Cloud Integration Expertise

Office 365 is Microsoft's growing family of client productivity applications and cloud-based services offered on a monthly or annual subscription basis. Microsoft Office 365 apps and cloud services are offered in a variety of bundles, called subscription plans, aimed at markets ranging from individual and households to global enterprises.

Most Office 365 apps can be deployed on a variety of devices including PCs, Apple Macs, iPads, and smartphones. These multi-device apps include Office Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Outlook. PC-only applications include Microsoft Access for database management and Publisher. To address customers with multiple devices, many Office 365 bundles permit you to install Office applications on several devices. As an example, Office 365 Business and ProPlus subscription plans allow every included application to be installed on up to five devices.

Progent offers quick and affordable remote access to a support consultant with expert knowledge of Microsoft, Mac, iOS, and Android software. Progent can help you to understand the many options offered with Office 365 and integrate your information system with Office 365 in a way that delivers the highest possible strategic value. Progent supports cross-platform networks that incorporate Microsoft Windows, macOS or OS X, and Linux based products. Progent can also help you to build and maintain hybrid networks that transparently integrate on-premises and cloud infrastructure.

Microsoft Office 365 Applications and Cloud Services
Microsoft Office 365 plans are available to serve a broad range of markets including businesses of all sizes, education, state and local government, home and nonprofits. Some subscription plans, such as Office 365 Business Essentials, includes no apps but only Azure-based services. Other plans, like Office 365 Business, includes apps but provides only the OneDrive cloud service. The top-of-the-line Office 365 Enterprise E5 package includes seven apps and seven cloud services. Progent can help you to select an Office 365 package that makes sense for your business, help you to migrate from older editions of Office apps, and help you simplify the management of Office 365 and other system resources to build a cost-effective, protected and productive IT environment.

Popular Office 365 Apps
The most obvious difference between Office 365 applications and their related Office versions is that Office 365 applications are subscription based rather than sold. Also, traditionally licensed Microsoft Office applications are supposed to be run on only a single device at a time and are not updated automatically or replaced for free when a major version comes out. As an example, moving from Word 2013 to Word 2016 requires you to purchase a brand new license for Word. Incremental updates to Microsoft Office titles are provided Office 365 subscribers sooner than to users of permanently licensed editions. Also, Office suites bought with a permanent license do not come with any of the Azure-based services packaged with Office 365.

Applications available with various Office 365 subscription plans include:

Office 365 Word offers the ability to edit and view Office files across Microsoft Windows, Android, Apple Mac, and iOS devices while presenting a common look and feel. You can also co-author Office documents, see which colleagues are editing various shared projects, and observe changes made by others as they happen. Just as with Office 365 Excel and PowerPoint, you can instantly share from within your documents. In addition, you can review who has rights to access a specific document and who is now working on it. For documents you own, you can easily modify authoring rights. Find out about Progent's Microsoft Office 365 Word consulting and training services.

Office 365 Excel permits subscribers to use the industry-standard Exponential Smoothing algorithm to build forecast charts for projecting future trends based on past data. New data types that access current online databases include Stock and Geography. The Stock data type downloads the current stock price, change in price, and other stock market data. Geography allows you to select a country and retrieve current demographic or economic data such as population or gas price. As with Office 365 Word and Office 365 PowerPoint, Office 365 Excel also supports Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) images. These images can be turned, colored, and resized instantaneously with no loss in quality. Find out about Progent's Office 365 Excel consulting expertise.

Office 365 PowerPoint supports 3D objects and includes an enhanced library of animation effects like swinging and rotating. Like Office Excel and Word, Office 365 PowerPoint allows you to convert sketches into standard shapes for flow charts, diagrams, and various other objects. Office 365 PowerPoint for Mac adds the capability to incorporate and edit video from inside PowerPoint. PowerPoint's Media Browser utility provides easy access to a broad range of sources like iPhoto albums, iTunes playlists, and iMovie libraries as well as standard shapes, Clip Art, and other graphics.

Office 365 Outlook offers important improvements to previous versions of the Outlook email and calendar application by adding useful features like audio cues, transparent downloading of OneDrive cloud attachments, display responses to a meeting request for people who are not conference organizers, streamlined email sorting, plus more intuitive group creation and shared calendars. In addition, Office 365 Outlook subscribers can have their messages read out loud as the portions being read are visibly highlighted. Microsoft's Office intelligent services, when enabled, allows Office 365 Outlook subscribers to dictate messages. Office 365 Outlook for Mac includes push email, online archiving, the ability to suggest an alternative meeting time in answer to a meeting invitation, and multiple calendar display. Full Screen Mode permits multiple open messages and permits users to run two Outlook sessions in split-screen view. Find out about Progent's Office 365 Outlook and Outlook on the web consulting expertise.

Office 365 OneNote for Windows 10 is incorporated in the majority of Office 365 packages, installed by default in Windows 10, and offered for download as a no-cost mobile app. The earlier OneNote 2016 release, which has some features not initially provided in OneNote for Windows 10 such as Record Video, continues to be available for free but is not being updated with new features. OneNote for Windows 10 introduces a fresh configurable interface consistent across Windows 10, Apple Mac, iOS, Android, and Web. Other functionality offered exclusively on OneNote for Windows 10 include improved ink-to-text, an alert center that indicates changes in open and recent notebooks, automatic transformation of freehand drawings into standardized shapes, and a digital ruler to create straight lines and measure distance.

Office 365 Access, available only for Windows PCs, allows you to utilize Visual Basic for Applications (VBA) and a rich library of templates to streamline business operations and create modern-looking forms and reports. Office 365 Access includes the connector library to extract data from a broad selection of popular business applications and data sources for creating quality reports from within the familiar Access interface. The ability to store Access data in both Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL gives you an enterprise-class back end and SQL syntax for Access apps deployed either on premises or in the Microsoft Azure cloud. Microsoft Office Access 365 now comes with an enhanced Linked Table Manager, allows you to add new forms and reports, and enables you to link or extract data from Saleforce and Microsoft Dynamics 365. Find out about Progent's Office 365 Access consulting services.

Office 365 Publisher, offered only on PCs, is a popular user-friendly desktop publishing tool that takes advantage of the familiar Microsoft Office environment to deliver an easy-to-use platform for creating and sharing modern-looking publications like mailers and white papers that call for exact image placement. Because publications can be stored in the cloud, you can deliver a document as easily as providing a link. Publisher's popularity and ease of use allow you to meet deadlines for time-critical jobs without needing depend on the availability of a desktop publishing guru for making last-minute edits.

Office 365 Cloud Services
Office 365 cloud services permit organizations to leverage Microsoft's extensive cloud resources to host business-critical servers like Exchange, Teams and Skype for Business. These services provide high levels of reliability and security while saving the substantial upfront expense and management effort associated with setting up and maintaining complex on-premises datacenters. For situations that call for some servers to be located on-premises for compliance, performance, or other issues, most Office 365 virtual server products can be deployed using hybrid network models that seamlessly support on-premises and cloud resources.

Office 365 Exchange Online offers email hosting and allows mailbox sizes from 50 GB to unlimited. Key features include custom email domain addresses (name@​your­company​.com), shareable calendars and contact lists, the Outlook Web app, single-click archiving, and simple-to-create collaboration groups. The online Exchange admin center lets you control email settings for your company and gives you complete control over critical areas including permissions, cybersecurity, mail flow, making mailboxes and imposing limits, team work, address books, Voice mail, monitoring, and backup. Learn about Progent's Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Online configuration and management expertise.

Office 365 OneDrive is Microsoft's popular file sync and share platform. Office 365 bundles typically include 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage, allowing you to save, access, and share files across Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, or iOS and Android smartphones and tablets. By transparently synchronizing your files to your work station, OneDrive lets you edit documents even when you are offline. OneDrive facilitates sharing and collaboration, tracking all changes to help prevent inconsistency issues. You can initiate a team project on any computer and switch smoothly to another computer at any time. For enhanced collaboration, a variety of utilities allow you to annotate and highlight documents. Powerful search tools enable you to find files quickly, and analysis tools offer useful information like the number of people who accessed or shared a document.

Office 365 Skype for Business Online provides cloud-based IP voice, video, and conferencing. Skype's Online Plan 1 includes IM, real-time presence, VoIP, and HD video, plus Skype Connectivity. Online Plan 2 adds pre-scheduled and on-demand conferencing with audio and video calling as well as screen and app sharing on Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones and tablets, PCs, and Apple Mac computers. For hybrid networks that combine an on-premises Skype for Business Server with Skype for Business Online services, you can create a seamless environment using a Split Domain deployment. Learn about Progent's Microsoft Office 365 Skype for Business planning and configuration consulting.

Office 365 SharePoint Online integrates information management with intranet publishing to enable businesses to broadcast and share knowledge and to promote teamwork. The SharePoint admin center now includes usage analysis, Message Center updates, and a Service Health dashboard designed to simplify management. Also, you can now connect up-to-date SharePoint team sites to Microsoft Office 365 Groups, expanding SharePoint sites with shared conversations, calendar, and project planning. Features to support cloud coexistence now include hybrid taxonomy and auditing plus an updated development model for creating SharePoint environments on-premises, in hybrid deployments, and in Office 365. Learn about Progent's Microsoft Office 365 SharePoint Online configuration and development expertise.

Office Teams is the successor of Skype for Business, providing a single portal for discussions, contacts, and information with persistent threaded chat, file sharing, plus integrated voice and video conferencing. Microsoft has enhanced the cloud architecture that hosts Teams to provide quicker conference join times than Skype for Business and to enable integration with Cognitive Services such as text-to-voice, translation, speech recognition, and machine learning. Progent's consultants can assist you to test Microsoft Office 365 Teams to assess the advantages of migrating to this new collaboration technology. Find out more about Progent's Microsoft Teams solution design services.

Office 365 Yammer is a social network platform designed to be used within an organization and restricted to users with an authorized company email address. Postings can be files, web links, media, PowerPoint presentations, and SharePoint content. The Discovery connection makes it easy to find information relevant to your job or concerns as indicated based on groups you have joined, discussions you follow, and people you correspond with. You can find discussions, files, interest groups, followers, and other items associated with a specific co-worker. Group Insights show you how activities like posting, reading, and liking are trending historically. Notifications alert you about pertinent activity such as updates in your groups, input to your conversations, and new followers.

Office 365 Power BI is a set of cloud services integrated with Microsoft Office 365 that allows businesses to create and share dashboards and custom management reports that offer up-to-date consolidated views into key areas of your business. Microsoft Office 365 Power BI dashboards can aggregate information from multiple local and external repositories like Microsoft Excel, on-premises SQL Server Analysis Service, Azure, or popular databases such as QuickBooks, Google Analytics and Salesforce. Dashboards and reports developed on Power BI can be updated continually via data streaming. You can save and distribute your visualizations in the cloud using OneDrive. Native Power BI mobile applications are available for Windows computers plus Apple iOS and Google Android smartphones. Learn about Progent's Office 365 Power BI Online integration expertise.

How Progent Can Help You with Office 365 Solutions
For businesses looking for quick online help from a top-tier Office 365 configuration expert, Progent offers a full range of support services such as system planning, configuration, debugging, application development, management, and training. Progent's Microsoft-certified integration consultants, Cisco-certified infrastructure experts, macOS and OS X technology consultants, iPhone and iPad consultants and Android integration experts can assist you to integrate your network with Microsoft Office 365 products and services.

Progent's ProSight family of Remote Management and Monitoring (RMM) Services
Progent offers a family of low-cost, flat-rate services intended to enable small and mid-size organizations to utilize the same advanced technology deployed by many of the industry's leading enterprises. Progent's ProSight series of IT management outsourcing services covers all key areas of modern networking including email protection, security and compliance, cloud-based backup and disaster recovery, infrastructure health monitoring, VM hosting, and IT asset documentation management. Learn more about Progent's remote management and monitoring services.

Get in Touch with Progent for Office 365 Expertise
If you are trying to find an Office 365 consultant, call Progent at 800-993-9400 or visit Contact Progent.

Cloud Integration Solutions from Progent
The choices offered for public cloud products and services are increasing rapidly, making it hard for IT managers to determine the best cloud solution for their business. Progent has worked extensively helping companies of all sizes to plan, implement, and maintain hybrid environments that integrate various cloud services from major public clouds. Progent's cloud integration consultants can help you to understand the relative benefits and pitfalls 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's consultants include:

Progent's Microsoft Azure planning and integration experts can help you with any phase of Azure cloud migration such as requirements definition, prerequisites evaluation, system design, pilot testing, implementation, automated management, performance tuning, license controls, disaster recovery strategies, security planning, and regulatory compliance validation. Progent can assist you to configure and debug firewall appliances and VPN connections so your clients can securely access to Azure resources, and Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting experts can help you integrate critical Microsoft technologies to run in Azure including Windows Server, Exchange, SQL and Skype for Business. Progent can also help you to set up a hybrid environment that seamlessly integrates on-premises datacenters with Azure-based services.

Microsoft allows you to create transparent hybrid ecosystems that combine Office 365 and local Exchange. This permits you to have certain Exchange mailboxes located at your corporate datacenter and other mailboxes hosted by Office 365. Progent's Microsoft-certified consulting team can assist your organization with any phase of planning, implementing and debugging your hybrid Office 365 network. Progent's Exchange specialists can deliver occasional support to help you resolve stubborn technical problems and also can provide comprehensive project management outsourcing to ensure your hybrid Office 365/Exchange initiative is completed on schedule and on budget. To find out more about Progent's online consulting services for integrating Office 365 and on-premises Exchange environments, see Office 365 Exchange Online integration solutions with on-premises Exchange.

Progent's Amazon AWS cloud planning and integration consultants can provide affordable remote consulting to help businesses of any size to access Amazon AWS cloud services including Amazon EC2 for virtual server hosting, Amazon S3 for scalable high-performance storage, and Amazon Glacier for value-priced archival storage. Progent can assist you with every phase of Amazon AWS migration and troubleshooting including requirements analysis, preparedness assessment, architectural design, pilot testing, deployment, centralized administration, performance optimization, software license management, backup/restore mechanisms, and security and compliance. Progent can provide advanced expertise with firewalls and VPN connections and can help you create all-cloud or hybrid ecosystems that efficiently integrate Amazon AWS cloud services. Progent can provide as-needed consulting or Progent can deliver comprehensive project management outsourcing or co-sourcing to help you move smoothly to the Amazon AWS cloud platform.

Amazon Marketplace Web Service is a library of APIs that allows Amazon sellers to streamline their operations by automating key sales activities such as listings, orders, payments, inbound and outbound fulfillment, and reports. By leveraging Amazon's extensive online ecosystem and automating their sales processes, merchants can expand their reach, reduce their cost of sales, accelerate reaction time to customers, and add to their bottom line. Progent's Amazon Marketplace Web Service consultants can work with your development team and provide programming, workflow integration, project management support, and mentoring so you can shorten development time and get to market quickly.

Progent's Google Cloud Platform (GCP) planning and integration experts can provide affordable remote and on-premises consulting to help businesses of any size to move any part of their core IT resources to Google Cloud Platform services. This can save management hassle and hardware expense and allow access to Google's cutting edge AI and machine learning tools. Progent can help you with every aspect of Google Cloud Platform integration including needs analysis, preparedness assessment, system design and review, testing, deployment, administration, performance tuning, software license management, backup/restore mechanisms, and security strategies.