Snap Away – Two Invaluable Business Apps!

Do you collect business cards and throw them in a drawer in case you ever need them?  Would you like to be able to connect with the person on LinkedIn and get them into your contacts in one action?  Do you have documents that you would like scanned, but do not have a scanner readily available?  If so, we will show you two different methods in which you can capture these types of information on your smart phone. 

The first app is the Microsoft Pix app which is currently only available on Apple iOS devices.  There are many features that let you enhance normal pictures, but the real value comes in the ability to take a picture of a business card and create a contact based on the information that is on the card.  To take it a step further you can click on a button that does a quick linked search for the person and lets you send a message to get connected to the person.

The second app we will cover is Microsoft Office Lens, which is available on Apple iOS or Android and is also included in the Microsoft One Note mobile app.  Microsoft Office Lens let you snap pictures of Whiteboards, Documents, Business Cards, or just take a normal photo.  The result is not just a picture, but an image that is automatically cropped and only includes the items you want to see.  The real power comes in the many different places that the image can be saved (Photo Library, PDF, One Note, One Drive, Word, PowerPoint) and many more that are dependent on the apps you may have installed.  Optimal Character Recognition, or OCR, capabilities are present in Word, PowerPoint, and OneNote.  If you take a picture of a business card and save it to OneNote you will have a picture of the business card as well as the info from the card saved into a contact file(.vcf) that can be opened and saved into your Outlook contacts.

I personally use both apps in various scenarios.  Office Lens is used when I need to capture info on a whiteboard or need to get an image of my receipts for expense reports.  Saving the information to my OneDrive then allows me to go to my PC, where I also have OneDrive installed, and use the files as needed.  I use Microsoft Pix to capture business card info to my contacts, which are synced with my Office 365 exchange account, and then connect with the individuals on LinkedIn.

If you need further info on how you could be using Microsoft Office 365 in your organization please contact Thrive or call 866-205-2810.