Technology can be pretty ironic sometimes. For example, Office 365 is at the center of cloud productivity and collaboration. It makes sharing ideas, working remotely, and accessing information simple. But in order to bring simplicity to the table, there’s actually a good deal of technological complexity involved.

Imagine your Office 365 cloud platform is a brand-new car. It has the bells and whistles you’ve been looking for that make your driving experience easier.  As drivers, and unless you are a mechanic, you can enjoy all those new features, but probably don’t understand exactly how the engine and electrical components of a car function. There are computers, fuses, tubes, pipes, hoses, pistons, gauges, and sensors. It’s complex, and also requires maintenance. You need to get your car inspected, change the oil, check tire pressure, and more in order to keep it running smoothly and to its best performance level. But we happily do those things because we care about our investment, and definitely don’t want to be stuck on the side of the road.

Office 365 requires the same expertise to navigate its complexity and maintain its performance management. Here’s a checklist of tasks that are necessary for Office 365 optimization:

  • Licensing
  • Onboarding and Offboarding
  • eDiscovery/Litigation Management
  • Retention policies
  • Message hygiene
  • Mailbox permissions and delegation
  • Manage Skype for Business Policies and Federation
  • Storage limits
  • Team site management
  • Distribution group management
  • Service dashboard review
  • Security alerts and audit logs review
  • Mobile device management
  • Hybrid configuration management
  • Office 365 first release management
  • New feature activation
  • Escalation to Microsoft
  • Office 365 Roadmap review
  • Training material collection and review
  • Reporting on usage and adoption
  • Identifying which services to rollout next

While much of this can be managed by your in-house IT department, the goal posts of what has to be managed and how to manage them are constantly changing, and many business owners find them to be overwhelming.   Cloud Management for Office 365 is a managed service the New Signature delivers the services that your business needs in order to harness and fully utilize your Office 365 environment. Through planning, education, and support, we ensure that your team is in the best position to benefit from the best Microsoft collaboration technologies. Allowing New Signature experts to maintain these tasks and manage the constant fluidity of Office 365 updates helps to alleviate the burden on your staff so they can dedicate their time and resources to more strategic IT projects.

The truth is that when you launch Office 365 for your business, your journey is just beginning, and New Signature has the expertise to manage your cloud platform and guide your team through challenges with education and expertise. Contact a managed services expert to get started.