Open your Microsoft 365 app launcher and you’ll find more than 20 apps staring back at you. You’ll only use a small handful of them regularly. The rest fall into “useful sometimes” or “you’ll probably never touch this” territory. This post has Microsoft 365 apps explained in plain English. Each one is grouped by how much it matters to a small business owner. That way, you can stop wondering what half your app launcher is for.
The apps you’ll use constantly
Create: the apps you’ll write and build in
If you’re coming from a corporate role, you’ve used these three for years already. They don’t change much once you’re running your own business. What changes is who’s setting them up and paying for them now.
Word Your document editor — proposals, letters, reports, anything text-based. Nothing about how it works changes now you’re self-employed. You’ll be the one choosing templates and formatting instead of inheriting a company standard.
Excel SSpreadsheets, budgets, simple trackers, anything with numbers or lists that benefit from formulas. When starting your business, Excel is a key app. It’s where you’ll keep track of things, especially financial information.
PowerPoint Slide decks and presentations. Chances are you’ve built plenty of these already. It’s increasingly useful even outside formal presentations too, since a lot of people default to PowerPoint for one-page visual documents.
Store and organise: where everything lives
OneDrive Your personal cloud storage — think of it as your own filing cabinet. It’s private to you unless you choose to share something from it. Everything you save here backs up automatically and follows you across devices. Where things should actually live is where OneDrive and SharePoint most often trip people up. That’s exactly what my File Management Foundations guide walks through properly.
SharePoint Shared storage for a team or a whole business, rather than just you. If OneDrive is your personal filing cabinet, SharePoint is the shared office filing room — the same technology underneath. You might think as a solo business owner it’s not important. But think of it either as ready when your business takes off or where final files are stored. It’s the best place if you are always sharing files with customers or people outside the business. The same File Management Foundations guide covers building a structure here that won’t need untangling in a year’s time.
OneNote A digital notes app, organised into notebooks, sections, and pages, the same way a physical ring-binder works. Good for anything you’d otherwise scribble on a notepad — meeting notes, running lists, half-formed ideas you don’t want to lose. My Getting Started With OneNote guide covers setting up notebooks that actually stay organised. It stops them turning into one long unsorted page.
Communicate: talking to people
Outlook (new) Email, calendar, and contacts in one place — also familiar territory if you’re coming from an office job. Here’s the bit worth knowing: as a new business owner, you can’t download classic Outlook. Microsoft 365 only includes “New Outlook” now. If you were already using the web browser version, or New Outlook, at work, nothing changes. That’s exactly what you’ll be using. If you were on Classic Outlook, expect a bit of a learning curve. The underlying stuff — email, calendar, contacts — is exactly the same. But how it looks and where the options live has moved around. Sign up to get my Classic vs New Outlook comparison notes.
Your online meeting tool to start with — client calls, supplier catch-ups, anything you’d have taken in a meeting room. It doubles as a handy place to jot notes to yourself, too. As your business grows, Teams becomes the place for internal conversations once you take on staff. It’s also a solid way to keep an open line running with any freelancers or contractors. That’s especially handy if you bring them on board along the way.
Run the business: the practical extras
Forms Quick surveys, feedback forms, or simple bookings-style questionnaires. Build one in minutes and share a link, no separate tool needed. My Getting Started With Forms guide covers building your first one properly. That includes the fiddly bit of handling responses from people outside your business.
Bookings An appointment scheduling page where clients pick a slot that works for both of you. It syncs straight to your calendar.Properly useful if you take any kind of bookable appointment. My Getting Started With MS Bookings guide walks through setting up your own booking page from scratch.
Planner Task boards organised into cards and columns. Useful for tracking a project with a few moving parts, whether that’s just you or a small team. My Getting Started With MS Planner guide covers building your first board properly. That way, it actually gets used rather than abandoned after week one.
To Do A simpler day-to-day task list, more personal than Planner. Tasks you flag in Outlook email also show up here automatically. It’s a nice bit of joined-up thinking most people miss at first.
Useful, but less central
Loop Collaborative pages that update live for everyone viewing them — a shared, ever-changing document rather than a fixed file. Newer, and still finding its place in most people’s workflow. My Getting Started With Loop guide walks through what it’s actually useful for, beyond the novelty.
Whiteboard A blank digital canvas for brainstorming or sketching out ideas. Especially useful on a call when you want to think visually together rather than just talk.
Clipchamp A straightforward video editor, built into Microsoft 365 — trimming clips, adding captions, basic edits, without needing separate video software.
Stream Not just where your Microsoft 365 video content lives, but a solid starting point for recording it. It’s not what I personally use. It’s not what I personally use. If you want something quick, free, and won’t add another subscription, Stream will do the job. The catch, from my own experience: editing options are minimal. It suits simple, unedited recordings better than anything needing a proper edit.
Visio Diagramming software for flowcharts, process maps, or org charts. More common in larger or more process-heavy businesses than in a solo setup.
Lists A structured way to track information. Think a smarter, shareable spreadsheet with built-in views and templates for things like inventories or event planning.
Apps you’ll rarely need
A handful of Microsoft 365 apps exist mainly for larger organisations or specific use cases. Most small business owners will never open them. Sway handles simple visual presentations, though other tools have largely taken over that job. Microsoft Learning covers training and course delivery, and it’s fairly basic. It’s aimed at larger teams already paying for a LinkedIn Learning licence. Viva is a set of employee experience and engagement tools, built for bigger workforces. Insights (Viva) covers work pattern analytics, again aimed at teams and managers. Engage (Viva) is an internal social network, only useful once you have enough staff to need one. Worth knowing they exist, not worth learning right now.
What about the Power Platform apps?
You may also spot Power Automate, Power Apps, Power BI, and Power Pages in your app list. These sit slightly apart from the rest of Microsoft 365. They’re for automating tasks, building custom apps, analysing data, and building simple websites. Anyone with the right licence can use them. Automation in particular can save you real time once you know what you’re doing. It’s just not where I’d point a new business owner in the first few months. There’s a proper learning curve to using these well. They’re worth digging into once you’ve got the time to learn them properly. Not something to add to an already-full plate on day one.
Which Microsoft 365 skills are actually worth a closer look?
Coming from corporate, you’re not starting from scratch. You already know how to send an email, build a spreadsheet, and put a deck together. This is less about learning apps from the beginning. It’s more about thinking of them as a business owner now, not an employee. You’re the one choosing how they’re set up and used, plus how to get the best value out of them. After all, it’s coming out of your budget now, not someone else’s.
Email is the clearest example. If you’re moving from classic Outlook to new Outlook, that’s a real (if small) learning curve. Even though the fundamentals haven’t changed.
Word, Excel, and PowerPoint depend entirely on your previous role. If you used them heavily, there’s nothing new here. If they weren’t a big part of your day-to-day, it’s worth a proper skills check. Your business is now relying on them.
Your corporate role taught you everything you needed for that job. Now it’s your business, and some of that carries over. There are likely to be a few gaps you’ll only discover once you’re relying on these tools yourself.
Beyond that, Forms, Bookings, Planner, and To Do are worth learning properly. They’re most likely apps you didn’t need in a corporate role, but you’ll find them useful running your own business.