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Microsoft 365 (formerly branded Office 365) is Microsoft's growing line of productivity applications and cloud services provided on a monthly or annual subscription basis. Microsoft 365 apps and Azure services are available in a selection of bundles, called subscription plans, targeted at customers ranging from students and households to global enterprises.

The most popular Microsoft 365 apps can be deployed on multiple devices such as PCs, Apple Macs, tablets, and smartphones. These multi-device apps include Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. PC-only apps include Microsoft Access for database management and Publisher for desktop publishing. To address customers who have multiple devices, many Microsoft 365 bundles permit you to run Microsoft 365 apps on several devices. As an example, Microsoft 365 Business and ProPlus subscriptions permit every included app to be run on as many as five customer devices.

Progent offers fast and affordable remote access to a support consultant with expertise in Microsoft, Mac, iOS, and Google Android software. Progent can assist you to evaluate the numerous subscription plans available with Microsoft 365 and integrate your information system with Microsoft 365 in a way that delivers the highest possible competitive value. Progent can help you manage multi-vendor networks that incorporate Windows, Apple macOS or OS X, and Linux based products. Progent can also assist you to build and maintain hybrid environments that transparently combine on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure.

Microsoft 365 Applications and Cloud-based Services
Microsoft 365 packages are designed to serve a broad range of users such as businesses of all sizes, education, government, home and nonprofits. Some packages, like Microsoft 365 Business Essentials, includes no apps but only cloud services. Other plans, like Microsoft 365 Business, includes apps but provides only the OneDrive cloud-based service. The top-of-the-line Microsoft 365 Enterprise E5 bundle includes seven apps and seven cloud-based services. Progent's consultants can assist your organization to pick an Microsoft 365 subscription plan that's right for your business, help you to migrate from outdated editions of Microsoft Office apps, and show you how to centralize the management of Microsoft 365 and other system resources to create an efficient, protected and productive IT ecosystem.

Key Microsoft 365 Applications
The most obvious difference between Microsoft 365 applications and their corresponding Microsoft Office releases is that Microsoft 365 apps are rented rather than perpetually licensed. Also, traditionally licensed Microsoft Office apps are supposed to be run on only one device at a time and are not updated automatically or upgraded at no extra cost when a major version is released. For example, moving from Office Word 2013 to Word 2019 requires you to purchase a whole new copy of Word. Minor updates to Microsoft Office apps are provided Microsoft 365 users sooner than to owners of perpetually licensed versions. Also, Office suites bought with a perpetual license do not include any of the cloud services included with Microsoft 365.

Apps available with various Microsoft 365 subscription plans include:

Microsoft 365 Word includes the ability to create and review Office documents across Windows, Android, Mac, and iOS computers while presenting a consistent look and user experience. Users can also collaborate on Office documents, see which team members are editing various shared documents, and observe updates made by others in real time. Just as with Microsoft 365 Excel and PowerPoint, you can easily share without leaving your documents. Additionally, you can check who has rights to access a given document and who is now working on the document. For documents you own, you can easily modify edit rights. Find out about Progent's Microsoft 365 Word consulting expertise.

Microsoft 365 Excel permits subscribers to employ the industry-standard Exponential Smoothing (ETS) algorithm to create forecast charts for projecting future trends based on historical data. New linked data types that are tied to online sources include Stock and Geography. Stock retrieves the latest stock price, price change, and other equities information. The Geography data type enables you to select a country and extract specified demographic or economic information such as population or gas price. As with Microsoft 365 Word and Microsoft 365 PowerPoint, Microsoft 365 Excel also supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) files. These can be rotated, colored, and scaled instantaneously without any loss in quality. Find out about Progent's Microsoft 365 Excel consulting expertise.

Microsoft 365 PowerPoint lets you work with three dimensional models and provides an enhanced selection of animation functions like swinging and rotating. Like Microsoft Office Excel and Word, Microsoft 365 PowerPoint allows you to convert drawings into uniform shapes for charts, diagrams, and other objects. Microsoft 365 PowerPoint for Mac includes the ability to incorporate and edit video from within PowerPoint. The Media Browser offers convenient access to a wide range of media sources such as iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists, and iMovie collections as well as shapes, Clip Art, and other graphics.

Microsoft 365 Outlook provides significant improvements to previous versions of the Outlook email and calendar app by introducing features such as audio cues, automatic downloading of OneDrive cloud attachments, visibility of replies to a meeting invitation for people other than meeting organizers, simplified email organizing, plus more intuitive group creation and calendar sharing. In addition, Microsoft 365 Outlook subscribers can have their messages read aloud as the segments being read are highlighted. Office intelligent services, when enabled, also allows Microsoft 365 Outlook clients to dictate emails. Microsoft 365 Outlook for Mac includes push email, online archiving, the ability to suggest an alternative meeting schedule in answer to a meeting invitation, and multiple calendar display. Full Screen Mode permits multiple open messages and enables users to run two Outlook sessions in split-screen view. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 Outlook and Outlook on the web configuration and troubleshooting expertise.

Microsoft 365 OneNote for Windows 10 is included in most Microsoft 365 product bundles, installed by default in Windows 10, and available for download as a free mobile app. The older OneNote 2016 version, which includes features not at first provided in OneNote for Windows 10 likes Record Video, continues to be available at no cost but is not being updated. OneNote for Windows 10 introduces a new customizable GUI common for Windows 10, Mac, iOS, Android, and Web. Other features offered exclusively on OneNote for Windows 10 include enhanced ink-to-text, a notification center that indicates changes in your open and recently used notebooks, automatic conversion of freehand drawings into standardized shapes, and a digital ruler to draw straight lines and measure distance.

Microsoft 365 Access, offered only for Windows PCs, enables you to use VBA and an extensive library of templates to streamline business operations and create modern-looking forms and management reports. Microsoft 365 Access includes the connector library to integrate data from a broad range of popular business applications and data sources for generating quality reports from within the time-tested Access environment. The ability to store Access data in both SQL Server and Azure SQL gives you a world-class database plus SQL syntax for Access apps hosted either locally or in the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft Access 365 now includes an updated Linked Table Manager, allows you to include new forms and reports, and enables you to link or extract data from Salesforce and Dynamics 365. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 Access consulting expertise.

Microsoft 365 Publisher, available only on Windows PCs, is a popular do-your-own desktop publishing tool that leverages the familiar Microsoft Office interface to deliver an intuitive platform for creating and sharing professional-looking publications like datasheets and white papers that require precise image placement control. Since documents can be saved to the cloud, you can deliver a document as easily as sending a link. Publisher's popularity and ease of use make it possible to hit deadlines on time-critical jobs without having to rely on instant access to a desktop publishing professional for implementing last-minute changes.

Microsoft 365 Cloud Services
Microsoft 365 cloud services enable organizations to leverage Microsoft's extensive cloud infrastructure to host business-critical servers like Microsoft Exchange, Teams and Skype for Business. This provides high levels of availability and protection while reducing the substantial upfront costs and management hassle associated with deploying and supporting self-sufficient on-premises datacenters. For situations that require some servers to be located onsite for regulatory compliance, throughput, or other issues, most Microsoft 365 virtual server products can be deployed with hybrid architectures that seamlessly combine on-premises and cloud-based infrastructure.

Microsoft 365 Exchange Online offers email hosting and supports user mailbox sizes ranging from 50 GB to unlimited. Key features include custom domain addresses, shareable calendars and contacts, the Outlook Web app, one-click archiving, and simple-to-create collaboration groups. The online Exchange admin center lets you control email configurations for your organization and gives you full control over crucial areas such as user rights, security and compliance, mail flow, making mailboxes and defining limits, team work, contact lists, Unified Messaging, monitoring and reporting, and backup/recovery. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 Exchange Online configuration and management consulting.

Microsoft 365 OneDrive is Microsoft's popular file sync and share platform. Microsoft 365 packages usually include 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage, enabling you to save, access, and share data across Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, or iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. By automatically synchronizing your files to your workstation, OneDrive allows you to revise documents even when you are offline. OneDrive simplifies sharing and collaboration, tracking all file updates to help avoid versioning issues. You can begin a team project on any computer and switch smoothly to a different device at any time. For enhanced collaboration, an array of tools allow you to notate and highlight shared documents. Advanced discovery tools allow you to find files quickly, and tracking tools offer insights such as the number of people who accessed or shared a file.

Microsoft 365 Skype for Business offers cloud-hosted voice, HD video, and conferencing. Skype's Online Plan 1 includes instant messaging, real-time presence, peer-to-peer VoIP, and HD video, plus Skype Connectivity. Online Plan 2 includes scheduled and ad hoc conferencing with A/V calling as well as screen and app sharing on iOS and Android devices, Windows PCs, and Apple Mac computers. For hybrid networks that integrate a local Skype for Business Server with Skype for Business Online services, you can deploy a seamless solution using a Split Domain deployment. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 Skype for Business solution design and integration consulting.

Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online integrates information management with internal web publishing to enable businesses to broadcast and share content and to promote collaboration. The SharePoint admin center now includes interactive usage reports, Message Center posts, and a Service Health dashboard intended to simplify administrative tasks. Also, you are able to now connect current SharePoint team sites to Microsoft 365 Groups, enhancing SharePoint sites with group discussions, calendar, and Planner. Innovative capabilities to support cloud coexistence now include hybrid taxonomy and hybrid auditing as well as an enhanced development model for creating SharePoint environments locally, in hybrid deployments, and in Microsoft 365. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 SharePoint Online integration and development services.

Microsoft Teams is the future of Skype for Business, offering a unified hub for conversations, contact lists, and information with persistent threaded chat, file sharing, and integrated voice and video conferencing. Microsoft has enhanced the cloud environment supporting Teams to deliver quicker conference join speeds than Skype and to enable integration with Microsoft Cognitive Services like transcription, translation, speech recognition, and machine learning. Progent can assist you to test Microsoft 365 Teams to evaluate the advantages of migrating to this new collaboration platform. Learn more about Progent's Microsoft Teams migration expertise.

Microsoft 365 Yammer is a social network product intended to be used within an organization and limited to users with a verified corporate email address. Postings can include files, web links, media, PowerPoint presentations, and SharePoint content. The Discovery connection helps you locate content that relates to your job or concerns as indicated based on groups you are a member of, conversations you participate in, and colleagues you communicate with. You can locate conversations, files, interest groups, participants, and other items associated with a specific co-worker. Group Insights inform you how events like posting, reading, and liking are trending historically. Notifications tell you about relevant activity like new postings in your groups, comments in your conversations, and new participants.

Microsoft 365 Power BI is a stack of cloud services compatible with Microsoft 365 that allows businesses to create sharable dashboards and on-demand reports that offer real-time consolidated views into key facets of your business. Microsoft 365 Power BI dashboards can aggregate data from a broad array of internal and outside repositories such as Microsoft Excel, in-house SQL Server Analysis Service, the Azure cloud, or popular databases such as QuickBooks, Google Analytics and Salesforce. Dashboards and reports developed on Power BI can be refreshed continually via data streaming. You can store and share your dashboards in the cloud using OneDrive. Native Power BI mobile applications are offered for Windows devices plus iOS and Google Android smartphones. Learn about Progent's Microsoft 365 Power BI Online design and development consulting services.

Key Planning Activities for Microsoft 365 Migration
Progent can provide the support of a Microsoft Cloud Solutions Architect to help your company to plan an efficient move to Microsoft 365 tailored to your IT environment. Before presenting this migration project, Progent's cloud consultant will conduct a series of information gathering tasks that include running tools such as IdFix, the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer (ExBPA), and specialized scripts for viewing your Active Directory, messaging, and Mobile Device Management (MDM) arrangement. Critical information that cannot be discovered with these methods will be found via interviews with your IT staff.

Key activities managed by Progent in creating an optimal Microsoft 365 migration strategy can include:

• Hold a Project Kickoff discussion with your IT team to agree upon project goals, services to be utilized, customer and contractor roles, schedules, etc.
• Develop a Risk and Issue Tracking document.
• Develop an Exchange Hybrid migration plan describing how new services and necessary modifications to the IT ecosystem will be implemented.
• Review the current Azure AD Connect Identity Management configurations and identify any gaps.
• Identify and develop a plan for mail-enabled applications such as multifunction printers, monitoring systems, and other systems that currently submit SMTP messages.
• Develop end-user communication to be sent out by your Help Desk.
• Determine existing Exchange mailbox sizes and item counts to help plan for email migrations.
• Review your network bandwidth measurements to verify there is adequate throughput and nominal latency to support Microsoft 365.
• Review your current Mobile Device Management system to ensure it will align with the Microsoft 365 service offering and features.
• Run Microsoft's IdFix Tool to identify potential AD problems and detect duplicate email (SMTP) addresses and user principal names (UPNs), invalid formatting for object attributes, and UPNs that have non-routable domains.
• Lead an Architecture Review session with your IT staff to identify issues that might block an efficient migration.
• Develop a plan to allow email to be sent to Dynamic Distribution Groups.
• Compile a list of ports and IP ranges for firewall rules.
• Work with you to find any mailboxes that have been granted elevated rights to another mailbox.
• Create an implementation plan that defines the processes involved with migrating to Microsoft 365.

ProSight Remote Management and Monitoring Services
Progent offers a selection of budget-friendly, flat-rate managed services designed to enable small and medium-size organizations to benefit from the same cutting-edge technology deployed by some of the world's leading enterprises. Progent's ProSight portfolio of IT management outsourcing services covers all critical facets of information technology such as email content filtering, security and compliance, cloud-based backup and disaster recovery, network infrastructure management, VM cloud hosting, and IT resources documentation management. Find out more about Progent's remote management and monitoring (RMM) services.

Contact Progent for Microsoft 365 Integration and Support
If you are trying to find a Microsoft 365 consultant, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.

Cloud Integration Solutions from Progent
The options available for public cloud services are expanding continually, making it a serious challenge for IT managers to determine the best cloud solution for their business. Progent has worked extensively helping businesses ranging from startups to large enterprises to plan, deploy, and maintain hybrid networks that combine multiple cloud products and services from major public cloud providers. Progent's cloud integration experts can assist you to assess the relative advantages and shortcomings of competing public cloud options and can show you how to build a cloud-centric or hybrid network that provides maximum business value.

Public cloud products supported by Progent include:

Progent's Azure cloud planning and integration consultants can help you with every stage of Azure cloud integration such as needs analysis, prerequisites assessment, solution architecture, pre-production testing, implementation, automated administration, performance optimization, software license controls, disaster recovery preparedness, security policy enforcement, and compliance validation. Progent can assist your IT staff to set up and debug firewall appliances and VPN connections so your clients can safely access to Azure resources, and Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting experts can assist you integrate critical Microsoft technologies to work in Azure including Microsoft Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL and Skype for Business. Progent can also assist you to create a hybrid environment that transparently integrates on-premises datacenters with Azure-based resources.

Microsoft supports seamless hybrid environments that combine Microsoft 365 Exchange Online and local Exchange deployments. This permits you to have specific Exchange mailboxes located on your physical datacenter or private cloud and other mailboxes hosted by Microsoft 365. Progent's Microsoft-certified consultants can help your organization with any phase of planning, implementing and debugging your hybrid Exchange solution. Progent's Exchange specialists can provide occasional support to help you through stubborn technical issues and also can provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your hybrid Exchange solution is carried out on time and within budget. For details about Progent's consulting support for integrating Microsoft 365 Exchange and on-prem Exchange systems, visit Exchange Online integration with on-prem Exchange.

Progent's Amazon AWS integration experts can provide affordable online consulting to help businesses of any size to access Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud services including Elastic Compute Cloud (EC2) for virtual machine hosting, Amazon S3 for scalable high-performance storage, and Glacier for value-priced archival storage. Progent can assist your IT team with every aspect of Amazon AWS migration and troubleshooting including requirements analysis, readiness evaluation, architectural design and review, pilot testing, deployment, centralized administration, performance tuning, licensing management, backup/restore mechanisms, and security. Progent can provide advanced expertise with firewalls and VPN access and can help you deploy all-cloud or hybrid networking models that efficiently incorporate Amazon AWS cloud services. Progent can provide occasional consulting or Progent can provide comprehensive project management outsourcing or co-sourcing to help you migrate smoothly to the Amazon AWS cloud.

Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) is an integrated library of APIs that allows Amazon sellers to streamline their business processes by automating key sales functions such as listings, orders, shipments, inbound and outbound fulfillment, and finances. By leveraging Amazon's extensive online selling environment and automating their sales, merchants can broaden their market, reduce their cost of sales, accelerate reaction time to customers, and add to their profits. Progent's Amazon Marketplace Web Service (Amazon MWS) developers can collaborate with your development staff and provide programming, workflow integration, project management support, and training so you can shorten development time and expedite your ROI.

Progent's Google Cloud Platform (GCP) planning and integration experts offer cost-effective online and on-premises support to assist companies to migrate any portion of their core IT infrastructure to Google Cloud Platform services. This can save time and hardware costs and allow the use of Google's cutting edge machine learning tools. Progent can help your IT team with every phase of Google Cloud Platform migration and troubleshooting including requirements analysis, preparedness assessment, architectural design, pilot testing, deployment, administration, performance optimization, licensing management, backup/restore solutions, and security strategies.