Webinar Replay: Reclaim Your Time: How Smart Microsoft 365 Use Saves 10+ Hours Per Week

Transform Daily Tasks with Microsoft 365 Tools You Already Own

Stop reinventing the wheel every time you write a proposal, create a report, or process a form.

Most New Zealand businesses use Microsoft 365 for email, document storage, and video calls, but they miss the productivity-boosting features that could save hours every week. The tools you’re already paying for include powerful automation, template systems, and workflow capabilities that eliminate repetitive tasks and ensure consistency.

In this 30-minute webinar recording, Kinetics will show you how businesses like yours are using Microsoft 365 strategically, not just technically—to reclaim valuable time and reduce frustration.

This isn’t about learning complex technical skills. It’s about understanding what’s possible and knowing you can get help implementing these solutions. Whether you want to create these yourself or have Kinetics build and maintain them for you, we’ll show you the opportunities hiding in your Microsoft 365 subscription.

Webinar Summary

• Time-Saving Strategies with Microsoft 365: Dinesh introduced the importance of reclaiming time in the workplace, emphasising the shift from manual, repetitive tasks to high-value work, and outlined how Microsoft 365 tools can unlock efficiency and consistency for business professionals.
  • Manual Processes Impact: Dinesh explained that manual activities and processes consume valuable time, slow progress, and increase the risk of errors, such as when copying data between spreadsheets or chasing approvals via email, leading to bottlenecks and frustration.
  • Efficiency and Agility: Dinesh highlighted that working smarter fuels agility, enabling faster decisions and better outcomes, which are crucial for maintaining a competitive advantage in today’s business environment.
  • Focus on High-Value Work: Dinesh encouraged participants to shift their focus from low-value administrative tasks to high-impact work, suggesting that expertise should be applied to decision-making and actions rather than formatting or document styling.
  • Consistency and Confidence: Dinesh noted that standardised workflows and repeatable processes reduce guesswork, deliver predictable results, and build confidence among users, with Microsoft 365 providing tools to facilitate this shift.
• Collaboration and Resource Management in Teams and SharePoint: Ben described how Teams and SharePoint serve as central platforms for sharing resources, documents, and communications, allowing staff to access key materials and build custom apps, with seamless integration between the two tools for enhanced collaboration.
  • Teams as Collaboration Hub: Ben explained that Teams acts as a versatile hub where users can access documents, schedules, plans, and even integrate third-party tools, making it a central point for team collaboration.
  • SharePoint Visual Resource Access: Ben showcased SharePoint’s visual interface, which allows teams to easily access key resources, track policies, procedures, and compliance tasks, and build custom apps for team use.
  • Integration of Teams and SharePoint: Ben clarified that anything built in SharePoint can be leveraged within Teams, ensuring that resources and apps are accessible across both platforms for improved workflow.
  • Organisational Asset Management: Ben described the setup of organisational asset sites in SharePoint, where templates for Excel, PowerPoint, and Word are stored, enabling staff to easily select and use the appropriate template for new documents.
• Template and Style Management in Microsoft Office: Dinesh and Ben discussed the creation and management of templates and styles in PowerPoint, Word, and Outlook, highlighting the use of slide masters, PowerShell for deployment, and features like quick parts to ensure consistency and save time.
  • PowerPoint Slide Masters: Dinesh emphasised the use of slide masters in PowerPoint to control the overall look and feel of presentations, allowing for consistent branding and design across all slides with minimal manual changes.
  • Template Deployment via PowerShell: Dinesh explained that PowerShell scripts can be used to bulk deploy templates from SharePoint to Microsoft Office apps, streamlining the process and ensuring consistency without manual installation on individual devices.
  • Design Ideas and AI Features: Dinesh mentioned built-in design ideas in PowerPoint and the role of Co-pilot AI, which provide quick layout suggestions, enabling users to focus on content rather than design.
  • Word Styles and Quick Parts: Dinesh described the importance of establishing styles in Word templates for headings, fonts, and colours, and highlighted the use of quick parts for inserting reusable text blocks, which speeds up document creation and maintains consistency.
  • Outlook Template Setup: In response to Rick’s question, Dinesh and Ben confirmed that templates can be set up in Outlook using built-in template features or quick parts, and mentioned additional time-saving tools like quick steps.
• Process Automation with Power Automate: Ben demonstrated how Power Automate within Microsoft 365 can streamline repetitive tasks, such as notifications and approvals, and integrate AI for document processing, providing examples from client projects to illustrate practical applications.
  • Building Flows in Power Automate: Ben explained that Power Automate allows users to build flows using predefined building blocks to call in, manipulate, and output data, automating notifications and approval processes.
  • Automated Weather Notifications: Ben shared a client example where an automation retrieves weather data for Auckland each morning and posts updates to staff in Teams, eliminating manual checks and email notifications.
  • Document Generation Automation: Ben described a system developed for a legal client where staff fill out a form, and Power Automate uses the information to generate Word documents, store data in SharePoint, and email the completed documents to the relevant person.
  • AI Integration in Automation: Ben noted that generative AI can be incorporated into Power Automate flows to process or analyse documents, though for repetitive tasks, automation often provides more consistent results than AI.
  • Process Planning Before Automation: Ben advised that before implementing automation, teams should clearly define the process or goal to ensure that the available tools are used effectively to achieve the desired outcomes.
• Data Transformation and Reporting in Excel: Ben outlined how Excel’s Get and Transform (Power Query) feature can automate data import, transformation, and reporting, reducing manual effort and enabling real-time updates for business analysis and decision-making.
  • Power Query for Data Import: Ben explained that Power Query in Excel allows users to connect to various data sources, including SQL databases and CSV files, and automate the process of importing and transforming data for analysis.
  • Automated Data Refresh: Ben demonstrated how refreshing data in Excel updates both pivot tables and underlying data, enabling users to quickly incorporate new information without repeating manual steps.
  • Visualisation and Modelling: Ben showed how transformed data can be visualised in charts within Excel or Power BI, allowing for comparative analysis such as tracking salary expenses against sales.
• Support and Booking Sessions with Kinetics: Ben described the process for scheduling support sessions with the Kinetics team, including the use of a booking tool and flexible time blocks, and offered to circulate slides and provide further assistance as needed.
  • Booking Tool Overview: Ben explained that participants can schedule sessions with the Kinetics team using a booking tool, with options for hourly or multi-hour blocks that can be used flexibly over a 90-day period.
• Microsoft 365 Tools in Remote Desktop Services: In response to Matt’s question, Ben and Scott clarified that most Microsoft 365 tools and automations are accessible via browser within Remote Desktop Services, and automations run in the cloud regardless of where the data is stored.
  • Browser-Based Access: Ben confirmed that Microsoft 365 tools can be accessed from the browser within Remote Desktop Services, and automations do not require desktop versions of Word or PowerPoint to function.