Item: Microsoft 365
Rating: 7
Author: Verified User

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Office 365 is used mainly for Excel and Word, with a few people using it to create presentations, make signs, etc. and others using OneDrive to store work-related material they need to share with other office users. We had tried open source solutions in the past and while many of them are quite good, the default is Office/Excel/Word and it greatly simplified daily tasks for our users to have the same tools as "everyone" else.

Pros and Cons

Excel is the standard to which all others reach.
It's compatible with everything, even older legacy programs that require Word to be installed to print merged forms, etc.
As a Microsoft Office trial comes on all new machines, for users and IT people it's almost always as simple as signing in to activate and use policies that are set up by the administrator.

Generic errors when the license check fails can be very confusing.
The trust center is confusing to some people, but once you get used to it, it's OK.
I prefer the old drop-down menus to the side menu that opens but it's a matter of being used to it and decades of doing it the other way.

Return on Investment

On the negative side, there's a moderate cost for it, depending on the plan.
On the plus side, I have no one complaining about compatibility.
On the plus side, it works with all of our other software.

Alternatives Considered

Office 365 stacks up favorably in most areas except cost and the random licensing glitches. Open Office and Libre Office are very good products, but they, at least at present, require users to be able to convert docs and find minor alternative ways of doing things that may be very slightly different from office, which takes a noticeable hit on productivity and uses IT resources. The cost of Office 365 is low enough with our plan that it's well worth eliminating those issues, and adding in that it's compatible with other systems, it was an easy choice.

Support Rating

I haven't used it much, but the one time I needed it, I solved my own issue.

Key Insights

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

Yes

Are you happy with Microsoft 365's feature set?

Yes

Did Microsoft 365 live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Microsoft 365 go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Microsoft 365 again?

Yes

Likelihood to Recommend

Office 365 is very well suited to a company where everyone is doing different jobs yet frequently need to share documents for different reasons, say adding pages to a workbook, etc. It's perfect when creating data that needs to be sent to others outside the company, and it's great for IT managers who want something simple to deploy and manage.

It's not necessary when creating docs that do not require more advanced Excel functions or that will not be shared.

Office 365 overall worth the investment.

Software Version

Overall Satisfaction with Microsoft Office 365