Office 365 setup assistance

[DrCheese]

Hi there,

 

Does anyone know of any companies that provide assistance with setting up Office 365? I admit, I'm somewhat overwhelmed with everything to do with it & I would feel more confident having an external provider who specialises in it helping with initial setup.

[sllorep]

I don't know where you are based, but there is a company local to me (Bedfordshire) that contacted me about a year ago. They suggested that they were O365 specialists...:

Node IT SOLUTIONS

 

Back then I told them that we weren't interested (for the time being), so other than a friendly phone call, I can't advertise what their service would be like.

If/When I start looking at O365, I would probably phone them as they are close by, but someone may have another company who they have used and can recommend.

[simpsonj]

RM offer that service, and their guidance notes were pretty helpful. I didn't have to do it from scratch though, as I inherited a tenancy from our county council and in the end I didn't need a any direct support from RM, just the notes.

[Gardinho]

We bought the migration service from RM but ended up getting a refund as the service was so bad!

 

It's scary before you do it, but it's actually quite easy. Microsoft's support is free and outstanding, and that's all you will need.

[FN-GM]

@CPLTD can do, they have a dedicated Office 365 guy.

[EduTech]

It is fairly straight forward, just be sure to read the documentation before making any drastic decisions. If you have any questions feel free to post on here and I or someone will be able to advise you on the best way to go forward. The key is to start of Simple, use Cloud Users initially and familiarize yourself with what is available, then you can setup synchronization between your on-premise AD to Azure AD and you can do this for an isolated OU or set of users based on an attribute if you wish to. Only deploy AD FS if this is an absolute requirement for your organization.

 

Let me know if i can be of any help. :-)

 

James.

[AD7]

As James has mentioned, setting up the O365 tenancy is a relatively straightforward process. As a Microsoft partner, we can provide a few pointers in the first instance to help you register a trial and get you started. We're currently managing the migration of all schools in Nottingham on behalf of Nottinghamshire County Council, so we certainly know a thing or two about O365. Feel free to drop me a PM or for more info see @AD7consulting

[apearce]

I wrote this some time ago - screenshots are a bit out of date but might be useful is setting it up yourself.

Office 365 Education Starter Manual (free download) - Microsoft UK Higher Education Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

[U53RN4M3]

Did it myself, its a complete breeze. The secret is planning and keeping it simple. Students and Teaching Staff should use the browser interface and as much as possible encourage the web interface with admin staff. Only go down the Outlook client route if something like your management system (SIMS, CMIS) needs to use it for emailing parents. You don't need to implement AD integration, its nice but frankly users can change their email passwords to match their AD login PW anyway. This is my second implementation - first on 180 plus staff 900 plus pupils and the last one small independant school 80 odd staff and 200 pupils. There really isn't any need to spend money on consulants