Optimize your Business Productivity with Office 365

Turning to cloud computing, Microsoft's Office 365 service is a subscription-based version of the well-known Office suite. It offers, however, much more! A software as a service (SaaS), this solution allows you to benefit from the well-known Office 2016 software such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint and Outlook, as well as several other services that take advantage of the cloud such as messaging, online storage, videoconferencing and more. Combining productivity and collaboration tools, Office 365 is a complete solution that meets the needs and requirements of large organizations as well as SMEs.

Advantages of Office 365 for businesses

Combining productivity, collaboration and all the benefits of cloud computing, Office 365 offers many advantages for businesses, their teams and employees.

Work from anywhere on any device

Whether you're at the office, on the road, or at home, Office 365 is accessible from virtually anywhere. You can access your documents from your workstation, edit and share them from a Web browser with Office Online or use Office Mobile from your cell phone or tablet.

Simplified updates, synching and backups

Do not waste time keeping an eye out for updates; Office 365 is constantly updated so you can put your business first. Thanks to OneDrive technology, it also allows you to synchronize all your documents with your colleagues and to back them up in the cloud, so you always have access to the latest version, no matter where you are.

Tools for teamwork

Office 365 offers multiple applications and features that make collaboration between your employees more efficient:

Email service

For those familiar with Microsoft Exchange email service, Office 365 is the perfect solution in the cloud. It provides access to all functionalities of an Exchange server for your 365 email addresses: calendars, shared contacts, public folders and more. You can check your emails with a client application like Outlook or directly on the Web via an interface that is almost identical.

OneDrive for Business

Office 365 lets you access 1 TB of disk space per user. This online disk space is accessible directly from the Web, your smartphone, tablet or a OneDrive utility installed on your workstation. From this utility, it is possible to synchronize all your files on your OneDrive or only specific directories, but also to share these files or directories with other members of your organization, promoting teamwork.

Office 365 Groups

Office 365 Groups offers the ability to share resources with a specific set of people. After being added to a group, each member has access to the necessary tools and resources, without the need for manually assigning permissions. This feature is also available in Outlook.

Microsoft Teams

Microsoft Teams is a chat-based workspace allowing members of a team to exchange in real time. It allows creation of subgroups to tackle specific topics and has integrated access to SharePoint, OneNote and Skype for Business.

Yammer

A Microblogging tool, Yammer is an enterprise social network which facilitates knowledge sharing and project collaboration. It is also useful for external collaboration by allowing the creation of groups that include partners, customers and suppliers. The knowledge-sharing aspect is particularly interesting. Users have access to a "Discovery" feed featuring information, people and groups that are most relevant to them, as well as the ability to research users, archive conservations and files.

Sway

Sway is an application that allows the creation and sharing of reports, presentations and other types of interactive content by giving users the possibility to easily and quickly create "stories" to present their ideas and concepts. While PowerPoint is better suited to detailed presentations aimed at audiences and using a medium like a projector or television; Sway is focused on content and optimized for Web, mobile and tablet viewing.

Skype for Business

A business version of the famous software, Skype for Business is a complete online meeting solution that combines conference calls, videoconferences and teamwork sessions on a single platform. A feature called Meeting Broadcast even makes it possible to hold presentations to an audience of up to 10,000 participants.

Subscription service available

Available as a monthly or annual subscription, an Office 365 license is attached to a user, unlike the regular Office suite which is offered under a perpetual license for a specific computer. Each user has the option of installing the software on up to 5 computers, not to mention the access via Office Online.

Mix and match plans

Because workplace requirements are often different from one employee to another, Office 365 offers the ability to combine different plans within a company. The creation of a plan assortment has the advantage of meeting the specific needs of each, while enabling companies to realize cost savings.

Office 365 Offers for Business

Microsoft offers ten different plans for businesses. Of these, 4 are offered to specifically address the needs of SMEs.

Exchange Online Plan 1

If you only need a mailbox service, this plan is perfect for your business. It offers a 50GB Exchange mailbox as well as all Exchange features such as calendar and contact sharing, public folders, and more.

Office 365 Business Essentials

100% Web-based, this plan gives access to Office Online services (but does not offer installed software), a 50GB Exchange mailbox, 1TB of online storage on OneDrive for Business and Skype for Business. It also proposes several tools for teamwork: Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business, SharePoint and Yammer.

Office 365 Business

Office 365 Business includes the latest version of the full Office 2016 Suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote, and Publisher) installed locally on 5 PCs or Macs per user. The plan also includes the following on-line services: Office Online, 1TB of storage space on OneDrive for Business and Sway.

Office 365 Business Premium

The most comprehensive version for SMEs, the plan combines Business Essentials and Business plan products and services, enabling the full potential of Office 365's installed software and online services.

What's New in Office 365 for 2017

Microsoft is constantly working on new features to optimize the different applications that make up its Office 365 service. In order for everyone to be informed of the latest developments, the company has set up Office 365 Roadmap, a Web page that lists all the updates at various stages from being in development to rolling-out to customers to being generally available for applicable customers world-wide. Among the 100 updates in development, here are some new features that should be available in 2017:

• Real-time transcription and translation for Skype Meeting Broadcast. The new function will allow companies to automatically share the transcript of their conference and participants to translate it in the language of their choice.

• Support for Bitcoin. As for standard monetary units, Excel will soon be able to carry out operations with the most widespread cryptocurrency.

• New features for access management. Options should be introduced to limit access to applications based on the location of users and more features will be added to better control user usage and status permissions.

Released just before the end of the year was the first major update to the new Office.com interface, unveiled in April 2016. The changes facilitate navigation and access to documents on the Web platform. More possibilities are now available to manage recent files, daily overview of meetings has been optimized and it is now possible to create and manage tasks that will be synchronized throughout the service. In addition to these novelties, more additions are also expected in the course of 2017.

Office 365 services proposed by GTI

If you're looking for proven productivity tools, applications that allow employees to better interact and want to take full advantage of cloud computing, Office 365 is definitely an option to consider for your business. At GTI, it is one of the services we often include in our proposals for customers looking for this type of solution. As a Silver Microsoft Partner, GTI and its Managed IT Services team have the expertise to advise you in choosing a plan that meets your needs. You can rely on our vast experience in the implementation and migration of email solutions as well as in experts who have realized several projects of this kind with SMBs such as Lamcom, who moved to a cloud solution instead of its server solution, organizations such as the Fédération des Chambres de Commerce du Québec and start-ups. Whatever your type of business and project is, we will be able to meet your needs. So if you are interested in the Office 365 service, do not hesitate to contact us now!