As software solution and cloud service provider, projects are our daily business. Ranging from hours to weeks, months, or even years, projects over such a time span can be challenging to manage. Different contact persons, various team members involved, and an abundance of communication channels do not really make it easier to keep track of everything.
Improving productivity and decluttering your workplace is key. But do we really go through with it when it comes to our email inbox?
Time spent on Emails daily
Front Blog published an article about “How much time are you spending on email?”. The calculator provided tells you how many hours you spend per anno on emails. To put it into perspective, the results also show the times you could have climbed Mount Everest or read all Harry Potter books.
The number of emails received daily does not have to be awfully high for lost hours to sum. Apart from losing time, project communication implies the exchange of important information. This is often handled via email. Therefore, skimming through emails is often not enough, the information and data has to be stored for collaborative purposes or to be retrieved at a later date in the project period.
Communication Channels and Storage
The landscape of tools used for internal and external communication is constantly changing. Commonly used channels are Skype for Business, Microsoft Teams Chat, and Microsoft Outlook. Although, chatting with colleagues and even contacts on the customer side e.g. through Microsoft Teams becomes more and more common, emails are far from being neglected. In fact, according to Radicati, the number of business emails sent and received per day in 2019 is estimated to be shy of 130 billion.
…Talk about information overflow…
What is more, emails do not only contain text but also attachments in the form of .doc, .pdf & Co. Allocating those files to the right location can be crucial to keep up an orderly structure and to actually find them again when you need them. Depending on the file types and their use, SharePoint is one of the hot spots for data and file storing. Hence, the typical workflow of a user would probably look something like this:
- Check email in Outlook
- Recognize importance of information and respond
- Safe email/file/documents locally
- Exit Outlook and jump to SharePoint
- Search for a fitting location to store the information
- Upload email/file/documents to SharePoint and fill in metadata
- Exit SharePoint, delete local file, and jump back to Outlook
- Continue working
Therefore, users do not only lose time when working on emails, but they also have to deal with program switching and several steps to save, store, and upload the relevant information. Ideally, users are self-sufficient by organizing their mailboxes. Here are some tips & tricks on how to do so:
- Organize Outlook with folders and categories
- E-Mail Management
- 4 Tips to Better Manage Your Email Inbox
- How to Spend Way Less Time on Email Every Day
Developing a system for yourself that is simple and effective may take time, but consider the time you’ll save in the future.
How we can help
We as Microsoft SharePoint experts provide solutions to handle quality and audit management, as well as the administration of documents, contracts, etc. SharePoint is a great tool to manage data and information because of its variety of features and functionalities. Therefore, we developed a tool that lets you manage emails and files between SharePoint and Outlook directly in Outlook, without switching windows or programs.
c4.Hub integrates itself seamlessly into your Microsoft Outlook window. Automated search functions aid users when working on emails, already looking for suitable locations to store files, based on the context, in connected SharePoints. Relevant files and emails can be uploaded to the respective location via drag&drop. Prior to the upload, metadata for the element is requested to keep your SharePoint clean and orderly.
Thus, the new process of a user looks like this:
- Check email in Outlook
- Recognize importance of information and respond
- Drag item into c4.Hub (which already provides a suitable location based on context) and fill in metadata
- DONE!
productivity = efficiency = time = money.
About corner4 Information Technology GmbH
corner4 Information Technology GmbH offers sector-independent and tailored Software Solutions and Cloud Services. The portfolio includes applications for desktop, apps for smartphones, cloud solutions, standard web applications, platforms for collaboration and information management based on SharePoint & Office 365. A young and dynamic team with know-how and years of experience in the IT sector, guides and supports you through your project and transforms your ideas and wishes into reality.
For more information, feel free to CONTACT US.
Sources:
https://business.tutsplus.com/tutorials/how-to-organize-your-outlook-email–cms-30357
https://frontapp.com/blog/2018/07/20/how-much-time-are-you-spending-on-email/
http://www.ittoday.info/Articles/E-mail_Management.htm
https://www.corner4.com/kontakt/
https://www.corner4.com/loesungen/produkte/c4-hub/
https://www.sharepointeurope.com/sharepoint-as-a-document-management-system-a-real-world-story/
