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Microsoft 365 Blog
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Adoption Score Spotlight: Network Connectivity

John_Mighell's avatar
John_Mighell
Icon for Microsoft rankMicrosoft
Sep 22, 2020

In the cloud era, SaaS solutions for productivity are king, but they all have an Achilles Heel – the configuration of your network infrastructure. The latest cutting edge solutions will fail without a dependable connection, and even the best products will result in frustrated users if they perform at a snail’s pace. After all, slow is the new broken.

 

So how can you avoid the searches that take forever, the files that won’t download, or the conference calls with fuzzy audio and booted participants? You can use the latest Microsoft tools to help understand how your organization is working, how technology enables your employees, and how you can get more from your Microsoft 365 subscription. Within the new Microsoft Productivity Score is the Network Connectivity category, which assesses the strength of your network and compares against a benchmark of similar organizations, all from the Microsoft 365 Admin Center.

 

Not only can you see an aggregate view of your organization’s network performance, but you can drill down to specific office locations and specific workloads – SharePoint, Exchange, Teams – to identify network related pain points that are negatively influencing the productivity of your teams. The tool also provides specific recommendations for how to course correct, all aligned to Microsoft’s published best practices and principles of network connectivity.

 

The Network Connectivity component just entered broad preview, so you can sign up now. Use this free tool to gain an unprecedented level of transparency to the backbone of your day-to-day operations, and the next time you’re in a conference call that can’t handle video sharing – consider checking the Network Connectivity tool for solutions.

Updated Aug 25, 2022
Version 4.0
  • Hi Ryan Helmer , the Network Connectivity category is designed more to influence enterprise network design, vs individual troubleshooting. That being said, I totally hear your point and it's a very good one in our current working environment. Addressing WFH network issues is challenging on a number of fronts - not only are there additional variables (i.e. ISPs/hardware) but also privacy considerations. We are working on approaches that will help balance the benefit of insights with privacy as a paramount concern, but do not have anything to share at this time. Please stay tuned for additional announcements in the future. In the meantime, we have recently released a video on "Microsoft 365 network connectivity for remote users" that I would suggest you take a look at - you can find it at aka.ms/netvideos, or see the accompanying blog here

  • Ryan Helmer's avatar
    Ryan Helmer
    Iron Contributor

    This is really promising, but in this WFH environment, the idea of "your network" becomes a bit less useful. These days, the most common problems are with home networks, which is not very helpful in aggregate, but could be super helpful if one could drill down to the user/device level. Is something like that in the works?

  • Ryan Helmer's avatar
    Ryan Helmer
    Iron Contributor

    Thank you, John! I understand the challenge (it's one I deal with almost daily!), and I'm sure balancing privacy concerns makes it more cumbersome to provide useful and actionable data. I know a colleague whose company required sending home one of those mobile firewalls that extends the network, and because of the integration with their firewall solution, they were able to spot trends like ISP outages or congestion/issues in different neighborhoods. That lifted a huge support burden, but obviously it was quite expensive. 

     

    I'll check out that video, and I anxiously await what Microsoft does in this area.

    Ryan