Does anyone really understand Office 365?

I was recently asked to provide training for Office 365. This innocent request is like asking for training on airplanes. The wide variety in types along with new releases with new features is a moving target.

Just when you think you’ve finally turned the corner to understanding Office 365, Microsoft releases half a dozen new products in a flurry to get them in the marketplace. This has been a recurring theme over the past three years, seeming with no end in sight. Trying to keep up is a daunting task, Microsoft itself often can’t answer questions about their own products. They certainly lack any consistency.

This puts a tremendous strain on companies like ours who recommend, implement and support Office 365 products. If our experts have a hard time keeping up and understanding the products, imagine what is like for a business trying to determine if Office 365 is right for them.

To make my point, let’s just scratch the surface of Office 365. There are roughly seven bundled versions of Office 365 license types for business use. Within each of these license types are “included applications”. This is where it really gets interesting. The Office 365 E3 license includes the following applications and services:

1. Outlook
2. Word
3. Excel
4. PowerPoint
5. Access
6. Publisher
7. Exchange
8. OneDrive
9. SharePoint
10. Teams
11. Yammer
12. Stream

Many of these applications and services may be recognizable and some completely foreign. Understanding and using some of the more obscure applications and services are a luxury only attainable with an internal IT staff dedicated to Office 365.

This list is not near the end of it, not even close. There are hundreds of additional add-on products and services to Office 365 for specific purposes. Here is a very short sample:

1. Visio
2. Project
3. Phone System
4. Audio Conferencing
5. Advanced eDiscovery
6. Advanced Threat Protection
7. Kaizala
8. Intune
9. Cloud App Security
10. Meeting Room
11. Enterprise Mobility + Security
12. Dynamics 365
13. Power BI Pro
14. PowerApps
15. Azure Active Directory
16. Flow
17. Windows 10
18. Microsoft 365

Each of these products has multiple options and features to choose from. In addition, there is an entire Office 365 Marketplace with thousands (over 2500) add-on third-party applications. You get the picture.

Here’s a link to see for yourself: https://bit.ly/2JpXKkK

Adding frustration, many of these products change names (as with the Skype for Business change to Teams) and are released without, in my opinion, being fully vetted for any problems or bugs. The general public ‘doesn’t know what they don’t know’ and may try deploying solutions that don’t meet the business need, don’t work reliably, or both.

It’s not all negative

Office 365 has provided a wealth of valuable productivity solutions at very affordable prices making them now attainable for the smallest of businesses. When understood and used properly, business productivity and value can increase dramatically. But there’s the rub. The products must first be understood and then implemented properly with adequate training to take full advantage.

Consider again the original request: provide training for Office 365. To train for Office 365 there must first be training on the Office 365 family of products and ecosystem to determine what is relevant for the business. Care must be taken to understand and delineate mature and robust products from recently released ‘bleeding edge’ products.

It’s our job to understand and keep up with Office 365. Internally, we must continually deploy and test new products to understand them, learn what works well, what doesn’t, and where they fit within business use cases. Teams and Voice is a great example.

Skype for Business changed to Teams and added voice plans last year. Teams is included in many Office 365 licenses and Voice is included with the E5 license or as an add-on. We migrated from Skype for Business to Teams and from our previous voice provider to Microsoft Voice last year. Transitioning voice services to Microsoft was not for the faint of heart. Will our number transfer (port) correctly? Will the voice quality be acceptable? Will the auto-attendant have the features we need?

Surprisingly, the migration of our voice services to Microsoft was easy and the quality has been excellent. A pleasant surprise. The migration to Teams was not as smooth. Teams is a great application with an abundance of really great features consolidated in one place. It has improved our collaboration and productivity while allowing us to shed products. Answering a call within Teams and then sharing files, sharing screens and instant messaging during the call is awesome.

The ‘gotcha’ with Teams has been SharePoint. Transitioning our files to SharePoint was very time consuming and the change in ‘look and feel’ and how files are accessed has been difficult. There have been painful performance and accessibility issues, including some downtime. But we now know the details to better advise our clients through real world use.

Providing education and advice on Office 365 products prior to purchase and implementation will reduce the amount of surprises and frustration. Ensuring every user understands the capabilities proactively will also reduce the amount of support requests related to the roll-out. Time spent up front will pay dividends towards a smoother implementation.