Office LTSC Professional Plus 2021

The main use cases for Office 365  are both for our clients and internal use.

The best features with Office 365  include the ability to access email anywhere since it's not an on-premises server, it's in the cloud, which saves us on storage and exchange administration, making it a significant change going from on-premises, which we were for the longest time, to the cloud, so it's definitely a benefit.

Office 365 definitely enhances our remote work capabilities, making it easier for us.

I don't think of any areas that could be improved or things that I would want to see in the next releases of Office 365.

Microsoft could improve their support; I don't deal with Office 365 or Office 365 application-specific issues, but I wonder if it's similar where you get someone from Microsoft to hold your case, which could take a couple of days, maybe a week in between when they get back in contact with you.

I have been dealing with this product for probably two and a half to three years.

We did not use a different collaboration tool before this; when I arrived, this was already in place.

My experience with the pricing, licensing, or setup costs with Office 365 is that it's the same thing; I'm not really involved with the pricing, so that's not my area of responsibility.

From my personal experience, I don't know the main differences between Office 365 and other collaboration tools out there because I never really looked at other collaboration tools. One of the things that probably makes it easier is the fact that everything is a one-stop shop, making it convenient since everything is right here.

I assess the integration capabilities of Office 365 applications such as Word, Excel, Outlook, OneDrive as working well with no complaints.

We employ Microsoft Teams  as a tool for communication. Microsoft Teams  helps facilitate teamwork and efficiency through immediate communications. It makes meetings much easier, and due to the fact that it's under one umbrella, everything is more streamlined.

I am satisfied with Teams. We used Zoom and LogMeIn before, but Teams is very integrated and has some excellent features. For us, it's a good package with phone calls, and I'm actually using Teams for this conversation, which is convenient because remote workers don't have to carry a separate phone.

We have just started using Power BI a little bit, nothing extensive yet.

I assess the effectiveness of Office 365's advanced security measures such as multi-factor authentication and data loss prevention for helping with sensitive information as good so far.

On a scale of 1-10, I rate Office 365 an 8 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure 

Our main use cases for Office 365  include the price books, for quotes, writing letters, bank recs, and reconciliations.

We work in wholesale retail with Office 365 .

We're a small to mid-sized business using Office 365.

My favorite features of Office 365 include Excel with the abilities to do the different formulas and everything. It's quick and easy to formulate to get stuff to look nice on it, and being able to sum and automatic adding makes it easy and accurate for quotes.

Office 365 has positively impacted my organization by making the salespeople more accurate because they've been able to use the features in Excel instead of relying on the calculator or adding machine, and some of the AI with writing and things with Word has helped improve things with that, too.

One of the big changes is when Microsoft updates anything, they will switch where some of the settings are and where to find them, which becomes a little frustrating because you're used to it in one spot and it's someplace else.

I've been dealing with Office 365 for 13 years, including the downloads and other features since I've been here.

The initial setup for Office 365 was straightforward.

The integration capabilities of Office 365 with Word, Excel, and Outlook with OneDrive for cloud storage have been smooth and work well.

We don't really do a lot of remote work with Office 365, which is nice.

I would rate the technical support or customer service with Microsoft as probably an eight. The main issue is just trying to get in touch with somebody, and at times if you're trying to use their online support, they'll send you to an article that may or may not have anything to do with what you're looking for.

Positive

Before Office 365, they were using LibreOffice, but it didn't always open up Word or Excel documents quite right, so it was not as user-friendly.

The initial setup for Office 365 was straightforward.

I did the install of Office 365 myself.

An example of how the security measures have been helpful is just having that little bit of extra security so that people can't breach it.

My experience with the pricing or licensing of Office 365 is that a lot of times we've gotten them when they've been on sale, so we've had really good pricing for the Microsoft products.

I haven't used Power BI.

I rate Office 365 a nine out of ten.

On-premises

Microsoft Azure 

We use Teams for our collaboration. We use the Office 365  suite of products including PowerPoint, Word, Excel, and all related tools. Mostly I use Teams, Excel, and Word. I seldom use PowerPoint because I am not required to make presentations very often. I spend almost every moment in my office using Teams to collaborate and communicate with others, along with Excel and Word.

In Office 365 , you can open Excel and Word documents and even PDFs without having to save the file or navigate outside Office 365. You can save your files on OneDrive. It offers access to all the software in the Microsoft ecosystem. Through Office 365, you can access applications such as Drive, Excel, and Word.

Teams is a really good collaboration tool. You can work basically at any part of the world and communicate and collaborate with anybody, as long as they are connected to the internet. It helps with remote work, and although I don't work remotely, I have offices in Dubai and different geographical locations. It helps me connect with my colleagues and team who are not in the same geography as I am in Bangalore. Teams can facilitate team meetings, screen sharing, and organizing meetings.

Regarding security, we have two-factor authentication governed by organizational policy. When trying to login to Office 365, Teams, or any Office 365 app, we are required to provide a password and use Microsoft Authenticator  to sign in using a code. This is how two-factor authentication is implemented in our organization.

Office 365 offers a suite of apps including OneNote, though I don't use it very often. In terms of integration with Microsoft ecosystem, it offers everything needed to get work done without any hassle.

I work on a Mac, and sometimes Outlook on Mac is pretty slow. I experience some latency on Outlook on my Mac. I am not sure if users encounter the same issue on Windows, but on Mac, I sometimes experience slowness on Outlook.

I have been using Office 365 for maybe 10 years. All organizations that I have worked for use or have used Office 365.

We have a separate team who look after licensing, installation, and technical issues. If I encounter an issue, I am not required to communicate directly with Microsoft technical support. I have never encountered or faced an issue with Office 365 in the last 3 1/2 to 4 years at my current organization that required me to escalate or reach out to our in-house technical support team.

It works seamlessly without any hassle on Windows. On Mac, there are tiny glitches, but you don't encounter them very often, and by and large, it works great on Mac as well.

Large enterprises, Fortune 500, Fortune 100, Fortune 50 companies use Office 365 suite of products extensively within their organizations. Regarding scalability, I have rarely come across any outages or latency due to scaling issues. Scalability has never been an issue with Office 365.

I have used Google Workspace  and Office 365. I have also used other collaboration apps, such as Slack , which is a competitor to Microsoft Teams . As a package, Office 365 bundles many software together, making it a very compelling proposition. There are competitors such as Google Workspace  and Zoho, but in terms of support and reach, Office 365 surpasses them in features and integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, especially with Azure . However, there are standalone products which are better than their counterparts in Office 365. For instance, I prefer Slack  over Teams.

I was given a machine which had Office 365 already set up, so I have no experience with the initial setup.

We have a separate team who look after licensing, installation, and technical issues.

It works seamlessly without any hassle.

I am not aware of the cost because it's offered by my organization. They might have an agreement with Microsoft since everybody in my office uses Office 365.

I have used Google Workspace outside of my current organization. I have also used other collaboration apps, such as Slack, which competes with Microsoft Teams . As a package, Office 365 bundles many software together, making it a compelling proposition.

There are competitors such as Google Workspace and Zoho, but in terms of support and reach, Office 365 surpasses them in features and integration with the Microsoft ecosystem, especially with Azure  integration capabilities.

I have been working with Xamarin only, which is my area of work. Every  new employee who joins the organization is given access to Office 365. They have some kind of agreement with Microsoft. Office 365 is the only productivity suite of software that we use.

Power BI is used extensively, but we have a separate team for that. I don't work on Power BI. The solution is deployed on cloud, not on-premises.

My rating for Office 365 is 7.5 out of 10. It would be interesting to see how it performs for Linux users, as there aren't as many Linux users as Mac or Windows users.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

We use Office 365  for ordinary regular documentation, using Excel and similar applications.

The integrations with Teams and SharePoint  are beneficial as we use Teams for sharing and editing documents. The integration helps with document collaboration, though I have not used it as much as Microsoft Word.

It is a standard platform used across many organizations, making it valuable due to people's general exposure to Microsoft products.

Microsoft could improve their online apps compared to the desktop versions, as they are not easy to use. Users often face issues with typing and incorrect inputs. I have noticed that when trying to use the online version, I immediately switch to the desktop version because of its superior usability.

I would give Office 365  a rating of 7. I appreciate Office 365, but some products, such as OneNote, are somewhat outdated. There could be improvements made specifically for OneNote. While it is a tidy, neat note-taking app, there is more potential for development. However, products such as Excel and Word rank very high, though some products could perform better.

I have approximately 3 to 4 years of experience with Office 365.

The desktop version is stable, but the online version has stability issues. When multiple people use a document in the online version, we encounter problems that do not occur in the desktop version. This creates an inconsistent experience between the two versions.

I cannot rate the customer service with Microsoft on a scale of 1 to 10 as I have never faced any issues, raised concerns, or attempted to contact technical support for Office products.

Positive

I am not familiar with the initial setup process as it was implemented organization-wide, so I am uncertain whether it was easy or difficult or if any issues were encountered.

I am not aware if our organization purchased it through AWS  marketplace.

I do not know the pricing for our Office 365 or Microsoft 365.

I would recommend Office 365 to other businesses or people considering using it, though I have not used the AI features.

Regarding documentation, I do use the online resources. The online documentation is helpful, but not as beneficial as unofficial forums such as Reddit where users share their experiences and solutions. On these unofficial forums, other users who have faced similar issues provide answers. These tend to be more accurate and updated than the official Microsoft forums and knowledge base. While the official documentation helps, I often turn to Reddit or other platforms for additional information when the knowledge base does not address my needs.

I would rate my experience with that type of support at 7 out of 10.

Overall, I rate Office 365 a 7 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure 

My usual use cases for Office 365  include basic use for receiving or sending emails for official purposes using Outlook, and for creating small documents in Excel or Word. I use Word for PowerPoint presentations and any type of documentation to provide to clients.

Regarding Office 365  features and capabilities, I honestly don't use too much of the features of Outlook or Excel because I'm a technical person regarding my tools. I'm only using it for mail purposes or other documentation.

I use Microsoft Teams  as a tool for communication and collaboration. Microsoft Teams  is a very good option for me to connect within the organization or with my team. We can also connect with external teams, share links, share screens, and take control of other people's meetings. We do a lot of things through Teams, and we have scheduled many meetings with the help of the Teams calendar.

The most interesting thing I have seen in Office 365 is the mail format along with the auto collection feature provided in Outlook, which I enjoy very much.

I assess the integration capabilities of Office 365 as good, as we have already integrated it with MuleSoft. We have many integrations, and we receive mail through Office 365, where we also monitor it, making it effective for our needs.

The integration capabilities of Office 365 enhance my remote work capabilities because we receive emails and monitoring alerts without opening the application. We have also integrated it with a mobile tool, and it works effectively.

In terms of improvements for Office 365, I don't think there is much that needs to be enhanced, but it might take some time to reload sometimes.

The reload process can take some time, which I would prefer to be optimized.

The only thing I would suggest improving is optimizing the reload process.

I have been using Office 365 for around four to five years.

During the initial setup, I faced many challenges because there were many things we had to input the first time.

It was very difficult to configure the mobile cellphone, while configuring the system on a PC was very easy.

I have never had any issues with the stability of Office 365.

I rate the scalability of Office 365 a 10.

Currently, almost three to four lakh employees are using Office 365 in HCL.

There are plans to increase the usage of Office 365 in the future, as every organization is utilizing it, especially Outlook and Teams.

I have never interacted with the technical support of Office 365.

Positive

Before Office 365, I did not use a different solution for these use cases.

I rate my experience with the initial setup of Office 365 an eight.

During the initial setup, I faced many challenges because there were many things we had to input the first time.

It was very difficult to configure the mobile cellphone, while configuring the system on a PC was very easy.

It took around half an hour to one and a half hours to deploy Office 365 for the first time.

The actions I needed to perform while deploying Office 365 included simply receiving my email ID, connecting it to our domain, and providing a password to check.

I did not evaluate other options before choosing Office 365.

I decided to go with Office 365 because it was provided by the organization when I joined.

It was already implemented when I joined.

I find the effectiveness of Office 365 security measures good because of the multi-layer security; we log in via mobile OTP or via authentication. We can upload and download data safely without losing any information, and we have saved the last two to four years of emails, which is beneficial for both storage and security.

On a scale of one to ten, I rate Office 365 a nine.

On-premises