TL;DR: Your Microsoft 365 subscription contains dozens of tools most businesses have never opened. This guide covers the highest-value hidden features - from Microsoft Forms and Bookings to Power Automate and Viva Insights - that could replace paid third-party tools you are currently paying for separately.
You Are Already Paying for These Tools
The average Microsoft 365 Business Premium subscriber uses six features: Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Teams chat, and Teams video. That is out of approximately 40 distinct applications and capabilities included in the subscription.
This is not a criticism - Microsoft 365 is not well-packaged for discoverability, and the naming conventions (Viva Insights, Power Automate, Bookings, Forms, Lists…) give no indication of what these tools actually do. This guide is a curated tour of the features most likely to change how your business operates.
Microsoft Bookings: Kill the Scheduling Back-and-Forth
What it is: An online appointment scheduling tool, similar to Calendly or Acuity Scheduling.
What it replaces: Calendly ($20+/month), Acuity Scheduling, or the back-and-forth email chain to schedule a meeting.
How it works: You create a Bookings page that shows your available time slots. Clients or colleagues click a time, fill in their details, and the meeting is automatically added to both calendars. Confirmation and reminder emails are sent automatically.
Where to find it: Microsoft 365 admin centre > Apps > Bookings, or directly at outlook.office.com/bookings.
Best use cases: Client onboarding calls, sales discovery calls, support appointments, interview scheduling, advisory consultations.
Setup time: About 20 minutes to set up your first booking type.
Microsoft Forms: Surveys, Quizzes, and Registration Forms
What it is: A form and survey builder, similar to Google Forms or Typeform.
What it replaces: SurveyMonkey ($40+/month), Google Forms (requires Google Workspace), Typeform ($50+/month).
How it works: Drag-and-drop form builder with text, multiple choice, rating scales, file upload, and branching logic. Responses go into an Excel spreadsheet automatically. Share via link or embed on a SharePoint page.
Best use cases: Client feedback surveys, event registrations, internal HR surveys, lead capture forms on your intranet, pre-meeting questionnaires, post-project reviews.
Hidden capability: Forms integrates with Power Automate (see below), so you can trigger automated emails, create tasks, or update spreadsheets when a form is submitted.
Microsoft Lists: Project Tracking Without Buying Monday.com
What it is: A flexible list and tracking tool, similar to Airtable or a simplified version of Monday.com.
What it replaces: Monday.com ($20+/user/month), Trello, Airtable, or custom Excel tracking spreadsheets.
How it works: Create structured lists with custom columns - text, numbers, dates, choices, lookups, and calculated fields. Multiple views: grid (like Excel), gallery, calendar, and Gantt-style timeline. Share with your team on Teams or SharePoint.
Best use cases: Project tracking, issue registers, client onboarding checklists, IT asset registers, contract trackers, staff leave requests.
Integration: Lists appears natively inside Teams as a tab in any channel - your team never has to leave Teams to update their project tracker.
Power Automate: Automate Repetitive Tasks Without Code
What it is: A workflow automation tool, similar to Zapier or Make.
What it replaces: Zapier ($50+/month), Make ($20+/month), or hours of manual repetitive work.
How it works: Build automated workflows - called flows - that trigger on events and perform actions across Microsoft 365 and hundreds of connected apps. Examples:
- When a new email arrives with an attachment → save the attachment to a specific SharePoint folder → notify the relevant person in Teams
- When a Form is submitted → create a task in Planner → send a confirmation email
- When a file is added to SharePoint → send an approval request → if approved, move to the final folder
- On the 1st of each month → send a Teams message to the team with a reminder
Where to find it: make.powerautomate.com or in any Microsoft 365 app’s “Automate” section.
Getting started: Microsoft provides hundreds of pre-built templates. Search for templates related to your use case rather than building from scratch.
Microsoft Planner: Simple Project Management in Teams
What it is: A visual task and project management tool, similar to a simplified Monday.com or Trello.
What it replaces: Trello, basic Monday.com plans, or the Excel project tracker you are currently sending around by email.
How it works: Create plans with tasks, assign owners, set due dates, and track progress in a Kanban board, timeline, or grid view. Plans appear as tabs in Teams channels so the whole team sees the same view.
Best use cases: Team project tracking, client deliverables, marketing campaign management, office move coordination, IT project management.
New in 2025-26: Microsoft has unified Planner and Project into a new Microsoft Planner experience that includes timeline views (Gantt charts) and integrates with Microsoft Copilot for AI-assisted task management.
SharePoint: Your Intranet and Document Management System
What it is: A document management and intranet platform that most businesses treat purely as a file storage location, missing most of its value.
What you are probably missing:
SharePoint Pages and News: Build a company intranet with department pages, news posts, quick links, and embedded Forms or Planner boards. A properly built SharePoint intranet replaces the scattered communication of “just send everyone an email.”
Document metadata and search: Instead of folders within folders within folders, SharePoint supports tagging documents with metadata (client, project, document type, status) and searching across all metadata. Finding a document becomes a search, not an archaeology expedition.
Version history: Every version of every document is saved automatically. You can see who changed what and when, and restore any previous version. The “final_v3_actualfinal2.docx” naming problem is solved.
SharePoint Online vs OneDrive: SharePoint is for team files (shared, structured, versioned). OneDrive is for personal files and drafts. Understanding this distinction and structuring your files accordingly is one of the highest-value Microsoft 365 configuration improvements most businesses can make.
Microsoft Defender for Business: Security Already in Your Subscription
What it is: Enterprise-grade endpoint security, included in Microsoft 365 Business Premium.
What it replaces: Paid third-party antivirus and endpoint protection tools ($10-30/device/month), such as Sophos, Trend Micro, or CrowdStrike Falcon Go.
What it does: Microsoft Defender for Business provides:
- Next-generation antivirus and anti-malware
- Endpoint Detection and Response (EDR) - detects sophisticated attacks that signature-based antivirus misses
- Attack surface reduction rules
- Vulnerability management - scans your devices for known vulnerabilities and prioritises remediation
- Integration with Microsoft Intune for policy management
Why many businesses are not using it: Defender for Business requires configuration to be effective. Out of the box, it is not fully deployed. A managed IT provider should configure Defender for Business as part of any Microsoft 365 Business Premium deployment.
Microsoft Intune: Manage All Your Devices From One Console
What it is: Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) for all company devices - Windows, Mac, iOS, Android.
What it replaces: Jamf (for Mac management, $10+/device/month), separate MDM tools for mobile devices.
What it does:
- Deploy configuration profiles to all devices (Wi-Fi settings, VPN, email configuration)
- Enforce compliance policies (require encryption, PIN, current OS version)
- Deploy and update applications across all devices remotely
- Remotely wipe a lost or stolen device
- Apply conditional access policies (only allow access from compliant devices)
- Autopilot: new devices are automatically configured when powered on for the first time
Why this matters: Without device management, there is no way to ensure all company devices meet your security requirements. Intune is the technical foundation for enforcing your BYOD policy and keeping all devices in a known, compliant state.
Microsoft Viva Insights: Understand How Your Team Works
What it is: A personal productivity and wellbeing tool that analyses work patterns and surfaces actionable insights.
What it does:
- Shows personal productivity metrics (focus time, meeting hours, after-hours work)
- Suggests focus time blocks in your calendar
- Reminds you to follow up on commitments made in email
- Provides team-level insights (managers only) on collaboration patterns
- Sends a weekly email digest with personal productivity summary
Privacy note: Personal insights are visible only to the individual. Manager-level insights are aggregated and anonymised. No individual’s data is visible to managers in the standard configuration.
Where to find it: insights.viva.office.com or via the Viva Insights app in Teams.
Azure Active Directory (Now Microsoft Entra ID): Identity Security
What it is: The identity and access management platform underlying all Microsoft 365 services. In Business Premium, you get Azure AD P1 (now called Microsoft Entra ID P1), which unlocks significant security capabilities.
Key features you should be using:
Conditional Access Policies: Set rules that control when and how users can access Microsoft 365. Examples: “Only allow access from managed devices”, “Require MFA when signing in from a new country”, “Block access if sign-in risk is high”. This is one of the most powerful security controls in the Microsoft 365 stack.
Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR): Allow users to reset their own passwords securely without calling IT. Saves helpdesk time and eliminates the security risk of informal password resets.
Sign-in Risk Detection: Microsoft analyses billions of sign-ins daily and uses machine learning to detect anomalous sign-in patterns. If a sign-in looks risky, you can automatically require additional authentication or block access.
Making the Most of What You Have
The businesses that get the most value from Microsoft 365 are those with a managed IT provider who actively deploys, configures, and governs these tools - not just keeps them running.
If you are on Microsoft 365 Business Premium and your IT provider has not talked to you about Conditional Access Policies, Defender for Business configuration, Intune device enrolment, or Power Automate, those are conversations worth having.
For a comparison of Microsoft 365 plan tiers and what you get at each level, see our Microsoft 365 Licence Comparison Cheat Sheet.
To understand whether the Microsoft Intune Suite upgrade makes sense for your business, see Should Your Business Upgrade to Microsoft Intune Suite?
Book a Right Fit Call if you want a Microsoft 365 health check - we can tell you exactly which capabilities you are paying for and not using.
