When you decide to adopt Office 365, you’re faced with lots of options. Apart from anything else, there’s a whole suite of products and services to choose from. Which are the most popular Office 365 products? In what order to most companies adopt? Where do you start?
A good starting point is to choose an expert Microsoft partner to help you. But, you probably already know that. Microsoft partners assist in selecting the right products and services and also guide you to adopt them in the right order.
Compete366 specialises in advising companies with between 50 and 250 employees and we’ve managed hundreds Office 365 migration projects. From that experience, we’re in a unique position to know which are the most popular Office 365 products. Of course, every company is different and popularity isn’t a gauge of what’s right for you. But, because it helps to know what others are doing, we think you’ll find this useful.
Exchange Online is Enterprise Class hosted e-mail running on the latest version of Microsoft Exchange. It’s the number one most in-demand product in the suite which explains why migrating email to Office 365 is how most companies first become our customers.
Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneNote and Publisher. The Office Suite provides the de facto working tools that most businesses use today. Licensing and version control used to present issues in the past. but with Office 365, all users are licensed and have the same, very latest versions. A little known bonus is that the Suite can be downloaded onto five PCs or Macs, five Tablets and five phones per licensed user.
SharePoint is the equivalent of company file server in the cloud. Users also have access to OneDrive for Business, which is a personal file storage and sharing platform. Sharepoint allows easy file sharing and access from within the Office 365 applications and also from webs browsers. Once you start using Office 365, Sharepoint becomes a natural extension to the software suite.
Skype for Business takes the ubiquitous Skype and makes it business-ready. The product comprises of presence, IM, voice call, video call, screen sharing and online meetings. There’s an add-on for Audio Conferencing which provides a dial-in number for people to join if they can’t use the Skype for Business client. There’s even an add-on for PSTN so you can use Skype for Business as a VOIP telephone system. Like other VOIP systems, Skype for Business lets you assign a landline number so you receive calls from normal phones and present outbound caller ID.
Power BI is an amazingly powerful visual business intelligence and analytics tool. It lets you connect multiple data sources, build data models, build reports and dashboards and publish via a secure web service to share your intelligence with others. With Power BI, executives can drill down into what’s happening in their business from any digital device connected to the web.
Visio is a market leading solution for visualising processes, interfaces, schematics and designs. It is most commonly used to create flowcharts, network diagrams, org charts, floor plans, engineering designs and is a firm favourite with busy execs.
Project is well known to project managers across the world as an easy to use and highly effective project management tool. Over 20m professionals worldwide use Project to supercharge their project delivery. The product features built-in templates, familiar scheduling tools, and access to different devices which helps project managers and teams stay productive.
Teams is Microsoft’s equivalent of Slack and it’s really taking off. It is a persistent, chat-based team and project collaboration tool which integrates with other products in the Office 365 Suite like Skype for Business, SharePoint, OneNote and Planner.
Office 365 has excellent security and protection measures build in as standard. These include anti-spam and Malware, Multi-Factor Authentication, Basic Mobile Device Management and more. But, for those who have bigger security concerns, we offer services such as Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection, Microsoft Intune and Enterprise Mobility + Security E3/5.
Yammer is an enterprise social networking service that companies of all sizes are using to promote more effective communication inside organisations. It’s a hugely effective collaboration tool allowing users to discuss ideas, update colleagues, canvass opinions, recognise achievement and crowdsource ideas.
These are just the most in-demand products we’re asked to implement. Your needs will, of course, be unique and we can help you choose the right mix. Other products include OneNote, Access, Bookings, Business Center, Invoicing, Listings, Mile IQ, StaffHub, Sway and more.
While a basic adoption roadmap for your company may follow the path of the most popular Office 365 products as listed above, You will be staggered at the range of products and services available.
See our selection of our short video case studies featuring some of the successful Office 365 migrations we have managed for our clients.
If you would like to know more or receive a quote for us to migrate you to Office 365, get in touch with us today.
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