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CategoryMicrosoft 365

5 steps to choose the right Microsoft 365 plans

In Microsoft 365
August 5, 2020
3 Min Read
5

Microsoft 365 plans are readily adopted by companies that go for the cloud-first approach. Businesses must find the Right M365 plan for better productivity.

Deciding which M365 plan to choose for business is a common business decision. However, there are so many options with Microsoft 365 plans that might perplex you.  Managers and CSPs often find it too difficult to decide which Microsoft 365 plan to go with.

A basic Tip: Keep your cool and analyze your business requirements first.

With that said, let’s dive into the basic steps to ease the decision-making process for choosing the Right M365 plan for your business.

1.      Assess things properly

It is essential to know the type of computers the employees are working on, what the business’s core applications are, and what are the current issues with the systems. Further, you must know what are the areas for which you’ll have to adopt Microsoft 365 Migration.

2.      Know your needs

Answer the following questions to get a basic idea of your needs:

  • Why are you making the shift to the cloud? ( Increase security, increase productivity or it’s a nice-to-have thing for your business)
  • Do you fulfill specific compliance needs?
  • What are the critical business features that will benefit from a cloud-first approach?
  • Do you want an improved internal collaboration?

Amongst employees and departments, needs vary across the company. Your salespeople will have a few different needs than the dev. department.

3.      Plan a budget

For the company, it is required to take up a business plan that falls under the budget.  It is important to know that Microsoft 365 plans are flexible and billed per-user, month-by-month basis, or even based on a yearly contract.

In action to this, you need to have to cater for the migration costs. If you have an IT Team at hand, you might save some bucks there.

4.      Pick your plan

There are many Microsoft 365 plans to choose from. It is always great to get a comparison. Microsoft assists businesses with its comparisons of Business Plans and Enterprise Plans. You can choose from plans like Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, Microsoft 365 Business Premium, and Microsoft 365 Apps. In addition to this, there are other plans for nonprofits, first line workers, government, and education.

5.      Reevaluate the licensing and business requirements

Once you have adopted the plan and gone along with it for a year or so, you might want to reconsider opting to another option based on your changing business requirements. It is never too late to assess and start over the process again based on changing market trends.

Related:  TOP 5 BENEFITS OF OFFICE/MICROSOFT 365 FOR BUSINESS

MachCloud – the All in one communication platform for business

MachCloud is a comprehensive and cross-functional business communication platform. Born in the cloud, MachCloud has got all it needs for the latest digital business communication provisioning for the businesses of today. It provides Microsoft 365 Business plans and Enterprise plans. You can select what is suitable for your business according to the number of employees and other factors.

Get started with MachCloud for a smooth Microsoft 365 experience and expert advice on selecting the plan suitable for your business.

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5 Technology Must Haves for ‘work from home’ scenario

In Business Communication, Digital Communications, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Office 365
July 10, 2020
3 Min Read
5

Work from home has become a norm in companies ever since the COVID-19 had been declared as a pandemic. However, in the IT sector, the term “work from home” has been circulating for more than a decade now. People who telecommute often know what gadgets to have their hands on, for a smooth work from home experience. However, this pandemic has forced most of the organizations to implement telecommuting and get their hands on the latest technology to facilitate home working.

What are the major Home Working Technology Must-Haves?

Cloud communication tools have emerged as major essentials to keep teams connected while staying geographically apart. If you think you can manage with a normal chat-based tool or simple email communication, you might be surprised that it isn’t enough to cater for today’s collaboration needs.

  • Video Conferencing Tools

Either it is your regular Agile meeting or a comprehensive Project feasibility report meeting, a video conference is essential for one on one communication with your boss or employees for better Team collaboration. There are many freely available Video conferencing tools, but they are vulnerable to threats. However, Microsoft Teams is a full-fledged solution that provides secured Video conferencing experience.

  • Project Management Tools

While staying at home it requires more effort to notify Teammates of the project progress. Investing in a better project management tool is always a good idea since it reduces the time you need to notify every member of the team on the work progress. Cloud-based Project management or business productivity tool would be an excellent choice to foster the team’s collaborations being geographically apart.

  • Microsoft Teams Collaboration Solution

This is by far the most effective and efficient productivity solution to cater for modern-day project sharing needs amongst project teams. Since its native to Office 365, you get to share any SharePoint content, Word, PowerPoint, and Excel work files for better understanding and collaboration. In addition to this, Teams offers Calling in Teams Solutions for easy calling right from your Office 365.

  • Cloud PBX for Staying Connected

Even if you are not working from home, this tool comes in handy for normal office communications. A cloud PBX lets you stay connected with other Teams members via cloud communication technology. It is also cost-effective for the organization and lets you stay in control of your cloud-based calls and offers all the features of a Cloud Phone system. So, whether you are working from home or office, a Cloud PBX is a must-have technology!

  • Digital Assistants

Digital assistants have emerged as an important tool to cater for fast-paced communication. Most workers are mostly familiar with digital assistants. These tools can carry out calls for you, take notes, and send emails at the scheduled time and much more. Modern telecommuting requires a digital assistant that can adapt to the working schedule and learn about next Gen communication requirements.

Related: WORK FROM HOME SIMPLIFIED WITH UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS

MachCloud – The cloud communication platform for modern-day business communication

MachCloud provides a digital communication solution that derives collaborations and makes it effective amongst remote working teams. MachCloud has assisted various teams in connecting them for productive working amidst the employees to work from home scenarios. It offers services Like Microsoft Teams solutions including Calling in Teams, Direct Routing for Teams, Office 365 reselling, SIP trunking, and Cloud PBX. No matter what size your organization, there is something for every type of business.

Get started with MachCloud’s services for a smooth work from home experience.

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Top 5 Benefits of Office/Microsoft 365 for Business

In Microsoft 365
June 16, 2020
3 Min Read
T

Microsoft 365 for business has come a long way. From mere Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, Office 365 has evolved into a collaboration tool to enhance cloud business productivity. Today, Microsoft 365 (the new name for Office 365) is much more diverse, simple, available, and user-friendlier than ever. Let’s take a deep dive into the 5 major business benefits of Microsoft 365.

Microsoft 365 for business is Simple to use

Simplicity is one aspect of Microsoft 365 that has made it very popular with users. Despite Microsoft 365 is equipped with the latest tools and increasing products, there has been no complicated procedures and smooth switching between the products.

It is designed for cloud business

Microsoft 365 provides lucrative businesses with its Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Basic plans. In both of these, the full office suite is available to the business adopting these plans. The office suite includes Word, Outlook, Excel, Exchange Online, One Drive, SharePoint, Yammer, and Microsoft Teams. Easy Microsoft 365 pricing plans are excellent options for small to medium-sized businesses as well as large organizations.

Microsoft 365 for business enhances Team Collaboration in a cloud business

In the modern era, projects succeed in collaboration. Businesses which are equipped with best in line collaboration tools have a high chance of success in the market. Microsoft 365 provides a gateway to share, communicate, and talk more. SharePoint serves as a company-wide intranet service and a document library to store and manage content for the entire organization. Teams offer collaboration like no other. With a Calling in Teams option, Voice and video conference calls have been introduced right into Microsoft 365!

It assists Remote Working

Talking about the collaboration, the next step is remote working. While your business is equipped with the best in line collaborative tools from Microsoft 365, including a remote working resource in your business team won’t be a problem. Microsoft 365 assists remote workers with best in line security with Microsoft Authenticator for 2FA and also latest security policies.

Microsoft 365 provides Reliability and Resilience

Microsoft 365 provides the infrastructure needed for SME’s to function and flourish properly in the market. The platform is delivered right from the cloud and thus no heavy setup is needed at the business’s end, thereby, reducing the setup overhead. The cloud-hosted setup is all you need to carry out hassle-free business operations.

RELATED: MICROSOFT 365 | REBRANDING OFFICE 365 BUSINESS PLANS

MachCloud provides profitable Reselling of Microsoft 365 services

MachCloud is a one-window for all your business’s collaboration and digital business communication needs. With MachCloud, you can profitably resell Microsoft 365 services. Experts at MachCloud are very well informed of Reseller needs and how to cater for better reselling. With MachCloud, the Reseller’s favorite Microsoft 365 Services provider, you can Transform Microsoft 365 portfolio to the next level of implementation and usability.

Get started with MachCloud and experience the next level of Reselling with Microsoft 365.

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Microsoft for healthcare features empowers healthcare providers via Teams

In Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams
May 18, 2020
3 Min Read
M

Microsoft for healthcare has gained popularity ever since the coronavirus pandemic has taken the rise. Microsoft Teams has benefitted business, academic industry, and other domains while organizations had to impose a work from home policy. On top of that, Microsoft Teams health has benefitted the healthcare industry with its novel solutions for collaborating amongst the healthcare providers.

New capabilities in Microsoft 365 empower healthcare professionals

As the number of confirmed cases increase in the coronavirus dashboard, experts from Microsoft sensed a few needs for better healthcare collaboration amongst the providers and thus has rolled in new capabilities to empower healthcare organizations amidst COVID-19 pandemic with Microsoft Teams health care solutions. Features like very urgent messaging, visit scheduling, contacting the on-shift clinician and other new features are part of Microsoft for healthcare and directly address core challenges that the healthcare providers are facing these days with messaging and health systems.

Empowering the frontline workers and the healthcare sector

To stay informed about the availability of beds and supplies that are running out like masks or ventilators, the experts at Microsoft has created a Healthcare Emergency Response Resource Tracking system. The Microsoft Teams health Emergency Resource Tracking Solution can now be used to manage emergency responses and frontline workers can collect the information via their devices especially with coronavirus dashboard. Then the healthcare leads can take quick decisions in real-time on where to divert the upcoming patients due to scare resources.

The messaging features allow care teams to securely coordinate patient care

Microsoft Teams health solutions include new messaging features including the following capabilities:

  • Secure communication: Teams is end-to-end encrypted and deploys the latest methods of security
  • Priority notifications: This alerts the recipient unless a response is received. The messages are sent every two minutes up to 20 minutes.
  • Message delegation: This allows receipt to delegate messages to another contact, while the original recipient is busy in surgery or unavailable.

Also read: Tips to keep communication services up during covid-19

Enhancements added to healthcare data interoperability

With the growing needs of data handling and digitizing patient data, one of the top priories is the interoperability of data. Microsoft this introduced emerging standards like FHIR in Microsoft for healthcare, to cater for this challenge. Microsoft Team’s health solutions include providing a hub to access digital health records of patients.

MachCloud – The all-in-one platform for collaboration according to modem day collab needs

MachCloud is a robust communication services provisioning platform that empowers businesses with all the tools needed for a modern-day collaboration experience. MachCloud offers MachCloud Solution for Microsoft Teams®, the Microsoft Teams oriented Calling solution with additional solutions like MachCloud, Calling in Teams, and Direct Routing via Microsoft Teams. With a variety of pricing and plans, MachCloud has got one for every type of business.

Head to MachCloud to experience modern-day collaboration with the latest tools and security.

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Microsoft 365 | Rebranding Office 365 business plans

In Microsoft 365
April 17, 2020
3 Min Read
M

The news is huge! Microsoft has decided to rebrand Office 365 business plans and name them on Microsoft 365 context, from April 21st, 2020. A few years ago when Microsoft 365 was introduced, its sole purpose was to provide a subscription bundle of Windows 10, Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security. However, recently, Microsoft made an announcement that the tech giant has decided to rebrand a few subscription plans, and introduced a few new plans.

Which plans are affected by this M365 name change?

The flowing plans are affected by this announcement:

  • Office 365 Business and Office 365 Pro Plus

Both of these will be called Microsoft 365 Apps starting 21st April, 2020. To distinguish between the two, Microsoft will continue using “for business” and “for enterprise” as labels

  • Office 365 Business Premium

This will be rebranded Microsoft 365 Business Standard and all occurrences in documentation must be changed accordingly.

  • Office 365 Business Essentials

This plan will now be called as Microsoft 365 Business Basic from 21st April, 2020.

  • Microsoft 365 Business

Even though it is not a part of Office 365 family, Microsoft has announced this would be rebranded as Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Which plans remain unchanged?

Other than the plans mentioned above, most plans are unaffected by the name change announcement. To give you a clear view you about whether your subscription plan is rebranded or not, take a look at the following list and find it yourself. The following plans have remained unchanged.

Office 365 for Government

  • Office 365 G1
  • Office 365 G3
  • Office 365 G5

Office 365 for Enterprise

  • Office 365 E1
  • Office 365 E3
  • Office 365 E5

Office 365 for Education

  • Office 365 A1
  • Office 365 A3
  • Office 365 A5

Office 365 for First line

  • Office 365 F1

The motivation behind rebranding

The Microsoft officials mentioned in the blogpost, where they announced the rebranding news, that the idea of rebranding is to indicate that Office 365 is not just Word, Excel and PowerPoint that half of the world still believes. Office 365 has grown a lot in the past years with products like Teams, Forms, Stream, and Planner and the name Microsoft 365 is a true depiction of what Office has evolved into, over the years. The officials confirmed that there won’t be any changes for now in price, features or the plans.

MachCloud – the favorite Microsoft 365 Provider for Resellers

If you are in search for a Platform to offer best in line Microsoft 365, look no further. MachCloud offers the best Reselling opportunity for all Office 365 resellers in the market. With better profit margins and a high reliability of services, MachCloud has become the favorite platform for Resellers. It offers basic plans like business plans (which include Business Basic, Business Apps, Business Standard and Business Premium), enterprise plans (which include Enterprise E1, Enterprise ProPlus and Enterprise E3) as well as Add-ons like Business Voice, Phone System and Business Apps. With the addition of delivering telephony services you offer a complete package, all from the MachCloud Portal.

Stay ahead of the curve and get your hands on MachCloud for a smooth and profitable service delivery to your customers.

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