SharePoint Online and Office 365 Business Productivity

Office 365 is Microsoft Brand Name for group of software service they provide over cloud. It was beta Test in 2010 and launched in June 2011.

Office 365 contains bundle of software as a service (SaaS), includes but not limited to: SharePoint, Mail, Skype for business, yammer, Delve, Sway, OneDrive, Videos.

To start using Office 365 you can try it for free.

To buy Office 365 you can check the Licenses categories available in here .

Through this post I will provide brief notes about some of the services available in Office 365.

SharePoint Online provides mainly the collaboration platform needed for your business and among the nice stuff included in SharePoint Online but not limited to:

  •  Workflows: Workflows apply business process, there are available built in workflows per your license category and you can customize and create your workflows using free SharePoint Designer tool.
  •  Visio Service: Microsoft Visio is designed for creating process flows and diagrams, SharePoint Visio service offers a fast and simple way to work with Visio diagrams, using Visio, you can create org charts, manufacturing processes. With Visio service you can embed Visio documents directly in a SharePoint page. Check this video for a Visio Service case.
  • eDiscovery: as stated over Microsoft site "Office 365 Advanced eDiscovery reduces the volume of data by eliminating duplicate files, reconstructing email threads and identifying key themes and data relationships. Finally, it enables predictive coding, allowing users to train the system to intelligently explore and analyze large, unstructured data sets and quickly zero in on what is likely to be relevant."

For more details about SharePoint Online features check this link

In Office 365 there are other productive services like the following:

  • Delve: is a new way to discover relevant information and connections from across your work life. Delve displays information that is most relevant for each person based on the work they are doing and the people with whom they are engaging. Delve is powered by Office Graph which uses machine learning techniques to map the relationships between people, content and activity that occurs across Office 365.
  • Yammer: is a leading enterprise social network for businesses to get work done smarter and faster.
  • OneDrive: OneDrive for business is a personal library intended for storing and organizing your work documents.

How to Migrate to Office 365:

There are 3 ways to do the migration:

  1. Copy to Azure, then import in O365.
  2. Ship disk to MSFT Data Center, then import in O365 / Exchange Online.
  3. 3rd Party Tool.

Hybrid Model:

When we host SharePoint on the local data center it is called On Premise, we can get the benefits of both the On Premise environment and SharePoint Online/Office 365 in a model called Hybrid. A hybrid environment that uses SharePoint Server On Premise and SharePoint Online enables solutions that integrate functionality between services and features such as Search, Microsoft Business Connectivity Services, and Duet Enterprise Online for Microsoft SharePoint and SAP in both environments. 

Important Considerations when Deciding Cloud vs. On Premise

More Details about Hybrid SharePoint.

How to Extend SharePoint Online?

You can extend and create custom functionality using add-ins previously called apps. There are 2 types of add-ins: SharePoint Hosted and Provider Hosted.

Video about Office 365 and SharePoint Online:

You can check this video that I have provided in an event last year about SharePoint Online and Office 365 Business Productivity.

Resources:

Office 365 Portal

Office 365 Roadmap

Office 365 resources from TechNet wiki.

Automating Office 365 with PowerShell from TechNet Wiki.

Office 365 first release

Office 365 plan options

Office 365 free trainings

Written by: John Naguib

Solution Architect/Senior Consultant, Wiki Ninja Blogger, SharePoint Expert and Speaker.

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