Join Atidan and our partner GSX Solutions for an exciting demonstration of GSX Monitor and Analyzer for Microsoft Exchange Online and Office 365 to monitor, report and alert on the components and services that really matter while staying two steps ahead of your end users issues. Tuesday September 30th, 11 AM EST / 14:00 GMT. Register here!http://goo.gl/ZPWT7x
GSX Monitor & Analyzer is an agentless solution, providing end-to-end monitoring, reporting, and management solutions for Exchange Online and Office 365. It is the only tool on the market that measures and compares the Exchange service your company provides to your end users.
Register for this free webinar to see how GSX Monitor & Analyzer for Microsoft Exchange online supports your IT department by providing:
– A dedicated Cloud overview for Online Exchange to detect any slowdowns and simplify troubleshooting
– A user robot that processes end-user scenarios to anticipate any potential outages on Office 365 and stay two steps ahead of your end user issues
– Multi-station architecture to compare trends, identify bottlenecks, manage alerts and analyze the level of services delivered to users across multiples sites and locations
This past week, I was presenting the ‘Modern Office’ and the collection of Office 365 applications from Microsoft to a CIO and his senior team commented on the challenge of introducing so many applications, especially Yammer, Lync, and SharePoint on top of email, OneDrive, and new Office 2013. Too many disconnected tools!
It is great news that the new ‘Groups’ solution is launching to all Office 365 users starting today for early release subscribers and will continue with general availability by the end of 2014. It is a place for ad hoc teams to collaborate through email, calendars, files and conversations in one place. For everyone who has hesitated to roll out Yammer, this is a great way to get started on enterprise social collaboration.
Public and private groups are possible and you may include participants outside of your organization. Conversations come back to your inbox so everything can be done in Outlook or through the Group site on Office 365 Web Access. A Group calendar can be created and synced automatically to your personal calendar. All files are stored in the OneDrive for Business workplace. Search is again a powerful productivity tool for group members to find information fast.
Unfortunately, this initial release is via the Outlook or Office 365 WEB APP only. Exciting news is that Lync and Yammer will be added to the equation soon, and many more features are coming in 2015.
Note for IT Teams: you can impose access request controls for external sharingand you can manage Group membership in the Office 365 Admin center
Some sample screen shots enclosed below where we started a small conversation about event we are holding on Tuesday- sharing links, photos, presentations, etc. with automatic emails to the team.
Enclosing links to additional support and instructions about Groups that you can post on your SharePoint Intranet
Great comparison chart describing the differences between Groups, Distribution Lists, Site Mailboxes, Shared Mailbox and Public Folders
As always, please let us know if we can assist you with Office 365 administration, training or support!
A group is a shared workspace for email, conversations, files, and calendar events where group members can conveniently collaborate and quickly get stuff done. To learn how to use and manage groups to be even more productive, check out the topics below.
Office 365 encourages collaboration through Groups, distribution lists (also called distribution groups), site mailboxes, shared mailboxes, and public folders. Each of these options has a different purpose, user experience, and feature set. What to use depends on what the user needs to do and which tools your organization provides.
Summary of collaboration options
This table explains the various collaboration options available to you with Office 365.
Collaboration tool
Description
Group
A shared workspace that works across all applications in Office 365. Includes a shared inbox, calendar, and OneDrive for Business site for storing files. Users can create, find, and join Groups right from their email or calendar. Users need both a OneDrive for Business license and an Exchange Online license to participate in Groups.
Distribution list (also called distribution group)
Used to distribute email messages to two or more people at the same time. Distribution groups are also known as mail-enabled distribution groups. A variant of the distribution group, called the dynamic distribution group, is a mail-enabled Active Directory group object used to send email to a large and evolving group of recipients. The exact recipients are determined by filters and conditions that you specify, such as all members of a particular locale or all full-time employees.
Site mailbox
Includes SharePoint Online site membership (owners and members), shared storage through an Exchange mailbox for email messages, and a SharePoint Online site to store and share documents. A site mailbox brings Exchange email and SharePoint documents together. A site mailbox serves as a central filing cabinet for the project, providing a place to file project email and documents that can be accessed and edited only by site members. In addition, site mailboxes have a specified lifecycle and are optimized to be used for projects that have set start and end dates.
Shared mailbox
A mailbox for select users to read and send email messages and share a common calendar. Shared mailboxes also can serve as a generic email address (such as info@contoso.com or sales@contoso.com) that customers can use to inquire about your company. When the Send As permission is enabled on the shared mailbox, email sent from the mailbox will use the generic address (e.g., sales@contoso.com).
Public folder
Designed for shared access, pubic folders provide an easy and effective way to collect, organize, and share information with other people in your organization. Public folders organize content in a deep hierarchy that’s easy to browse and always visible in the Outlook folder view. A public folder can be mail-enabled and added as a member of the distribution group. Email sent to the distribution group is automatically added to the public folder for archiving or later reference. Public folders also provide simple document sharing when you don’t have a SharePoint Online subscription.
Which collaboration tool to use?
The following table gives you a quick glance at the various types of groups and explains when and how to use them with the various collaboration features of Office 365.
Groups
Distribution lists
Site mailboxes
Shared mailboxes
Public folders
Who uses?
Users who want a collaboration workspace for their group messages, files, and calendar that is integrated with the Office 365 services they already use (Outlook Web App, OneDrive for Business)
Users who need to send email to a group of recipients with a common interest or characteristic.
Users who work together on a specific project with definitive start and end dates. Project documents are stored on a SharePoint Online site and team members send and receive project-related email via the site mailbox.
Delegates working on behalf of a virtual identity, such as support@contoso.com. Delgates can respond to email as that shared mailbox identity.
With the proper permissions, everyone in your organization can access and search public folders. They are ideal for email archiving or for sharing documents.
Ideal group size
Any
Large
Small
Small
Large
Access
Exchange Online and Office 365 users
For distribution groups, members, must be manually added. For dynamic distribution groups, members are added based on filtering criteria.
Site mailbox owners and members
Users can be granted Full Access and/or Send As permissions. If granted Full Access permissions, users must also add the shared mailbox to their Outlook profile to access the shared mailbox.
Accessible by anyone in your organization
Shared calendar?
Yes
No
No
Yes
Yes
Email arrives in user’s personal Inbox?
No. Users can subscribe to a group and then forward all Group messages to their inbox
Yes. Email arrives in the inbox of all distribution group members.
No. Email arrives in the site mailbox.
No. Email arrives in the Inbox of the shared mailbox.
Atidan Special On Demand Events – Available Until June 30
A Discussion & Demo on Office 365, your Office in the cloud!
Office 365 is Microsoft’s fastest billion dollar growing business. It’s bringing enterprise class capabilities to the masses at predictable & affordable rates. Is it right for you? Find out as we discuss the business value & solution overview of Office 365 as well as watch a demonstration of a day in the life of an end user. Click the link below to watch now!
Keep Your Business Up and Running with SQL Server AlwaysOn
This is a brief session explaining how the SQL Server 2012 can help you to keep your business up and running, while keeping costs down and improving overall system performance together with near real-time reporting. We cover the highlights of the SQL Server AlwaysOn Availability Groups and you will also see demonstrations of high availability, disaster recovery, reporting capabilities and deployment options. Click the link below to watch now!
This session covers some of the common business challenges that midmarket customers face today and how Office 365 address those challenges. It reviews the features and benefits of Office 365 and of the cloud in general, and finishes off with a live demonstration of the services and some next steps and how to get started.
This session covers some of the common business challenges that midmarket customers face today and how Office 365 address those challenges. It reviews the features and benefits of Office 365 and of the cloud in general, and finishes off with a live demonstration of the services and some next steps and how to get started. Click the link below to watch now!
Windows Server 2012 R2 overview This is a brief overview of some of the most compelling new capabilities offered by Windows Server 2012 R2. We cover Server Consolidation, Disaster Recovery, Cost Effective Storage, and our Mobile User scenarios. This overview also includes demonstrations of how easy it is to leverage Windows Server 2012 for Disaster Recovery implementation, Storage Management and managing our mobile device scenario including support for our iPad users. Click the link below to watch now!
Get the comprehensive IT Online solutions you need now, and earn funding towards deployment!
For every net new Office 365 purchase between September 1, 2013 and March 31, 2014, you can earn subsidy funds to be redeemed with Atidan!
Eligible subscriptions include: E1, E3, E4 and Exchange Online plans
150-249 Seats = $5,000
250-999 seats = $12,000
1,000+ = $20,000
How does The Office 365 Fast Track Offer help my business?
A comprehensive solution can seem out of reach for most small to mid-sized Organizations. Most are accustomed to purchasing products and solutions piecemeal, and postponing planned upgrades or refreshes due to budget constraints. With the Office 365 Fast Track Offer, you can earn subsidy funds, which can be used for additional services from Atidan – a welcome injection to your IT budget. The Microsoft Office 365 Fast Track Offer includes Microsoft cloud services, which help businesses to access scalable and reliable applications while lessening the burden of provisioning and maintenance – saving money and simplifying IT management.
What is a subsidy?
A subsidy is a check made payable to Atidan. This subsidy can be used to enrich and implement your overall solution as it allows you to purchase additional services. The subsidy helps provide organizations with an affordable software version upgrade or solution adoption path – so your organization can realize the enhanced productivity, security and network performance benefits of the latest software solutions.
Qualified Organizations must work directly with Atidan to pilot, deploy and extend Microsoft Office 365 in order to be eligible for this special offer.
For a limited time, Office 365 customers can save thousands of dollars on deployment.
Buy a minimum of 150 qualifying Office 3651 seats between September 2013 and March 2014 and we’ll help you accelerate your adoption of Office 365 by investing in Office 365 FastTrack Step 2 deployment activities with Atidan.
The more seats you buy, the more we invest in your deployment
With the Office 365 Deployment offer, Microsoft will contribute to your successful deployment:
Number of eligible Office 365 seats
Deployment investment paid to Atidan2
1,000 or more
$20,000
250-999
$12,000
150-249
$5,000
Get Atidan’s expertise to help you deploy
The Office 365 Deployment offer can help you offset the costs of partner-led deployment activities in an Office 365 FastTrack Step 2 engagement. These can include:
IT-led migration
Customer domain
Directory sync
Password sync
Admin migrations
How the offer works
When you buy at least 150 Office 365 Exchange Online or Office 365 Enterprise seats between September 2013 and March 2014, we’ll help you speed up adoption using the FastTrack Step 2 methodology. The deployment investment is paid directly to Atidan.
With the new Microsoft FastTrack deployment methodology, you can use the service within hours, deploy within days, and add features on your own terms in just weeks. Learn more about the FastTrack three-step approach to Office 365 deployment.
Buy 150 or more seats of an Office 365 Enterprise plan or an Office 365 Exchange Online plan. Add the seats to your cart, and then complete your purchase. Compare plans.
Select a deployment partner.
1 This offer is good on net new Office 365 Enterprise plan or Exchange Online seats and is available to commercial and government customers in all countries where Office 365 is available. Customers must buy a minimum of 150 net new seats during the September 1, 2013 to March 31, 2014 offer period. This investment is paid directly to Atidan. Volume Licensing customers may also qualify for this offer. Please see your Microsoft or Atidan representative for details.
2 All investment amounts listed in USD; equivalents are based on published Microsoft exchange rates.
Atidan 