Microsoft Office 365
Okay, we’ve had a good time together checking Office 365 and what it can do for small and medium-sized businesses in previous posts. Now, we want to take a look at what this cloud-based productivity tool from Microsoft can do for you and your business. After all, it’s your business you care about, so as Denver IT support experts, so should we, right?

Office 365 lets you pay for the services you use, and nothing more
Microsoft offers a variety of monthly subscription plans for its offering of cloud-based productivity tools: Office 365. For most of the companies we work with at North Star, Inc., the P1 plan will be the most popular. This is the plan that Microsoft has designed for companies with up to 25 employees, with a maximum of 50 users. The P1 Plan offers full access to all of the most popular Office tools, including Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft PowerPoint, for just $6 per month per user.

So what will you get for your six dollars a month?

• Get anytime, anywhere access to: email, contacts, calendars, files, documents, spreadsheets, slideshows, and any other Office feature on almost any mobile device, including iPads, iPhones, and Android devices.
• Ease of use – Across all digital environments, with access to Outlook, Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint.
• Improved collaboration, even on the largest files. Instead of trying to email large packets of data, Office 365 lets you create password-protected access to share large, hard-to-email files inside and outside your organization. This gives you a single, easy-to-find location for all versions and variations of every document in your system.
• Increased security and improved reliability, with enterprise-grade servers from Microsoft. You no longer need to wonder if your system is secure, as Microsoft handles all of your server needs with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster recovery capabilities, multi-location data centers, and a strict privacy policy. This also allows them to offer you a financially backed 99.9% uptime guarantee.

Access your email, calendar and contacts in all digital environments
Powered by Exchange Online, Office 365 gives you a 25 GB mailbox, with contacts and a calendar that’s available virtually anywhere; and is accessible on your iPhone, Android, Nokia, Blackberry, Windows Phone, or use almost any Macintosh or PC computer, with cross-browser support for Safari, Firefox, Chrome, and Internet Explorer.

• Fully compatible with Outlook and Exchange Online
• Large mailboxes that are easy to use
• Professional looking email addresses
• Automatic update of email, contacts and calendar on digital devices
• Check the availability of your colleagues from the Outlook calendar
• Virus and spam protection
• Reduce inbox clutter with “Conversation View”
• Access to other email accounts
• A personal email archive

Enhanced sharing and collaboration with Office 365
Office 365 offers improved sharing and collaboration within your organization through the use of SharePoint Online. Your people will be able to save directly to SharePoint or collaborate on any document, in real time, through Office Web Apps.

• Create a public website with the integrated Site Designer tool
• Share and manage critical documents
• Save different versions and drafts in a single location accessible to everyone
• 10 GB of SharePoint storage
• External sharing with trusted partners
• Fully integrated with Microsoft Office
• A familiar look with familiar tools

Improved communication and collaboration.
Microsoft Lync Online offers next-generation communication in an online environment, enabling your people to make clear connections and collaborate from virtually anywhere at any time. Lync Online provides an enhanced communication experience with instant messaging, audio/video calls, and an online meeting experience that supports audio, video, and web conferencing.

• Connect with colleagues and clients instantly
• Make professional presentations from anywhere
• Conference calls and meetings
• Check the status and availability of colleagues quickly and easily
• Contact anyone suing Office 365 or Windows Live
• Communicate with anyone who uses Microsoft Outlook
• Connect with Exchange online

Manage Office 365 from a single, easy-to-use interface
Office 365 administration is accomplished from an intuitive web-based portal that can only be accessed by the people you designate. It was designed for organizations without IT staff, with simple navigation and low-tech solutions; allowing you to easily set up user accounts, assign various roles to others, and configure the services you’ll use.

• A simple and easy to use administration interface
• You control access to all data, critical and otherwise
• Set up separate user accounts for each employee
• Add administrators to help you manage the system
• Manage your public website
• Control costs by controlling the number of users
• Full access to Microsoft support 24/7, 365

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