Office 365 Pros and Cons

[Primax98]

I have been looking at Office 365 over the past 6 months now and have even gone as far as setting up users and groups so just need to change the mail record and off i jolly well go !!

 

We use a paid for service at the moment with only a few gripes like i have to email or phone to get accounts set up or changed or groups added or removed other than that is the price tag each year for the privilege.

 

What are the pro's and con's of 365 ?? i have signed up and have more than enough accounts for my staff and even students now which i would not have had before and it looks like i can ask for more if i need them.

 

90% of my users use Office Outlook on their resident machines so they should not notice the difference. Is there somthing i am missing in all this ????

 

Paul

[zag]

Pros

No more server admin!

Good management interface

Works well with Outlook 2010 and 2013

Great spam protection

Huge 25GB storage

Office apps online (not really used but could be nice)

Excellent management of distribution lists

Excellent spam and rude word blocking

Very easy to setup on modern smartphones

 

Cons

New 2013 webmail interface is awful and a massive regression from the 2010 version imo. No way to delay the upgrade as far as I can tell, it just happens.

Resetting passwords is a pain in the backside

Complicated password requirements are over the top for younger kids

Edited July 12, 2013 by zag

[Trapper]

Complicated password requirements are over the top for staff

[Kyle]

Complicated password requirements are over the top for staff

 

How complicated are they?

[sonofsanta]

Can you not change the password requirements? As I know for a fact that SMT are some of the worst for awful passwords and I have given up on that fight (after getting it in writing that I've warned them and it's not my fault if it goes wrong).

 

Saying that, it could be a good excuse...

[zag]

Nope, password requirements are set in stone as far as I can tell.

[Boredguy]

If you use DirSync, then the password complexity matches your current local policy

[supawat1]

I just tell all of teaching staff and support staff that everyone has to adhere to strong password policy

[Primax98]

Thank you all for you help on this.

 

As 75% of my staff use complex password this may not be an issues plus with the inclusion of AD sync too.

 

The interface is not really an issues to me as most use the M$ Outlook.

 

If anyone has any other major gripes then please let me know.

 

Thank you all for you valued help on this

 

Regards

 

Paul