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georgieb82's avatar
georgieb82
Copper Contributor
Nov 30, 2018

New to Office 365 for Business

Hi All,

 

I have encouraged my boss to make the leap from 'lots of freeware and various websites' to Office 365 to manage our business. There is just the two of us but we live 300 miles apart and only meet up a couple of times a month so we need a lot of communication and information sharing to keep things productive.

 

After talking to a Microsoft sales rep, Office 365 had a lot of things we needed (and a lot we don't) but based on monthly costs was going to be cheaper than our existing structure.

 

Now we have made the plunge I am at a loss on how best to set everything up, migrate all our files from dropbox and keep them organised, how to assign tasks, share calendars and contacts, set projects; basically everything I wanted it to do.

 

Is this the place to ask the really basic questions or is there some nice guru out there who is willing to point me in the right direction. I would even be happy to engage a professional to help with the initial set up if that service is available.

 

Many Thanks

 

George

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  • adam deltinger's avatar
    adam deltinger
    MVP
    Nov 30, 2018

    Hi! 

    See the following link for a lot of site of information!

     

    http://office365links.com/

     

    For tenant creation:

     

    https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/education/deploy/create-your-office-365-tenant

     

    Microsoft offers extensive documentation for most things so just search for information online and you will probably find what you need.

     

    This forum is perfect for asking any questions you have regarding Office 365 and how you will set things up ! Keep in mind that if you have any particular questions about other Office 365 services, like teams or planner - there are separate forums for those!

    We'll be glad to help you out!!

     

    Adam

    • georgieb82's avatar
      georgieb82
      Copper Contributor
      Nov 30, 2018

      Thanks Adam it's good to know that help is out there, but all the videos, guides etc seem to be based around companies much different to ours, mainly those in the R&D and Tech sectors and the workflows don't have any correlation to our business.

       

      If it is not too much to ask if I post how we work now, can the you (the forum members) point me in the direction to start?

       

      Ok, So we are a planning consultancy business, we undertake planning applications for clients wanting to undertake works on their properties; build new properties etc. The workflow is pretty standard for each project and we have approximately 100 projects a year. The tasks are not always udertaken by the same person, it depends on a project by project basis, we may even subcontract some of this work out.

       

      At present this is our workflow.

      1. Enquiry comes in - notes written up in Word and stored in a Dropbox called Oppotunities.
      2. An Oppotunity is created in Insightly (free version) and assigned to one of us to provide quotation.
      3. Quotation is written by member of staff (in Word) and is stored in a Dropbox Folder Called Quotes and the Oppotunities document is moved to the same folder (usually the two documents are soted in a sub-folder togerther)
      4. Once the quotation is accepted, the Quotes folder is moved to the Projects folder and assigned a job number.
      5. The Oppotunity is changed to a job in Insightly and a pre-determied workflow is assigned. this workflow has the same tasks for 90% of our projects.
      6. The clients contact details are stored as a contact in Insightly and linked to the project as well as any external contacts we may need to engage with.
      7. All the project documentation is stored within the project Dropbox
      8. the project is completed and marked as completed in Insightly

       

      We chose to move to office 365 because I was led to believe that all this would be simplified and cheaper but I am struggling to work out which products will benefit us in what manner. Previously we were paying £60 per month for Dropbox alone plus our IMAP email hosting, two Office licences and potentially an Insightly subscription if we neededa third user. Office 365 Business Premuim is much cheaper and hopefully easier.

       

      The issues I wasn't able to overcome in the previous workflow;

      • Having one company calendar to mark milestones, meetings etc.
      • A company wide contact list for everyone we hold details of, clients, contractors, council contacts.
      • Being able to store emails sent and received from all staff members against a project for transparancy
      • A method of making notes for all to see relating to projects/clients/contacts

       

      I'm sure there is more but I think I have rambled on enough, if anyone can help on any of these points I will be eternally grateful.

       

      George

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