Def initiveTHE

GUIDE2 ND EDITION

Contents

Welcome to Office 365: the Definitive Guide

3

What is Office 365? An Overview 4

Office suite 5

Word 5

Excel 5

PowerPoint 5

Outlook 6

Access 6

Publisher 6

OneDrive for Business 7

SharePoint Online 7

OneNote 8

Skype for Business Online 8

Next Generation – Communication and Collaboration

9

Exchange Online 9

Groups 9

Teams 10

Skype Meeting Broadcast 10

Yammer 10

Planner 11

StaffHub 11

Delve 11

Next Generation – Productivity 12

Sway 12

Flow 12

Video 13

Microsoft Stream 13

Tools for small businesses 13

Outlook Customer Manager 13

Bookings 14

Connections 14

Invoicing 14

Listings 15

MileIQ 15

Business Center 15

Adding Value to Office 365 16

Benefits of Office 365 19

Office 365 Plans 20

Office 365 Business 20

Office 365 Enterprise 22

Migrating to Office 365 25

Office 365 – Dispelling the Myths 26

Cloud:“helping to accelerate innovation and growth”

29

midirasolutions 30

2

Welcome to Office 365: the Definitive GuideThe transition of software services to the cloud is here to stay and, even though a relatively new market, it’s one that is already mature and provisioning features and functionality ahead of traditional on-premise solutions.

Enterprise class email, web conferencing, video, and voice calling are just some of the features where development is now focused in the cloud.

For the customer, the question should no longer be ‘Why move to the cloud?’ but, ‘Why am I not moving to the cloud?’!

Microsoft is leading the way with Office 365, the productivity services suite that enhances productivity, collaboration and communication for organisations from the SMB to the largest enterprise.

According to Microsoft, there are currently over 85 million monthly active commercial Office 365 users worldwide.

And yet many organisations, and particularly SMBs, are unaware not only of the potential benefits of moving to the cloud and Office 365, but even of the extent of the features offered.

Supporting a customer’s move to Office 365 – with its familiar Office applications combined with the next generation productivity tools – is also one of the easiest ways of starting that customer on their digital transformation journey, particularly as Microsoft is committed to making it as easy as possible for businesses to transition to the cloud, through the development of hybrid connectivity and migration capabilities between on-premise environments and Office 365.

For the end customer, pay-as-you-go pricing incorporating concessions for the number of services purchased, the elimination/reduction of infrastructure

costs and in-house IT resource requirement make Office 365 a financially viable investment.

In addition, and of major advantage to the customer, with Office 365 there’s the benefit of ‘evergreen’ IT, where the service is upgraded – at no cost – to the latest and greatest version.

In this Office 365 definitive guide we’ve looked at the features and functionality of Office 365 – the familiar services such as Exchange, Skype for Business and Share Point that are no doubt well used and relied on, plus the lesser known applications that create innovate ways to further enhance communication and collaboration and productivity for the individual employee and business as a whole.

We’ve a section to cover solutions, both Microsoft and those of other providers, that integrate to add value to Office 365, and which serve to further highlight the benefit of participating in the CSP (Cloud Solution Provider) programme, giving as it does access to a rich ecosystem of solutions and services.

We’ll be updating this e Book regularly and hope it will be a useful handy guide to Microsoft Office 365 features and functions – and we’re always here to help.

3

What is Office 365?An Overview

While meeting these demands, organisations must also address cybersecurity threats, and manage many other challenges such as changing working practices, the proliferation of consumer apps and personal devices across an organisation, and an always-changing regulatory and compliance environment.

Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud-based software suite that makes it easier to simplify communication and collaboration among employees, manage files, and manage meetings on the move. Office 365 combines the familiar features - Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook - with the next generation of productivity-based services, such as Skype for Business Online, Planner, and Delve, to bolster collaboration and communication.

Office 365 is fully scalable to business need; flexibility means it can be expanded to match ongoing requirements. It also has built-in industry-leading security, compliance and privacy controls, and world-class support for worry-free migration and ongoing assistance.

There’s no upfront cost with Office 365’s monthly subscription model, which can help organisations budget more efficiently and keep costs down, and businesses can share and edit documents on the move, as well as manage meetings and other tasks, on any iOS, Android and Windows device.

The modern workplace is changing; employees today demand the freedom to work anywhere, with anyone, at any time, across any device.

This eBook will look at Office 365’s most well-known features, alongside the next generation of productivity-boosting tools.

It will also outline the features of additional applications that can help power productivity; the myths surrounding (and reality of) Office 365; at a selection of the pricing plans available; and some advice and guidance for adoption and migration that might be useful when speaking to customers.

4

Office Suite

ExcelRegarded as the industry standard for spreadsheets, Excel helps business make more informed decisions through turning numbers into insight with state-of-the-art analysis and visualisation tools.

Excel is ideal for the collation, calculation and analysis of data such as sales figures, and for storing text-based data, such as client lists, employee data and mailing lists. Features include facility to turn a spreadsheet of numbers into a pie chart or diagram, while the latest version developed for Windows, macOS, Android and iOS features calculation, graphing tools, pivot tables, and macro programming language, Visual Basic for Applications.

PowerPointA business staple, PowerPoint can help with any presentation requirement, used to create just about any kind of presentation for any kind of audience – and utilising slides, text, images, shapes and videos.

PowerPoint Online extends the Microsoft PowerPoint experience to the web browser, enabling work to be done directly online where a presentation is stored, and Office 365 customers with Office Online can view, create, and edit files on the go.

WordThe world’s most popular word processing programme, Word is the starting block for most creative projects, enabling the creation, saving and sharing of many types of document. Used to produce letters, memos, notices and envelopes for mailing and distribution, as well as newsletters, brochures, books… the possibilities are endless.

5

AccessAccess is an easy-to-use tool for creating browser-based database applications, with data stored in a SQL database, and applications developed to help run a small business or departments within a larger organisation

Users and developers can create code libraries of reusable functions and add code to create powerful customised forms and reports. If required to maintain data integrity in a format that can be accessed by multiple users, Access is the best choice, whereas Excel may be better suited for complex numerical data to be analysed in depth. (Using Access to store data and Excel to analyse it, brings to an organisation the benefits of both!)

Publisher Publisher is a desktop publishing application, simple to use with the focus on enabling the creation of professional standard publications by SMBs, and particularly those lacking dedicated design resource. Publisher is used for producing leaflets, brochures, marketing collateral – any type of publication requiring visual impact, with particular attention focused on layout and design.

OutlookUpdated for the cloud, Outlook is now more deeply integrated with other Office applications for a seamless user experience.

Outlook’s email and calendar service helps employees stay on top of communication, wherever they are and via whatever device they’re using. In addition to being used to send, receive and store emails, Outlook can also serve as a personal information management tool. Features include daily, monthly and weekly calendars, address books for contact details, an area to keep typed notes, task reminder features, and a full journal.

6

SharePoint OnlineOffice 365 provides access to a rich productivity application suite – and SharePoint enables users to organise and collaborate on the content, data, and news created, across the organisation.

Users can sign in from any desktop or mobile device, and have constant access to information about project status, client histories, the locations and schedules of co-workers, or anything else related to a business project. SharePoint helps organisations make more informed decisions, based on business intelligence, as it’s easy to search through company files, and discover patterns, trends, and relationships through simple-to-understand graphs and charts.

SharePoint can also be used for developing web-based business applications – such as the company website, intranet or partner portal – is highly configurable, and can be customised to individual requirements.

OneDrive for BusinessOneDrive provides a location in the cloud for storing, sharing and syncing work files, from any browser or device.

Documents can be shared and worked on collectively using familiar Office applications – for example, two team members can co-edit a document, eliminating the confusion arising from the need to create different versions. Users can set expiry dates on a shared link and add permissions to those with whom the link is shared.

OneDrive provides the enterprise-grade security that consumer online storage services lack, helping to protect the privacy of content while complying with industry standards. IT admins also have greater control, with the ability to audit external sharing invitations, limit external sharing to specific users, and manage external sharing domains.

7

Skype for Business OnlineSkype for Business Online offers presence, instant messaging, desktop sharing, voice and video calling across any PC, Mac, tablet, or phone, and makes modern conference calls easy. Businesses can call, message and share work via Skype’s powerful collaboration tools and schedule online meetings with a single click in Outlook.

Businesses can save a large slice of their IT budget by eliminating third-party conferencing and phone charges, and PBX maintenance charges, through implementing the integrated voice capabilities of Skype for Business, including Audio Conferencing (previously PSTN Conferencing), Phone System (previously Cloud PBX), and Calling Plan (previously PSTN Calling).

One of the big announcements from Microsoft in 2017 was the intention to integrate Skype for Business into Microsoft Teams (see below). Cobweb’s Office 365: the definitive guide will be updated as soon as this development takes place.

OneNote OneNote allows users to type, write, draw and clip ideas and information in digital form, making it simpler to gather, organise and share thoughts across all devices.

OneNote is the ideal forum for collaborating with colleagues, useful in meetings to record thoughts and share in real-time. Team leaders can use OneNote to manage projects, or as a place in which to throw around ideas, utilising the tagging feature to flag important tasks or questions. For sensitive data, some or all of a notebook can be password-protected to restrict access to specified people.

8

Next Generation – Communication and CollaborationMany businesses still pay for third-party applications when they already have access to similar productivity-boosting tools as part of their Office 365 solution. The Next Generation sections look at these features.

Exchange OnlineIt’s easier than ever to provide users with the business email they need to stay productive with Exchange Online. Integration with Outlook means that users enjoy a rich, familiar email experience, with access to email, calendar and contacts from all browsers and across any mobile device, while management is via the Exchange admin centre, an easy-to-use, web-based interface. Automatic patching eliminates the time and effort required for system maintenance.

Exchange Online also offers organisations greater security for and control over their environment. Data is kept safe with anti-malware and antispam filtering protected mailboxes, while data loss prevention capabilities prevent users from mistakenly sending sensitive information to unauthorised recipients. Mobile device policies mean that a business can create approved mobile device lists, enforce PIN lock, and remove confidential company data from lost phones.

GroupsOffice 365 Groups is a service developed with collaboration in mind. It works with the Office 365 tools, enabling teams to collaborate when writing documents, creating spreadsheets, working on project plans, scheduling meetings or sending email.

Groups allows users to select a set of people with whom to collaborate and set up a collection of resources – based on Outlook, Yammer or Teams – for group members to share, with resource permissions automatically granted as members are added.

9

TeamsThe chat-based workspace, Teams brings together people, conversations and content, incorporating the breadth and depth of Office 365 to provide a true hub for teamwork.

Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, Power BI and Delve are built into Microsoft Teams so that users have easy access to familiar applications and the information they need. As Teams is built on Office 365 Groups, it’s easy to move naturally from one collaboration tool to another, while Teams members can start voice and video meetings. Teams provides persistent and threaded chat to keep everyone engaged and informed.

As announced by Microsoft in 2017, Skype for Business will shortly be incorporated into Teams.

Skype Meeting BroadcastSkype Meeting Broadcast enables users to schedule, produce, and broadcast meetings and events to online audiences of up to 10,000 attendees, and to host large virtual meetings, such as internal ‘town hall’ style gatherings and public webinars.

Users can also record high-quality videos, customises to gauge audience involvement and satisfaction. Participants can join from anywhere on any device – all they need is an internet connection – and viewers interact via built-in collaborative tools, with the ability to rewind, pause and restart the broadcast as needed.

YammerYammer is the professional social media platform created for business, enabling organisations to be better connected and informed, and making it easier to share ideas and content, to ask questions, and provide updates.

Groups may be created for individual projects, public groups are for working in the open, private for sensitive projects, and external groups enable secure collaboration with partners, customers, and other relevant third parties.

Moving project queries out of email and into Yammer reduces pressure on the email inbox and makes questions – and answers – more easily discoverable across the organisation, while creating a searchable knowledge base, which can be of particular benefit to new team members.

10

PlannerPlanner is a tool for creating project plans – for organising and assigning tasks, sharing files, and obtaining progress updates, across any device. The centralised and transparent platform means that a team’s discussions and deliverables aren’t locked away across disparate applications, and that team members always know who is working on what.

Planner allows project managers to divide projects into tasks, and assign and track the progress of those tasks.

StaffHubAn app created to make life easier for deskless workers, StaffHub provides employees with the ability to view schedules, swap shifts, request time off, catch up with their team, or see company announcements – all via their mobile device.

The perfect app for workers in hotels, restaurants, retail stores, on construction sites, and in manufacturing or other service-related industries, managers can create, update and manage shift schedules via a simple and intuitive interface.

DelveDelve helps users find and discover information across the organisation. The user experience centres on a personalised profile page, which includes recently accessed documents, colleague profiles and suggested content, based on what colleagues are currently working on. The boards feature enables teams to organise and aggregate content, creating links to key related documents.

With Delve, colleagues are able to research the background of team members prior to a meeting, hit the ground running on a new assignment, and remain in the loop for team updates – without spending time searching through email threads or looking for documents.

11

Next Generation – Productivity

SwaySway is Microsoft’s app for the creation and sharing of interactive reports and presentations. Newsletters and personal stories come alive with the inclusion of video or interactive content. Sway even suggests searches to help with finding relevant images, videos, tweets, or other content that can be dragged and dropped into a creation.

Sway can be used to produce media-rich reports, presentations, newsletters and personal stories, as well as to create a simple website in a short space of time. It also offers a quick and convenient way of sharing media-rich presentations with colleagues. A salesperson can, for example, make a lasting impression with a brochure incorporating images, infographics, and video.

FlowFlow enables users to create automated multistep workflows to, for example, receive event notifications, synchronise files, or collect data. An automated text message could be generated when a specified colleague emails – or in response to someone tweeting a message about the company, that individual automatically followed, replied to and their data added to a spreadsheet and Dynamics 365.

Workflows can be created, followed and managed from anywhere, and Flow can also be integrated in with SharePoint, enabling users to create and launch flows directly from a SharePoint list.

12

Outlook Customer ManagerProviding the ability for the small businesses to track and grow customer relationships directly from Outlook, Outlook Customer Manager is accessible via PC, Mac, desktop, browser or the upcoming iOS mobile app. New contacts are automatically created, with details populated from emails, and the timeline collates reference to emails, meetings, calls, tasks, files, and deadlines. The today page displays timely reminders, and lists tasks, a summary of deals and upcoming meetings, and the ability to add new customers by scanning business cards eliminates the need for manual input.

VideoA dynamic video experience, Video offers easy upload, sharing, and playback for video content.

Video enables employees to view, locate, and discover video content throughout the business, across device. Upload is simple drag and drop, with a function to type tags and descriptors. Content is shared via Yammer, appears within Delve, and can be embedded within SharePoint team sites online and on-premise. A scalable enterprise video solution, permission management is simple, and it’s easy to add or delete channels and highlight key content.

Microsoft StreamStream is a video management tool, an evolution of Office 365 Video and incorporating a number of additional features: Searchable Transcribed Audio enables users to type keywords to jump to the point in the video where these are spoken; Face Recognition and Detection allows user to identify where people appear in a video, indicated by a clickable timeline; and with the Linked Timecodes feature, timecodes are displayed in a comment section, linking to content or transcripts.

Tools for small businessesOffice 365 tools for small businesses have been developed to give SMBs the features previously only available to the larger enterprise, with emphasis on helping these businesses to create professional quality communications and improve efficiency and customer interaction.

13

ConnectionsAn email marketing tool, Connections enables SMBs to send professional-standard marketing emails, newsletters and announcements to showcase brand and drive sales, and incorporating functionality to build subscriber lists, ask for referrals, and set up incentives. Connections also provides the facility to enable businesses to measure impact, and analyse what does and what doesn’t work, and record unsubscribes, while the mobile apps for iOS and Android enables access for colleagues out of office.

InvoicingWith Invoicing, the SMB can create professional-quality estimates and convert to invoices for emailing. Templates are customisable, with provision to add discounts to encourage timely payment, and Pay with PayPal links, to track pending and partial payment, unpaid and overdue payment, and identify customers with outstanding amounts.

BookingsBookings is an online and mobile app, suitable for the small business offering services via appointment – dentists, solicitors, financial consultants, hair salons, etc. The feature comprises three elements: a booking page through which customers can arrange appointments; a mobile app via which the business owner can monitor scheduled bookings, access customer details, and manually create appointments; and a section for managing and maintaining customer information, service price lists, and staff scheduling.

14

MileIQMileIQ is Microsoft’s recently acquired mileage tracking app, automatically logging miles driven, and creating a record of tax deductible and reimbursable mileage. Classification allows categorisation of journeys into business or personal, while the Work Hours feature enables employees to set work times, including shift patterns (with functionality to re-classify journeys offered from the web dashboard). MileIQ provides mileage records and reports, and is available for laptop, desktop or tablet.

Business CenterAnd with Business Center, access to and management of the small business tools – Connections, Bookings, Invoicing, etc. – is from one central location. The Business Center enables businesses to track key metrics (for example, online impressions), contact list growth, overdue payments, and customer appointments. Management features include access control, and access request notification.

ListingsListings is designed to help businesses make it easier for potential customers to find them, along with strengthening social media reputation. Listings enables organisations to list on Facebook, Google, Bing, and Yelp from one single place, and ensure that business information and branding are consistently represented across the various sites. An updated change in Listings is automatically populated across the sites, and online views and reviews can be monitored – including incidents of star ratings and comments – from the one dashboard.

15

Adding Value to Office 365Office 365 is a powerful platform, but employee efficiency can be enhanced and business processes simplified even further by integrating a range of additional applications. There is a wide choice of such additional applications within the Microsoft ecosystem, including Dynamics 365 and Power BI, as well as from Microsoft partners such as DocuSign and Exclaimer.

A summary of the most popular add-on applications for Office 365 can be found below.

Microsoft ProjectMicrosoft Project helps keep projects, resources, and teams organised and on track, incorporating facility to plan projects, track project status, and to collaborate with colleagues regardless of location. Project provides the resource management tools to help with building teams, requesting resources, and creating more efficient schedules.

Suitable for project managing teams across any industry, Project comes with a customisable wizard that walks users through the process of project creation, from assigning tasks and resources to reporting final results. Plus, seamless integration with Skype for Business and Yammer, further encourages collaboration among team members.

Microsoft VisioA picture is worth a thousand words and professionally presented diagrams play an essential part in business communication and documentation.

Microsoft Visio is a one-stop application that makes creating diagrams a piece of cake. It offers a variety of built-in shapes, objects, and stencils, with users also able to create their own as well as import shapes. Visio provides templates that include for brainstorming diagrams (mind maps), organisation charts, pivot diagrams, a basic flowchart, Pareto diagrams, and marketing charts, for example. The latest version includes advanced design collaboration features, data-linked diagrams and cross-platform coverage – for example, it can import live information from an external source, such as an Excel sheet or Access database. From flow charts to floor plans to 3D maps, Visio adds another dimension to documents.

16

Microsoft AzureAzure comprises a collation of integrated cloud services which IT professionals and developers use to build, deploy and manage servers and applications. Azure supports a wide range of operating systems, programming languages, databases and devices, thereby enabling application development via the tools and technologies with which the developers are familiar – across the cloud and on-premise.

Microsoft Dynamics 365Microsoft Dynamics 365 unifies customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) capabilities into applications that work seamlessly together across sales, customer service, field service, operations, financials, marketing, and project service automation, enabling better engagement with customers, optimised operations and empowered employees. Businesses can start with what’s needed and add applications as business grows.

Dynamics 365 gives department heads a 360-degree view of the customer, from transaction to engagement, delivering competitive advantage. With the data available from the various applications within Dynamics 365, businesses can tailor engagement with customers, increasing loyalty and turning relationships into revenue.

Microsoft Power BIMicrosoft Power BI is a cloud-based suite of business analytics tools that enables users to connect to, visualise, and analyse data with greater speed, efficiency and understanding, via easy-to-use dashboards, interactive reports, and visualisations that can bring data to life.

Power BI offers a variety of ways to monitor real-time data and trends for use in marketing campaigns, to survey business performance or overall spending, create sales reports, or identify which markets are growing and where demand is strong. Embedded into websites, interactive reports are out there in front of customers.

17

Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EM+S)EM+S incorporates Azure Active Directory, Azure Rights Management, Microsoft In-tune, and Advanced Threat Analytics to provide organisations with cost-effective, comprehen-sive security for users, devices, applications, and data. The three key pillars of EM+S are identity protection, device protection (including for the growing number of mobile devices) and content protection.

DocuSignFormally recognised in legal proceedings, DocuSign is an eSignature solution which replaces manual signatures and the printing, faxing, scanning and overnighting of documents with an easy, fast and trusted way to make approval digital.

DocuSign’s DTM (digital transformation management) platform delivers a suite of services for all industries and departments, and DocuSign’s partnership with Microsoft Office 365 means users benefit from a seamless, end-to-end transaction compliance management solution integrated into their most familiar and widely used applications. For example, users can create and send a document for approval and signature in Word; send, receive, and sign attachments securely from within Outlook; sign, request a signature, and track the status of documents in a SharePoint library; and save completed documents automatically to SharePoint or OneDrive for Business.

Exclaimer 365Cloud-based email signature manager Exclaimer enables the central design and distribution of email signatures to staff members. Users can create multiple email signatures using dynamic content, such as promotional banners, social media links, marketing artwork and compliant legal disclaimers, and select the most appropriate for their messages.

Everything is hosted within Microsoft data centres, and so Office 365 emails are guaranteed to have the appropriate signature and never leave the Microsoft cloud infrastructure. With signatures managed from a web-based user interface, there is nothing to download or install.

18

Benefits of Office 365 Improved collaborationA new generation of productivity-based services makes collaboration among teams as simple as a click of a button

Increased Productivity and EfficiencyOffice 365’s range of next generation applications makes it easy to work on projects, organise and assign tasks, share files, chat with co-workers in real-time and create professional, media-rich content

Work AnywhereAccess to familiar applications as well as business-grade email, shared calendar, and online meetings, from anywhere, on any device – including Windows, iOS and Android phones

Free Up ResourcesLess time is needed for installing, upgrading and managing software, meaning businesses can focus on growing their business

Reduce CostsUse the Office 365 version that meets business needs and pay on a monthly subscription basis to help keep costs down

Access Valuable DataOffice 365’s applications provide access to a wealth of information usually siloed in diverse applications across an organisation

Better Customer EngagementGain a deeper insight into customers’ needs through data analysis, to provide a tailored customer experience

ScalabilityAdd capacity whenever you need it with OneDrive, so you can continue to share and collaborate without worrying over storage limits

Stay up-to-dateIt is always the latest version of Office 365 thanks to regular feature updates, whether used on a PC or a Mac

Security / PrivacyBuilt-in security, compliance and privacy controls

Simple AdministrationThe admin center enables quick and efficient Office 365 management – for example, through displaying frequent tasks on the dashboard

19

Office 365 PlansMicrosoft offer various service plans, to ensure that organisations can implement the features that best suit their need, with option to add in additional features as required.

Office 365 Business PremiumThe Business Premium service plan is most appropriate for businesses needing business-class email as well as Office applications plus additional business services.

Office 365 BusinessOffice 365 Business plans have been created for the SMB. Three different Business service plans are available.

Office 365 Business EssentialsOffice 365 Business Essentials has been created for the business looking for business-class email and business services, but not requiring Office applications.

Office 365 Business Business-class email is not included with this plan, and which is most suitable for businesses wanting Office applications and cloud file storage and sharing.

20

Why Office 365 Business?With Office 365 Business, familiar tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook are available as and when needed.

OneDrive for Business stores files online, so they’re always in sync and up to date. OneDrive for Business gives each user 1 TB of personal cloud storage that can be accessed from anywhere and that syncs with their PC/Mac for offline access.

Users can enjoy a fully installed Office experience across PCs, Macs, Windows tablets, iPad and Android tablets, and most mobile devices, with each user able to install Office on five PCs or Macs, five tablets (Windows, iPad, and Android), and five phones.

In addition, Office 365 Business offers:

• Reliability: services are available with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime,financially backed service level agreement (SLA).

• Security: cutting-edge security practices with five layers of security andproactive monitoring help keep customer data safe.

• Privacy: data is safeguarded and protected.

• Administration: Office 365 can be deployed across an organisation withno IT expertise required, users added and removed within minutes.

• Up to date: updates are included in the subscription, new features rolledout regularly.

• Active Directory integration: user credentials and permissions, single sign-on and synchronisation are managed via Active Directory.

21

Office 365 ProPlusAs business email is not included within this plan, Office 365 ProPlus is for the organisation wanting Office applications and cloud file storage.

Office 365 EnterpriseDesigned for the larger organisation, Office 365 Enterprise is offered in four plans:

Office 365 Enterprise E1Giving organisations the benefits of email, file storage and sharing, Office Online, meeting, and IM, among other features, this service plan is for the organisation not looking for Office applications.

Office 365 Enterprise E3 Office 365 Enterprise E3 incorporates the features of Office 365 ProPlus and Office 365 Enterprise E1 – plus security and compliance tools.

Office 365 Enterprise E5 With Office 365 Enterprise E5, organisations enjoy the features of Office 365 Enterprise E3 – plus advanced security, analytics and voice capabilities.

22

Why Office 365 Enterprise?With Office 365 E5, Microsoft delivers its most comprehensive, secure cloud productivity, security and communications capabilities for enterprise customers.

New enterprise-grade security features include Advanced Threat Protection, Advanced Security Management, Customer Lockbox and Advanced eDiscovery. Microsoft Analytics solutions such as Power BI and Delve help deliver a deeper understanding of the business, and utilising a single platform for voice and meetings with Audio Conferencing, Phone System and Calling Plan reduces costs.

Office 365 Enterprise E5 includes familiar Office tools such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, Publisher, Skype for Business and Access.

A selection of E5 online services:

• Online Meetings: online meetings can be hostedwith audio, HD video, and web conferencing over theinternet, and joined with a single touch or click from asmartphone, tablet, or PC.

• Meeting Broadcast: Broadcast Skype for Businessmeans meetings can be hosted on the internet

for to up to 10,000 people, who can attend in a browser and on nearly any device. Features

include real-time polling and sentiment tracking, plus Yammer, to enable dialogue during the broadcast.

• Audio Conferencing: attendees can join a Skypefor Business call from any telephone by dialling alocal access number, and dial out from a meetingto add others when needed. The dial-in capabilityis in addition to single-touch join options on PC,smartphone, and browser, and allows people to join anonline meeting even in places with no internet access.

• Modern voice with Phone System: calls can be made,received, transferred, from the office, at home, or onthe road, using phone, PC, or mobile, and without theneed for a traditional phone system.

23

• Advanced email: archiving and legal hold capabilities, plus unlimited storage, isavailable to meet compliance needs.

• Document and email access control: Rights Management Services enables access todocuments and emails to be restricted to specific people and others prevented fromviewing or editing, even when sent outside an organisation.

• Advanced information protection: data loss prevention and encryption acrossExchange Online, Skype for Business, and SharePoint Online helps keep contentsafe in email, IM and meetings, and in team sites.

• Advanced security: Advanced Threat Protection helps defend users againstsophisticated threats hidden in emails, attachments, and links. Customer Lockboxenables the limitation of data access to only pre-assigned, two-factor-authenticatedadministrator approvals for greater control and transparency. The built-in features ofOffice 365 Advanced Security Management give enhanced visibility and control ofthe Office 365 environment.

• Analytics tools: with live dashboards and interactive Power BI Pro reports non-technical users can visualize and analyse data with greater speed, efficiency, andunderstanding. With its interactive dashboards, Microsoft MyAnalytics deliverspersonal and organisational insights based on information across Office 365.

• File storage and sharing: OneDrive for Business gives each user 1 TB of personalcloud storage that can be accessed from anywhere and syncs with their PC/Mac foroffline access. Documents can be shared inside and outside an organisation, withcontrol maintained over who can see and edit.

• Team sites: there’s easy access to and sharing of documents with 1 TB ofbaseline storage plus 500 MB of storage per user. Interactive reportsare produced with Excel Services and Visio Services, and can beviewed on mobile device browsers that support HTML5.

• Corporate social network: Yammer collaborationsoftware and business applications allow usersto connect, share information across teams,and organize around projects.

24

Migrating to Office 365Office 365 Adoption PlanOrganisations, particularly SMBs, can be nervous of moving to the cloud. Advising with a simple set of step-by-step guidelines can help put a customer’s mind at rest.

The first stage is to ensure that people across the organisation understand the benefits and embrace the solutions. The business needs to convey what’s in it for them!

A three-stage approach can be useful:

Phase 1: Envision

Identify key stakeholders, assemble an adoption

team, identify and prioritise business scenarios, and collaborate to create a

success plan for the adoption.

Phase 2: On-board your organisation to the

new technology

Start with an early adoption programme for specific

areas and expand to cover the whole organisation.

Phase 3: Drive Value

Realise ongoing value from the Office 365 investment

by continuing to boost user engagement and drive

adoption.

8 Top Tips for successful adoption of Office 3651 Create a team of key stakeholders that can drive and effect change, a team of

committed individuals representing a cross-section of the organisation.

2 Transformation projects are more successful when there is a visible executive sponsor – key leaders such as the CEO have the greatest influence on company culture and can communicate the value and benefits of a new technology and way of working throughout the organisation.

3 Create success owners to ensure people use the service and get value from it.

4 Use Office 365 apps and services throughout planning and rollout to familiarise the team, and promote success to the wider organisation.

5 Run workshops with department leads, project managers, IT and other stakeholders to brainstorm how Office 365 can be used.

6 Create formal success criteria to measure the impact of the Office 365 rollout, and identify business key performance indicators (KPIs) – for example, reduced costs, increased customer satisfaction, improved employee engagement, reduced order process time.

7 Generate awareness and excitement – pre-rollout and following launch.

8 Champion examples of Office 365-derived collaboration and teamwork and share using Yammer.

25

Office 365 – Dispelling the MythsMany businesses across the world are embracing cloud-based services, with thousands enjoying the productivity, efficiency and cost benefits of using Office 365. However, sometimes it’s difficult to separate fact from fiction when it comes to buying a cloud-based solution – for example, some businesses incorrectly believe Office 365 is simply a version of Office accessed by a browser.

Here are the top five myths that surround Office 365 – and the accompanying reality.

MYTH #1“Office 365 is just Office tools in the cloud, and I can only use it online”

Fact: Office 365 ProPlus or Office 365 Business – which includes Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, and OneNote – benefits from being licensed, deployed, and updated as a service. These applications are installed on devices, so they’re available even when offline. There is also the option to store data in the cloud.

MYTH #2“If our data moves to the cloud, our business will no longer have control over our technology”

When moving IT to the cloud a business spends far less time and resource maintaining hardware and upgrading software. The business has control over strategic IT objectives, improving business operations and launching agile initiatives rather than being an IT repair service.

Instead of spending capital budget on servers for email storage and workloads, the business can think strategically and support business managers in a more agile fashion, responding quickly to needs.

26

MYTH #3“Keeping data on-premises is safer than in the cloud”

It’s becoming increasingly clear that on-premise systems aren’t inherently more secure than in the cloud.

To keep Office 365 security at the pinnacle of industry standards, Microsoft’s dedicated security team uses processes such as the Security Development Lifecycle; traffic throttling; and preventing, detecting, and mitigating breaches that many companies don’t have the resources to. And, Microsoft Office 365 has a 99.9 percent financially backed uptime guarantee.

Additionally, Microsoft employs regulatory compliance experts to keep up to date with the latest regulations and rules: HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley, Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA), ISO 27001, European Union (EU) Model Clauses, U.S.–EU Safe Harbor framework, Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), and the Canadian Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act (PIPEDA), to name some.

(Incidentally, for anyone worried that corporate spies, cyberthieves and governments will have access to data stored in the cloud – relax. It’s a fear for many businesses, but unfounded. The business’s IT team manages access, sets up rights and restrictions, and provides smartphone access and options. The organisation remains the sole owner, retaining the rights, title, and interest in the data stored in Office 365.)

27

MYTH #4“I have to move everything to the cloud; it’s an all-or-nothing scenario”

While early cloud supporters proclaimed the cloud as the Holy Grail, no one really advocated fork-lifting an entire IT enterprise to the cloud over the weekend. Most implementations start with a hybrid approach, moving a single application like email, and growing from there.

The hybrid cloud creates a consistent platform that spans datacentres and the cloud, simplifying IT and delivering apps and data to users on virtually any device, anywhere. It gives the individual organisation control to deliver the computing power and capabilities that business demands, and to scale up or down as needed without wasting onsite technology investments.

Many companies are moving productivity workloads to the cloud; the path for each is different, and the time it takes for those migrations varies.

MYTH #5“Cloud migration is too much for my business to handle”

When starting with considering how to move petabytes of data to the cloud, it’s easy to see why some people think “going cloud” is too big a challenge. But Microsoft and solution providers will help every step of the way with information and tips on firewall configurations, reverse proxy requirements, identity options, migration possibilities, and a phased approach for hybrid setups. Microsoft has created several paths to follow, and in most cases, existing tools and processes can be used.

28

Cloud: “helping to accelerate innovation and growth”“When we talk about cloud, it’s no longer a future issue; it’s a present and essential element, addressing real business needs, adding simplicity and security, and helping to accelerate innovation and growth. These benefits can’t be ignored.” John Mason, Thoughts on Cloud*

Office 365 provides the tools to help businesses become more productive, helping streamline communication across the business, with customers and partners – improving collaboration, simplifying document management, and enabling meetings on the move.

Designed to meet the needs of an increasingly mobile workforce, Office 365 incorporates the security, compliance and privacy controls today’s business world demands – while flexibility, scalability and the availability of a range of pricing plans contribute to Office 365 growing as the productivity suite of choice for SMBs.

*Top 5 uses of cloud computing for 2015, Thoughts on Cloud, April 2015.

Thoughts on cloud.com

Contact us:

www.midirasolutions.co.support@midirasolutions.co.uk