Introduction.

Whether your company is new to remote working, or you’ve been managing a successful hybrid team for years – the ability to measure staff productivity is massively useful.

After all, if your team isn’t chatting and working in the same building, how do you ensure everyone feels comfortable in their roles and pulling in the same direction?

To solve this issue.

Microsoft launched Microsoft Productivity Score in 2020. A response to the sudden shift to remote working during the pandemic, it allows greater employer visibility over their organisation.

Renamed Microsoft Adoption Score in August 2022, it’s revolutionised the ways managers track, analyse and improve workplace efficiency and wellbeing.

If you’re considering Microsoft Adoption Score for your business, here’s your essential guide.

In this article:

1. What is Microsoft Adoption Score?
2. How can I access my Microsoft Adoption Score?
3. Does Microsoft track individual employee productivity?
4. What areas does Microsoft Adoption Score assess?
5. What data does Microsoft use to track productivity?
6. What are “Special Reports”?
7. How useful is Microsoft Adoption Score?

1. What is Microsoft Adoption Score?

This handy workplace analytics tool provides high-level insights into business use of apps, Microsoft 365, and productivity across your organisation.

It provides complete productivity analysis from email, apps and shared documents to general office output.

These insights help businesses (both large and small) make the most of their technology investments. For instance, if your teams aren’t regularly using particular programs or collaborative tools – is this tech worth investing in? On the other hand, you might want to make changes to training and processes to change workflows and outputs.

As well as overall metrics.

Adoption Score provides insights and “recommended actions” for the efficient use of their products. It compares your business with similar-sized organisations to benchmark your teams’ product usage.

This includes common programs such as SharePoint, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Yammer, Skype and more.

2. How can I access my Microsoft Adoption Score?

To enable Microsoft Adoption Score, you’ll need the help of your organisation’s IT Administrator.

With a “Global Administrator” role, they can log into the Microsoft 365 admin centre and navigate via “Reports” to enable Adoption Score.

After this, it can take 24 hours for your first insights to become available. These scores are only available to individuals with “admin” or “reader” roles.

For more information about privacy controls and who can access Adoption Score, explore Microsoft’s pages on the topic.

3. Does Microsoft track individual employee productivity?

The latest version of Adoption Score only provides insights at organisational level – not individual employee level.

While you can see how many team members use specific programs and methods of communication (as well as insights on aligning your workers), don’t expect a rundown of what each individual is doing each day.

4. What areas does Microsoft Adoption Score assess?

Your Adoption Score is based on totals from two categories. These are “People Experiences” and “Technology Experiences”.

Let’s take a look at each:

People Experiences

This category assesses how efficiently your organisation works. It includes content collaboration, communication, meetings, mobility and teamwork.

Microsoft works with the latest research and best practices on business effectiveness to provide actionable insights. This could include suggestions like sharing files on the cloud rather than email attachments.

Technology Experiences

Of course, any business relies on well-performing technology. Microsoft’s “Technology Experiences” helps you understand how your hardware and software perform.

This includes network connectivity as well as Microsoft apps’ overall health and security. You’ll also have access to suggestions on how to address any problematic areas.

5. What data does Microsoft use to track productivity?

So, how exactly are productivity scores calculated?

Your Microsoft Adoption Score is calculated from the combined totals of eight categories within “People” and “Technology” Experiences. These include:

• Communication – including chat, email, and community posts.
• Meetings – how to leverage meeting best practices.
• Content Collaboration – how your organisation creates and collaborates on content in the cloud.
• Teamwork – the use of shared environments like Microsoft Teams and SharePoint.
• Mobility – how team members use multiple devices and access files from Microsoft 365.
• Endpoint Analytics – performance and health issues with your organisation’s software and hardware.
• Network Connectivity – including device start-up and software configurations.
• Microsoft 365 Apps Health – insights into achieving the best productivity and security for your apps.

Each category has a maximum score of 100 points. This means your highest possible Adoption Score is 800. It’s also shown as a percentage value.

Within each category, you can view 28-day and 180-day overviews of critical activities. There are also supporting metrics (that aren’t part of the Adoption Score calculation), helping you better understand your workforce activity.

6. What are “Special Reports”?

One of the most valuable features of Microsoft Adoption Score is “Special Reports”.

These temporary reports provide insights helping companies measure change in the workplace. For instance, you can use these reports to analyse how well your employees respond to shifts towards remote working – or returning to hybrid in-office models.

Microsoft also launched specific reports, such as the “Business Resilience Report”. This report is available to all Microsoft 365 customers, helping guide organisations through the shift to remote work.

This special report helps businesses understand how communication, collaboration and work-life balance are impacted by remote working. It also looks at the benefits and drawbacks of remote meetings for effective decision-making.

7. How useful is Microsoft Adoption Score?

In short, yes, Microsoft Adoption Score can be extremely useful.

It’s worth remembering.

Not all the metrics will be helpful for your business, however. For instance, the “mobility” metric looks at how many employees use multiple devices. If your company works with desk-based roles, this will be lower than industry benchmarks. But does this matter to you?

With a sharp focus on the metrics you care about (and how change impacts your working practices), Microsoft Adoption Score is its weight in gold. It gives management complete oversight over remote teams’ working methods, tracking how your business is evolving, identifying any performance issues – and helping you take relevant actions where necessary.