Blog

Are we going back to the office or not? Judging by the number of recent articles that explore this question, the answer is a resounding… maybe. Earlier this year, we wrote that work from home was a sure thing, but that was before the vaccine rollout began in earnest. Now, some organizations are calling folks back to the office, at least part-time. The latest to join the fray include JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. There will surely be others. But for the bulk of organizations, hybrid will be the way to go. Most organizations have realized enormous gains in productivity by enabling people to work from home, uninterrupted by colleague chatter and devoid of travel commute ‘dead time.’ And they aren’t about to let that hard-fought productivity go easily. Google was the latest to announce an ongoing hybrid model; Microsoft went a step further proclaiming “hybrid work is inevitable” in a recently published ebook, entitled, The Next Great Disruption Is Hybrid Work—Are We Ready? In this new post-pandemic world, people will continue to work from home, as well as from satellite or regional offices, and corporate offices. With people working asynchronously from multiple locations, organizations need to leverage their IT investments to ensure employees are: Connected to the business Engaged and productive Self-sufficient But, how do you get started? Join harmon.ie and partner ClearPeople on 12 May in a short, informative webinar entitled, Workplace Evolution: Is your Organization Getting the Most Out of its Microsoft 365 investment? During webinar, you will learn: How adoption of Microsoft 365 has led to data sprawl Best practices for connecting, sharing, and learning from colleagues How to find information quickly across Microsoft 365 apps Participants will also be eligible for early access to harmon.ie 365, the latest and most significant update to our popular Outlook sidebar. 

With COVID vaccines rolling out at an accelerated pace, businesses are scrambling to get organized for the ‘post-pandemic’ era. And while we’re trying to figure it out, a few things are certain. First of all, business travel will be curtailed for a variety of reasons, as documented in an insightful Wall Street Journal article, entitled, These Technologies Could Hold Back Business Travel Indefinitely. Second, resolution about where people will be spending most of their work time is still up in the air, but a complete return to the office remains unlikely, at least in the short term. Many companies are experimenting with flexible office arrangements, as has been documented recently in prominent press outlets like the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and Harvard Business Review, to name just a few. Another certainty is that workers will face new collaboration and teamwork challenges in the post-pandemic era, regardless of whether they are working from home, from satellite or regional offices, or whether they are back in corporate office space. These challenges are the direct results of technological adjustments made during the COVID ‘work from home’ lockdowns, including the vastly expanded use of Microsoft Teams and other Microsoft 365 apps. As Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said, at the beginning of the pandemic lockdown, “We’ve seen two years’ worth of digital transformation in two months. From remote teamwork and learning, to sales and customer service, to critical cloud infrastructure and security—we are working alongside customers every day to help them adapt and stay open for business in a world of remote everything.”  Note that Nadella said this a full year ago, in April 2020, when it seemed unlikely that we would still be in lockdown 12 months hence. As a result, we have seen a massive adoption of Microsoft Teams, going from 13 million users in July 2019, to 115 million users in October 2020. Microsoft 365 Introduces New Challenges Now that workers are using Microsoft 365 apps in earnest, they face two new challenges: Finding important business information is increasingly difficult as emails and documents are now spread across multiple Microsoft 365 apps, like Outlook, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Teams. Getting help from colleagues in the context of working with customers, suppliers, and partners is more difficult. Workers can’t just step into a colleague’s office to ask for help answering an email request. To help people use Microsoft 365 tools effectively to get work done in the new ‘post-pandemic’ reality, harmon.ie has recently published an ebook, entitled, Two Keys to Productivity in the Post-Pandemic Workplace.  Read the ebook to learn about: Unique new collaboration challenges for remote work Finding information quickly in Microsoft 365 Getting help from colleagues in real-time

harmon.ie is proud to announce that we are now a Microsoft Co-sell partner!  As part of the partnership, our next generation Email TeamMate™ product is available in the Microsoft Azure Marketplace, an online store that provides applications and services for use on Azure, as well as on AppSource, Microsoft’s online cloud marketplace that provides tailored line-of-business solutions.   Microsoft General Manager, Business Applications Group, Toby Bowers, welcomed harmon.ie into the new partner program: “Through Microsoft AppSource, customers around the world can easily find tailored line-of-business partner solutions that work with the products they already use. We’re happy to welcome the Email TeamMate app from harmon.ie to the growing AppSource ecosystem.”  Today’s announcement highlights harmon.ie’s deepening partnership and alignment with Microsoft. In addition to this latest announcement, harmon.ie is also a Chartered Member of Microsoft’s Content Services Partner Program, a Microsoft Gold Development Partner, a member of the Microsoft App Compliance Program, and a winner of a prestigious Microsoft 365 App Award. harmon.ie was also recently featured, together with customer Bosch, in a Microsoft Intrazone podcast, discussing Bosch’s information governance initiative.  Read the complete press announcement here.  About Email TeamMate The Email TeamMate app for Microsoft Teams enables enterprise workers to bring Outlook emails directly into conversations without leaving Teams, empowering them to reach out to colleagues for help in real time and in the context of their ongoing Teams conversations. Via the app, users can share emails with colleagues in a single click, find the correct email by using a native Outlook interface, and view and reply to emails from inside Teams.

Whether working from home or from a satellite office, you know it is hard to be productive while isolated from colleagues.  Microsoft 365 provides good tools with Teams, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Outlook.  Each one has its place in collaborative work but having so many tools, makes it harder to find information.   That’s why the new harmon.ie 365 is a godsend for people working from home or remotely from satellite or regional offices. harmon.ie 365 is the newest version of harmon.ie; it incorporates exciting capabilities that help remote workers be self-sufficient and independent when working with Microsoft 365 tools. harmon.ie 365 helps workers find information quickly across all Microsoft 365 content repositories, and it enables people to reach out to colleagues for help in Teams, all within the context of an existing business process or workflow.  An early release of harmon.ie 365 was previewed during the recent webinar, harmon.ie 365 Sneak Preview, during which harmon.ie Chief Product Officer, David Lavenda, demonstrated powerful new product features, including the following:  New harmon.ie tree-view to easily navigate your SharePoint, Teams, and OneDrive locations Open recent items from across Microsoft 365 apps, right from the harmon.ie Outlook sidebar Navigate to recent locations across Microsoft 365 apps, right from the sidebar Filter emails and documents to discover those that are Shared with me New Discover & Favorite capabilities to add your most important Teams and SharePoint locations to the harmon.ie sidebar Share emails and documents using the Microsoft 365 new flexible Share capabilities Sort Search results by Microsoft 365 app (SharePoint, Teams, or OneDrive) Search emails and documents by custom managed metadata Set and display record status (i.e. the lock icon) on documents Availability harmon.ie 365 will be available for general release in May 2021. Existing harmon.ie customers will receive the harmon.ie 365 update as part of their harmon.ie one subscription.   To see how harmon.ie 365 takes your Microsoft 365 experience to a whole new level, view the recorded webinar.