Introduction To Microsoft 365 & It’s Exceptional Features

In this post, you will find not only an introduction to Microsoft 365 but also gain insight into the numerous benefits that it provides. Microsoft 365 formally known as Office 365 is nothing but a cloud-based SaaS. This means that the software or hardware specifications of a private device are no longer a concern. More and are free to use the robust set of applications created by tech giant Microsoft.

Additionally, Microsoft takes all the responsibility of updating, maintaining, and securing of the various software in the cloud or more accurately on the server side itself.

Furthermore, users can choose from different variants of Microsoft 365 subscription packages. Each aimed at providing service to a specific set of users & satisfying different market needs be it corporate, home, or education.

Microsoft 365 no longer requires a lump sum payment instead users pay to use only what they need on a subscription model. Moreover, applications like Microsoft Office Online, Exchange, Sharepoint, Onedrive, Teams, etc are accessible by users at any time and any where.

Let’s discover the importance and features of Microsoft 365.

Benefits Of Microsoft 365

Now that we have a simple understanding of what Microsoft 365 is let us discuss its benefits in more detail.

1. Easily Accessible from Anywhere: Microsoft 365 applications & services can be used from any remote location if you have internet access.

2. Automatic Updates of Software: Up-to-date & ready-to-use software is provided within the cloud itself to its users.

3. Prevents Digital Data Disaster: Data is backed up on the cloud which reduces the chances of complete data loss even when a disaster strikes.

4. Ensures Security: Every Microsoft 365 user gets a unique username & password to authenticate their user account.

5. Reduces Expenses: It reduces hardware cost as well as the cost of purchasing/ updating the software. You pay to subscribe the tools & services only as per your requirements.

Microsoft 365 Services & Tools

As discussed earlier in the introduction to Microsoft 365 section, there are many services & tools that help in creating collaborating and sharing  between colleagues, friends and family:

Office Online:

Office Online is similar to the desktop MS Office suite, but the difference between the two is that Office Online is provided over the internet to the users. It makes it easier for you to create, modify, collaborate & share data with others.

The apps provided in Office Online are:

– Word Online: Create, edit, collaborate & share your word documents or files from anywhere.

– Excel Online: Analyze and organize your data in Excel spreadsheets & workbooks.

– PowerPoint Online: Create presentations and take help from your team from anywhere on the same presentation at the same time.

– OneNote Online: Helps you in information gathering and multi-user collaboration. Users can make handwritten or typed notes, drawings, screenshots, videos, and audios. These notes can be shared with other OneNote users.

– Mail: You can stay connected to your emails & take control of your emails. You get OWA (Outlook Web Access) which is similar to Outlook.

– People: Allows you to stay connected to your contacts from Teams, Linkedin & much more.

– Calendar: Helps you to Invite, set reminders and track RSVPs to manage your schedule.

Businesses that want to improve collaboration, or are undertaking a major restructuring often need a means to move Office 365 mailbox to another user account immediately. The instructions in the aforementioned blog provide a shortcut to the complex task with the help of an automated utility

One Drive For Business:

One Drive is an online cloud storage service where users can store, documents, photos, videos, etc. Apart from that it can be used as a place to archive and keep email data too. Moreover, a single One Drive account can be shared with multiple users simultaneously all Thanks to Microsoft 365 collaboration facilities.
Certain scenarios arise where one needs to transfer OneDrive for business to another account:
As organizations grow they look to merge or outright acquire competitors. In such scenarios, they must also migrate the data of employees stored on Onedrives.
Although manual methods exist they are unreliable and time-consuming so it’s better to go for the professional means of transferring One Drive for Business accounts across tenants.

Exchange Online:

Exchange Online is an application that provides centralized control for all the mailboxes in your organization. Moreover, it allows you to set security, set mail policy, filter spam & malware, etc. In addition, it also has data loss prevention capabilities.
In situations where a company is required by law to have the data backup of employees can make use of the trustworthy method to export offline Exchange database to Office 365. It allows them to free up the server for more critical data and assists in saving costs too.

SharePoint Online:

SharePoint Online is a web application that helps you modernize your on-premises infrastructure. Therefore, you can either create team sites or portals to share, discover and collaborate on content with your team inside and outside your organization from anywhere.
Sharepoint acts as a backbone on which many other Microsoft 365 services like Onedrive, Teams, etc are based. Therefore in critical scenarios including but not limited to restructuring, migration, archiving, etc, admins may need to copy or move SharePoint Online Document Library.
For such a complicated data transfer relying on unsupported manual methods is the last thing you want to do. Fortunately, the professional utility can make data movement both faster and more secure.

Microsoft Teams and Yammer:

Microsoft Teams allows you to interact with your team via instant messaging, Voice over Internet Protocol, Video conferencing, and much more. It also helps you connect to your team from anywhere and at any time. Whereas, Yammer is an enterprise-based social networking service that helps to interact & connect privately with an organization.
As acquisitions and mergers become commonplace so does the requirement to migrate Microsoft Teams from one tenant to another.
This can easily be performed with the help of an automated solution.

Conclusion

Since this blog on the introduction of Microsoft 365 and its features, has come to an end; let us take a summary of what we learned. We learned about the introduction to M365 Office Suite, benefits of Microsoft 365, M365 services & tools. In conclusion, to this blog, we can infer that users who need to create, modify, access, and collaborate their data from multiple locations should give O365 a try.