Cloud consumption is rising, and with the proliferation of O365 apps, users see the potential for process streamlining. They are exploring Forms, Flow, Teams, Delve, Sway, Planner, and the fun in the “All” menu with wild abandon.
Microsoft gives its O365 users the top hat, the thimble, the wheelbarrow, and the rubber ducky, but they do not give you the cards or the game board. As a user, you may not know where the “Start” square is, much less when to collect $200 and when to pass Go. Without context for using these tools and with a seemingly endless app-scape, what could possibly go wrong?
It is not that Microsoft is wrong to give users this sort of freedom. Companies that have used Microsoft products for years (SharePoint, specifically) will have team members who are comfortable with OneDrive, workflows, and PowerApps, and are eager to create their own efficiency gains by employing these tools. But for the majority of users, the options are overwhelming and the app menu alone lacks enough guidance for meaningful use. Furthermore, many organizations do not want to encourage implementation of siloed app use by a lone group of savvy users while the majority of the enterprise is left in the dust.
Here at Rogue, we recommend implementing an intranet (ours, of course!) as the base where O365 apps play together–they live in your intranet’s information architecture as the Connecticut Ave. square, or the expense report feature… which is actually a form with Flow logic set up by a savvy finance team member. This way, you can avoid information sprawl and redundancy but embrace the flexibility that O365 apps provide. And your enterprise users will understand the rules–security and permissions–because they already operate within the intranet’s perimeter. This will assist with user adoption of new apps while content owners and administrators roll out features that support automated processes, reducing paper and time-sink.
With an O365 account, users may create a wee bit of chaos with individual exploration, but if your enterprise as a whole is trained to go to the intranet as the Start square, governance will be manageable, apps will piece together in meaningful ways by designated content owners, and users will get the most out of powerful O365 apps as part of their daily workflow, making the most of your O365 investment. When an entire organization is playing by the same rules, everyone knows what winning looks like.
Thanks for reading!
M
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