On April 20, 2011 in Moscow, at a press conference held in a restaurant with the symbolic name “Clouds,” it was announced that the new solution, Microsoft Office 365, would be available to Russian customers by the end of the calendar year 2011.
The first thing I want to say: Office 365 is not a new version of the well-known Microsoft Office suite of applications. This is an online ("cloud") service, paid by users according to the model of a monthly fee, and combining the functionality of Microsoft Office client applications, as well as server products such as Exchange Server 2010, SharePoint Server 2010, Lync Server 2010.
Here, an additional explanation requires the very concept of archiving, which appears in two places in the window settings. This is nothing more than an online news archive. Those who are considering litigating the organization should do so in advance, so even for now. This ensures that all correspondence in the company is protected against accidental or intentional removal by employees. If we do not, we will not be able to recover information that has already been deleted.
In the next step, we enter the administrator credentials in the service. By default, protection is accepted indefinitely, but withholding court cases allows you to store deleted data for any period of time, for example, five years, if required by law or internal company rules. This parameter specifies the storage space for protected items that have been deleted or changed in the employee field. A trial is held for everyone.
For the US market, the monthly fee will range from $ 6 to $ 27 per user per month, depending on the chosen service plan, which is obviously very democratic. Service plans differ in the number of options available to the user.
Functionality
Office 365 is currently in a public beta testing phase, which, unfortunately, is not yet available in Russia. Therefore, the functionality will be judged by the available English-language marketing materials, as well as based on the knowledge of on-premise (intended for deployment on our own infrastructure) versions of the corresponding products.
The litigation service should be included in all employee mailboxes without undue delay. This is a mistake, because many administrators recall the existence of the function of retaining litigation only in a crisis situation, when it is necessary to recover deleted information, for example, from the account of the employee who was dismissed. If the outgoing employee is smart enough to delete messages from his inbox and recovered items, restoring this information will be ineffective.
So, what does an employee of a company that subscribes to Office 365 get?
Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010
Depending on the chosen tariff plan, the cost of the subscription may include the license (right to use) the edition of Microsoft Office, which is familiar to many users, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Outlook, Publisher, Access, InfoPath, SharePoint Workspace and Lync. A distribution kit for installation about 640 MB in size is downloaded from the service’s self-service portal.
If in the user’s window the court detention service has not been previously enabled The second service, which allows you to save deleted and modified data, is holding it in place. Unlike litigation, we have more control over what information is protected here.
In-place configuration is enabled on the compatibility management tab. An alternative scenario is to create a search rule without including protection for deleted and changed retention information. This option will only search for items that exist in employee boxes. Let's go back to the local archive window and collect electronic evidence. Click the Add button to start creating a new filter. We enter the name of the search rule and its description. In the case of production implementations, it is important to provide additional information here after we created this rule and what its purpose is.
For a moderate monthly fee, the company gets the opportunity to legally use Microsoft Office, with the latest version and the maximum version. And it’s flexible to do this: if it is necessary to expand the staff, the number of subscriptions increases, staff reductions decrease accordingly. It should be noted that the current standard Microsoft Volume Licensing Policy does not provide a similar ability to flexibly handle acquired licenses. For example, an enterprise does not have the ability to “transfer” (sell) the acquired very expensive license to another legal entity. And under the conditions of Russian realities, such a need could arise quite often, for example, in connection with the transfer of any business functions between the holding units, which are separate legal entities, and the corresponding movement of staffing units.
We will continue to define the list of boxes that will be searched in the next step. We have two options: find all the mailboxes and specify the mailboxes to search. The second option allows you to narrow your search to the user accounts you specify by clicking the plus symbol. The next step is to configure your search query. Your request may include all content or only specific content that matches your search criteria. The search query includes keywords, the period of creation or receipt, the sender, recipient, and type of message.
In relation to the Office 365 cloud service, Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2010 is a suite of client applications. The code of these applications is executed on the local PC, and therefore, in relation to the Office 365 service, they can be called “thick” clients, or desktop clients.
About the functionality of the applications included in the package that is familiar to most users, it has been said and written enough, I don’t see any reason to repeat; further we will dwell only on the functionality that is associated with the work of applications as clients of the Office 365 service.
Thus, we can protect the message and other objects from the mailbox containing a certain set of words, such as “design” and “data”. In this case, the field will contain messages containing the words “project” and “test” at the same time. In addition to keywords, a search rule can refer to objects that have been received or created over a period of time. This parameter is determined by two choices - enter the start date and enter the end date. Another filtering criterion that we can apply to the rule is the sender of the message and the recipient, that is, the person, group of people, or the mailing list that the correspondence addresses.
Microsoft Word 2010 desktop client with a file located in the SharePoint Online library (see below) of the Office 365 service
Microsoft Exchange Server (Exchange Online)
Thanks to the presence of Exchange Online as part of the Office 365 service, users get the opportunity to work with enterprise-class e-mail, with "built-in" protection against spam and viruses. Exchange Online is a cloud version of the long-existing Microsoft Exchange Server product on the market, the functionality of which is by no means limited to e-mail: users can centrally store their contact information (the company’s address book is automatically generated), they can manage their schedule through calendars and tasks .
Click the Select Message Types button, and then specify the types of messages to crawl. We are only talking about a rule that we can save and complete it with a project. To do this, in the next step, select the “Apply archive” field to the content corresponding to the search query in the selected sources, and then specify the time during which this information is stored in the archive. There are two choices: Archive indefinitely and Specify the number of days when items should be archived upon receipt.
If this step was omitted, the “Archive Status” field will indicate “No”, which means that there is a search rule and can be used to search for information in the current mailbox, but at the same time, the archiving service is stored at the storage location, and therefore all messages deleted by employees are missing. Will be included in these search results.
The desktop client for Exchange Online is Microsoft Outlook.
Microsoft Outlook 2010 desktop client. Working with a corporate email account located in the Office 365 service infrastructure.
Green presence indicators and pictograms with photos of senders are visible
Microsoft Outlook 2010 desktop client. At the same time, a personal calendar of events and a calendar of events of the working group are open,
stored on an Office 365 service SharePoint Online site
For this reason, the introduction of litigation or retention mechanisms should not be delayed. The result of this query is a list of rules, or rather, the identifiers of those rules that are assigned to a specific mailbox. In this view, we are talking about creating a case. Obviously, the same case can be assigned to different people, so in this case the case identifier will be identical. At this point, the question is, how can we search and retrieve this data?
This requires specifying the credentials in the service and the disk space on which the exported files will be stored. It should be remembered that if we search for a large number of mailboxes, it will take some time for all the data to be found, identified, processed and archived. Thus, a direct attempt to export data for a newly created match will result in only partial success, since not all data will be immediately available. In other words, the file to get married at this time will be empty or incomplete, because it was too little time needed to prepare the archive.
Exchange Online also has an online (thin) client - Outlook Web App, accessible from a browser and, accordingly, does not require installation on a PC. The Outlook Web App user interface is as close as possible to the desktop version of Outlook, almost all the functionality is available, including right-clicks.
Outlook Web App in the browser. On the right side -
Lync web conferencing letter
We have information about the search boxes and the boxes that have been processed. If the process takes a lot of time, it is worth postponing it and returning to it after a while. Most of the settings are here that allow administrators and managers to manage the management of information security problems, including preventing data loss. The documentation provides a quick guide to the available services and tools and their use.
The service documentation includes extensive help for building a search query, including a description of how keywords are used and available operators and examples. At the same level, you can view the contents of the email, of course, if you have the appropriate permissions. Management of access rights to archives.
Microsoft SharePoint Server (SharePoint Online)
SharePoint Online is a cloud version of the Microsoft SharePoint Server server product designed for organizing collaboration between enterprise employees, centralized intelligent storage of documents, support for their simultaneous editing, project management and many other functions.
Let us dwell in more detail on the functionality of this component of the Office 365 service, which, in our opinion, is the least familiar service to potential users from the small and personal business sectors.
In this context, the Compliance Management Center can be successfully used to audit the security of corporate information. This is used for the “Export” tab, which allows you to specify which items we want to save to disk. The data collection center allows you to create search filters using regular expressions and patterns and allows you to archive deleted information in the on-site retention service. Here you should describe how to create a new collection of electronic evidence. Click the new item, then enter the name of the set to create.
So-called libraries are used to store documents on SharePoint sites. A document can be placed in the library in several ways: from the special menu of the Word 2010 desktop client, downloaded from the hard drive by clicking on the “Add document” link on the site or by overwriting the file in Windows Explorer, since any SharePoint library can be opened in Windows Explorer as a network folder.
In the "Filter" field, we specify the search criteria and activate the "Enable local archive" parameter. Among them, we will find a new search rule created in the Compliance Center. All the technologies listed here are used to control access to information of company employees.
Each employee, depending on their position, level in the hierarchy of the organization or department, has access only to a strictly defined set of information. The same rules must be implemented for data that is sent and stored in mailboxes. In other words, it is data that should never be disclosed and, therefore, seep out of the walls of the enterprise. In the case of a trading company, this may be, for example, the base of contractors or the purchase price of the goods.
Office 365 SharePoint document library open in browser
What is the advantage of storing documents in SharePoint libraries over the widespread model of storing files in network folders? Firstly, it is an exception to situations that are conflicting from the point of view of the contents of files when one document is edited by two users independently of each other. If the document is "extracted" by the user from the SharePoint library for editing, other users at this time will not be able to change it. You can always see who exactly extracted the document.
It may happen that an employee mistakenly entered a bad email address and sends a price list or other materials intended exclusively for internal use. Contrary to appearance - these situations occur quite often. An example security scenario includes providing data on a mobile phone that may be lost due to loss or theft. The solutions discussed below allow administrators to manage such devices also in situations involving layoffs.
The description of each template will provide detailed information on the scope of protection, compliance with legal requirements and the conditions for its application. Example transport rule. Click Add to start creating a new transport rule. Of course, such a message will not be delivered to the addressee.
Secondly, it is versioning support. The SharePoint library can be configured to store all versions of documents from the moment they are created. Moreover, any intermediate version can be opened, find out who is the author of the changes and when they were made. You can even compare two versions of a document.
Thirdly, it supports the ability to simultaneously edit documents. In particular, for example, it is possible to simultaneously edit one Word document by two or more users. The paragraph on which one user is working is assigned to him and other users cannot make changes to it. (Blocking in Excel is done at the cell level.) During this editing, users can communicate with each other through instant messaging, voice, or video by using the Lync Online component in Office 365 (see below).
This is just an example of how we can easily protect your company’s information from accidental or intentional disclosure. Among dozens of predefined actions we will find among others. Send an approval message, block the message, add recipients, create an event report and send a message or inform the recipient by message. The employee may not be aware that the document contains only content for internal use or that some information should not be transmitted outside.
Another security element that is worth illustrating in the examples is the Rights Management rule. However, this requires additional activation of your account using a credit card. A credit card is used only to verify a customer. Click the shortcut with the same name.
Microsoft Word 2010 desktop client. A list of users is visible,
simultaneously editing one document stored
in the Office 365 service SharePoint Online site library
Fourthly, it is an opportunity to organize full-text search on the content of documents. By entering a part of the word into the search box of the SharePoint Online site, the search results will include all documents containing such a combination of letters. This allows you to effectively manage the information stored in the company that is in Microsoft Office documents. Each new document will supplement the enterprise knowledge base.
An example scenario is to send an e-mail message to all people in the company in read mode, but only staff members can send such correspondence, and council members print it out. These permissions are: reviewer, preview only, co-author and co-owner. The administrator can configure in detail any set of permissions about what steps we can take in a letter or document. These privileges include View, save, edit, forward, respond, print, or finally change these permissions if we want to give others the ability to revoke or change them.
SharePoint Online also includes Office Web Apps, which are thin clients for working with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote files. Thin clients are executed in a browser, respectively, do not require installation on a PC, and implement the most popular features of their desktop counterparts. Internet Explorer, FireFox, Safari and Chrome are supported as browsers for Office Web Apps (see below for detailed technical requirements).
Using Office Web Apps, you can either view Office documents or edit them directly in a browser. It should be noted that Office Web Apps do a pretty good job with fairly complex formatting, and only extreme tricks will be displayed roughly. To open a file in Office Web Apps, just click on the link to the corresponding file in the library.
A Microsoft Word document that is open for viewing in the Word Web App thin client. Pretty complicated formatting is displayed correctly
Using Office 365, you can stop sending files as attachments to emails, and only send links to documents in the SharePoint library. Thus, a reduction in the volume of information sent by e-mail is achieved, one up-to-date version of the document is maintained centrally, and there is no need to worry about whether the recipient has the latest version of the necessary Microsoft Office application installed - Office Web Apps will help you open the document in any browser .
Offline file editing is also possible. Microsoft SharePoint Workspace, part of Microsoft Office Professional Plus, transparently manages the local copy of library documents, synchronizing the changed documents when an Internet connection appears, and, accordingly, to the Office 365 service.
SharePoint Workplace
You can upload a Microsoft Access database to the Office 365 service SharePoint site, which allows you to have a single, up-to-date copy of a small database accessible through the web interface, sufficient, for example, for maintaining a warehouse account for a small enterprise.
Microsoft Access Database Published on SharePoint Online
Office 365 SharePoint Services Online libraries can be configured to support alerts and business processes.
In particular, using the notification mechanism, subscribing users can receive emails by e-mail when adding or changing documents in the library of interest to them, which allows you to always stay updated on documents that are currently being actively collaborated with, or vice versa, rarely changed, but important documents in the company's activities - various provisions and regulations. At the same time, an employee who has made changes or published a new document is relieved of the obligation to notify interested parties - SharePoint Online will do the work for him.
The mechanism of business processes allows you to automate typical processes for passing documents within the enterprise. For example, in the editorial office of a computer publication, after the author has prepared the materials, the editor should approve and then put the material in the queue for publication. In this case, the business process has obvious steps that can be configured in the SharePoint Online service of Office 365. After placing the document in the library, the business process will automatically start, and the editor will receive an email notification of new material that needs to be considered. After viewing the material in Word or Word Web App, the editor can either approve the document or reject it with a comment. In any case, the author will receive an appropriate notification by e-mail. After the editor approves the material, the notification will be received by the employee responsible for further actions and so on until the end of the business process. Information on the stage at which one or another started business process is always available on the site, which allows you to keep the situation under control.
Office 365 business process engines can be configured quite flexibly. The system already has a number of pre-configured business processes, and document approval is one of them. If you need to change the business process or build your own, several tools are available: simple configuration can be performed directly in SharePoint Online, more complex operations can be performed in the specialized software SharePoint Designer (distributed free of charge) and Microsoft Visio.
Project management features are available in SharePoint Online. For example, a list can be created containing a list of tasks performed by participants in a project working group. Such a list can be visually displayed in the form of a Gantt chart. When assigning a task, a notification will be sent to the person responsible by e-mail. Also, a notification will be sent to all signatories at any change in this task: deadlines, content, status; due to which the project team is always in the know about the project.
The SharePoint Online site can host a project workgroup calendar, including meeting dates, which can be accessed from both the Outlook desktop client (see 3) and the Outlook Web Access thin client. Meetings themselves can be held online through integration with Lync Online.
Microsoft Lync Server (Lync Online)
This component of the Office 365 service is responsible for communication between users. Actually, Lync Online is a cloud-based implementation of Microsoft Lync Server 2010 Unified Communications Server. Like any product that claims to implement the Unified Communications concept, Lync considers the user's personal computer as the main subscriber terminal for communications.
The Lync Client client application implements a contact-oriented user interface in which indicators of the presence of other users are immediately visible, and from which, using the same simple tricks, you can start an instant messaging session, voice call, video or web conference. In the process of communication, you can add participants, change the analog device - for example, switch the call to a bluetooth headset.
Microsoft Lync Client Interface
Lync is quite fully integrated with other Office 365 components, which may result in the following scenario. In Outlook, having identified potential participants in a web conference, you can start scheduling it in just one click. Outlook will receive information from Exchange Online about the availability of potential participants and the current version of their work calendars, so that the initiator of the conference can offer time not at random, but taking into account the work of colleagues, which greatly increases the chances of getting to the time convenient for everyone the first time. A letter containing an invitation and a link to a scheduled conference will be sent to all potential participants by email. You can accept an invitation, as well as start or join a conference, directly from Outlook with one click.
Web conferencing scheduling in Outlook
Conference at Lync. Instant messaging session, video calling showing the active participant, Microsoft PowerPoint presentation slide show with navigation for participants - all in a single interface
To participate in a web conference, you can invite participants who are not employees of the company. Such participants will be able to join, for example, using the Silverlight version of the client, that is, to participate in the Lync web conference, you do not need to install any additional software on your PC, and accordingly, you do not need to have local administrator rights. This scenario can be widely used when inviting clients and partners of a company to participate in webinars.
Lync is also integrated with SharePoint, for example, when co-editing a Word document, you can start instant messaging with other active users directly from the Microsoft Word desktop client interface, and then, if necessary, switch to voice or video communication.
On May 10, 2011, Microsoft announced the acquisition of Skype by Microsoft. At a press conference on the event, Microsoft announced plans to integrate Skype technology with existing products: Lync, Messenger, Xbox. It is logical to assume that when these plans are implemented, Office 365 users will have direct access to the multimillion-dollar audience of Skype users.
Enterprise Public Website
Using Office 365, an enterprise can create its own public website, accessible to users from the Internet using its own domain name.
You can choose a site theme and style from the corresponding extensive libraries.
Website Themes
Mobile Integration
To work with the Office 365 service, you can use almost all common smartphone models that support the Exchange ActiveSync protocol. Including smartphones of the iPhone, BlackBerry rulers, as well as smartphones with Android and Symbian operating systems (the latter with the Nokia Mail for Exchange client).
Support for the Exchange ActiveSync protocol gives smartphone users the ability to work with e-mail, calendar and contact lists stored in the Office 365 infrastructure. Email synchronization is possible in the so-called push mode, in which incoming messages will be “pushed” from the Exchange Online server to your mobile phone immediately upon receipt, which, on the one hand, allows you to work with mail as quickly as possible, and, on the other hand, leads to reduced traffic and increased battery life of the smartphone.
Using browsers implemented in smartphones, you can work with SharePoint Online sites. SharePoint can generate special, mobile representations of relevant web pages that are convenient to work with on small-sized smartphone screens.
However, the particularly smooth and full integration with the Office 365 service is, of course, implemented in Windows Phone. In particular, the so-called Office Hub is implemented in the Windows Phone interface, through which the user has centralized access to Word Mobile, Excel Mobile, PowerPoint Mobile applications, as well as documents. Mobile versions of office applications do an excellent job with documents of appropriate formats and allow editing them. Integration with SharePoint Online allows you to see links to sites and individual libraries in the Windows Phone interface, open and save documents directly in SharePoint Online.
Windows Phone Calendar, SharePoint library, PowerPoint presentation, and concurrent call
Microsoft announced the release of the Lync Moblie mobile client for Windows Phone and iPhone during the current 2011 year. In particular, on May 16, 2011, as part of the TechEd conference, an update was announced for Windows Phone codenamed “Mango”, which will provide even deeper integration with Office 365, Windows Live SkyDrive, as well as the Lync Mobile mobile client.
Windows Phone Lync mobile
Functionality Summary
Despite the fact that we examined the components included in Office 365 separately from each other, for the user the entire service looks monolithic. This is achieved by tight integration of server components, desktop, thin clients, as well as a single approach to building user interfaces.
Office 365 can be attributed to UCC (Unified Communications and Collaboration) class platforms / solutions, that is, products that provide unified communications and collaboration among company employees.
Benefits for Business Users
So, we can say that Office 365 is a proposal to use the almost complete range of software included in the Microsoft business productivity group, according to the SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) model.
According to the participants of the press conference held on April 20 in Moscow, at which it announced its intention to launch Office 365 in Russia before the end of 2011, the new service may be of interest to both large companies and companies in the personal, small and medium-sized business segments.
In particular, according to Pavel Kuzmenko, head of the Microsoft Office Information Systems Promotion Department in Russia, the value for large companies can be that, taking full advantage of the use of modern information technologies, optimize investments and replace capital costs with operating (CAPEX OPEX ) However, according to Andrey Patoka, vice president of corporate business development at Vimpelcom, large companies that decide to switch to Office 365 will do so for a long time through various hybrid models.
The participants in the press conference expressed the opinion that Office 365 is of particular interest to small companies, and there are several reasons for this.
The first is the ability to access the most advanced tools of business productivity for a small monthly fee. Previously, for small companies, the costs of infrastructure and licensing of the corresponding software according to the classical model were barrage, and the enterprise was deprived of the opportunity to effectively use modern IT. That is, Office 365 is the breakthrough that allows, for example, a startup to get in the technological plan to the same level that is achieved by market leaders.
The second is the ability to flexibly manage the number of licenses (subscriptions to the service). If necessary, the number of subscriptions can be increased or reduced promptly, depending on the need.
The third is the ability to use the enterprise-level functionality of the corresponding products, for example, high availability, which previously required the deployment of a very complex network and server infrastructure, staff training and very high licensing costs.
Fourth - the absence of the need for specialized knowledge. Deployment, administration of the service platform, updating software versions is done by the service provider, a small company can focus on its core business, on its competence.
Fifth - the presence of several service plans, differing in the monthly fee. A small business can subscribe users to a cost-effective service plan that matches their needs for using the components included with Office 365.
Sales
In accordance with the model adopted by Microsoft to promote a new service in the world, Microsoft syndication partners, VimpelCom OJSC and SKB Kontur, will provide access to Office 365 in Russia. Their customers will be able to get a new solution as a part of various combined packages, calculated in accordance with the needs of companies of different sizes and profiles.
In particular, Nikolai Pryanishnikov, president of Microsoft Russia, said:
“... the most important thing is that today we are announcing that we will be implementing with our partners that we will realize and market this product. This corresponds to ... the Microsoft model around the world, but I’ll say that the number of partners is very limited, there will be only a few partners around the world, and I am pleased to note today that we have chosen, and we have chosen, the best companies on the market. From the point of view of an active position, readiness for implementation, including a rather complicated technical solution, synergy, I would really call these companies leading in Russia. VimpelCom, as a leading telecommunications company; SKB Kontur, as the leading company in Russia, one can say the pride of Russia, the developer of web services, cloud technologies are wonderful companies. I am sure that we and our partners will receive very good advantages: we will get the opportunity to promote our products on the market, partners will additionally have a very big advantage in the struggle for the customer, in retention, loyalty, and increased profitability. Today, both in telecom and in the Internet business, it is very important to keep the client. A client may even come to you, but then switching costs nothing: in fact, you can switch from one operator to another. But if you have a package (of services) ... when you comprehensively offer small and medium-sized businesses a comprehensive approach, for example, telephony, software, services, and everything is integrated in one package with uniform discounts, of course, the client will not go anywhere . And the client will be profitable, and the partner, of course, will be profitable. Therefore, today I am very pleased with our partnership and I want to thank both Andrei and Dmitry for our partnership and wish us good luck in this launch. I am sure that the prospects here are very good. ”
“Other Microsoft partners can remain sales agents,” explained Nikolai Pryanishnikov, responding to a question from the audience, “of our integrated solution. They can be partners like VimpelCom and SKB Kontur, and Microsoft partners, but for sale. In this case, they will not be able to make integrated service packages, but they will be able to sell the product. ”
At the press conference, not all information regarding the sales of Office 365 in Russia was announced, but only part of it, since work on the project to launch a new product on the market is still ongoing. In particular, prices have not yet been announced.
However, it can be said that Vimpelcom plans to package Office 365 offers with offers for fixed and mobile services, and SKB Kontur with offers on access to their online services Kontur-Extern (filing tax reports through Internet) and others.
In particular, Andrei Patoka, vice president of corporate business development at Vimpelcom, said: “Working with an information and communication provider is very attractive for the customer, as one provider is responsible not only for the quality of the product, but also for the funds access to the product. Without communication solutions, the work of this whole idea is simply impossible. ”
Dmitry Mramorov, General Director of SKB Kontur: “We assume that Office 365 will be included in package offers with our products, first of all, of course, Kontur-External - a system for reporting. The DiaDoc system ... we believe that there are good prospects in combination with Office 365 ... and it’s absolutely wonderful (Office 365) that Elba is responsible for providing electronic services for micro-businesses and small businesses ... ”
SKB Kontur expects to attract a large number of new customers. In particular, the appearance of the Office 365 offer will allow the company to turn within the customer company not only to the departments involved in accounting, but also to the main business structures.
So, while prices in Russia have not yet been announced, let's try to look at prices announced as part of the global announcement.
Five service plans have been announced for Office 365: P (aka P1) - personal, for professionals and small businesses, and E1, E2, E3, E4 - corporate, for enterprises. (Some materials also mention plans K1 and K2 for enterprises, but there is no information on them even on the profile site www.office365.com).
Plan P (P1) - $ 6 / per user / per month, includes:
- enterprise-class email, calendars and personal archive;
- 25 GB for hosting a mailbox and mobile mail;
- sharePoint team sites
- Office Web Apps
- simple public website;
- the ability to publish Access databases;
- lync conferences and the ability to demonstrate the desktop to a remote subscriber (desktop sharing);
- multipoint instant messaging and calls PC - PC;
- community support.
Plans E, respectively, include:
It is important to note that the ability to use the Microsoft Office desktop appears only in the E3 plan ($ 24 / per user / per month), and now Microsoft is offering it for beta testing.
In general, judging by the structure and completeness of the information on the official website, it seems that by the time the Office 365 beta is over, information on tariff plans will still be updated, even for the US market.
It seems appropriate, especially taking into account the planned special packaging of Office 365 offers in the Russian market, to carefully deal with service plans, their options, and functionality. On the other hand, you can always try an economical plan, and, in the case of a lack of functions, switch to a more advanced one.
How it works
Of course, Office 365 belongs to the category of cloud products, because the end user does not need to have any infrastructure of their own except a PC and Internet access - Office 365 will come to it “from the cloud”;)
Participants in the press conference answered several questions about the technical organization of the service. In particular, the server infrastructure on which the Office 365 service runs is located exclusively in Microsoft data centers located around the world, and partner data centers are not involved. To deploy the Office 365 service, of course, the Microsoft platform is used. The creation of a data center in Russia is not yet planned. An enterprise that subscribes to the Office 365 service will not know in which data center the equipment that provides Office 365 for it is located.
For users, this means that emails and instant messages between adjacent desks in the office can go, for example, through Singapore;)
And this, in turn, imposes certain requirements on the characteristics of the channel for access to the Internet. Its speed should be sufficient for the transmission of bulk traffic (emails, Office documents), and for real-time traffic - voice communication and video conferencing. The required channel capacity depends on the number of users, and on the typical use of services by each of them, so it’s difficult to give specific recommendations.
Microsoft declares the service reliability at the level of 99.9%, and its financial responsibility if this parameter is not achieved. This level of reliability means that 8.76 hours of downtime (43 minutes per month) are allowed per year. However, users should remember that access to the service is via the Internet, and, accordingly, it is also necessary to think about ensuring the reliability of the respective channels. Of course, end users are unlikely to be able to affect the reliability of the backbone channels connecting the data center to the provider in Russia, but it seems advisable to have a backup Internet access option, for example, wireless.
In this regard, an interesting proposal for obtaining services for accessing the Office 365 service from one source together with the Internet access service is interesting. In this case, the supplier will be responsible for the performance of the entire complex. However, the responsibility of the provider, as practice shows, is likely to be within the part of the subscription fee, proportional to the time the service is inoperative beyond the declared 0.01%.
Therefore, it seems logical to think about the possibility of offline work. In particular, you can choose a service plan with the ability to use the desktop version of Microsoft Office so that you can continue to work in the absence of Internet access, or buy a license for such Microsoft Office separately. It also seems advisable to have a backup copy of critical enterprise data somewhere on local media, as well as have a minimum office IT infrastructure, so that in case of unforeseen situations the data and at least some possibility of their processing would not be lost.
At the same time, Andrey Patoka, vice president of corporate business development at Vimpelcom, comments on the question of what kind of responsibility Beeline Business will incur in the event of a service failure: “... all types (responsibilities), starting with moral . In business, it is very important to establish and maintain good relations with the customer. Plus that responsibility which is specified in contracts. ... SLAs involving liability. Here we are no different from other major operators, in our relations with customers we provide such a product configuration that would have all kinds of motivation for the provider, so that the quality meets the requirements of the client. ”
Service management
You can start working with the Office 365 service from the user's start page, from which you can quickly switch to Outlook Web Access, download the Lync 2010 Client distribution kit, quickly go to the SharePoint site and download the Microsoft Office 2010 Professional Plus distribution kit or switch to managing the service.
Office 365 user start page overview
Office 365 is managed through the admin web console.
Admin Console Add new user
System requirements
Operating Systems:
- Windows 7
- Windows Vista with Service Pack 2;
- Windows XP with Service Pack 3;
- Windows XP Home Edition (with restrictions);
- Windows XP Media Center Edition (with restrictions);
- Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard.
System Software:
- Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (for Windows XP);
- Java client 1.4.2 (for Macintosh OS X).
Microsoft Office Packages:
- Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 Service Pack 2;
- Office 2008 for Mac and Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition;
- Office 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac;
- .NET Framework 2.0 or later;
- Microsoft Lync 2010.
Client Applications:
- Services Connector (Office 365 special access client).
Browsers (to access the Microsoft Online Portal):
- Mozilla Firefox 3.x;
- Apple Safari 3.x.
Browsers - for Microsoft Outlook Web App:
- Internet Explorer 7 or later;
- Firefox 3 or later
- Safari 3 or later running Macintosh OS X 10.5;
- Chrome 3 or later
- Outlook Web App also has a lightweight version that supports a reduced set of functionalities; it runs on almost any browser.
Development platform
Office 365 is not only a ready-to-use service, but also a development platform.
For example, a developer can implement a so-called web part - a software applet that processes data on a SharePoint Online site and displays it in a specific area of \u200b\u200ba web page in a user-friendly way.
You can write code that will interact with Excel documents and Access databases located in Office 365.
You can create your own client for Lync that implements enterprise-specific functionality - for example, embed communications in the main business application of the enterprise. Due to this, for example, the text of instant messages will transmit the numbers of customer requests or delivery notes directly from the corresponding applications.
Currently, beta testing of the Office 365 app store, Microsoft Office 365 Marketplace, is already underway, which opens up corresponding prospects for developers.
Microsoft Office 365 Marketplace
Conclusion
Office 365 is a logical continuation of the trend that has taken shape in the industry. The software should come to the user's PC in the form of web applications and cloud infrastructure services - private, hybrid or public. Microsoft has envisioned the ability to deploy all of its core business productivity applications in the cloud. Building your own service integrating all these products into a single whole, and bringing this service to the market were only a matter of time.
The possibility of licensed use of Microsoft Office, flexible subscription management, the availability of several tariff plans, the possibility of using enterprise-level functionality for a very affordable price, the ability to pay by the model of a monthly fee - all this makes Office 365 an attractive offer, especially for segments of personal, small and medium-sized businesses .
Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises is a set of easy-to-use web-based tools that provide access to e-mail, important documents, contacts and a calendar from virtually anywhere and from any device. For a brief introduction, see the overview for Office 365 users to get an overview of Office 365.
This suite includes Microsoft Office Web Apps, which are web versions of the familiar Microsoft Office desktop applications such as Microsoft Word, Excel, and PowerPoint. Using Office Web Apps, you can create and edit documents in a web browser on any PC.
This quick start guide covers a number of common tasks that you often need to complete in everyday use of Office 365.
If you are an Office 365 administrator, see Introduction to Office 365 for administrators to learn more about administrative tasks.
Work on the Internet
The Office 365 portal provides instant access to your organization’s email and shared documents. Wherever a user is, with an Internet connection, they can always access Office 365.
To get started, you need to know your own Microsoft Online Services ID and password. If you do not already have one, contact your organization’s administrator for their receipt.
Office 365 portal sign-in
Enter your Microsoft Online Services ID and password.
Office 365 Portal Header
After logging in to the Office 365 Portal, notice the top of the page. The horizontal panel with links is called heading. The title is always displayed at the top of most pages, providing quick access to Office 365 features with one click.
Homepage. This is the page that opens when you sign in to Office 365.
post office
Office 365 account includes email service. To ensure data security and privacy, email is stored on Microsoft servers. You can read e-mail in Outlook for desktop systems or in Microsoft Outlook Web App.
Create an email message in Outlook Web App
The Inbox page opens, the layout of which is familiar to users of the Outlook desktop application.
At the top of the middle area, click Createto create a new message.
Contacts
Using contacts, you can store information about the people you chat with, including their email addresses, postal addresses, and phone numbers.
Create contact
Import contacts into Outlook Web App
Duplicate contacts will be automatically duplicated in the new contact list. For more information about managing duplicate contacts, see Import contacts section "Working with desktop applications" later in this guide.
The calendar
The calendar is used to store information about appointments and organize meetings with colleagues. When organizing a meeting, the calendar allows you to view your own schedule, as well as determine when other participants are free. You can then send meeting invitations to colleagues.
View calendar
Create a meeting
Instant messaging
By adding people to your contact list, you can chat with them directly in your browser using Outlook Web App.
Conversation with a contact
Share documents and information with SharePoint Online
Office 365 supports a team site designed for users to collaborate on documents and share data. Group site maintenance is performed using Microsoft SharePoint Online services, which act as a centralized repository for group documents. Document storage in SharePoint Online allows you to secure, implement version control, and edit and view documents in Office desktop applications and Office Web Apps. In addition to working together on documents, the exchange of images, lists, wikis, blogs and other data is also supported. For more information about saving documents from Office 2010 to a team site, see Save a document from Office 2010 to SharePoint.
View a SharePoint team site
Learn more about SharePoint 2010.
For general information about SharePoint 2010 and getting started, see Basic tasks in SharePoint Online for Office 365 for enterprises on the Office Online Web site.
Working with desktop applications
You can still use the familiar Microsoft Office. To get the most out of your work, set up your computer to work with Office 365.
Note The information in this section applies to computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system. If you're using a Mac, see Set up your Mac to work with Office 365.
Set up Office desktop apps to work with Office 365
Office 365 email accounts can be accessed directly from the Outlook desktop app. When working in other Office desktop applications, you can save files directly to the SharePoint team site so that you can collaborate on them with other team members.
To configure Office settings to provide these features, run the Microsoft Office 365 Desktop Update Installer.
On the right side of the page Homepage In chapter Resources press the button Downloads.
On the page Downloads install the necessary programs on your computer.
When the installation is complete, return to the page Downloads and in the section Install and configure Office desktop applications press the button Customization.
Follow the setup instructions.
Reading mail in Outlook for desktop
You can use both the Outlook desktop app and the Outlook Web App to read email. Switching between a desktop application and a web application can be done without any problems. For example, you can use the desktop application at work, and the web application at home and on the go.
If Microsoft Office 2010 is downloaded and installed, start Microsoft Outlook 2010 to access your Office 365 email account. Outlook will help you with the initial setup steps.
If you have a previous version of Office Outlook 2007 or Outlook 2010 installed on your computer, you must first create a new profile with access to your Office 365 account to access your Office 365 email account. The profile contains accounts, data files, and settings that determine where messages are saved Email.
Create a profile for Office 365
In Office Outlook 2007, the menu File select team Import and export.
Select an item and press the button. Further.
Select item Comma Separated Values \u200b\u200b(DOS) and press the button Further.
Press button Overview, find the file with the imported contacts and select it.
In chapter Parameters Select one of the following options.
.Select item Import from another program or file and press the button Further.
In chapter Select file type to import specify the type of file to import and click Further.
Most commonly used format Text, Comma Separators (Windows), also called a CSV file. If you want to import contacts exported from Outlook to an Outlook data file (.pst), select Outlook Data File (.pst).
In chapter File to import press the button Overview, select the file you want to import and click OK.
In the dialog box Import file In chapter Parameters select one of the following options:
Replace duplicates on import. If an Outlook contact already exists, it will be replaced by the imported data.
Allow duplication. If an Outlook contact exists, the imported contact is created as a second contact.
Do not import duplicates. If an Outlook contact exists, the data of the imported contact is ignored.
If Outlook is running, close it.
Press button Start on Windows and select Control Panel.
In field Search on the control panel, search for the word post office.
In Control Panel, click a component. post office.
Contacts can be imported into Outlook from other applications or from exported Outlook contacts. These instructions assume that contacts have already been exported from Outlook or another application, such as a web client, an Excel spreadsheet, or a database application.
The instructions for importing contacts in Office Outlook 2007 and Outlook 2010 are different. Follow the steps below for your version.
Import contacts in Outlook 2007
In the dialog box Import file In chapter Select destination folder select the folder for the imported contacts and click Further.
If multiple accounts are not used and multiple contact folders have not been created for the account, the Contacts folder is usually selected.
Press button Done.
Instant Messaging with Lync 2010
Microsoft Lync 2010 is an application installed on a desktop computer to communicate with other users using instant messages (conversation), as well as voice and video calls.
