A Beginner’s Guide to Office 365

a beginner guide to office 365

Office 365 has evolved and transformedĀ to stay relevant in today’s business world. Yet many businesses still use it exclusively for Microsoft Word and Excel. If you find yourself looking at the other apps and features and wondering what they do, keep reading this guide to Office 365.

Applications

So, we all know about Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. These applications are essential for creating documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and communicating internally andĀ externally.

But we encourage you to take a look at other apps like SharePoint, which we’ll talk about later, as well as Microsoft Teams, a group chat tool.

Cloud Storage

Office 365 makes use of cloud computing to store and secure your files. This makes it easy to retrieve them if something happens to one of your computers.

Cloud storage is great, but migrating to it can be tricky. You need to make sure you can find all of your documents and keep them all safe.

CollaborationĀ 

Some businesses still collaborate by having their employees send email attachments back and forth to each other. This method is slow and confusing.Ā It’s easy to mix up the files and send the wrong one.

Microsoft SharePoint is an Office 365 app dedicated toĀ collaboration and file sharing. With it, your employees can work on the same file, so they don’t have to send anything through email.

The Beginner’s Learning Curve

There’s a lot of information here, and we’ll admit that there’s a beginner’s learning curve. Once you get over it, however, using the applications comes naturally. Just consider getting some outside help so you can get comfortable with the apps and migrate your data over.

To talk more about Office 365, or anything else,Ā contact usĀ today.

Encrypting Email with Office 365

encrypting email with office 365

Normal email isn’t secure. Snoopers can intercept it and read it. Unlike the Web, email doesn’t have any standard way to send data securely. If you’re sending highly confidential email, the risk could be unacceptable. You should learn about encrypting email.

Fortunately, Microsoft Office 365 provides three ways to encrypt email, making it nearly impossible for anyone to spy on it. Each method has its own advantages, depending who’s getting the mail.

Encrypting Email

Encrypting Email with Office 365

Office Message Encryption (OME) lets you send encrypted messages to any address, not just another Microsoft-based one. The administrator sets up rules about which messages are encrypted, so the user doesn’t have to remember to do it. The recipient can decrypt the message with an Office 365 account or request a one-time passcode by email, which expires in 15 minutes.

Information Rights Management (IRM) provides tighter security. The sender can prohibit forwarding, though knowledgeable recipients can override it. It uses Azure Rights Management, and only someone with the designated use license can decrypt an IRM message. Only certain applications can handle these messages, so people who don’t have Office 365 accounts will have trouble reading them. As with OME, the administrator can set up rules to automate encryption.

S/MIME is a vendor-neutral standard that uses public-private key encryption. You can send messages to anyone who has a public encryption key. It provides a high level of confidence that only the authorized recipient can read the message. It encrypts the whole message, so there’s no way to check S/MIME messages for malware or spam.

Any of these methods let you send messages from Office 365 that snoopers can’t read. 4 Corner IT can help you to set up your IT so that all your information is safe, whether it’s in transit or on your drive. Please contact us to learn more.

Skype for Business

skype for business
VoIP

Achieve More with a Fully Integrated Communication Solution

We believe that the heart of productivity is great teamwork, and the heart of great teams is great communication.

Productivity today is centered on conversations – sometimes a quick instant message or call, and sometimes a meeting planned in advance including voice, video and content sharing. Office 365 is a world-class productivity service that helps great teams to accomplish great achievements.

At the heart of Office 365 communications is the Skype for Business service connecting your teams with the experience they love, in the Office applications they use every day. With Skype for Business you can simplify your infrastructure with one platform for calling, conferencing, video, and sharing.

Our company offers a fully integrated communications solution based on Office 365, our services, and certified hardware to ensure the best experience for your end-users. We help our customers along all the steps of the productivity improvement journey, starting with deployment planning and roll-out, to making sure your teams are up to speed with the new solution and comfortable enough with the new ways of communication. By leveraging our company’s offering, your teams will be able to communicate like never before using Office 365 and Skype for Business.

Skype Across Devices

Skype Across Devices

Connect with your team anywhere using our mobile apps across Windows, iOS and AndroidTM, or bring remote participants into meeting spaces of all sizes with Skype for Business Room Systems.

Complete Meeting Solution

Complete Meeting Solution

Work like you are all in one room, even when you are not. From collaborative team sessions to large broadcasts or dialing into a conference using your phone, Skype for Business is designed for all your meeting needs.

Modern Voice with Cloud PBX

Modern Voice with Cloud PBX

Make, receive, and transfer business calls in the office, at home, or on the road using phone, PC, and mobile. Increase agility and consolidate management with voice services in Office 365.

Security, Control and Compliance

Security, Control and Compliance

Get end-to-end security, control and compliance that span from the user to the enterprise. All powered by the on-demand scale and manageability of Office 365.

Skype for Business Voice

Our integrated communications offering helps you take advantage of the following services and capabilities of Office 365 and Skype for Business:

  • Anywhere Access – ability to make and receive business calls in the office, at home, or on the road, using your business number on your smartphone, tablet, PC, or desk phone.
  • PSTN Conferencing – provides the flexibility to dial in to a meeting from a traditional phone, in addition to the existing ability to join a meeting with a single click on your PC or mobile device.
  • Skype Meeting Broadcast – makes it easier than ever to produce large virtual meetings for up to 10,000 meeting attendees, who can join from virtually any browser or device (see it in action). Now Skype for Business truly is a single platform for every type of meeting.
  • Cloud PBX – enables companies to eliminate separate PBX systems and transition to the cloud with Office 365 as the center of communications management.
  • PSTN Calling – ability to subscribe to Microsoft managed calling plans and phone numbers.
  • Skype Connectivity – Connect, communicate, and collaborate with colleagues, consumers, other businesses, and friends and family – anyone who uses Skype – with both voice and HD video.

3 Ways to Stay Organized with Microsoft Office 365

3 ways to stay organized with microsoft office 365

Businesses can improve their organization withĀ Microsoft Office 365. New programs included with the Office package, such asĀ Lync and Sharepoint, improve its functionality. Businesses can now collaborate and stay organized with Office 365 Online. Here are three examples of how youĀ can do just that:

Organize Your Projects

With Office 365, you canĀ encourage collaboration among employees. Even if employees are on different teams or in different departments, it’s easy to collaborate with Microsoft Sharepoint.

This improves project management simply by making it easier for businesses to stay organized. Rather than having to send files back and forth through email, employees can work on the same project together.

Organize Your Team

With Microsoft Lync, businesses can make internal communication easier than ever. Lync provides an optimal user experience that focuses on simplicity and functionality.

If you already use VoIP, then you can use Lync to keep your client base and employees more organized. If you’re considering switching to it, then Microsoft Lync makes the transition easier for employees.

Organize Your Documents

When you use Microsoft Sharepoint to save documents, you have the option of storing them on the cloud. Although this isn’t necessary, it helps businesses to keep track of their documents on a company-wide basis.

As a manager, it’s important for you to have access to all files from accounting spreadsheets to marketing presentations. Storing your documents on the cloud will make this easier.

Businesses that take full advantage of Microsoft Office 365 notice an improvement in organization and an increase in productivity. With Microsoft Lync and Microsoft Sharepoint, communication and collaboration are easier than ever.

To talk more about Microsoft Office 365, or anything else, pleaseĀ contact us.

Guess What? You Already Know How to Use Office 365, (and You Probably Already Love it Too!)

guess what you already know how to use office 365 and you probably already love it too
how to use office 365

Because Office 365 is new to some people, they picture:

  • A program that’s hard to set up,
  • A program that’s only for Mac computers,
  • Some new app that’s only for mobile devices, or
  • Some confusing, new-fangled version of Microsoft products geared toward people who think the old platforms are useless or outdated.

However, Office 365 is essentially the best of the traditional Microsoft Office platform, combined with the simplest and most convenient upgrades that modern cloud computing has to offer. Though many products can easily lose their initial fan base when they upgrade or make changes to keep up with the times, by the time people most comfortable with Microsoft products understand what Office 365 actually is, everyone will realize it’s a genuinely perfect fit for most smb’s.

Why?

With 365, Microsoft gives users subscription-based access to its suite of office products. If you buy it for yourself, it’s less than $10 a month. However, many companies choose to buy it for their staff for several reasons:

Everyone in the office can collaborate on one secure system with ease.

It doesn’t matter if you’re in the office, or in another country; once you’ve connected your devices through the platform, you can quickly share documents and data through One Drive as if you were in the same office. This enables you to complete projects faster. In addition, since 365 is also integrated with Skype Lync, you can easily conduct business conferences and make free/cheap VoIP calls as well, without paying a separate company and without downloading special software.

Microsoft gives users 1 terabyte of cloud storage for each user, and each user is able to use the software on one laptop/desktop, one tablet and one phone.

Users also get full downloads of every standard Microsoft program including Outlook, Word, Excel, Sharepoint, Lync, Exchange, Power Point, One Note, Access and Publisher.

Lastly, let’s face it. The Microsoft product suite has always been notoriously expensive.

365 is basically the cheapest way anyone’s ever got a suite of Microsoft products directly from the manufacturer.

How to Use Office 365

Using Office 365 is as easy as using a website like Facebook or a software program like Skype.

  1. You simply log into your account at portal.office.com, with the information in the email you received after you signed up.
  2. Next, you change your password.
  3. Then, when you’re ready to download your software, you download and install your software suite just like any other program. You just go through all the standard install prompts and options.
  4. Once you’ve downloaded the software and your online access is up and running, you’re good to go. If you’ve ever used Microsoft Office before, you already know how to use Office 365.

However, if you have any questions or need any guidance at all — or find a program that’s new to you, because you’re mainly used to the standard programs; just contact us.

As your Managed Services Provider, 4 Corner IT offers you and your staff full installation and support for Office 365!