Office 365 Reviews

• Rapid deployment of Office functionality to users.
• Ability to enforce global policies.
• Security.

Monthly subscription per user provides flexibility and a significant number of capable apps to leverage corporate data.

We have found Office 365's many features and apps to be extremely useful, beyond the usual Word and Excel, which most people are used to using. We've made extensive use of SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, and so forth, and are exploring the other capabilities of Office 365.

Many of the compliance facilities, whilst available, require a bit of 'digging' around the back end of the admin/security facilities. It would be nice to have industry/regional templates which could be adopted and customized to help get compliance settings made more easily, especially for user organizations that face a lot of compliance issues.

About two years now.

No, deployment was very simple.

No, so far Office 365 has been extremely reliable and stable.

So far no issues encountered, we have scanned a lot of documents without any issues.

We worked with a Microsoft Partner and found the service to be excellent.

Very high.

We were using Office 2007 before the upgrade, with various licensing scattered across the business. Office 365 gave us a consistent platform that could be easily rolled out. Also, the ongoing updates to Office 365 help reduce the workload on keeping apps up-to-date, especially if the IT team is small.

Initial setup was very straightforward.

We worked through a Microsoft Partner who helped us get Office 365 deployed across our organization.

So far, substantial savings of approximately 30 to 40 percent vs the old licensing model. Also, as staff numbers fluctuate, it is possible to keep the number of subscriptions in alignment with headcount. Monthly subscriptions for each user make the solution extremely flexible.

If you are a small business and/or have in-house technical capability, getting up and running with Office 365 is fairly simple. I suggest working with a good Microsoft Partner if the organization is large or disparate/distributed.

We spent a bit of time evaluating OpenOffice, LibreOffice, but Office 365 suited our particular needs very well. However, OpenOffice and LibreOffice are themselves good products and should be reviewed/considered for productivity applications. One of the main strengths of Office 365 is it runs on the Azure platform and has Microsoft behind it, which gives me a lot of confidence.

We've been very happy with Office 365 so far. We're looking to see how else we can leverage the investment in Delve, Yammer, Forms, and other capabilities across the business.

Office 365, Skype for Business Online, SharePoint.

Less overhead, work anywhere/anytime. Tools for teamwork, productivity, and administration.

The ability to work with SharePoint from within the Office applications is limited. (There is still a need for third party tools like Harmon.ie).

Five years.

Negligible.

Negligible.

High level of technical support from Microsoft.

On-premises: Office 1010/2013/2016, Sharepoint Server, Skype/Lync farm. We switched because of the ease of administration and reduced overhead.

With the help of a clear project plan and adoption plan, implementation of Office 365 is mostly straightforward. SharePoint does need more attention. Mostly adoption issues.

Contact Microsoft about any pricing issues.

No.

Adoption is key! Don't push it. Especially for users who are used to working with traditional tools, it will be hard to adopt a new way of work.

• Cloud
• Collaboration ability
• Security.

We are a remote/distributed company, so we need cloud functionality; collaboration is also key in a remote environment.

We have greater ability to communicate and work on projects much more efficiently. I can provide IT support for over 200 employees remotely.

Skype for Business could use some help. But, they constantly update and improve the full suite of apps.

The UI/UX feels a bit clunky. Especially compared to consumer Skype or Teams. There isn’t persistent chat, so it is hard to having on-going conversations. We actually stopped using it for instant messaging, but still use it for the CloudPBX/PSTN (landline calling) which works pretty well. There are some stability issues, but better than a lot of VoIP options.

I have used it for 1.5 years.

Rarely have we had stability issues. Maybe 20 minutes of disruption over 1.5 years.

Office 365 scales extremely well.

I have only had to use their support once, but they seemed proficient.

We didn’t really have a previous solution. We used a stand-alone email service and older versions of Office.

It is a very easy, logical set-up and now they have an on-boarding wizard which looks helpful and offer FastTrack to help with on-boarding.

Licensing is maybe the most confusing part of it – in fact there are certification courses just for licensing! But, we have had both the E3 and E5 levels and provides everything we need.

We looked at Google at Work.

Provide lots of training and roll out one app at a time for apps that are above and beyond standard Office apps. Reiterate that they can use cloud/desktop or both. Our users sometimes struggle understanding that the desktop apps have the same content as the cloud version.

Exchange Online: It's the cloud version of Exchange Server and is pretty much easy to use.

Skype for Business Online formerly Lync Online: It's a fully fledged chat cum video conferencing tool. With the integration of Skype and Lync, the tool has now become more useful and helpful.

There were functionalities of the Lync 2013 client version that were not helpful, like connecting with people outside the organization and having better conferencing abilities. These have now been improved with the involvement of AT&T collaboration with Microsoft Lync. Moreover, Skype for Business Mobile is a more handy tool now.

The Skype for Business admin centre could be easier to use.

The Microsoft Intune admin portal still needs some compatibility support to run on all browsers. Presently, it requires IE 11.0 and higher version to work properly.

I have been using this product since it's complete launch, which was from March 2013.

The 99.99℅ uptime SLA guarantee provided by Microsoft ensures there are no stability related issues.

The tool is cloud-based and is based on Microsoft Azure (IaaS and PaaS). This ensures high scalability and elasticity. I have never had any situation with scalability until now.

Regular customer support is good enough for all when there is a problem. Apart from that, the community supports are there as well. I would recommend enterprise users to enroll for Microsoft's Premier support.

I have not used other solutions; however, I have assisted other users and administrators to migrate from Google Business Apps to Microsoft's Office 365 Enterprise and Business Premier environment.

The setup is easy and user-friendly. On-screen guided instructions help make the complex process easy to use.

Pricing and licensing are pay-as-you-go, concept-wise. Plans are available per user per month or per user per year. These are available on Microsoft's website. Users or organizations can choose the plans according to their requirements and budget.

Frankly, the features packed by Microsoft and the compatibility with Microsoft operating systems provides you the best options when compared with other options available in market. You may Google or Bing the same for more comparisons.

If you really need to move to cloud, compare all of the options, check your budget and requirements and subscribe to Office 365's trial pack, which is available for 30 days. Feel comfortable with the product.

If you feel that this product serves your requirement for the money you are paying, you may subscribe to Office 365 Enterprise. If in case you feel that this would cost you too much (for small business organizations), you may look for other cloud solutions like Google Business Apps or Google Apps and other cloud-based applications. You may look in Google for other cloud-based solutions.

It is an excellent platform for teamwork. Its raison d'être is the collaboration between the members of a business network. It also enables work material from diverse devices.

Here are some of the valuable features:

• Ease of use with an intuitive environment
• High availability
• Speed of access
• Quick response when requesting support
• Extensive information on the web and from local partners
• Short implementation time
• Quick activation of services

The tools have made a positive impact on our organization. Here are some examples:

• Some meetings no longer need to occur at the different venues of our company. They can use Skype for Business instead.
• Many teams have formed groups through which they share work files. Team members are not necessarily in the same physical location.
• Human resources and communication teams use Yammer for their ads.
• Managers make approvals from their cell phones, thereby making the operation more dynamic. Other services have gradually been incorporated.

I would like to see a little more native documentation in more frequently used languages, such as Spanish.

There is very good documentation of the different modules and components, however, all are in English, and the product is widely distributed in Spanish speaking countries. It would be beneficial if the documentation is also in the second highest language: Spanish.

We have been using this solution for seven months.

Once issue occurred when we moved large mailboxes (greater than 20 GB). That took a considerable amount of time to finalize. However, that could have been a result of the conditions and characteristics of the networks in our country, or our internet provider.

No stability issues for now. All is working out as expected.

No scalability issues for now. All is working out as expected.

Customer service is very good, especially by the local partners who give us advice and first line support. This is also true of the service offered directly by Microsoft.

Technical support has been very good for us so far. Once a support case is opened, we receive a message very quickly that a technician was assigned to us. Within five hours, depending on the urgency of the case, we generally receive some communication in our language to solve the case.

Our previous solutions had of delay of about three years and had not been updated. In addition, they were only offering us mail, calendar, and a poor communication chat.

The change was necessary, given the peculiarities of the existing work in the company. We needed a platform that would allow a more dynamic and real collaboration.

The installation was not complex. Everything required a series of steps and checklists to follow that allowed the implementation to come to a happy conclusion. The concern is to make sure that there are additional resources available when the implementation ends. This could be a high number of resources.

The implementation was done by the vendor team who is a strategic partner for our company for computer projects. The experience was very good. They have a large group of engineers and staff who are certified by Microsoft. They have many facilities in large and medium-sized companies, and they have been very effective.

The licensing and prices are within the average range. They offer a good price for the services that are obtained. In addition, they offer various licensing plans depending on the required services, from the simplest to the most complex and numerous. The cost is proportional to the number of services.

Before making the decision to purchase this solution, other options were reviewed. There were three finalists: Google Apps, IBM Notes and Domino Social Edition, and Office 365.

During the next round, we evaluated the last two options. After about five weeks of running PoCs, we decided to purchase Office 365.

Plan the work that needs to be done well. Ensure that the achievements and actions of physical/human resources are planned in consideration of possible unexpected events. Plan accordingly in terms of communication or connections.

• Microsoft Office
• Skype for Business
• Office 2016
• Data loss prevention

• Provided us with better capability to trace emails, and provide security over those emails.
• Provided the ability to encrypt email.
• Gave us a professional video conferencing system.
• Easily manageable.

The default reporting is not very helpful; extendable mostly through PowerShell; must have knowledge of PowerShell to fully utilize.

I have used it for a little over one year.

I have not had an issue with anything going down. On Google Apps for Business, it was frequent.

No issues with scalability; easy to work with and extend.

Honestly have not had to deal with technical support; most problems have been resolvable through the community and online research.

We previously used Google Apps for Business. Solution was incomplete, a headache to manage and extend. Email filtering was essentially useless.

Initial setup was very straightforward; was able to set up and migrate with little assistance.

We use a parallel licensing structure through Dell. Originally, there were some limitations; however, those limitations are now rare.

We looked into an onsite email server, as well as staying with Google Apps for Business.

Know PowerShell. This is where the true power of Office 365 lies.

I love this tool. I like the release planning feature and their notifications about upgrades; it makes me feel like an inside partner rather than just a customer.
Some valuable features are

• SharePoint
• Yammer
• Microsoft Planner
• Office 365 (Excel, Access)

Yammer and SharePoint’s social collaboration features have transformed our work style and the way we collaborate with the clients. There’s less of emails tracking and more moving the conversations forward, with greater context in terms of supporting the documents or issues being discussed.

Furthermore, the way that Excel has grown into a data analytics tool/engine with monthly updates is a pleasant surprise.

Task management needs to improve. There still doesn’t seem to be a unified view of my tasks that follows me around from SharePoint to Groups to Yammer to Planner.

Planner seems the best model in terms of functionality, but tracking my personal responsibilities still seems the tiniest bit soiled.

I have been using this solution since 2013.

I have not encountered any stability issues. On some occasions, the service health status reports have indicated issues and resolution timelines, but I don't seem to recall ever feeling, that my services as experienced were either degraded or underperforming.

There were no scalbility issues so far. However, ours is not a large scale enterprise.

The ticketing process is simple and they are responsive. Sometimes they have to get back to me with findings (at times i’ve been surprised having not to expect it to be as complicated enough in order to warrant research) and then the phone tag can begin. Unless the problem is mission-critical or urgent, I let it slide. They might want to consider adding an asynchronous Yammer-like channel for customer support. I know I need a problem fixed, but commandeering time from my day instead of going back and forth about it. It would be really helpful to move the discussion forward without having to have my undivided attention on the support rep and that might be worth investigating into.

I had used Office Professional Pro without the cloud backbone. So, it doesn’t really seem comparable to this product. I have also used and still use the G Suite which is fine, but frankly it doesn’t seem as robust or exciting as the Office 365. I maintain both because some clients are Google people or otherwise have an aversion to MSFT while there are others who know and seem to love the Office 365 solution.

The non-changeable primary tenant DOMAIN.onmicrosoft.com was not explained clearly to me back then. I wound up opening a few instances, instead of adding multiple domains to a tenant. But what still has not been resolved are the branding issues, i.e., if your brand-expressing domains are not intuitively related to each other. For example, there is no mbamoralist.com yammer network b/c my primary domain is succelleratorsaas. If one legitimately owns the domains, one should not be locked into decisions about brand primacy that may have applied at that time but don’t today.

The number of SKUs and the varied configuration that MSFT offers is evidence, that they are segmenting the offers meticulously well.

Google Apps for Work/G Suite that I have used and like as well. I just think that MSFT Office 365 is appreciably a more powerful, detailed and granular tool.

First of all, I was an enthusiastic and an early adopter of this product. Microsoft has made the onboarding process impressively robust and my learning pains back then, would not be those experienced by someone arriving new/fresh today. Still, the primary domain is something that one should give some consideration to, as it’s a lock-in decision.

People tend to keep their mistakes hidden. With version control, you only have access to what you need. Managing assignments of tasks can make a team effort be more transparent. The solution keeps people honest.

Team members can work together and make them more accountable.

I would like to see improvements in connections to external content types and their connectors.

While consulting at a client’s office, I found it very difficult to connect SharePoint designer external content types to the IBM AS400 iSeries connector. I was also trying to connect to the JDE connector.

We have used this solution for six years.

At first there were some stability issues. However, Microsoft got much better with it over time.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

I would rate technical support with an 8/10.

It was easier to set up in the earlier versions. Now it has many more bells to ring.

Cost to value is much better than on premise SharePoint.

We evaluated Amazon Web Services.

Do your homework first, plan governance, and then pull the trigger. Use a migration tool to add metadata to file share documents.

I like that mail and calendar are available anywhere. It is easy to share with colleagues.

I can make changes in seconds. It is easy to share the mailbox and the calendar. It is easy set the 'out of office' status.

Microsoft Excel for Mac (version 15.30) is very slow with a large Excel document. Microsoft Excel for Windows is much faster on the same Mac with Windows (Boot Camp). I’d like to see an improvement in the speed of Excel for Mac in relation to Windows.

We have used this solution for one and a half years.

Microsoft Excel on Mac OS can be very slow.

I did not encounter any issues with scalability.

I would give technical support a rating of 8/10.

In our case, the installation was fairly easily, after good preparation and a plan of action. The migration of all old mailboxes to Microsoft Office 365 takes a long time. We completed this with no problems.

This is not the cheapest option, but the product can scale to the needs of the company.

We evaluated CommuniGate Pro Server and Kerio Connect Mail.

Have a good plan with shared mail and calendars.

You know that there a lot of features are available. SharePoint and Yammer are the most valuable.

Any user can get updates from this portal easily.

• Yammer
• RMS
• Delve

I have used it for the last three years.

We have not encountered any deployment issues.

We have not encountered any stability issues.

We have not encountered any issues like that.

Customer service is very good.

Technical support is very good.

We used only Google, but we have Microsoft AD, Exchange, SharePoint, System Center, Lync/Skype for Business, so that Office 365 Enterprise is the most important for us.

Initial setup was not complex.

We implemented it with our team.

We got a lot of ROI from the business site.

You need to compromise regarding the licensing and pricing.

I would recommend using products from the same vendor (i.e., Microsoft).

It is excellent for any organization's business productivity.