Summary: Most businesses use Microsoft 365 for email and Word documents — but they’re missing out on tools that could save them hours every week. Cameron highlights the most underrated features hiding inside your Microsoft 365 subscription.

If your business pays for Microsoft 365, you’re paying for a lot more than Outlook and Word.

Microsoft 365 is one of the most feature-rich platforms in the business technology stack — but most businesses use a fraction of what’s available. The rest sits idle, paid for every month, quietly going to waste.

Here are some of the most underrated Microsoft 365 features that SA businesses should be using.

Microsoft Teams: Beyond Video Calls

Most businesses discovered Teams during COVID and have been using it for video meetings ever since. But Teams is built to be an entire collaboration hub — and most organisations barely scratch the surface.

Channels and tabs let you organise work by project or department, keeping conversations, files, and tasks in one place instead of scattered across email threads. Approvals within Teams lets you build simple sign-off workflows without any external software. And Teams Phone can replace your traditional phone system entirely, routing calls through your existing Microsoft subscription.

SharePoint for Document Management

If your business is still managing documents through a network drive — or worse, emailing files back and forth — SharePoint is ready to transform how you store, share, and collaborate on content.

Properly configured, SharePoint gives you version control (so you always know which document is current), granular access permissions, and the ability to co-author documents in real time with your team or external collaborators.

It’s not the most intuitive platform to set up, but once it’s running well, it removes a huge amount of friction from document-heavy workflows.

Microsoft Viva Learning

Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Enterprise plans include access to Viva Learning — an in-app learning platform that surfaces training content directly within Teams.

For businesses trying to build a culture of continuous learning without investing in a separate LMS, Viva Learning is a low-effort way to get training content in front of your team without adding another login or platform to manage.

Defender for Business

Cybersecurity tools are often treated as something you buy separately. But Microsoft 365 Business Premium includes Microsoft Defender for Business — a surprisingly capable endpoint protection platform that covers your devices with threat detection, antivirus, and automated incident response.

Many businesses are already paying for this and don’t know it. Others are paying for third-party security tools when Defender would cover their needs just as well.

Power Automate for Workflow Automation

This one deserves its own blog post (and will get one). Power Automate lets you build automated workflows that connect Microsoft 365 with hundreds of other services — without writing a line of code.

Common examples: automatically saving email attachments to SharePoint, sending approval reminders when a form is submitted, or posting Teams notifications when a calendar event is created.

For businesses just starting to explore automation, Power Automate is the most accessible starting point — and it’s already included in your subscription.

Making the Most of What You’re Already Paying For

The theme here isn’t just “look at these features.” It’s that most businesses are paying for a platform that can genuinely improve how they work — and leaving most of it untouched.

A Microsoft 365 audit can quickly show you which tools you’re underutilising and where the biggest gains are hiding. It’s often one of the highest-ROI conversations we have with new clients.

Want to know what you’re missing in your Microsoft 365 environment? Talk to the InterIntra team.

Based on a short-form video by Cameron at InterIntra. Published by the InterIntra team.