Office 365 for small Business

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MikeAqua

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#239967 13-Aug-2018 14:02

I'm looking for comments positive and negative on Office 365. Anything to watch out for.

The other companies in the group are moving to Office 365 subscription, which means we will have to make other arrangements for email and storage.

I'm looking at the small business premium or small business essentials plans , because they come with SharePoint, which we use now extensively within the business.

One thing I'm not sure of is the benefit of having my office applications via 365 vs standard applications?

Another issue that has arisen, is that some user have an users have private OneDrive accounts and they wish to be able to access these on the device they will access the company OneDrive from. Is this possible?

Mike

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#2072711 13-Aug-2018 15:15

It's fantastic. Constantly being iterated and takes so much of the onus off you to worry about security and availability.

Just don't expect the same performance as having kit on site. You'll need to muck around with some Outlook settings (caching etc) to get the best performance. But if you're comfortable working out of OWA (which is very feature rich these days) it's better just to do that as it gets around any performance issues (i.e. time to sync / send / receive / update / search). I'm not talking huge delays, but it's worth going in with eyes wide open because running a cloud Exchange vs on-premise IS different.

Using personal OneDrive alongside OneDrive for Business is fine, they just show up as two selectible options in the list on the left. But again, it's better to do all your work out of the browser if you're using multiple 365 services. Local apps are fine if you need power-user functions of Excel/Word/etc but for most all the web services are more than adequate. And as such will be available across all devices.

MikeAqua

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#2072755 13-Aug-2018 15:57

gehenna:

But if you're comfortable working out of OWA (which is very feature rich these days) it's better just to do that as it gets around any performance issues (i.e. time to sync / send / receive / update / search). I'm not talking huge delays, but it's worth going in with eyes wide open because running a cloud Exchange vs on-premise IS different.

I'm currently connecting to an off-site sever anyway, so may not see much difference? I use OWA as a last resort, because I use number of outlook add-ins - document management and CSR type functions.

gehenna:

But again, it's better to do all your work out of the browser if you're using multiple 365 services. Local apps are fine if you need power-user functions of Excel/Word/etc but for most all the web services are more than adequate. And as such will be available across all devices.

I still get Word, Access, Excel etc on my machine right? I do a lot of travel so I need to work when I don't have web access and again I use add-ins, so web-based apps are only for when I have no choice.

Mike

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#2072873 13-Aug-2018 17:17

MikeAqua:

I still get Word, Access, Excel etc on my machine right? I do a lot of travel so I need to work when I don't have web access and again I use add-ins, so web-based apps are only for when I have no choice.

With the Business Premium or E3/E5 plans, yes. :)

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shrub

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#2072933 13-Aug-2018 19:27

I tried a couple of years ago but ended up frustrated with all the hoops I had to jump through just to get licenses and went with google g-suite primarily for email and google drive.

freitasm

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#2072934 13-Aug-2018 19:32

Many years ago I joined Google Apps. I was a paying client, and yet when I asked for (supposedly included) support, I was told to post the question in their forums.

Switched to Microsoft BPOS (which then turned into Office 365) and never looked back. Microsoft support has been nothing but stellar. I only had to ask for help three times over the last ten years or so. Response was always fast, twice with a call back to check for next steps.

Never looked at Google again.

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gehenna

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#2072943 13-Aug-2018 19:49

shrub:

I tried a couple of years ago but ended up frustrated with all the hoops I had to jump through just to get licenses and went with google g-suite primarily for email and google drive.

I've set up many 365 businesses, it's very simple. It's probably even simpler now than the first time I did it, when I had no experience of the service whatsoever.

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lxsw20

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#2073047 13-Aug-2018 23:42

freitasm:

Many years ago I joined Google Apps. I was a paying client, and yet when I asked for (supposedly included) support, I was told to post the question in their forums.

Switched to Microsoft BPOS (which then turned into Office 365) and never looked back. Microsoft support has been nothing but stellar. I only had to ask for help three times over the last ten years or so. Response was always fast, twice with a call back to check for next steps.

Never looked at Google again.

G Suite support is pretty on the ball now days.

michaelmurfy

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#2073050 14-Aug-2018 00:07

lxsw20:

G Suite support is pretty on the ball now days.

Indeed - I actually recommend GSuite over Office 365 for ease of management and support - they're very good.

A few months ago (I am on a legacy free plan with no support) there was a bug causing the Chromebook policies to get locked down on Gsuite accounts. I decided to upgrade to Premium (free trial) and then used that to contact support. I said "look, I know I upgraded to Premium just to speak to a person but this is frustrating me and I couldn't find anything online about this". Not only did the person assist me and correct my account policies but he also offered to downgrade it again back to the free legacy plan so there wasn't a chance I would get billed - was actually incredibly good service.

Since I don't use Windows I have no use for the apps and Google integrates with everything very well. Sure, there are Exchange clients that can more-or-less do the same thing but I personally trust my data with Google more than Microsoft based on my experience with Windows 10 and other Microsoft products.

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mattwnz

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#2073052 14-Aug-2018 00:10

With the quality of support, things can change very quickly when a company decides to farm out support offshore. Or they sell their business or something else happens. Poor totally changes the perception of a company.

ANglEAUT

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#2073053 14-Aug-2018 00:28

MikeAqua: I'm looking for comments positive ...

Some things look pretty and you can leverage your existing MS skills.

MikeAqua: ... and negative on Office 365. Anything to watch out for. ...

Regardless of what freitasm says, the junk filtering in my 'Office 365 Business Essentials' subscription is non-existant. I have to mark so many emails as spam, it's a real p.i.t.a.

Oh, and the joy of having the your local OneDrive folder documents location being changed to HTTP, even though I browse to C:\Users\<name>\OneDrive\...

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irongarment

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#2073088 14-Aug-2018 09:05

Instead of paying for Office once, you get to pay for it continually, forever! Great! Sign me up!

It's a word processor. It's a spreadsheet. If you need support you're doing it wrong.

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gehenna

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#2073090 14-Aug-2018 09:11

irongarment: Instead of paying for Office once, you get to pay for it continually, forever! Great! Sign me up!

It's a word processor. It's a spreadsheet. If you need support you're doing it wrong.

That's a reductionist view of the service.

1. You're getting an always up to date version. When the next version comes out, it's yours on up to 5 devices.

2. You're getting access to umpteen other services: Exchange Online, Skype for Business Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, Teams, Planner, StaffHub, Office Online, etc, etc, etc and those services are always up-to-date and growing.

3. You're getting enterprise grade services that you don't have to manage yourself.

If you think Office 365 is just getting access to the desktop version of MS Office, you're doing it wrong.

irongarment

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#2073099 14-Aug-2018 09:29

I so enjoy meeting rabid fanbois.

Tell me, why should I need an up-to-date version of these applications? Is something broken with the current version? And won't later versions read files from earlier versions anyway?

The only concrete example I have is when Skype for Linux stopped working. Although I have to add that it didn't actually stop working, Microsoft stopped it working. How often do they do that? Isn't it a concern that they might do it to you? That would be sad, especially when all of your data is on their servers.

Access to other services? I'm sure if I wanted them I could get them. Why would bundling extra stuff I don't need make it more attractive?

Let's be clear. Office 365 is a conduit from your wallet to Microsoft's bank account. It's so much more efficient than waiting for people to buy new software if and when they choose.

gehenna

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#2073107 14-Aug-2018 09:37

You are being clear, you’re also being simplistic and unsophisticated in your argument. If you have a view, state your case without name calling, otherwise it’s very hard to take seriously the content that comes after your first sentence.

freitasm

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#2073109 14-Aug-2018 09:38

irongarment: I so enjoy meeting rabid fanbois.

Tell me, why should I need an up-to-date version of these applications? Is something broken with the current version? And won't later versions read files from earlier versions anyway?

The only concrete example I have is when Skype for Linux stopped working. Although I have to add that it didn't actually stop working, Microsoft stopped it working. How often do they do that? Isn't it a concern that they might do it to you? That would be sad, especially when all of your data is on their servers.

Access to other services? I'm sure if I wanted them I could get them. Why would bundling extra stuff I don't need make it more attractive?

Let's be clear. Office 365 is a conduit from your wallet to Microsoft's bank account. It's so much more efficient than waiting for people to buy new software if and when they choose.

And G Suite is not a conduit from your wallet to Google's account? Users have option - buy Microsoft Office media and install it. Or Buy Office 365 and get constant updates to new version. Or use LibreOffice. Or use Zoho. Or use WPS. Or Apple iDocs. Or Calligra.

If you see fanboys I see haters.

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