This series highlights critical considerations and best practices for upgrading, migrating and deploying SharePoint 2016 and SharePoint Online.
Learn what will work best for your business.
Part five of a series.
Microsoft Office 365 users in the commercial space have grown to over 85 million, up more than 40% in the past year alone. It’s likely your organization has made the move or will soon be moving to Office 365.
If your company has invested in Office 365, the first decision you’ll need to make is where to begin. With all of the current applications available (pictured below), it can be easy for users to become overwhelmed. It’s up to your Office 365 leaders and experts to help users decide what technology or feature to use and when to use it.
Features To Support Office 365 Adoption
The latest service offering to entice users to use Office 365 is Microsoft Teams, a chat-based digital workspace that Microsoft launched in November. Envision this as a work environment within Office 365 Groups that gives users the option to create teams and collaborate on projects in a modern workspace: the cloud. It integrates with Skype for Business, so teams can participate in voice and video conferences.
Perhaps the best part of Microsoft Teams: Because it’s built into Office 365 Groups, teams can take full advantage of all applications such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, SharePoint, OneNote, Planner, and Delve. How does this help engage users? Now they can securely access all the information and tools they need from any device, at any time.
Decide What Features Work For Your Business
As Office 365 provides an ever-growing set of features, IT professionals face a set of challenges, which usually includes deciding whether the features are mature enough to deploy across the organization. To make that decision, take into account the business need, compliance, user experience, and support levels.
You should also think about how you will prevent users from stumbling over all of the available applications and features available in Office 365. How can you help your organization boost usage and adoption? A Microsoft service called ‘FastTrack,’ which helps simplify the rollout process to the cloud, can help. We can, too.
Factors to Consider When Moving to Office 365
Some important factors to help users adopt Office 365 include:
- Lead Cultural Change – Help users move from client-based to cloud-based applications by providing them with daily tips to improve understanding and awareness of the new technology.
- Engage Leadership – Identify and engage business stakeholders and influencers early in the process.
- Establish Governance – Set clear policies for usage, security, and management of content.
- Pilot New Features – Before rolling out a new application or feature to the enterprise, test usability with a small group of users from different areas of the organization.
- Implement Campaign – Create an effective internal adoption roadmap and channels to capture user feedback.
Perhaps most importantly, users will gravitate toward Office 365 if they understand how it can help solve business challenges. Show them.
Steps After Office 365 Adoption
Adoption is a continuous cycle that doesn’t end after launch date. As your business needs change and new services are released in Office 365, the adoption cycle will continue to be a key component for your organization.
Because Office 365 is in a state of constant change, FastTrack’s public roadmap can help you stay up to date with new features or updates that may be beneficial to your organization.
