I’m not one who usually geeks out on new tech as it seems to me most ‘advances’ are minor mods that aren’t all that exciting or do me any good. I do like to tinker with different tech to see if it will help speed up development or collaboration with my team. You never know when you’ll come across something that helps.
We employ the Office 365 suite at work, though not as thoroughly as I believe we could. Given that, I take any opportunity to make use of it. From SharePoint online for organizing important documents, schedules and other resources for my team to the new ‘Planner’ software recently rolled out for task tracking. One really neat benefit in O365 that I found is the cloud aspect of connecting data and applications easily.
Scenario: Multi-team collaboration on a whiteboard.
Typically, we would work something out on the whiteboard and either hand write the notes, type it out or take pictures. Afterwards, go back to our desks and email around with our notes and try to sync them up. Usually, we can agree on the output. If there are any pictures taken, they have to be emailed or downloaded from a cloud backup….Lots of extra steps.
NOW: Office 365 and OneNote
This definitely speeds things up and reduces any questions as to accuracy.
I downloaded the OneNote app for my Android phone (I believe there are versions for other platforms as well) and logged into my O365 account for work. I created a new page to work with (fig 1).
Fig. 1: creating a new OneNote Section.
Once in the section, you can see the new section and how it relates to any other notes you have.
In the upload example section, click on the camera icon to add any related images that you need to share.
Once you have you images, you can add text and name the page for the section.
This is my favorite part – This page can be viewed from the web-based OneNote or your desktop version (if connected).
Online
Desktop
Now, anyone who is connected to that OneNote can collaborate on the Notes taken – Single source of information!
Hope you found this helpful – Enjoy!
TG
