business resilience with microsoft 365 · authorisation (things like holiday and absence...

A Business Agility Guide

Business Resilience with Microsoft 365

resilient.adjective

able to withstand or recover quickly from difficult conditions.

Business Agility is expert in the delivery of resilient automation solutions built on Microsoft 365 and SharePoint.

We build solutions to both the common and the uncommon. This can be anything from:

• Intranets, Document Management Systems, workflow processes

• Migrating you to a new version of SharePoint

• Planning your information architecture around SharePoint

• RPA and automated solutions

• Building industry-specific solutions

Table of contents• Business Resilience with Microsoft 365...P4

• Why you should leverage Microsoft 365’s Power Platform ...........................................P6

• Automating with Microsoft 365...............P8

• Collaboration with Microsoft 365 apps..............................................................................P10

• Intelligent security with Microsoft 365...P10

• Make your intranet your core communication hub..................................P12

• Training from a distance...........................P14

• Support from a distance...........................P15

• Conclusion...................................................P16

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Business Agility Consulting Ltd

New ways of working are on the cards for us all. A familiar phrase we’re seeing a lot of lately is ‘forced digital transformation’. Many companies are being thrust into a world of remote working and collaboration. For many of us, there is no alternative when it comes to keeping our businesses going other than to adapt to the current circumstances - and adapt well.

Being ‘digital’ is about the person, rather than the technology itself. ‘Going digital’ is about understanding how to be more efficient and how to take advantage of the devices and technology at your disposal. Organisations are facing the harsh reality that ‘going digital’ is beyond simply migrating to the Cloud. It’s about finding ways and strategies to use such cloud-based tools for long-term operations. The current disruption we’re facing here in 2020 is pushing an agenda of digital working upon us. When this disruption is over, it’s unlikely everyone will go back to the usual office routine as if nothing happened. It’s important that we embrace ‘digital’ as a long-term concept, and the opportunities within it.

Organisations need to be preparing for the new normal – and what that looks like for them. Even though we’re not out of the woods yet, with the current landscape affecting so many industries and sectors, there is opportunity to use this period as a launchpad for better working. These opportunities can strengthen your organisation’s resilience for future disturbance and beyond.

Here’s a question; if you’d known this disruption was going to happen 12 months ago what would you have done differently? What would we have started to plan for? What strategies would you have implemented?In this guide, we’ll take you through areas of opportunity where you could realise better and more resilient working practices.

We’ll cover essential elements of automation, remote collaboration, security, intranets and support. All these things are drivers for what is now a forced digital transformation; regardless of which industry or sector you operate in.

Business Resilience with Microsoft 365

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It’s established that the tools within Microsoft 365 can accommodate those who are remote working. Many of us have adopted this new style of working (and many will be holding on to these principles for the long-term). However, there’s another element to Microsoft 365 that’s becoming more and more popular, and that’s its capability to automate – removing reliance on manual effort and using ‘digital workers’. This is a strong recommendation for extending business continuity. Not only is automation a strong recommendation for minimising disruption, but it can also help to balance the economic impact most businesses are likely to incur i.e. free staff up to make more money for the business rather than focusing on repetitive manual tasks that realistically could be automated.

Why you should leverage Microsoft 365’s Power Platform

What is the Power Platform?Microsoft’s Power Platform empowers those who see opportunities every day to improve processes and workflows yet are prevented from putting them into action due to limited technical expertise. The Power Platform has a simple and intuitive interface that empowers non-technical employees to derive insights and engage in more strategic roles.

Power Automate:Previously known as Microsoft Flow, this is an online workflow service that automates actions across the most common apps and services. Get started quickly with pre-built connectors to hundreds of on-premises and cloud apps and services. Automate processes within the apps you use every day with seamless integration across Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, and Azure.

Power BIA collection of software services, apps, and connectors that work together to turn your unrelated sources of data into coherent, visually immersive, and interactive insights

Power AppsA suite of apps, services, connectors and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs

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Power BI unlocks insights and intelligence, Power Apps converts that intelligence into action through transformative applications built in record time, and Microsoft Power Automate makes business process orchestration an easy point-and-click exercise. All the data captured in Power Apps can make its way right back to source systems for further analysis in Power BI, thus creating a closed-loop process for ongoing improvements.

The three cloud-based services that create this loop, Power BI, Power Apps and Microsoft Power Automate, are ideal for organisations seeking to harness their data in the most efficient way possible in order to stay ahead of the curve.

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Automation offers many solutions to common business problems. Before we delve into how particular departments can utilise the Power Platform in the best way, we’d always suggest first that organisations shouldn’t get carried away with automation. For those who have next to no automation set up, we’d always recommend that you look at automation projects one at a time.

HR and FinanceThese are departments that we at Business Agility get involved in regularly. Predominantly because they are areas of a business that tend to be very much forms-based and deal with lots of data (depending on the size of the organisation).

HR:Introduce automation/workflow into any process that you’re filling in a paper-based way or a digital form that might need authorisation (things like holiday and absence management). This can all be driven through automation. Add rules for things such as sick leave being approved by a manager before it gets sent on to HR.

Additionally, we can look at things like the on-boarding and off-boarding of candidates. So, when you have somebody coming into the business, how do you automate their access to the Active Directory? How do you set them up with a record in the directory, and how do you set them up on exchange with a mailbox in an email account etc.? On-boarding can suck up a lot of admin time – and could easily be automated. Equally, when you’re off-boarding people securely, how do you remove their access to core business solutions within the organisation?

To do all the above we’re using the technologies of the Power Platform. For example, Power Apps to create online form-based applications where people can do their holidays or absence management; we’re using Power BI to report and analyse on everything that’s going on within the organisation, demonstrating when people are taking holidays.

Automating with Microsoft 365

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FinanceAn example of where we’ve helped automate a finance department’s duties recently was when we partnered with a healthcare company. They were receiving approximately 8 - 9,000 invoices every month. All these invoices came from sales orders that were ordered autonomously from isolated clinics across the country. The invoices were sent to the purchase ledger team.

This small team were downloading the invoice from a mailbox and were printing it out. They were then re-scanning that document so that they could append it to their internal finance system and then manually re-keying the data from that invoice into the finance systems (!).

We worked with the client and understood the cost they were incurring due to manual admin. The unnecessary tasks were occupying around 75% of the purchase ledger team’s time each month. This resulted in suppliers sometimes being paid late and potential relationships were diminishing in the long term.

The solution we at Business Agility devised was to design and deploy a ‘digital worker’ for the team. That digital worker would mirror the human operative. Once an invoice had been received, the digital worker would take all the data from the invoice and upload that directly into the finance system. Then, it would append the invoice to the finance record within the system and kick off a workflow to send a notification to the person that placed the sales order.

What we managed to do was to relieve that team within purchase ledger and empower them to spend more time within the business looking strategically at how they did place purchase orders.

Additionally, they could focus on how they interacted with their suppliers; getting economies of scale from their purchasing and making sure that they had better control over stock controlling and pricing.

HR

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Users can share, co-author and edit Office and other files right in the app itself. As all files are stored on SharePoint, the latest version of the file is always accessible to any member on the team. This enables you to give everybody access to the information they need to get their work done.

• Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, SharePoint, even Power BI - are all built-in, providing access to the files and tools they need right within Microsoft Teams

• You can take notes with OneNote or access an integrated calendar from Outlook• Microsoft Teams is also integrated with SharePoint, Power BI and Planner, so teams can work in a central

place with all the necessary tools to pursue team objectives• Microsoft have also built integration with email, so users can forward an email into a Team’s channel for

further discussion

Collaboration with Microsoft 365 apps

Security is a concern for everyone; regardless of whether you’re working from home; within the office or going mobile. Microsoft 365 apps are continually updated, so you don’t have to worry about needing to upgrade to new software entirely. However, there are important principles and best practices that should be put in place to ensure you’re getting the best out of the Microsoft tools.

The following advice may seem like it’s a given when it comes to security, but it’s worth noting; as in the midst of the disruption, organisations may have unintentionally put security on the back-burner.

Intelligent security with Microsoft 365

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• Where you have remote devices such as tablets, smartphones and laptops, you need to ensure that they’re configured to automatically update apps as soon as updates are available. Important security patches are often the subject of updates, and you don’t want to fall behind on them.

• Where you may have sensitive business information – located in SharePoint for example, conduct a thorough audit of your permissions settings. Files uploaded into Microsoft Teams are also stored in a SharePoint site. You can easily access and manage permissions in SharePoint remotely or on-premises with Microsoft 365/SharePoint Online.

• Security is something you should think of if you’re starting to implement automation such as workflows across your Microsoft 365 environment. While efficient, workflows can be disruptive if proper permissions, check points or approvals aren’t in place at part of the workflow itself. Take the time to plan in security buffers (such as alerts when a document expires, or an email alerting a manager/admin to approve something before the workflow continues).

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Intranets right now are a core function in an organisation. Designed to bolster communication between siloed departments or offices in disparate locations, having a good intranet is really going to enable companies to land on their feet in a post-disruption world.

You may be in the situation where you have a version of intranet – perhaps it can do the bare minimum which is helping you get by. This, in our view, would include:

• The ability to post messages on an easily accessible and widely viewed message board.• Have functionality built in to allow projects to run just as smoothly when users are working remotely as

opposed to being in the office• Integrate with other Microsoft 365 apps such as Teams, Planner, Power BI for effective inter-departmental

collaboration

A resilient intranetIntranets can become outdated very easily. This happens when:

• The organisation brand image changes – so the imagery on the intranet no longer makes sense• Nobody updates the information or documents on the intranet, so outdated documents live there and

stagnate the intranet itself• Users who managed the intranet have left the organisation and no handover process was really given to a

replacement• The intranet does get updated, but nobody knows how to use it (or more importantly, why they should even

bother)

There are so many ways you can ensure your intranet is resilient and a helpful core of your organisation. In disruptive times, the company’s intranet can be a saving grace for how the company can resume normal operations.

Make your intranet your core communication hub

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Keeping up to scratch with certain skill-sets can be difficult when users are remote working. Often, training courses in classroom-style set-ups are the only way organisations have ever conducted internal training. However, many organisations are turning to more digital avenues to ensure their workforce remains competent.

A solid company intranet is a good way of keeping employees up to date with the latest company information in a remote setting.

Here’s an example. When an employee starts at a company, there are many boxes that need ticking when it comes to orientation. In SharePoint, you can easily set up an ‘e-learning’ site. When you input a new user, this kick-starts a workflow which will give them access to the area and displays a list of ‘outstanding tasks’ for them to complete. Using Microsoft Stream (an app within Microsoft 365 for videos), you can link up training videos to this area and after they’ve been watched, give your new starters a test on said video. Having this extra layer adds a level of efficiency to your intranet – it also encourages user adoption and a culture of ‘pro-digital’ working.

Here’s a simplified example below

Training from a distance

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It’s all well and good being able to have your mobile workforce download the necessary apps onto their devices and get to work, but what about when things go wrong? What practices and protocols will you have in place for this?

Through a combination of pro-active management and rapid response rules, our SharePoint and Microsoft 365 Support enables you to maximise your investment and empower your organisation to spend time on other core activities.

In addition, our Health Check and Advisory service analyses your ‘Microsoft 365 stack’ to help ensure your system aligns with Microsoft’s recommended best practices whilst utilising the technology as effectively and efficiently as possible.

We pride ourselves on the quality of support we deliver. We want our clients to know that they can rely on our support services provided and be confident that our support team has a wealth of technical knowledge and problem-solving skills needed to quickly reach a resolution.

Support from a distance

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In conclusion, it’s safe to say remote working isn’t going to disappear anytime soon. When organisations are finished with the ‘forced’ phase of getting to know the tools available to them, it’s imperative to plan future business processes around those tools.

Your strategy for a ‘post-disruption’ world needs to be in flight now – and it’s important to align business operations around this new way of working. Will more people be working from home? What will this entail moving forward? Do departments need to share information in a different way?

Unfortunately, organisations won’t “win” by simply installing some collaboration software and letting things ride out. Microsoft 365 has some powerful tools within it. Now is the opportunity for businesses to enhance the way they work with said tools. Whether it’s propelling your reporting into the 21st century with Power BI or cutting down on email tennis by having Microsoft Teams set up the way you want it to. Automation strategies may be able to free up and empower your employees, allowing them to focus on more strategic areas of the business. Microsoft’s Power Platform knows automation like no other; and we have the expertise to take you through this.

The world has seen a surge in video conferencing; but when that begins to plateau, what practices do you want your workforce to continue with moving forward? Organisations who have great collaboration techniques are the ones who are currently thriving during this disruptive period.

Conclusion

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Let’s go back to the beginning of the guide – if you had known 12 months’ ago, what would you have done to prepare for the disruption that’s ensued? What practices and protocols would you prioritise? Would there be workflows and automation that you’d wished you had invested in earlier? We may not necessarily have the gift of time in our current scenario, but we can ensure systems are suitably bolstered for further disturbance to our industries and livelihoods.

As a Microsoft Gold partner, we at Business Agility believe that it’s hugely important for businesses to thrive with the brilliant technology at their disposal. Our solutions include analytics through Power BI, custom applications through Power Apps – system integration work and business process automation. Given the breadth and capability of the 365 stack – we help our clients with all manner of solutions. Get in touch with us today – we can’t wait to meet you.

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Contact us for support and [email protected]

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Business Agility Consulting LtdSpirella Building

Bridge RoadLetchworth Garden City SG6 4ET

01462 476 [email protected]

business resilience with microsoft 365 · authorisation (things like holiday and absence...

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