Deploying Office 365

[R06]

Hello

 

I'm looking for some clarification as well as advice. We are planning to roll out Office 365 this year. The broad plan is to:

 

1) Install Office 2013 on staff laptops and student computers/laptops. Run this for a few weeks.

2) Set up an a tenancy on the Microsoft cloud, move the data to the cloud, and and configure user files to sync with computers

3) No decision made on whether to have the cloud hosted internally or with Microsoft.

 

Questions:

1) We currently use offline files on staff laptops, syncing back to their home folders on a server share. Can we continue to have this arrangement but in addition get the files to sync to the MS cloud?

2) Are there any problems using an in-house Exchange server along with Office 365?

3) If we use the MS cloud, I presume we don't need to set up Sharepoint on the internal network?

4) Would you recommend that I set up a trial tenancy before working on the final one, or do you think I should just start with one and work on it until it is in a working state?

 

Thanks.

[andydis]

We currently use offline files on staff laptops, syncing back to their home folders on a server share. Can we continue to have this arrangement but in addition get the files to sync to the MS cloud?

NO

2) Are there any problems using an in-house Exchange server along with Office 365?

No as long as you get the Single sign on and DIRSYNC setup correctly,

its abit of a pain if you have some users on ogffice 365 and some on local exchange and you want them on distribution groups

3) If we use the MS cloud, I presume we don't need to set up Sharepoint on the internal network?

no you can use sharepoint in the cloud

4) Would you recommend that I set up a trial tenancy before working on the final one, or do you think I should just start with one and work on it until it is in a working state?

sign up for 365 and do alot of the leg work without the effecting the users straight away, inform them of whats happening, and creep things in slowly, test and test again , then get power users to test , also train users.

 

Just one questions , why office 2010? and not 2013?

[sted]

you cant use onedrive for business as a direct replacement for my docs. First you need to make sure everyone is always logged in to onedrive via say word and always saves there so as such its not a replacement for offline files rather an addition to. You can on an individual basis set up the onedrive sync app to sync docs to the cloud but again it requires user intervention and im not sure it would work if you sync my docs which is on a network location. IMO unless its a personal machine it dosent work that well (I use onedrive fine on my personal pcs but as things stand wouldn't even consider it as a my docs replacement even for just me never mind a whole bunch of users)

[hallb15]

I agree with @sted - Onedrive for business just isn't designed to work this way.

 

The hardest part for us is getting staff used to a new way of working with files that are stored online, rather than on the server. Dragging a file onto an area of an internet explorer window is a very foreign concept to a lot of people who have only just got used to saving things in their home area.

But those that keep on with it do eventually love it when they can access their files anywhere using Word online for simple changes at home and full Word when in school.