Online Email Archiving in Office365

 

If you are a user of Email, chances are that you are aware of the concept of archiving . What it really means is that in order to ensure that our mailbox remains within the specified limit , we remove the mails from our mailbox and store the same as a backup usually in the form of a .PST file . In many cases , this process is automated whereby a user specifies that any mail beyond , say, 6 months should be archived and the PST file is then stored on his PC or on the Server .

In Exchange Online , which is a part of Cloud Service Office365 , you get online Archive mailbox as a part of your Office365 Plan . This has many advantages over the traditional method. To know more about the same, read the details at http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Archiving.aspx

Let me know if you have any questions on the same. I would be more than happy to answer them.

So get going and implement Office365 Online Archiving in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

What is SharePoint

 

SharePoint Technologies, is one of the best Technologies for Collaboration to come out of the Microsoft Stable. However , many people are quite confused about the capabilities of the same. It means different things to different people. And Microsoft has not made it easier for people to understand SharePoint .

In order to help people understand SharePoint , I have created a short 5 minute video which explains what is SharePoint . It gives a broad overview of SharePoint . So once you have seen the video, you will be clear on the capabilities of SharePoint . And then you can focus on that aspect of SharePoint which is most appealing to you.

Have a look at the video which appears on the link below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Collaboration.aspx

You can also watch the video on our YouTube channel at :

http://youtu.be/EzzYGK5DRiM

Let me know if there are any questions on the same after you have seen the video .

So get going and implement SharePoint and reap the benefits of Collaboration.! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Office365 plans compared and decoded

 

Office365 , the Cloud based Business Productivity Service from Microsoft is getting more and more subscribers with every passing day.

Since one size does not fit all and the needs of different users is bound to be different , Microsoft has introduced a variety of plans . This has caused some confusion among the users who are not sure as to which plan is most suitable for them .

No worries ! I have tried to simplify the complex plans in a manner which will help you understand the various options . Have a look at the various plans and features at the link given below:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365PlansComparison.aspx

I would also suggest that you have a look at the link given below which will help you in understanding of the plans and give you a quick overview:

http://www.techgyan.com/Pages/Office365Plans.aspx

I hope that you would have a much clearer picture of the Office365 plans once you have reviewed the information. If you still have questions , feel free to ask .

So get going and implement Office365 in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Managing Team Tasks in Office365

 

Teams are a reality for every Company , Large or Small. These Teams usually have a Team Leader whose job it is to ensure that Team members work in unison and complete the Team tasks .

In order to effectively manage the Team Tasks , the Team leader can make use of the Team tasks which is available in SharePoint , a part of Office365 . Let me show you how we make use of Team Tasks in our Company TechGyan.

Given below is the snapshot of our Team site “Admin “ . You can see various tasks that are created along with the name of the person to whom they are assigned ; status; priority; due date; % complete.

These tasks can be easily added and updated on SharePoint itself. For example, given below is the snapshot of one of the Tasks which has description of the Task . And being an update on SharePoint , you can see that it has various bells and whistles like Description , Workflow, Shared with, etc.

 

Alerts can also be set so that as soon as task is created , an alert can go to the person assigned the task. You can have various alerts configured as can be seen in the following snapshot below:

By itself, the above system is very efficient in managing the tasks between the Team members thereby improving the efficiency of the Team . But the functionality can be taken to the next level by integrating the Team tasks with the Outlook of the User . In the screenshot below , the Admin Tasks have been integrated with the local outlook on my PC :

 

In the above snapshot , the Admin Task list of SharePoint has been synced with my local Outlook . It appears to me as a regular Task item of Outlook. What that means to me is that I allocate tasks using Outlook without having the need to go to the SharePoint. However , in case I wish to allocate a task while I am on the rod, I can do that by going to SharePoint and updating the Task. This will then sync up with my outlook .

What this means

By implementing the Team tasks in SharePoint and then integrating the same with MS Outlook, we have created a very effective Platform within our Company which allows us to share and manage Team Tasks without bothering about the location of the Team members. This has considerably added to our productivity and mobility because ultimately Work = series of tasks . So if we can streamline Team Tasks , it means we have streamlined work . How’s that for Productivity !

So get going and implement Office365 based Team Tasks in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Benefits of Alias in Office365

 

There is a very useful feature available in Exchange Online . Its called alias. Today I will discuss the benefits of using alias in a Business. I shall show you how we use Alias within our Company TechGyan.

We have created a few aliases as follows:

Helpdesk : This is for existing Customers. They can send a mail to this alias if they wish to record a support call; they have some queries in billing ; they need any kind of information. In short , if an existing Customer needs to communicate with us , there is only one email id he should remember.

Sales : If a new Customer wants some information on our products or service or if we have to send a proposal , then this alias is used.

Services : If the Customer is discussing any issue with the Services Team

Infoline : General information

Officeadmin : Communication with Vendors

Advantage of alias :

In every Company , people change or leave . So it always creates a disconnect between the Company and the external stake holders . Mails bounce or go unanswered. To overcome this problem, we have created the above aliases in Exchange Online. They are also called as Distribution Lists . So if an existing Customer sends a mail to Helpdesk , there is a Distribution List linked to this alias by which , any email to Help Desk will get auto forwarded to the people in Distribution list . If any person in the list changes , we have to just remove old name and add new name . The alias name remains unaffected.

The above screen shot shows the general information about the alias Helpdesk

Other Features of Alias in Exchange Online:

1) Membership

The above screen shows the list of people who are members of this alias. Here you can add or remove people as per your requirement .

2) Membership approval

As shown above, various options are available. Group can be open or closed. Members can join it by themselves or only owners can add them.

3) Delivery management

You can create alias such that only senders inside the organization can send the mail . Or , as in our case for Helpdesk , you can specify that Senders from inside and outside the organization can send the mail

4) Message approval

Any messages sent to this alias could be moderated before being delivered. In our case, we have not kept any moderator as we want any Customer to contact our Helpdesk without restriction.

5) Group delegation

By creating Group delegation, a group member can send outgoing mail also as an alias

So in the above case , we have given kkalani and bnaik the required group delegation. What happens with that can be seen in the next screen shot:

In the above image, you can see that Kavita is sending mail from her outlook. But the outgoing mail has mail id of helpdesk@techgyan.com .

As you can understand, the alias feature in Exchange Online is very powerful and can be customized with various options. And the best part is that it is FREE . Which means , you can create as many aliases as you wish to and there will be no charges for the same.

So get going and implement Office365 aliases in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Task Sync in Office365

 

 

Work plays a very important role in our daily life . So what is work? It is nothing but a series of tasks . Tasks have different priorities , different due dates , different owners, etc.

One of the most efficient ways to manage Tasks is to use MS Outlook, which is part of MS Office . And most of the working people do in fact use Tasks . So typically , as soon as people reach workplace , they spend about 15 to 20 minutes to plan their schedule for the day using Tasks of MS Outlook. Needless to say , MS Outlook is the best tool for Task management.

When you use Office365 , the Tasks of Outlook are in complete sync with the Tasks of Outlook on a browser , also called as Outlook Web Access or OWA for short . So even if you do not have access to your PC with Outlook, it does not matter as your Tasks are available on the browser.

However , it does not stop here . If your Smartphone , like Windows Phone , is configured with Office365, you can get your Outlook Tasks even on your Phone . And this takes productivity to the next level. Let me explain this with a scenario.

So normally when you come to work, you would spend about 15 minutes planning your Tasks for the day using MS Outlook. All of us travel at least for 1 hour every day to Work. Now while travelling , you could easily plan your tasks on your Smartphone . So you could set a Task reminder like say a) at 3 PM to call Mr. Mehta or at 4 PM speak to Peter . And guess what , at 3 PM and 4 PM respectively, you will get reminders on Outlook of your Work PC. Similarly if you have set a reminder in MS outlook and at that time you are Out of Office, you will get reminder on your mobile. There is seamless integration of tasks between Outlook, Browser and mobile.

So what is the BIG DEAL ? I believe this is HUGE .

Savings

So if we assume that an average person takes about 15 minutes to plan his To Do list for the day , then for 100 people Company , the time taken will be 100 x 15 = 1500 minutes . That is 25 hours per day spent on planning the tasks for the Day.

Now if these 100 people use their Smartphones to plan their To Do , what will happen is that when they reach office , they will already find their To Do list updated . Which means a saving of 15 minutes per person which is 25 hours per day .

Now 25 hours x 25 working days = 625 hours saved per month .

That is 625 x 12 = 7500 hours saved per year

So at average cost to Company per hour per person being about Rs. 200, this translates to a saving of Rs. 15,00,000 . This is a HUGE increase in productivity .

So get going and implement Office365 Tasks Sync in your Company ! Now !

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007

Shared Email Address Book in Office365

 

 

In my daily interactions with many Companies , one common area where I see inefficiency is in managing Email Address Book . A majority of the Companies maintain Address Book at Individual levels. This leads to following problems :

1. Duplication of Contacts

If there is a 100 user Company , and all are part of Email system , then its quite likely that they would be using MS Outlook as Email Client . The reason is that it’s the BEST Email Client in the World . And  it is part of MS Office which is a de facto standard for any Business User. If we assume that the average number of Contacts per user are 500 , more often than not , about 300 will be contacts which are common with other users in the Company . So we have this scenario where 300 contacts are entered in 100 address books leading to a huge waste of time.

Now , if one Contact changes phone number or the address , that means 100 address books have to be updated. So much waste of precious time.

2. Searching for Contact information which already exists in Company

Contact Information is already existing in the Company . But that is with some users who have stored the same in their address books . If this information is required by someone who does not have this information, then the process of searching will start and will include browsing the Internet or even calling the person for his information. All this means wastage of the precious commodity called TIME .

We can resolve this issue using SharePoint , which comes bundled with Office365 . Let me explain using our example.

We have created a TechGyan Contacts List on our SharePoint as can be seen in the highlighted portion of the snapshot below:

 

 

Now , I have gone inside this list and selected a contact “Baburaj” . So what you see in the snapshot below is the contact form in SharePoint populated with the entry of the Contact

Next I have synced this Contact List with my Outlook . What you see on the highlighted portion on the left is the name “TechGyan Contacts “. And on the right is the same contact “baburaj” appearing as a regular Outlook contact .

 

 

 

 

Finally in the snapshot below , you see that the TechGyan Contacts address book appears as a Outlook Address Book from where you can pickup an address of your choice and mail the same.

 

Savings

So if we assume that an average person takes about 5 minutes to fill up an Outlook address contact , then for 300 contacts and 100 people Company , the time savings are:

5 x 300 x 100 = 1,50,000 minutes = 2500 hours

So at average cost to Company per hour per person being about Rs. 200, this translates to a saving of 5,00,000 . This is not a small saving by any measure.

And this saving will increase whenever the Contact has to be modified , updated . And when we calculate the savings , I am not calculating the time wasted in trying to find the information here and there and calling Customers and creating a sub optimal impression.

So hopefully I have given you a very strong justification for using Shared Contacts . So go ahead and start planning how to implement Shared Contacts within your Company . Start Now!

with warm regards

Suresh Ramani

www.TechGyan.com

Blog: www.CloudChangesEverything.com

Microsoft MVP 2009
Microsoft Worldwide Partner of the Year 2011 & 2007