Most businesses on Microsoft 365 use about a third of what their subscription includes. Here is what the rest looks like — and why it matters.

 

Microsoft 365 is one of the most widely used business platforms in the UK. Most small and medium businesses rely on it daily for email, documents, and video calls. But research consistently shows that the majority of organisations use fewer than a third of the features included in their subscription.

For businesses paying a monthly per-user fee, that represents significant value left on the table. Worse, many are paying separately for tools that Microsoft 365 already includes.

This guide covers ten features that should be part of every business’s daily workflow, organised by category, with practical guidance on what each one does and why it is worth using.

Productivity tools included in Microsoft 365

 

Microsoft Bookings

Microsoft Bookings is a scheduling tool that lets clients and colleagues book time directly into your calendar based on your real availability. If your team still coordinates meeting times over email, Bookings removes that process entirely.

It is the equivalent of tools like Calendly, included with Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Standard, and Premium at no additional cost. Setup takes around 15 minutes and the time saving is immediate.

 

Microsoft Forms

Forms lets you build surveys, feedback forms, event registrations, and internal questionnaires in minutes. Responses are collected automatically and fed directly into Excel for analysis.

If your business currently uses SurveyMonkey or a similar third-party tool for this purpose, it is worth knowing that Forms covers the same ground and is already included in your Microsoft 365 subscription.

 

Microsoft Planner

Planner is a visual task and project management tool built directly into Microsoft Teams. It provides task lists, assignments, deadlines, and progress tracking, all visible to the relevant team members without adding another application to manage.

For businesses currently using Trello, Asana, or similar tools for lightweight project management, Planner is worth evaluating as a consolidation opportunity.

 

Viva Insights

Viva Insights provides data on individual and team working patterns, including meeting load, focus time, collaboration habits, and indicators of overwork. It is available within Microsoft Teams and gives managers and individuals genuinely useful data about how time is being spent.

For growing businesses trying to understand productivity and workload distribution across their teams, Viva Insights surfaces information that most organisations do not know they have access to.

 

SharePoint

SharePoint is frequently underestimated. Used properly, it functions as your business’s intranet, document management system, and team collaboration space in one platform. Team sites, company news, shared resource libraries, and project spaces are all accessible from any device without a VPN.

For businesses still relying on a local file server or a disorganised shared drive, SharePoint provides a structured, searchable, and properly governed alternative that is already included in your subscription.

 

 

Getting more from Microsoft Teams

 

Live transcription and meeting notes

Every Microsoft Teams meeting can produce a real-time transcript that is searchable, shareable, and permanently stored within your Microsoft 365 environment. This removes the need for manual note-taking during meetings and ensures that decisions, actions, and discussions are captured automatically.

For businesses that regularly hold client or internal meetings where accurate records matter, this feature alone justifies attention.

 

Channels and tabs

Organising Teams beyond a single general chat significantly improves how teams communicate and find information. Channels by project, client, or topic keep conversations organised and separated. Pinned tabs within channels make relevant files, applications, and websites immediately accessible without searching.

Businesses that invest time in structuring their Teams environment typically see a meaningful reduction in email volume and the time spent looking for information.

 

Approvals

The Approvals feature in Teams allows requests to be made, tracked, and signed off within Teams without switching to email. Approvals are documented, time-stamped, and visible to all relevant parties.

For businesses where approval processes currently happen informally over email or in conversation, this provides a straightforward way to create an auditable record.

 

 

Security features worth enabling today

 

Multi-factor authentication

If MFA is not enabled on every account in your Microsoft 365 environment, this is the single most important thing to address. According to Microsoft’s own published research, MFA blocks 99.9% of automated account attacks.

MFA is included with every Microsoft 365 business plan. It takes approximately 20 minutes to enable across an entire team and requires no additional spend. For most small businesses, enabling MFA is the highest-impact security action available to them right now.

 

Microsoft Secure Score

Microsoft Secure Score, accessible at security.microsoft.com, gives your Microsoft 365 environment a security rating out of 100 and provides a prioritised list of recommended improvements. Each recommendation includes a plain-English explanation of what it addresses and step-by-step guidance on how to implement it.

Secure Score is completely free to access for any Microsoft 365 customer and provides one of the clearest pictures available of where your environment has security gaps and what closing them would involve.

 

 

 

The configuration gap

 

The difference between the Microsoft 365 that most businesses run and the Microsoft 365 that could genuinely improve how they work is not a budget gap. It is a configuration and awareness gap.

Every feature covered in this guide is available to the vast majority of businesses already on Microsoft 365. None require additional spend. All require someone to set them up and make sure the relevant team members know they exist and how to use them.

For many businesses, a structured review of their Microsoft 365 environment — looking at what is configured, what is not, and what the team is actually using — surfaces both quick wins and longer-term improvements that make a meaningful difference to productivity and security.