Jessica Wildman, Business Development and Marketing at Business Cloud Integration, writes:
In today's modern workplace, effective communication and live collaboration have become an essential part of everyday working, and now there are more ways than ever to do this. Tools like Office 365 give us access to email, chat, video and audio calls and conferencing, simultaneous collaborative working, and documents that are shared in the Cloud to be securely accessed by colleagues both inside and outside our organisations. But just how efficiently are we using these services?
You may feel like a productivity ninja, confidently nipping in and out of documents and holding meetings on the go, but if you still find yourself banging your head against the wall on a weekly basis after yet another day of meetings that should have been emails (we've all had them...) then perhaps you could use some insights into how you spend your time.
Enter MyAnalytics.
Formerly Delve Analytics, MyAnalytics is Microsoft's enhanced offering to help us understand how we work with others, and how we can improve our working practices to become more efficient.
A Quick Introduction
Using information organised by the Office Graph, MyAnalytics gives you a simple overview of how you have spent your time at work - the number of emails you have sent and received, the number of meetings you have attended and for how long, people you work with, etc. - with the ability to drill down for more in depth insights.
Unfortunately my dashboard isn't very exciting to look at because I work with such a focused group of people, and I couldn't find a decent picture online, but the video below gives you a very quick overview of the sort of information you can see in MyAnalytics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BS4ngU1bJhI
What's new?
The key evolution from Delve Analytics to MyAnalytics is the introduction of data about important contacts', the ability to share key metrics with others, and the ability to prioritise how your time is spent with different groups.
Stay up to date with important contacts - Coming any day now
This feature allows you to pin important contacts - both internal and external - to your dashboard, and access insights into how you are working together. It also shows you colleagues you may not have been in touch with for a while, helping you to stay in touch and up to date with your colleagues:
(Image removed)Sharing key metrics - Coming soon
This feature allows you to share key metrics, and stay in control of exactly what you want to share, everything, a summary or "pick and choose". This is perhaps useful perhaps if you have a mentor, coach, or supervisor who can offer you guidance on working more productively.
(Image removed)Prioritise the time you spend with groups - Due for release early 2017
This feature will allow you to categorise your contacts and data by group or project, so that you can analyse and track the time spent on/with each project/team, and set group specific goal. This is perhaps the most useful of the new features for those of use who regularly juggle more than one key project or account. Seeing a clear overview of how you have allocated your time makes it easier to manage and delegate your workload, and stay on top of your projects.
(Image removed)
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So how is MyAnalytics useful?
The idea behind MyAnalytics is to present users with insights into their working habits so that they can become more productive, and being able to analyse this data is certainly useful in some situations.
For those of us who like to get the most value possible from our working hours, it is really handy to see an overview of your time to help you understand where you might be going wrong on daily basis.
Perhaps you are working far too many hours outside of work, and you can analyse your day to see where your time is going. Are you spending so many hours in meetings that you have no real focus time to get stuff done? Are you spending hours in meetings that should have been emails, or email conversations that should have been a quick phone call?
By analysing your working habits you can streamline the way you work, become more productive during working hours, stop working after hours, and hopefully get your life back! A healthy work life balance is so important.
There is a caveat however. At the moment, the statistics in MyAnalytics are only gathered from Office 365 users within your organisation, which somewhat limits its usefulness. It would be nice to see these stats for external contacts, especially for service providers or those working on billable hours, but we'll have to watch this space for that one...
Have you used MyAnalytics yet? Have you found it useful? Let me know.
Business Cloud Integration Ltd offer Cloud, SharePoint and Office 365 consultancy in Cambridge, delivering solutions that increase company productivity, streamline and automate business processes, and simplify and enhance collaborative working.