Cloud collaboration and file sharing application suite
4.5/5 (5337 reviews)Microsoft Office 365 is a cloud collaboration tool that provides a private and secure space to store, share and edit files and documents, to connect dispersed teams using shared calendars, messaging and conferencing tools, and to improve your brand experience using branded emails and online websites.
The business class email provided by Office 365 allows for 50 GB of storage per user and the ability to send messages of up to 25 MB. This enables you to send images within emails and to apply custom formatting. You can customize your inbox rules and notifications, and update your calendar and to-do list, to help prioritize tasks. Communicate with colleagues more effectively with online availability statuses to instigate online chat, instant messaging tools and one-to-one, or one-to-many voice and video calling.
Office 365 provides collaboration and knowledge sharing tools for both internal and external purposes. You can allow external project stakeholders and clients to access documents, and create project-specific mailboxes and websites for specific teams, complete with automatic policies and rights protection.
You can also use Office 365 to build blogs and wikis for further knowledge sharing, as well as assigning tasks to team members and tracking tasks on a timeline. Enterprise plans for Microsoft Office 365 provide social networking tools to further enhance communication and collaboration.
Pros
Microsoft Teams is not only conferencing app its integration bunch of application. With single application we are able to access most of the Microsoft service one-drive Calendar, One note, planner etc. Believe this is grate alternative for MS lync, SFB. Spaciously channel creation is very help full to discuss internal issues and and share our ideas. Team meeting work as slimier to Skype for business. video and voice quality is very clear and seems this is working with using less bandwidth. Product is getting attractive among the users and admins. it’s using AD credential for sign in.
Cons
Software startup time is slow have to wait little time to complete work. some time application environment complex for basic users that time we have to help them to find out application features. As a user and admin Cons are very less with the product.
Always kept up to date with the latest features and security patches.
Pros
I love that Microsoft has invested so much on Office365 (obviously since it's a major bread-and-butter source of income for them). Given this, you really feel that MS has a great and huge team behind it. And so, I love that it keeps on improving over time via the regular updates and patches. Now, I feel that I get the new features soon after it gets released, and I feel secure as well from threats of malware, bad scripts, macros, and what have you.
Office365 is the office we have grown up with in the boom of word and spreadsheet processing. This is a must for compatibility issues as most, if not all, of my contacts use MS products. And so, to avoid incompatibilities, or having to destroy the document layout and formatting, better use the same Office365 (and oh, btw, it is also backward compatible for those left behind in the MSO standalone versions).
Office365 is also connected to my MS OneDrive, and so all my documents are readily accessible in one place. Also, this allows me to share my documents to other people and to work on them together. Pretty cool.
Cons
Compatibility with other word/spreadsheet processor apps out there like LibreOffice and GoogleDocs/Sheets. Why can't they just agree on how to save and handle documents, eh? The closed source nature of MSO365 makes it difficult at time to work with other apps mentioned as it destroys the formatting most of the time. So, I tend to share via PDF, but that is not editable.
I'm the Dir of Technology for a small independent elementary school. I've seen the trends and frustrations and familiarity on peoples' parts swing from Office to Google and back again. I am often challenged by how much to learn there always is when looking at all of the capabilities, but genuinely enjoy the challenges because I learn something more about how to do my job better. There are small oddities at times that will make you scratch your head because two parts that were developed separately don't quite behave perfectly when they overlap [ Create a "Faculty Notebook" in OneNote / O365 for EDU and you can add other "Admins" to it to manage or contribute. Elevate and Office 365 group to a team and OneNote notebook because a StaffNotebook, but you cannot add another teammate as an admin on it because it originated in Teams and not OneNote. ] These are the sort of unexplainable behaviors that popcorn into the back of your head when you're using getting comfortable with scripting new user account creation via PowerShell in to your Office 365 environment (something I never thought I'd do) and keep you from 100% trusting it even though you can find a hundred ways to apply things in different methods or combinations to solve any problem you throw at it. Long way to say that I love Office 365 which is why it is so frustrating when it falters because I expect better of it.
Pros
Office 365 was a powerful move to the cloud and leveraged the familiarity of the Office Suite with the connectivity and enabling of collaboration on the cloud. At first, the cloud versions of familiar software was rough around the edges and missing a lot of the functionality that people knew in the desktop versions, even if they didn't use them regularly (or ever). Over time, Office 365 has steadily improved its various offerings, added more feature parity between the desktop and online versions and begun to integrate more seamlessly with workflows for a variety of people. With some vision of what "work" looks like outside of generating letter-size pieces of paper with text and images on it, the variety of tools surrounding the classic presentation, word processing, and spreadsheet software have introduced new methods for communicating and creating content together.
Cons
Sometimes the level of options can be overwhelming. Even with a fair amount of experience, it can be tricky to stay on top of changes or know all the ins and outs. The rapidity with which they address fixing problems is also applied often to perceived problems and that can lead to feeling like the documentation is always out of date or non-applicable and no one knows the right or simple answer to things.
My overall experience with Office 365 has been excellent since day 1. I appreciate the ability to install up to 5 licenses, the constant innovation from Microsoft to improve how I can be productive, and overall developing a platform that truly allows me to achieve more :) I fully endorse and recommend Office 365 to anyone and compared to any productivity platform world wide.
Pros
As a Microsoft Office user for 12+ years, Microsoft has done a lot to innovate their productivity platform. In particular, Office 365 has tons of differentiated value:
1. You receive unlimited upgrade rights to the latest versions. No other types of productivity software provides this option.
2. The amount you receive in the suite is amazing... from Outlook to OneNote to Publisher, the Office Suite gives you the tools you need to transform your business.
3. Co-authoring - This is not just Office to help you be productive. This is Office that allows everyone to be productive at the same time. The co-authoring feature allows people to collaborate and work on documents together even if they're on the opposite sides of the world.
4. Office 365 is secure. The concept of no news is good news applies in this case from a security perspective. Microsoft does an excellent job ensuring that their user's data is secure in the cloud, and that alone is one of the most important differentiated value.
5. The UI is easy to navigate through, and I have personally taught both kids and older folks how to use Office 365 in minutes. Microsoft did a great job creating a navigation pane that is easy to go through.
6. Office Mobile is also great. As a mobile user that travels a lot, it's very helpful for me to view documents through my phone and still be able to view and edit the rich features of Office. I can't say this applies to Microsoft's competitors.
Cons
There are a few cons as it relates to Office 365:
1. For those that are finance conscious, the subscription model does not really resonate with everyone. And if you want to buy the perpetual license, it's ridiculously expensive...
2. Skype for Business needs to stop dropping users from calls in the middle of calls. It happens too often, and even though the potential solution is to move to Teams, Skype for Business in terms of quality calls, needs to stand alone and work better.
Definitely adds value to me as a user and administrator. The companies I used to work for used Lotus Notes and install apps from a CD. It's so convenient having everything in the cloud, and the reports given to you in just a few clicks. It definitely made life a lot easier! Kudos to Microsoft!
Pros
What I really like about Office 365 is that it has a lot of tools bundled into one product. The prices are quite good for a monthly subscription, especially for non-profits. The licensing strategy is also very convenient, and the admin portal is so easy to use. It comes with all of the best products of Microsoft, and you can upgrade and downgrade anytime you want. It comes with the basics that you need regularly for work - Excel, Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, OneDrive, OneNote, etc (with 1 TB that you can consume, and chances are, you won't use all of it. Quite generous actually). If you're taking the business license, you get more features like Sharepoint, Teams, PowerApps (I really like PowerApps), etc. When they come up with a new fancy app, for sure, they'll have you play with it, also to see how we receive the new product. I find Office365 easy to use and easy to the eyes. I don't feel like I'm adjusting too much every time they make some changes. Also, Microsoft has such a good reputation, it makes a regular worker feel safe about using it. Over all, I'm very satisfied with Office365. I've been using it since 2014.
Cons
It has too many products that you might not end up using. But hey, take it as a free software!
Office 365 Business: $8.25/user/month (billed annually) or $10/user/month (billed monthly).
Office 365 Business Premium: $12.50/user/month (billed annually) or $15/user/month (billed monthly).
Office 365 Business Essentials: $5/user/month (billed annually) or $6/user/month (billed monthly).
Email and calendars
Take your email and calendar with you on business trips, with access from your computer or mobile device.
Website
Create an attractive website with no special skills required. Easy-to-use online tools will do the job for you.
Office Web Apps
Save your documents in the cloud and edit them from anywhere.
File Sharing
Collaborate with your colleagues online: Respond to comments and status updates made by partners, colleagues or customers. Store and organize important documents with 1TB of storage per user.
Instant Messaging
Use your computer for video calls and to conduct online meetings, or connect with your co-workers through instant messaging.
With native iOS and Android apps available for Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Outlook, OneNote, OneDrive, Skype for Business, and Microsoft Teams, Microsoft 365 helps you to be productive on the go.
Below are some frequently asked questions for Office 365.
Office 365 offers the following pricing plans:
Starting from: USD 6.00/month
Pricing model: Subscription
Free Trial: Available
Office 365 Business: $8.25/user/month (billed annually) or $10/user/month (billed monthly).
Office 365 Business Premium: $12.50/user/month (billed annually) or $15/user/month (billed monthly).
Office 365 Business Essentials: $5/user/month (billed annually) or $6/user/month (billed monthly).
Office 365 offers the following features:
Office 365 has the following typical customers:
Freelancers, Large Enterprises, Mid Size Business, Non Profit, Public Administrations, Small Business
Office 365 supports the following languages:
Arabic, Chinese (Simplified), Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Hungarian, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian
Office 365 has the following pricing plans:
Subscription
Office 365 supports the following devices:
Android, iPhone, iPad
Office 365 integrates with the following applications:
Accelo, Actionspace, Bitium, Brightspace, Customer Thermometer, GoToMeeting, Insightly, Pipeliner CRM, Project Insight, Seismic
Office 365 offers the following support options:
FAQs, Forum, Knowledge Base, Online Support, Phone Support, Video Tutorials
Teams is good product for business work. This is coming with Office 365 as bulk product. Most of the time our internal roaming meeting are handle by MS Teams. Voice and Video quality is good, Screen sharing is working with low bandwidth conditions. Social Chanel activities like Facebook & Twitter are integrated with same application this is good feature for cooperate communication teams.