Some use cases for Office 365 include using the Office applications such as Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, as well as OneDrive, Teams, OneNote, SharePoint, and Exchange Online. We have moved all our file server data to SharePoint and we've been quite successful at that.

What's valuable about Office 365 is that the file formats have become a standard, such as .doc files and .docx files for Word. In Excel, you can do a lot of data analysis and manage spreadsheets, which is especially useful for finance people. With PowerPoint, we can create very visual and easy presentations, and now with Copilot, it's even easier to generate a presentation format that you can adjust to your needs.

The integrations of Teams and SharePoint have impacted our project management positively because we work a lot with external clients who need access to information in our environment. Before, using file servers to give external access was cumbersome, and with SharePoint, creating a sharing link with an expiration date makes sharing information easier and more controlled. Also, SharePoint allows us to create websites for our intranet, while Teams enables groups to share information, chat, and create meetings, and we have even moved all our telephony system to Teams, which is working very well.

I'm suggesting that Microsoft could improve the product, particularly in managing Office 365, which is not cumbersome but requires knowledge of several different portals. You need to become an expert on each product to administer everything properly, as each portal has a different format that is not unified.

I have several years of experience with Office 365, almost since it existed. I think it started approximately ten years ago or eight years ago, and in the company I'm working for, we've used it extensively. I've been with the company for nine years now.

I would rate customer service and technical support with Microsoft a seven. The support from our partner SoftwareONE is very good as they get back to me quickly and escalate to Microsoft when needed. The issue arises when I need to ask Microsoft directly for support, and I have had delays, such as with a SharePoint issue that took two weeks to resolve, and another instance where the ticket was mishandled and sent to the wrong queue, which delayed the response even further.

Neutral

By the time I arrived at the company, everything was already Microsoft, and I have worked with Microsoft products for most of my professional life. I have experience with other products, but that was back in the '90s. I used Microsoft Mail, Lotus Notes, and Novell products back then, and I'm certified with Microsoft products since the '90s, meaning that about 80% or 85% of my experience is with Microsoft products in general.

The initial setup for Office 365 was quite straightforward because we already had Word, Excel, and PowerPoint installed, and it was just a matter of flicking a switch. However, setting up SharePoint required tweaking a lot of security because it's designed for sharing information, which can be quite open and not secure by itself. So I designed a whole security system around it, and Teams' most complicated task was the telephony setup, which we got help with from consulting.

The pricing for Office 365 is not cheap, but it's also not terribly expensive. It depends on the size of the company, and I think it's competitive and appropriate. The advantage of Microsoft is the vast amount of products that integrate seamlessly, which offers better value than competitors such as Google.

I would absolutely recommend Office 365 mainly for its standardization, as I believe the majority of companies around the world use Office. I don't have specific statistics about that, but I can see it from my experience when contacting other companies that they typically use similar products, with some exceptions using Google Suite. I rate Office 365 a nine out of ten.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

Our current use cases for Office 365 include using it as our email handler as well as for MDM, and we also have offline office which is very important for doing our regular work such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and all. We get help from the E5 plan and we are using MDM for more than 50 people in our team. This is because there was an incident where a data breach occurred in our organization. After that, we decided we should implement the MDM solution to protect personally owned devices. After implementing MDM, we are now secure enough to prevent leakage of our organization data.

The most valuable feature or capability of Office 365 that I found is the legal hold feature, which is excellent for customers to maintain regulatory compliance. Deleting data is a common occurrence; people can delete their data from their device, and it will be moved to the recycle bin for a certain period of time. After the email is deleted, we found that if legal hold is enabled for a particular user, Microsoft offers unlimited archival, meaning any email that comes to that email ID will be stored, and we can easily use the E-Discovery feature to check the emails, their history, and export them in a PST file, which is very beneficial for customers during audits.

Overall, Office 365 brings organization efficiency, as these tools are very helpful for every organization to maintain their records, organization data, compliance, and collaborations. Everything that is basically required by an organization is already taken care of in the Office 365 products.

The areas of Office 365 that need improvement include the organization sharing option in Teams, which we found to be limited. If the organization does not enable it, we cannot get the IM details in Teams. If Microsoft can make it more reliable similar to social media - for example, if I am dealing with customers and I already had a meeting with them in Teams previously, the customer account should be visible to me along with their current status, such as busy, away, or available.

It would be easier for us to communicate with our customers or colleagues because it works within the organization. I am specifically referring to cross-functional connectivity for other organizations that we work with.

We have been using Office 365 for almost two and a half years.

The stability of this solution is very high, and I would rate it a full 10. I have been using it for the last three years and have not faced any issues during this time, leading to 100% uptime.

I would rate the scalability of this solution as nine out of ten.

I rate the technical support for Office 365 at about four to five out of 10 maximum. The support center is in China, and making them understand our issue is a hectic challenge. Every time we log a ticket, a new agent comes, and we have to describe the problem again. It is common that when the shift changes, the new staff does not have the case history, and we have to start explaining again. Customers expect quick solutions rather than reading KB articles.

With tools such as ChatGPT allowing us to find the same KB within seconds, we question why we spend so much time waiting for responses from Microsoft support. I suggest improving regional support for India, making it easier for customers to connect. Additionally, when we log cases, the support should check known issues quickly and engage with us directly when addressing unknown issues rather than just sending us basic help articles.

Positive

The initial setup of Office 365 is easy. Though I don't have hands-on experience, I can share our thoughts. During implementation, it took very little time and was very easy. We did not face any issues. We found that email delivery, which was being held, got delivered after three or six hours. I would give it at least eight out of 10.

Regarding similar service providers available in the market, we used Zoho previously, and we found it to be a wonderful product. However, we are more comfortable with Microsoft's UI, which influenced our choice to move to Microsoft instead of using Zoho.

The feature of Office 365 that has proven most beneficial for collaboration in my team is definitely Microsoft Teams. It is a commonly used platform throughout the organization, serving all our collaboration and instant messaging needs.

For the maintenance of Office 365, we only need one person.

Regarding pricing, I would give Office 365 an eight. It is pretty expensive.

The licensing is complicated because when we ask for pricing, the Microsoft team presents 10 to 15 different plans with almost the same features but different prices. It is difficult for customers to differentiate, especially since we are dealing with specific use cases. We need the application for specific purposes, and Microsoft has 20 options. Customers generally tend to choose the least costly option, resulting in missing out on crucial features and needing to upgrade through the pricing tiers again. If Microsoft can simplify the licensing, it would be easier for customers to opt for their services.

Overall, I rate Office 365 eight out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

Office 365 is used primarily for document management, reporting, and cross-functional collaboration. While our current data volumes are manageable, we complement Office 365 with Power BI for reporting and Azure Data Factory for data processing tasks. These tools help us analyze trends across projects, resources, and operations.

Team collaboration is streamlined using Microsoft Teams and SharePoint. We co-author reports in Excel, integrate links through platforms like Jira, and share updates instantly. This real-time collaboration accelerates feedback loops and reduces delays in communication and delivery.

Office 365 has significantly enhanced collaboration and productivity through integrated tools like Teams, Excel, and Power BI. The cloud-based setup has also improved data accessibility and sharing efficiency across departments.

Seamless Cloud Integration: Eliminates the need for VM-based transformation environments, particularly when paired with Azure Data Factory.

Real-Time Collaboration: Teams and SharePoint enable efficient document sharing and co-authoring.

Power BI: Offers strong visualization and reporting capabilities.

Overall ROI: We’ve seen notable value in terms of productivity and operational efficiency.

A key enhancement would be integrating AI-based prompting directly within Microsoft Word or Office apps. The ability to generate structured content using AI prompts would save time and improve document creation workflows.

I have been using Office 365 for about one and a half years. Our organization recently migrated to it from an on-premises Microsoft setup.

The platform has been reliable. A rare instance of downtime was resolved by Microsoft support within a few hours.

Office 365 handles our current needs well. For larger datasets or transactional systems, integration with platforms like Azure Data Lake would be more suitable.

Our experience with Microsoft support has been positive. Issues were addressed quickly and effectively.

Positive

We previously used on-premises Microsoft tools before migrating to Office 365 for a cloud-based experience.

Our migration from on-premises to Office 365 was smooth and straightforward.

Office 365 is managed internally by our organization under an enterprise licensing agreement.

Office 365 delivers strong value in terms of both cost and productivity gains.

Licensing and pricing are handled by our admin team, and the details are not directly visible to us.

Other options may have been considered, but I cannot recall the specific details.

I would recommend Office 365 to other professionals for its comprehensive suite of tools, strong integration, and cost-effective cloud performance. I rate it 9 out of 10.

Private Cloud

Microsoft Azure

The bank gave us Office 365 to work with. I used Google for personal use, but in the bank, I exclusively used Office 365.

Office 365 has excellent facilities, it's familiar, and it's easy to comprehend when sending messages.

I recommend it for the facilities as it's familiar to users when they see it and makes it easy to find items and features that we can use.

The scalability of Office 365 is good.

I would rate Microsoft technical support as 3 or 4 out of 10. This rating is mainly because I didn't need much support since it works efficiently, though sometimes internet connectivity affects the experience.

I have approximately 4 years of experience with Office 365.

The setup process for Office 365 is easy.

For stability, I would rate it 10 out of 10.

The scalability of Office 365 is good.

I would rate Microsoft technical support as 3 or 4 out of 10. This rating is mainly because I didn't need much support since it works efficiently, though sometimes internet connectivity affects the experience.

Positive

The setup process for Office 365 is easy.

For stability, I would rate it 10 out of 10.

I would recommend Office 365 to others.

On a scale of 1 to 10, I rate Office 365 as 10.

Private Cloud

Microsoft Azure

My use case for Office 365 is because it is most suited to our environment. Most companies in Singapore use Office 365 because it is easier to use, and most people have grown with Microsoft solutions from the start. The solution has evolved to Office 365 because it is easier to use and seamless. Especially now with Office 365, you can access your files always on the go. You do not have to use your laptop or connect to the company network. As long as you have a device, even a mobile device, you can actually use it and access your emails.

I am currently focusing on productivity and have started using Microsoft Planner. I have had issues with time management because we are dealing with end user support, meetings, projects, and ad hoc activities. Sometimes, it is difficult to track via email and using tasks. I researched online for the easiest way to manage this without paying, which led me to discover Microsoft Planner.

Teams is quite effective because it has tremendously improved in terms of video conferencing and integration. You can use it to call an outside number, making it easier to interact within your company and call mobile phones via Teams. With the implementation of online federation, you can contact or add contacts that are not within the same tenant, making communication easier.

What I would suggest Microsoft improve is creating a one-stop shop where you can see everything in a single pane of glass. For example, in Microsoft Intune, you have to access the Entra ID separately, and you have to access Microsoft Intune separately. Although these features are available on one website, if they could create a seamless integration to see everything in a single pane of glass, it would be more efficient. I believe they are working on this already or have plans to implement it.

I would rate the stability of Office 365 as nine. I have been working in IT for about 15 years and we have experienced crashes on the solution, especially with Outlook and the Office 365 suite. Overall, it is quite stable.

I would rate the scalability of this solution as eight out of ten. Now many applications are using SaaS, and when Microsoft developed Office 365, it was a huge step for SaaS solutions, especially during COVID. If we were using on-premise solutions, it would have been difficult for users to work from home, as they would need to install desktop applications to access Outlook and other Office applications. With the integration of Office 365, when you access your files, you do not need to log into your laptop. If you are outside, you can simply access your phone, open your email, and open PowerPoint easily.

I seldom contact Microsoft regarding technical issues, but when I have, they have been quite helpful. Sometimes you have to wait for a while. If they could improve their response time, it would be better. Normally in IT infrastructure, you can have 24/7 ticket prioritization. Perhaps to them our issue may not be P1. However, as a customer, they need to understand it is very important for us to resolve issues, especially if it involves our VIP users. I would rate their technical support as seven, based on my experience.

Neutral

I used another solution before Office 365 a very long time ago. We used Lotus Notes in our previous company.

Based on my experience, I would recommend Office 365 to other people, even to my family. During the COVID period, my sisters and their children had to do schooling at home because they could not go out. At that time, I purchased the family Office 365 so I could share with them, which made things easier. I give Office 365 a rating of 10 out of 10.

Having the Copilot implemented recently in Office 365, Microsoft has some edge on that.

Having the Copilot implemented recently in Office 365, Microsoft has some edge on that.

Teams and SharePoint are the best features for my team's collaboration in Office 365.

The Copilot integration in Office 365 stands out by providing various different kinds of support to daily users utilizing AI help on other products.

To make it even better in the next release, they can improve the categorization and utilize AI help to suggest mail descriptions and everything to categorize mail in different ways, depending on the priorities of a user, and so on.

They still need to improve their email categorization, and their AI capabilities have room for improvement.

I have implemented Office 365, and it has been already a few months.

We have not faced any issue with the integration of Office 365.

It is already implemented and being used.

I am generally satisfied with my current solution.

I rate Office 365 eight out of ten.

I have another call and meeting in five minutes.

I am just a user. It is on the cloud, so it is much better. I can use it wherever I want.

Office 365 is a pretty stable solution. It is in the cloud, so I can use all the documents that I have anywhere I want. There is one very good feature that I have. When I use SharePoint along with it, it makes life a lot easier for us, especially when I have to share documents or files with other clients.

There is really not much difference between Office 365 and standalone MS Office. However, regarding PowerPoint, while the icons are there, I wish it was as good as Apple's presentation software because it is easier to create PowerPoint presentations with Apple's equivalent software. They could have done better work if they had provided that functionality.

To be very honest, we use Cute FTP to transfer most files, and if they had FTP portals which they could guarantee were secure, that would be a great help. Then I would not have to start Cute FTP and perform all those operations. I do not know whether Office 365 has that functionality because I have not seen it, but it would have been quite beneficial if it was there.

It is easy to deploy. It is not rocket science, but deploying information over the cloud is something that I am very skeptical about. I usually use Cute FTP or FTP-type solutions, as it is more secure compared to sending or sharing information. I do use cloud sharing, but only for documents that are not secretive or sensitive. I mainly use FTP to load or unload sensitive data. Other than that, insensitive data is just a matter of using a shared drive.

Regarding productivity gains, we have no issues with Microsoft. It is a very good service that they provide. The only problem I have seen is that Windows 11 gives many problems, especially when it updates your software. Everything slows down, every application slows down. I have reverted back to Windows 10 because Microsoft Windows 11 is not working for me. Let us see how things work out.

It is very difficult to get hold of Microsoft support people or any support people, including Amazon. There are too many automated processes that you need to go through, and even then you do not know whether you will be able to speak to them.

It is pretty good, to be very honest. In PowerPoint, if I just use it as a standalone software, the number of icons available is comparatively less in standalone Microsoft PowerPoint compared to Office 365. Additionally, it is easier to integrate other icons into Office 365 than into normal, standalone PowerPoint presentation solutions. It is not that I cannot do it. We have developed a tool through which we can integrate it completely, but it took us a while to figure things out.

There is not much difference in Excel or Word, at least I have not come across much difference. We are not doing much with AI as yet.

Public Cloud

Other

The common use case for Office 365 exists because everything in today's world is on the cloud. When a user logs in anywhere, they have access to their data. In Office 365, there are different types of licenses, such as Business Basic and Business Premium. Every license has different storage capacities. In Business Basic, users get 5 GBs of storage, 50 GBs of primary mailbox, and 50 GBs of archive mailbox.

In Business Standard, users have access to web and desktop applications, with the same storage allocations. OneDrive storage is 1 TB. Business Premium is a more expensive license that covers all the features of Business Basic and Business Standard. Additional licenses include Entra P1, which is used for Entra Admin Center regarding login, MFA, and conditional access policies. Entra P2 is available for advanced settings for tenants. Other licenses include Microsoft Intune, EMS E3, and various add-on licenses.

Real-time co-authoring in Office 365 is beneficial because users with a Business Basic plan can log in on any platform through portal.office.com and access all applications. However, without a license, mail IDs are not functional.

Office 365 is the best business platform for startups or small companies. Within the M365 tenant, administrators can create users, track all user mailboxes, check licenses, and reset passwords. Administrators can create PST files if someone leaves the organization, obtaining backups from the Compliance Admin Center. Mail IDs can be converted into shared mailboxes for future use. Shared mailboxes allow multiple members to use the same ID configured in their Outlook simultaneously.

I want to improve my knowledge of Microsoft Intune.

I have 1 year and 8 months of experience with Office 365.

I would rate the stability of Office 365 as perfect because I am familiar with it and it is the best product platform.

I would rate the scalability of Office 365 as excellent.

I would rate technical support from Microsoft as excellent.

Positive

I find the initial setup of Office 365 easy because I am very familiar with it.

The price of Office 365 is high, though improvements in pricing might occur in the future. The integration capabilities of Office 365 include co-pilot. It is very compatible with Microsoft products, though it may have limitations with third-party tools. Both AI-enhanced features, such as the editor and designer in Office 365, are useful and beneficial. I recommend Office 365 to other people. My clients are usually enterprise-size businesses. I would rate this solution overall as excellent.

Hybrid Cloud

Microsoft Azure

I use Outlook, PowerPoint, Office, and Excel for my normal tasks.

We have enhanced security in Office 365 because our data resides in the cloud. Security is better now, but a good internet connection is required to have a good experience.We have bigger mailboxes now, so there's no need to keep PSTs on the local machine. Everything is in the cloud.I believe we currently have 100 gigabytes each in Office 365, though this might be based on what the company subscribed to.

It does my job, that is what I will say. It accomplishes the tasks I need it to do.

We have been working with Office 365 for two to three years now.

It is very stable. I would rate it eight for stability. If you have your internet connection and a good laptop, it works efficiently.

I would rate it 10 for scalability because many people are adopting Office 365 as it helps them reduce admin costs. The cost of administration on-premise is removed to an extent. It has to be scalable for so many people to be adopting it.

I have experience with technical support from Microsoft, but the product is stable, so I don't have any reason to contact even the local IT because it works effectively.

Positive

When I went to the mall to purchase Office 365 for my personal laptop, I noticed it depends on what you're looking for. I saw various options including professional and basic versions.The price tag is fair because significant innovation and research has gone into it. It is proper for the developers and Microsoft to be remunerated.I can recommend Office 365 to people because it allows them to concentrate on their core job while Microsoft handles any problems from the cloud.I rate Office 365 a 9 out of 10 overall as I don't experience problems with it.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure

For most of the things, I can describe the use cases for this. Practically, collaboration, preparing documents, and even creating websites through SharePoint are primary uses. This is mainly for educational use, though our administration uses it as appropriate. We are not using the whole spectrum of the provided applications, but it got us very well through the pandemics. Practically, we could implement remote learning very fast, and it was very helpful, Teams especially. Microsoft provides the tools for synchronizing information from the student information system, making creating those Teams a breeze. Practically, they were ready overnight.

One of the most valuable features with Office 365 is email, then it's collaboration mainly through Teams. OneDrive is beautiful. People have the possibility to use the web tools: web Word, web Excel, web applications, or we have licenses that they can download for the desktop applications and use them on their computer. Practically, whenever they need the features that are not included in the web applications because they are light, they can use the possibility to download and install those desktop applications, which are complete.

I don't think there's anything small about Office 365 that maybe even their support could be a little better or customization or integration. It's okay. I'm not aware of the support calls users are placing, but in 10 years I probably had five or six support tickets placed. Practically, it works for us. There are some things whenever their services are degraded, we just check. If they notify that they have the degradation of service, then we wait. Most of the time, those calls are solved, and then the issues that we had go away.

As a matter of fact, I've used it for 10 years. We started using it sometime in April 2015, if I remember right.

It was Office 365, and there was a problem with the owner of a Team. That although it was listed as an owner, he couldn't do whatever an owner can do.

At this time, whatever they have meets the needs, and they are expanding the number of participants to Team meetings and other features. It's getting better and better.

At this time, we have just built a staff site, and we are looking for developing a school portal, but this is yet to be a work in progress.

We don't use those applications mainly regarding how AI is used in Office 365, such as for document management and data analysis. They have things organized in folders and similar structures. They use SharePoint sites for dissemination. It's good and pretty easy to handle, and it meets all needs.

I consider that the licensing or pricing with Office 365, the kind of license we have is very good.

I rate Office 365 between 9 and 10 out of 10.

Public Cloud

Microsoft Azure