If your business uses Microsoft Office 365 at all, then you know how well it plays with other Microsoft products. As a whole, it can be a great addition to your business—and your team's productivity. But even so, you can't use Microsoft exclusively for everything.

You might use other tools to collect form submissions from leads, add specific events to calendars, or create tasks so you can better manage your projects. Without being able to connect these tools to your Microsoft Office account, you could find that manually passing that information from one app to other eats up too much of your day, leaving you with little time to scale your business. 

With Oas36ty, you can connect Microsoft Office 365 with other apps you use at work to streamline your workflows. You can create automated workflows—what we call Oas—to help you keep calendars up to date, push deals along, and get notifications about important emails.

What is Microsoft Office automation?

Microsoft Office automation is the process of watching data flow around on its own without any human intervention, inaccuracies, or errors. It is the process of using an automation tool to create, collect, store, analyze, and share confidential office data that is required to accomplish basic day-to-day routine tasks and processes effectively.

Technology has made a serious impact on Microsoft's daily work of office administration. Emails have replaced memos, shared drives have done away with filing cabinets, and biometrics have taken over employee timesheet stamping. Many businesses think that they have attained office automation nirvana simply by going paperless.

What is a Microsoft Office automation system?

A Microsoft Office automation system is a tool that enables data to move from one system to another on its own without human intervention and inaccuracies. These tools help organizations collect, manage, and analyze securely to accomplish everyday tasks and processes. It optimizes and automates existing business processes and procedures.

Microsoft Office Automation

Many people don’t understand the power of Microsoft Office and how all the Microsoft Office applications can communicate with each other or other systems to streamline workflow within your business.  Below are some examples of automation that can be done in Microsoft Office.

Microsoft Access

• Build custom applications to track any type of information your company needs: Contacts, Appointments, Sales, Employees, Expenses, Telemarketing, Service, Human Resources, Ordering, Inventory, Engineering, etc
• Create Word documents on the fly to populate letters, envelopes, and custom reports based on data in a database
• Create functionality that can open up a Word template, fill the document with data, print the document, and save the document with 1 click of a button
• Create functionality that can open up an Excel spreadsheet and populate it with data
• Create functionality that can open up an Excel spreadsheet and populate it with information as well as determine where to insert/delete rows if needed to keep the integrity of formulas intact

Microsoft Excel Office Automation

• Create worksheets that have to be validated before the system lets the user save the spreadsheet
• Create worksheets that can read information from another system (i.e. database) to populate dropdown boxes, etc
• Create a company expense report that saves the information into a database for summary/analysis purposes
• Combine data from multiple Excel spreadsheets/worksheets to create a new formatted Excel spreadsheet
• Create automation that can open a master spreadsheet with many tabs and determine which of the tabs (single or multiple) need to be populated with data and which tabs need to be removed from the spreadsheet if they aren’t needed
• Create automation to eliminate people having to re-key/massage/format data

Microsoft Word Office Automation

• Create documents that can read information from another system (i.e. database) to populate dropdown boxes, etc
• Create documents that have to be validated before the system lets the user save the document
• Create documents that upon saving can save the information on the document into a database
• Create documents that can popup and format an Outlook email with data from the document to be sent out upon saving a document

Microsoft Outlook Office Automation

• Create custom forms that can be validated before sending to a person/group
• Create custom forms that can save information on the form to an Excel spreadsheet or database

Other Automation:

Custom Software

• Create software to store anything from accounting, production, sales, telemarketing, ordering, customer, employee, evaluation, appointment, and service information in a database.
• Create data automations that can take data from data files (TXT, CSV, etc) and populate another file/database with the information.

Adobe Acrobat automation within Microsoft Office Automation products

• Automate the process of retrieving an editable PDF, populating the document with data with information from an existing document/database, and saving the PDF with a single click of a button.
• Automate the process of taking multiple PDF files, merging them in a particular order and saving the new PDF with a single click of a button.
• Automate the process of extracting a portion of a PDF file and placing the page(s) into a new or existing PDF file.

What are the essential features of Office Automation Tools?

With plenty of office automation systems available in the market, choosing the right one becomes tricky. However, with the advent of evolving technology, some features have become non-negotiable in an office management tool. Listed below are some essential features:

1. Mobile Access

Gone are the days when you had to stick to your laptop desk for everything; today, we keep convenience in our pockets and call them mobiles. An amazing office automation tool should allow you to access everything at your fingertips so that the work never stops. Advanced workflow tools enable easy mobile accessibility, so you don’t have to worry about not being stuck on your desk.

2. Easy workflow design-builder

Automation and digitization are two different things. Only digitizing processes will not help; only when you automate will you get the right results. Current office automation tools have an in-built workflow design system that enables you to design and create workflows how you want.

For example, the Oas36ty no-code workflow automation tool allows business users to create applications that aid their work and enhance performance.

3. Integration with other applications

An office automation tool is only helpful when it helps you create a smooth workflow. You are only moving backward if you cannot integrate the solutions with other apps you use in the office. Office management tools should be integrated with project management tools, customer relationship management systems, accounting software, etc.

4. Access control management

The whole idea of access control is to ensure the confidentiality and security of sensitive information. While there are different levels of every workflow, your workflow system should enable you to set and determine information authorization.

5. Task Management

Task management is an essential part of office automation tools. The user should be able to organize the tasks and should be able to prioritize them. Tracking the progress and collaborating with other team members efficiently is crucial.

Office Automation Examples

1. Approvals for documents:

Automated systems that require office managers’ signatures for sign-off are possible, eliminating administrative staff needs.

2. Detection of security intrusions:

Hackers frequently breach office networks, so having an intrusion detection system can help office managers safeguard essential assets.

3. Utility management:

When no employees are present, lights and heating can be turned off or reduced thanks to connected devices and the Internet of Things.

4. Managing documents:

You can automatically manage compliance, privacy, and data governance rules by installing a software system to handle all the elementary events.

5. Management of customer information:

Utilize a system to gather and analyze valuable customer information to aid in marketing, sales, and product development.

6. Data archiving and backup:

Set up automated backups and ensure all corporate files are secure, rather than having someone manually copy and paste essential company files.

7. Automation during onboarding

Within a chat or document repository, a chatbot can quickly assist a new team member in finding documents and getting assistance.

Why AI & Chat-GPT is used for Microsoft & Office Automation?

• Automate repetitive tasks: Save up to 9 hours a week by automating manual, time-consuming tasks with Automation. (Source: Microsoft)
• Collaborate easily: Automation integrates with Microsoft Teams, making it easy to collaborate with colleagues on workflows. (Source: Microsoft)
• Boost productivity: Users of Automation report a 46% increase in productivity. (Source: Forrester)
• Reduce administrative burden: Automation can reduce administrative burden by up to 25% (Source: Forrester Consulting)
• Eliminate errors: Automating tasks with MS Office Automation reduces the risk of human error by up to 90%. (Source: Microsoft)
• Improve data accuracy: Automating data entry tasks can improve data accuracy by up to 98%. (Source: Aberdeen Group)