Microsoft 365 usage optimisation – why it matters, and how to do it

A man using a laptop in a cafe

Your organisation’s investment in Microsoft 365 means a more connected, satisfying and productive experience for your employees – without worrying about the high-maintenance administration involved with legacy on-premises technology.

Even so, there are aspects of M365 you should consider in order to ensure the smoothest possible experience for your people. In this article, we’ll share some of the things to think about which will improve your tenant’s usage optimisation, and steps you can take to really make M365 sing.

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Get the most from your investment in enterprise Microsoft 365 with our Technical Assurance Service

techical assurance service

The shift towards hybrid and remote working has made the need for instant, secure access to your organisation’s information and resources from anywhere vital to getting work done. It’s imperative for organisations to have an appropriate, collaborative solution in place that makes flexible working both viable and beneficial, and Microsoft 365 provides the answer for most major enterprises.  

Not only does M365 bring all the key Office apps like Word, PowerPoint, Outlook, and Excel together into one, seamless suite, but it also enhances collaboration, streamlines processes, and improves your organisation’s security. 

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Leveraging Evergreen IT for maximum benefit

Evergreen IT service

With today’s rapidly changing technology, it’s critical to have an effective strategy to ensure your business is leveraging the most up-to-date software and hardware. That’s where an Evergreen IT managed service can be very valuable. An Evergreen IT managed service can provide a number of benefits, such as improved efficiency, better security, and cost savings. In this blog, we’ll explore these benefits in more detail.  

What is an Evergreen IT service?  

Most IT departments have a goal of providing the highest quality service to their customers. This means keeping up with the latest technologies and staying ahead of the competition, while also ensuring reliability and scalability. That’s where Evergreen IT services come into play. An Evergreen IT service is a constantly evolving infrastructure that allows businesses to remain competitive and provide their customers with the best possible services.  

An Evergreen IT service takes into account the changing needs of businesses and ensures that it is always using the latest technology available. It is designed to be regularly updated, so that businesses can stay ahead of their competition by using the most current hardware and software solutions. The goal of an Evergreen IT service is to deliver maximum value to its users by providing them with reliable and scalable solutions that meet their ever-changing needs. 

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Introducing the New Yammer

A new-look Yammer with some useful new features is rolling out now. CompanyNet’s subject matter expert James Mackerness takes a look at what’s new.

The long-awaited new user experience for Yammer is rolling out worldwide right now. It’s the same Yammer functionality you already know and love, but with a fresh coat of paint to bring it up to a modern standard.

New Yammer, new features

Composing a message in the new Yammer

It brings a couple of changes that bring it into line with the ‘best practice’ role that Yammer should have in your organisation:

  • It’s cleaner and slicker, with praise, announcements, polls, and Q&A posts all looking visually distinct.
  • Posts can be pinned, and there’s also a new AI-based discovery feed which should help with engagement.
  • Groups have been renamed to Communities, and are now pinnable by each user.

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Migrating data to Office 365 – your options

As CompanyNet’s migration subject matter expert Stuart McLaughlin explains, there are now more options than ever for migrating your data to Office 365.

Leveraging Office 365 Cloud Storage

For companies who are adopting Microsoft Office 365, one of the typical activities is to migrate their ‘on premise’ data from local file stores to the cloud.

Office 365 provides a large volume of storage as part of the subscription.  This is currently 1TB (as a minimum) for SharePoint Online in addition to licensed user’s OneDrive allocation.

Reducing the cost of ownership by removing file share infrastructure or additional cloud storage subscriptions is a key benefit.  Other benefits can be realised however, whether improving collaboration and secure sharing with third parties, or using the security and compliance features for information management and oversight.

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What’s New in Office 365 – August 2020

Find out what’s new and changing across SharePoint, OneDrive and the rest of Office 365 in August 2020. This month Microsoft are introducing an ‘evolution’ of SharePoint lists – Microsoft Lists – which offers a fantastic new way to organise and visualise lists. We also look at two upcoming product retirements – Skype for Business …

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Default page templates in SharePoint Online

SharePoint site owners will be able to set a default page template for editors adding new and content to a site. They’ll also be able to edit and delete templates from the Template Picker, rather than having to navigate to the templates folder for these actions. Why does this change matter? If you’re already using …

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Move a shared file on OneDrive

You’ll soon have the option to easily continue sharing files when you move them within or between OneDrive and SharePoint.

Reorganise without worrying about previously shared links

Move previously-shared files in OneDrive

Moving and reorganising files is a normal occurrence as we work and projects evolve over time, and we find better ways of organising our files.

Sharing files within Office 365 is helps prevent duplicates and different versions of the same file floating around. Until now, moving files would typically break the existing share links.

Soon you will have the option to easily re-share files with your colleagues by simply clicking a check-box when you move your files. They will receive the updated link with the same permissions they previously had.

This feature will be rolling out from mid-August 2020 and is expected to be completely rolled out by the end of September 2020.

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Retirement of SharePoint 2010 workflows: Don’t panic!

On 6 July 2020, Microsoft announced the retirement of SharePoint 2010 Workflows within Office 365. This is part of Microsoft’s drive towards encouraging use of Power Automate, part of the Microsoft Power Platform, which lets you connect Microsoft 365 services together (as well as many popular third-party services).

So what does this mean for people still using SharePoint 2010 workflows? Well, from 1 August 2020, no newly-created tenants will have SharePoint 2010 workflows switched on. So, if you had been planning to move any SharePoint 2010 workflows to a new tenant, as of now that won’t be possible.

Clock ticking on SharePoint 2010 workflows

For those who already have SharePoint 2010 workflows created within an existing tenant, you have until 1 November 2020 to recreate these workflows within Power Automate.

From the start of November, Microsoft will begin to remove the ability to run or create new SharePoint 2010 workflows. This suggests that, while you can’t run the existing workflows, they will still be accessible. Exactly for how long, though, we don’t know.

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