Yammer … The Enterprise Social Platform

 

The usage of Social Media has in recent years skyrocketed. Almost everyone is familiar with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter. Tools like Facebook make it very easy for people to collaborate with features  like tagging, sharing information, making comments, newsfeed etc. One thought which comes in mind is that would it not be great to use such tool in Business for collaboration? But many Businesses are not willing to do so because of following issues:

1) Privacy concerns of Social Media

2) Workers could easily get distracted and spend time on personal non work stuff

Yammer is a perfect Solution in this scenario. It is a Facebook like Social Network but is restricted to the Company and external stake holders like Suppliers, Consultants, etc.

It is a part of Office 365 , the Cloud Productivity Platform from Microsoft.

To know more about Business Benefits of Yammer please click on the link below :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Yammer.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Delegate Access in Exchange Online

 

In Exchange Online , which is a part of Microsoft Cloud Service Office 365 , you can grant access to any folder which is part of your mailbox to any colleague of yours. This takes collaboration between Team members to the next level. Delegate access enables users to access some or all of the mailbox owner’s folders and act on behalf of the mailbox owner. The mailbox owner can be a user, or a resource, like a conference room.

To know more about Delegate Access, please click on the link below :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/DelegateAccess.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Conference room booking using Microsoft Exchange Online

 

Meetings are an essential part of Business . In order to streamline the process of fixing a meeting , there are 2 important steps which need to be managed . The first is to find a suitable date and time when all the attendees will be available . This process can be automated using Meeting Scheduling Assistant , which is a part of Exchange Online. The second is to find which conference room is available on a particular date and time. Office 365 allows us to manage the Conference Room booking.

To know more about how you can streamline the Conference Room booking , please read the short article here:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Conference_roombooking.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office 365 explained in 5 minutes

 

Office 365 Cloud Services is the fastest growing Software or Service in the history of Microsoft . It is being used by Individuals, Small Businesses, Medium Businesses , Enterprises, Education, Not For Profits, Government . It is on the way to becoming the Productivity Platform of choice.

So what is Office 365 ? To answer that question , we have created a short, 5 minute video which gives an overview of Office 365 . Do watch the video and leave your comments on the same.

You can watch the video at any of the following locations :

YouTube : Office 365 explained in 5 minutes

Vimeo : Office 365 An Introduction

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office 365 Security with Multifactor Authentication

 

A popular but incorrect misconception about Office 365 is that being a Cloud Service , it is less secure as compared to On Premise Solution. The fact is that Office 365 is more secure than the regular On Premise Solution. The data which travels between the Microsoft Server and the Client device is totally encrypted.

One way in which the inherent security of Office 365 can be enhanced is by using Multi factor authentication .

For more details on the implementation of Multi Factor Authentication in Office365, please visit : http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Multifactor_Authentication_Office365.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office365 New Plans announced

 

In a move to achieve simplification of plans , Microsoft has announced 3 new plans effective 1^st October 2014. These plans are for the SMB Customers . SMB means Small & Mid Business Customers. They replace the 2 plans for Small Business and 1 plan for Mid Business which were in existence . There is no change in the Enterprise Plans though. Have a look at the chart which compares the new plans :

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365PlansComparison.aspx

Some important points to be noted are:

1) The 3 new plans scale up to the maximum of 300 users. The 2 old plans for Small Business were able to scale upto 25 users only.

2) The Support is 24x 7 phone support. The previous Small Business Customers had only forum based support.

3) You can mix and match between SMB and Enterprise plans . This is a huge benefit. Earlier plans were in Silos meaning that you could not do a mix and match between Small Business and Mid market and Enterprise plans.

4) The older plan which offered only Office Pro Plus @ 720 per month . The new plan is called Business and it gives you Office Std for local installable copy of MS Office plus Office Online which is Office on a browser plus Office for Tablet plus Office for Smart phone plus One Drive for Business with 1 Terabyte Cloud Storage. Note that if you need MS Access, you ned to look at E3 or Pro Plus plan.

5) The existing Small Business Customers will see their cap of users increase to 300. And the existing Mid Business Customers will see their mailbox cost reduce from Rs. 900 to Rs. 750, the next time they renew subscription.

6) Active Directory integration available for all plans.

7) For existing Small Business and Small Business Premium and Mid Business Plan Customers , the action plan is 2 fold. Till 1^st October 2015 , they should remain with their current plan. After 1^st October 2015, they should upgrade to Business Essentials or Business Premium plan.

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Shared Mailbox in MS Exchange Online

 

In every Company , people change. So it always creates a disconnect between the Company and the external stake holders . Mails bounce or go unanswered. To overcome this problem, most of the Companies have a few public email id’s which never change. For example sales, info, service, etc. These are usually listed and given to Customers , vendors and other stake holders. This ensures that even if the person handling that function leaves the Company , the email id need not change.

Using MS Exchange , which is part of Office365, the Cloud Productivity Platform , you can create the Public email id by using “Shared Mailbox” . To know more about the same , visit ,

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Sharedmailbox.aspx

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007