5 Microsoft 365 Features Your Team Isn't Using (But Should Be)
Most small businesses are paying for Microsoft 365 every month and using roughly 20% of what it includes. Email works, Word opens, and Teams gets used for the occasional video call — and everything else sits untouched. That's a significant amount of value being left on the table. Here are five Microsoft 365 features already included in your subscription that could make a measurable difference to how your team works.
1. Microsoft Teams Channels (Not Just Chat)
Most small businesses use Microsoft Teams as a video calling tool and not much else. But Teams Channels — the structured, topic-based spaces within a Team — are one of the most effective ways to organise communication and reduce email overload in a small organisation.
How channels differ from chat
Chat in Teams is ephemeral and personal: it's good for quick questions, but finding information later is difficult. Channels are persistent, searchable, and organised by topic, project, or department. A finance team can have a channel for invoices, a separate one for payroll queries, and another for supplier communications — all with relevant files stored directly alongside the conversation.
You can also pin tabs to channels: a SharePoint document library, a shared calendar, a Power BI report, or even a website. This turns a channel into a mini-workspace for a particular function, without needing to switch between applications constantly.
2. SharePoint for Document Management
OneDrive is familiar to most Microsoft 365 users — it's personal cloud storage, similar to Dropbox. SharePoint is different: it's shared document storage with version history, permission controls, and the ability to co-author documents simultaneously. It's already included in every Microsoft 365 Business plan, but a significant number of small businesses never set it up properly.
Why SharePoint beats a shared drive
A traditional shared network drive has no version history, no granular permissions, and no way to edit documents simultaneously. SharePoint solves all three. If someone overwrites a file by mistake, you can restore a previous version. If you need the finance team to access certain folders but not others, you can set that up without complex IT configurations. And when two people need to work on the same document at the same time, SharePoint handles it natively.
If your business stores important documents on a shared drive, a network-attached storage device, or — worse — in individual email inboxes, migrating to SharePoint is one of the most impactful improvements you can make to your day-to-day operations.
3. Microsoft Bookings
Microsoft Bookings is a scheduling tool that allows customers, suppliers, or colleagues to book appointments with your team directly, without the back-and-forth of finding a mutual time via email. It's included in Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Premium, and most small businesses have never opened it.
Practical uses for a small business
Bookings integrates with your Microsoft 365 calendar and shows your real-time availability. You create a booking page, define your available hours and appointment types, and share a link. The person books a slot, receives an automatic confirmation and reminder, and it appears in your calendar immediately. For businesses that handle client consultations, project kick-off calls, or any type of scheduled appointment, this eliminates a significant amount of administrative overhead.
4. Microsoft Forms and Power Automate
Microsoft Forms is a straightforward tool for creating surveys, questionnaires, and data collection forms. On its own it's useful. Combined with Power Automate — also included in most Microsoft 365 plans — it becomes significantly more powerful.
Automating routine processes
Power Automate allows you to create automated workflows between Microsoft 365 applications and hundreds of third-party services. Some examples that are straightforward to set up without any coding knowledge:
- When a form response is submitted, automatically create a task in Microsoft Planner and send a notification in Teams
- When a file is added to a specific SharePoint folder, send an email to the relevant team member
- When a new row is added to an Excel spreadsheet, automatically send a confirmation email to the customer
These aren't hypothetical use cases — they're the kinds of manual handoffs that cost small business teams hours every week. Power Automate handles them without anyone needing to remember to do anything.
5. Microsoft Defender for Business (Business Premium Only)
If your business is on Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you have access to Microsoft Defender for Business — a genuine enterprise-grade endpoint security product. Many small businesses on Premium have it sitting inactive because no one turned it on.
What Defender for Business actually does
Defender for Business goes well beyond basic antivirus. It provides real-time threat detection, behavioural analysis (identifying suspicious activity even when there's no known malware signature), automated investigation and remediation, and a centralised security dashboard where you can see the security status of every device in your organisation. For a small business, this is the kind of visibility that was previously only available to large enterprises with dedicated security teams.
Activating and configuring Defender properly requires some initial setup — Lasetech regularly helps businesses on Business Premium get this running correctly as part of a Microsoft 365 health check. If you're paying for Premium and haven't activated Defender, you're leaving your most valuable security tool dormant.
For context on how these security features fit into a broader cybersecurity posture, see our post on what multi-factor authentication is and why your IT provider should be enforcing it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Microsoft Bookings included in Microsoft 365 Business Basic?
No — Microsoft Bookings is included in Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Business Premium, but not in Business Basic. If you're on Basic and want to use Bookings, you would need to upgrade at least one licence to Standard, though in practice most businesses that want Bookings benefit from Standard across the board.
Do I need technical knowledge to use Power Automate?
For simple workflows, no. Power Automate has a template library with hundreds of pre-built automations that you can activate and adapt without any coding. More complex workflows — particularly those involving conditions, loops, or integration with custom systems — may require some technical assistance, but the basics are genuinely accessible to non-technical users.
How do I access SharePoint if I haven't set it up?
SharePoint is available at sharepoint.com when you're signed in to your Microsoft 365 account. A basic team site is created automatically when you set up a Microsoft 365 group or Teams team. However, getting the most from SharePoint — setting up a sensible folder structure, configuring permissions, and migrating existing files — is worth doing properly with guidance from your IT provider.
Can Microsoft Teams Channels be used with external contacts?
Yes — Microsoft Teams supports guest access, which allows people outside your organisation to participate in specific Teams and channels using their own email address. Guests have limited access and cannot see other Teams or channels they haven't been invited to, making it a practical way to collaborate with clients, contractors, or suppliers without giving them access to your broader Microsoft 365 environment.