Break constraints with Microsoft 365.
January 02, 2020

Break constraints with Microsoft 365.

Andrew Buckle | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft 365 Business

Microsoft 365 Business was deployed across the whole organisation. It has completely replaced our previous mail system, instant messaging and telephony system, all based on Lotus Notes, and also provides storage to replace our shared drives.

It has enabled cross-department collaboration and provided a cultural change in which ideas, documents and workflows move fluidly and flexibly within different teams and stakeholders. Even the humble telephone is now viewed differently, it has merged into a work-space, conferencing tool and support aid provided by the features of Teams and Skype for Business.

Pros

  • The provision of fast communications; voice, video and messaging through Skype.
  • The provision of "Slow Burn" communications through Yammer.

Cons

  • Licensing can be difficult to understand, there are many features and various differing plans to provide their functionality. For example, Enterprise Mobility and Security can exist as a single license or it may be included within an Office Product.
  • Operating in Hybrid modes can be challenging and interfacing between on-premise and the cloud needs careful attention to detail.
  • Traditional telephony costs have reduced.
  • Storage costs have diminished.
  • HCL Sametime (formerly from IBM)
Getting up and running with Microsoft 365 was easier and provided a more intuitive user experience. There was a learning curve but on the whole it was better received.
Support has been great from the on-boarding team to support staff dealing with genuine bugs and niggles. Support tickets have always been responded ro quickly and escalations have been handled well. Sometimes the suggested solution can be clunky but this product evolves and the suggested solution may only be temporary until and permanent fix is developed. You must remember that not everything in Microsoft 365 is configured through a browser so knowledge of Powershell is very useful.

Do you think Microsoft 365 Business Premium delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft 365 Business Premium's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft 365 Business Premium live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft 365 Business Premium go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft 365 Business Premium again?

Yes

It is absolutely great for collaboration, communication and document sharing. It needs thought about how it is deployed to users within your organisation. It empowers your users to use the tools in a way that benefits them. It is not prescriptive, it can be shaped around how people work. Mobile field based users can work and collaborate just as easily as office based staff. They can access the information they want, when they want, how they want on whatever equipment they want.

Remember to think about the features and the licencing you require. It can be challenging, seek help if you are not sure or you may lose price efficiencies.

Using Microsoft 365 Business

10000 - Education: General teaching and administration.
Commercial: Procurement teams and Business support.
Legal: Law and planning department.
Support: Staff providing support functions to various departments.
Customer Relations: Staff providing information to customer inquiries.
20 - Technical Analysts
Business Analysts
Front end customer support staff
Product champions
  • Collaboration.
  • Communication.
  • Improvement boards.
  • Re-cycling goods and materials.
  • Record Storage
  • Data Protection
It is part of the organisation now. It provides and rich feature set and requires a relatively low amount of administration.

Using Microsoft 365 Business

ProsCons
Like to use
Easy to use
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Requires technical support
Lots to learn
  • Using groups to apply licences.
  • Sharing documents is so easy.
  • The administrative portals are constantly changing.
  • You will probably become quite good at powershell to provide complex automation.
Yes - It is just a cut down version of the desktop products which you can access from a browser. It is not as full featured as the full client version but it does allow limited editing and reading features on a mobile device.
It is intuitive and each product interfaces with each other wherever possible.

Integrating Microsoft 365 Business

If things are supported with the AD-Connect service then use it. We used ADFS and now we are actively decommissioning it.
All required Powershell with bespoke programming. Can be done with the right skills.
  • Single Signon
On Premise Active Directory.
Use the new features of the AD-Connect service where possible. Sometimes you may need to use interface files and scripts.

Comments

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