The one stop software for serious business and office productivity

I have used office 365 for both personal use and for deployment for clients and I can boldly say that there is nothing quite like office 365 and clients always almost never have negatives except kudos for this suite. Many of them categorically ask for office 365 and wont settle for another. It is a complete catalyst for productivity ouside the pricing.

Pros

Microsoft is excellent in its support for office 365 and whenever I have needs to call on them, they have always responded and even for clients I cannot go to, the support from Microsoft sometimes mean that my input is not even needed to overcome their complaints. There is a staggering volume of effective updates for office 365. I recall having an issue with outlook on a clients platform that resulted in a system crash whenever he tries to access it. He called me and complained and I was supposed to go fix it by the weekend. Incidentally, an update was released that same day and by the time he installed the new update, that issue was magically solved and thus saved me the stress of embarking on that trip. I will never forget that because it was an already hectic period for me. There is 1TB of secure OneDrive storage which comes with a business version of 365 which some of my clients appreciates because it saves the cost of getting additional cloud storage from other vendors. Accessibility is very key in my line of duty and the ability to access word, excel, power point, Skype and use outlook as found in office 365 domiciled on my pc and in the cloud anywhere I am, gives me the confidence to take on many tasks. The collaboration tools like SharePoint and Microsoft Teams is useful for teamwork and integration of processes amongst departments of large organizations. Another amazing thing about office 356 is that the developers are consistently improving on the application.

Cons

It is a very bloated suite and many clients dont make use of up to 50% of the functions embedded in it. The suite is not completely available on some platforms. For instance, I once tried to deploy it on a clients MAC only to find out that Microsoft publisher was not available. Maybe it is just me but I think the pricing for office 365 is incredulous when compared to similar suites. For slow internet, the online application for programs like Access and excel is going to test your patience especially for large tables and data.

Best Option for Automatically-Updated Office Installs, But Not the Greatest Value

Office 365 fits a very specific purpose, but it's a purpose that is very common in office environments: ensuring that you always have the latest version of Office applications available to you, including on multiple computers if you choose one of the higher-priced packages. Gone are the days of needing to purchase each new edition of Office every 3 years, because Office 365 automatically upgrades whenever a new version is released. The downside is, you're then locked into a monthly subscription, and then if you cancel it, all the money you spent leaves you with no access to the applications. This may not be a problem for everyone, but it is frustrating at times to realize you are essentially just "renting" access to the software. Its activation system is also a bit buggy, as Word regularly asks me to sign into my Microsoft account to re-activate the software, despite nothing on my account changing. If you can get beyond these issues, however, Office 365 definitely fills an important niche.

Pros

Always provides the latest version of all Office applications, can be used on multiple computers (depending on package purchased), offers OneDrive storage included with the packages

Cons

Becomes expensive over time, local installs of the applications sometimes need to be reactivated due to bugs in the activation system, locks you in to a specific software ecosystem

Outstanding for Productivity, Communication, and Curation of Documents

One of the reasons we moved to Office 365 is to eliminate the need for onsite servers to house our users' docs-- no more fear of server crashes and loss of files. Also since we are connected to the cloud (OneDrive), files are autosaved and it is easier for users to find their files (did I save it to the computer? to the server? Where??). Our organization has realized better more instant communication, everyone is on track with meetings and events because of the robust features off Outlook Calendar, and we are able to collaborate in real time remotely.

Pros

Within Office 365, apps cover everything you need including file storage, a virtual notebook, forms/surveys, a team work hub (that includes video conferencing built in!), presentation tools, email and calendars, and of course content creation with Word, Powerpoint, and Excel. My favorite of all is the Teams app, which allows for an internal work hub that emulates a social media network with private chats and group channels-- very user friendly. A work team can share files, curate links, embed 3rd party apps and collaborate in real time all in one place. My work place is moving away from the cluttered email box and now communicating almost exclusively in teams! There is even a platform embedded for creating an Intranet Website. And if you are very ambitious, there is an app for creating your own workflows, project planners, and dynamic apps.

Cons

There is so much to the Office 365 that it is difficult to roll out to a large organization. Companies should plan well and transition to Office 365 in measured phases. It required a culture shift and a lot of training to move our people over to this software.

Power Pack of Enterprise Security Features and Seamless Integration with Office Tools

Security is the major benefit of any Microsoft Product, Starting from setting the basic permission for email to configure the productivity suite products like Word or Microsoft based on the user permission is easy to handle in Office 365 compare to other products. Also, the Microsoft Teams allows integration with other popular enterprise product suites or apps JIRA and enables the smooth integration

Pros

Office 365 is the collection of all the well known Microsoft Collaboration and Productivity suite of tools that makes the business simpler and powerful without compromising the security. Starting from outlook email access to office tools like Word/Powerpoint it is easy to configure based on the user settings and allows to host the enterprise application through comp portal. Specifically, the support for mobility is amazing. It allows me to configure the office email setup without any additional work based on the rules set by the administrator.

Cons

One of the major drawback is, it will not allow work properly if you have more than one office 365 accounts. In my case, My client and my organization both are started to use the Office 365 as the primary hosting platform. And most of the cases, it will request me to delete any of the other accounts and I need to re-configure to check the other email. Switching between the accounts is not easy.

50/50

I'm on the fence about Office 365. Some of the features work really well like the applications. Other features like OneDrive aren't as trustworthy as I had hoped. Our company has had issues with accessing files on OneDrive and SharePoint. Microsoft tech support usually has the problem resolved within 24 hours. But for a 24 hours facility, sometimes that's not fast enough. Ultimately the decision was not mine to move to Office 365. Had I known it wasn't very reliable, I would have waited to transition to it.

Pros

SharePoint is a good function for a medium to large sized business. We use it to post documents that our staff use consistently so they can find everything in one place. The documents can get kind of buried in the file structure but it's ideally the same as Windows Explorer once you get used to it. It's nice that you can personalize the sites with background photos and text. Another great feature is the downloadable apps that you get with an E3 account. You can download the apps on a number of computers so you can use it anywhere. Additionally you can download the apps on your phone or tablet.

Cons

OneDrive has given me some trouble when I've got the folder linked with my computer. If you upload things to the OneDrive via internet browser, it's great. Once I added it to my desktop and opened the file window to be used in addition to the web browser, it got questionable. I would open files from the file explorer window and edit them and they wouldn't upload to OneDrive when saved. It's something you really have to keep an eye on. Maybe it was my network card or internet connection. But when you have more than one person editing the same files at different times, you never know if you're getting the most up to date version of that file. I've lost a lot of data because of this. Also when you create Groups and try to use that group for an email, you have to be sure to expand the group or it won't be sent as an email. It will send as a group message and most of the people I work with don't know how to view that.