Office 365 For Dummies, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5Collaborating Has Never Been This Easy!

IN THIS CHAPTER

Using social computing in the workplace

Setting up a team collaboration site with versioning and workflows

Crowdsourcing ideas and finding information on Yammer

Engaging in Communities for meaningful collaboration

In 1971, computer engineer Ray Tomlinson sent the first email between two computers set side by side. When asked what prompted him to develop such breakthrough technology, Tomlinson’s response was “Mostly because it seemed like a neat idea.”

More than 40 years later, and over 205 billion of emails sent and received per day in 2015 alone, that neat idea is due for an upgrade. In today’s world, where information workers no longer are sitting beside each other but spread out across multiple geographies and time zones, email simply isn’t enough to ensure real-time collaboration, self-service information gathering, and robust knowledge management solution.

While email will continue to serve the needs of one-to-one communication and calendaring, SharePoint Online is stepping up to the plate to address team-focused and project-focused collaboration needs. What’s exciting about this is that SharePoint technologies deliver collaboration capabilities in a way that enables information that works to be productive anytime, anywhere, and on almost all modern devices.

In this chapter, you get a tour of the SharePoint landscape, understand features for enhanced collaboration, learn social capabilities for better engagements, ...