboration between users in a secure cloud environment. It is intended for small businesses
up to 300 users. Exchange is the backend server for business class email and calendaring.
Exchange is managed through an admin center where you can manage mailboxes, groups, resources, global
contact lists, mail connectors, and alerts. You can also trace messages and view mail flow reports.
SharePoint is a team collaboration tool that allows you to create online content for file
sharing, news, knowledge bases, SharePoint lists, and other group resources. Each user can create
their own SharePoint pages and share them with others in the organization. SharePoint can also
be used to manage complex workflow processes and is highly integrated into other Microsoft 365 apps.
OneDrive for Business takes OneDrive a step further by offering additional organization
and administration functions. It increases the storage size to 5TB and provides
easy sharing and collaboration with other users in the organization. Intune provides management
and data protection for all endpoint devices in your organization. It provides data security
and can make sure operating systems are up to date for Windows, Mac, iOS or Android devices. You
can create policies to deploy apps to devices and control access to your network resources.
Azure Information Protection provides encryption and rights management to documents and emails. You
can apply this protection while working in Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Outlook, and other apps
so that all files and email shared are protected. It can be used to block sensitive information
from being sent outside your organization and require authentication from recipients.
Teams Phone is an add-on license that turns Teams into a powerful phone system. It allows you
to assign phone numbers to Teams users, make and receive phone calls, create call tree menus, manage
call routing groups, record voicemail, forward calls, and other features found in traditional phone
systems. You can even port your existing phone numbers to Microsoft for use with Teams Phone.
Microsoft 365 Enterprise Apps
Microsoft 365 is available in an enterprise subscription which provides several additional
apps. Some of these apps work in the personal or business license versions of Microsoft 365 but are
primarily designed for enhanced collaboration between users in larger organizations.
Bookings is a web page and mobile app that provides appointment scheduling for customers. It
integrates with outlook to optimize your staff's calendar and gives customers flexibility to book
appointments. Forms allows your users to create surveys, quizzes, and polls and collect responses.
The forms can be shared to others in the organization and can be incorporated into
PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, and other Microsoft apps. Yammer is a social networking
app for your organization. It helps your staff connect and communicate from a central interface.
It integrates with Teams and other apps to gather ideas, provide feedback, and keep everyone informed.
Stream is a video delivery service for your organization. You can upload training videos,
meeting recordings, and other videos to the cloud and make them available to your users.
Videos can be categorized into groups and shared based on your access preferences.
Sway is a digital storytelling app for creating interactive reports, enhanced presentations,
newsletters, photo collections, announcements, and other documents. You can choose from a list of
templates or create one from an existing document. When you select an existing document such as this
PowerPoint presentation, Sway will collect all the information from that presentation and add visual
design elements to turn it into a story. It's a different method of sharing your information.
List is a new Microsoft 365 app to track issues, events, assets, work progress, schedules, and more.
You can create a list from other apps like Excel or choose from a template. Lists integrates nicely
to other apps like Teams, Excel, PowerApps, and Power Automate so that you can export data or create
rules to trigger notifications and you can easily share your lists with others in the organization.
PowerApps is a suite of apps, services, connectors, and a data platform for rapid application
development of apps for your business. It can connect to SharePoint, Dynamics, Excel, SQL server,
and over 260 other data sources. You can quickly develop apps without writing code and easily
share them with others in your organization. It's a great tool to develop apps without having to be a
full-fledged programmer. Power Automate allows you to automate mundane and repetitive tasks.
It was previously known as Microsoft Flow. Instead of writing code you use the point-and-click flow
designer to build business logic and automate tasks. You can have these workflows activate
based on unattended triggers, on a specific schedule, or manually such as clicking a button.
Planner is a task app for personal and teamwork project planning. It integrates seamlessly with
OneNote, Outlook, OneDrive, SharePoint, and other apps. Planner is not sophisticated but its simplicity
is what makes it useful. You can create content rich task cards, checklists, and charts quickly
and share it to your team in a matter of minutes. To Do is a daily task management app. It is
integrated with Outlook and other apps. You can set up reminders, assign colors, categorize tasks,
prioritize, and add notes. You can add tasks to a personalized "My Day" list for those tasks you
want to focus on each day. MyAnalytics, previously known as Delve, is an app that summarizes workers
time to help managers and employees gain insights into daily work habits and productivity. It uses
your Microsoft 365 app use, meeting schedules, and collaboration activities to build analytic reports.
It provides a dashboard of the past four weeks of activity to show your work patterns related
to focus time, well-being, networking, and collaboration and makes recommendations on
how you can improve your productivity. Power BI is a business intelligence tool used to analyze and
visualize data from Excel and other data sources. You can pull real-time data from hundreds of data
sources into a dashboard and create visual representations of that data. It provides
AI-powered answers to your queries and helps you examine what-if scenarios within the data.
Microsoft 365 Standalone Apps
Here are several standalone apps that may require additional licensing or are included as add-ons
for Microsoft 365. Project is a set of tools for project management. It helps a project manager with
scheduling, assigning resources, tracking progress, managing budgets, and analyzing
workloads of projects. Project is available as a desktop app as well as an online service
and integrates with other Microsoft 365 apps. Visio is used to create simple or complex diagrams. These
diagrams can be flow charts, timelines, engineering designs, org charts, floor plans, or other diagrams.
Visio comes with ready-made templates and over 250,000 shapes to incorporate into your diagrams.
Whiteboard is a freeform canvas that allows users to collaborate on ideas together via the cloud.
You can select colored pens, use a ruler, insert text, and copy/paste objects onto your canvas. The
canvas grows automatically as you work. Whiteboard allows multiple users to share the canvas at
the same time. Editor is a grammar and spelling extension with more than 20 different languages. It
makes suggestions for refining your writing. Editor works in Word and Outlook and can be added to the
Microsoft Edge browser for assistance across the web. It's a Microsoft 365 version of Grammarly.
Fluid or Fluid Framework is a very recent app that Microsoft developed to allow users
to create and share tables, charts, lists, and other components from anywhere. Like
Lego blocks these components can be used and edited by anyone in any app. They are
independent from the app used to create them and can be immediately shared. Project Cortex
is a knowledge management service that uses AI to analyze your data and automatically organize
it into topics. It's broken down into multiple add-ons to existing Microsoft 365 apps such as
SharePoint, Outlook and others. The first add-on is SharePoint Syntex which uses advanced AI and
machine learning to apply metadata to SharePoint content and automate categorization of data.
Kaizala is a mobile messaging app for group communication and work management.
It allows colleagues, vendors, distributors, partners, and customers to connect and chat through a simple
interface. Kaizala can send messages, pictures, documents, video, and audio to these groups.
MileIQ is a mileage tracking and reporting app for mobile devices. Your miles are automatically
logged and recorded while the app is running in the background. You can then categorize which
drives are personal or business. Microsoft 365 is filled with apps for your personal and business
needs. Microsoft continues to add more apps to the lineup so this will change over time. Stay
tuned for the companion video to this one where I cover the licensing options that include all these
apps. Hey, if you want to see more videos like this one please subscribe and if you've enjoyed this
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