Microsoft Office 365 - Getting up to speed with the cloud

[Office365]

 

This post aims to arm you will information and case studies covering the use of Office 365 in your school environment. We have selection of threads from EduGeek users and case studies as well as a useful overview for those who are migrating from an existing Live@Edu setup.

 

Live@Edu to Office 365 migration overview:

 

PDF

 

Case Studies:

 

Kimarnock College

 

Office 365 Transforms College's Email System, Provides Competitive Edge

In 2009, Kilmarnock College subscribed to the Live@edu cloud service for its student email and collaboration services, a solution that has proven to be a resounding success. Learning that Live@edu is being upgraded to Microsoft® Office 365, the college recognized the opportunity to replace the aging and restrictive on-premises email infrastructure used by both curriculum and service areas. As a result of the migration, the college has reduced hardware costs, greatly reduced support calls and the need to conduct nightly backups, and freed its ICT (information and communication technology) staff to start thinking about how it can use Office 365 for more strategic initiatives. As part of a phased approach, students and staff alike will ultimately be using the same online service—and Kilmarnock College email provision will be operating completely in the cloud.

Situation



Located in East Ayrshire, a local authority area of Scotland in the United Kingdom, Kilmarnock College serves approximately 5,500 full and part-time students annually. Founded more than 50 years ago, the college’s mission is to play a lead role in the development of skills, the economy and community life. To that end, it offers a wide range of career-oriented programs, including the arts, social sciences, beauty, business, hospitality, tourism, computing, ICT, administration, early education and childcare, engineering, health and social care, motor vehicle, science, and sports. In addition to offering certification through full, part-time, and evening classes, Kilmarnock also partners with several universities should its students wish to move to a full degree program.

 

Read the full white paper study

 

University of West London

 

Using the Cloud to Start a Life-Long Connection

The University of West London (UWL) needed to meet its students’ expectation for modern, high-quality IT services, that equipped them with the industry-standard tools to help them study and collaborate (not only with the university but with each other and also with prospective employers). Investment in IT infrastructure had not kept pace with user demand particularly over the past few years. Rather than attempt to improve what it had, UWL decided to play “leap frog” and provide its students with the best possible environment for learning. A task force at UWL examined the options for a more modern messaging and collaboration environment and a product that was sufficiently flexible to provide a gateway to all the information students need. As a result, the University chose to adopt Microsoft® Office 365 for education. Not only has UWL gained a collaboration environment of greater sophistication than any it has had before, but it has also gained a tool for engaging with students that goes far beyond what it had initially anticipated.



Situation

Its faculty, staff, and students relied on Microsoft Outlook® for an email client, Microsoft Word for word processing, as well as other applications in the Microsoft Office suite. Additionally, the university relied on a number of other applications that it integrated with these core Microsoft applications on an ad hoc basis. But the University’s IT team was having to spend so much time maintaining this environment that it was preventing the team from get-ting ahead on projects that were of higher value both to students and administrators.

 

Read the full white paper study

 

The Schools Network

 

Gaining Greater Messaging Resiliency and Flexibility at a Lower Cost

When The Schools Network was looking for opportunities to streamline operations and lower costs, its aging email infrastructure was a natural candidate for change. IT personnel were routinely spending two or more days each month managing, maintaining, or repairing the infrastructure. Users were often unable to connect to the infrastructure while traveling. The hardware sometimes failed, cutting off hundreds of email users in locations as far afield as Abu Dhabi and China. To overcome all these shortcomings, The Schools Network turned to Microsoft® and Microsoft Gold Partner Perspicuity. Perspicuity showed The Schools Network how the cloud-based Microsoft Office 365 for education service could help it reduce IT costs and ensure easy access from anywhere, all the while providing an email infrastructure with greater availability and resilience than it had before.

Situation



The Schools Network—formerly known as the Specialist Schools and Academies Trust—is in the business of transforming education around the world. Over the past 25 years, this London-based, not-for-profit organization has built a world-class network of innovative, high-performing schools and academies in partnership with business and the wider community. It works with a long list of academies in the United Kingdom and nearly 80 percent of state-funded schools. It also works with international schools in China and Abu Dhabi. The outcome? Better teachers, better student achievement scores, and students better prepared to make a difference in the future.

 

Read the full white paper study

 

University of Dundee

 

University Eases IT, Broadens Communications with Hosted Solution

As a leading university in the United Kingdom, the University of Dundee in Scotland enjoys a global reputation as a center for teaching and research. With approximately 22,000 students and 3,000 staff, it graduates more students into professions than any other Scottish university. Previously, it used a Novell GroupWise email system for messaging. When significant downtime and mobile limitations caused frustration for its students and staff, it evaluated hosted solutions from Google and Microsoft. The university selected Microsoft Office 365 to help improve the reliability of its messaging system and reduce IT administration and costs. By using the Office 365 online services, the university also sees an opportunity to broaden the communications and collaboration capabilities it offers to its staff and students, including students in the distance-learning program.

Situation



The University of Dundee is based in the city of Dundee on the east coast of Scotland. It ranked 140 among the world’s top 200 universities in the Times Higher Education 2010-2011 World University Rankings and rated number one in the United Kingdom in the Times Higher Education student experience survey for 2011-2012. The university is made up of four colleges: Art, Science, and Engineering; Arts and Social Sciences; Life Sciences; and Medicine, Dentistry, and Nursing, and it graduates more students into professions, including law, accountancy, architecture, dentistry, education, social work, and nursing than any other Scottish university.

 

Read the full white paper study

 

Microsoft Office 365 Preview - Coming soon:

 

Office Next - Office Preview

 

Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Preview - Official Site

 

Office Next - Apps for the new Office and SharePoint IT admin guide

 

Office Next - The new Outlook Web App extends to tablets and phones

 

Office Next - Office and the Cloud

 

 

Discussions and questions on EduGeek

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/80982-free-office-365-ebook.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/how-do-you-do/90075-possible-setup-live-office-365-without-dns-mx-changes.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/97322-office365-education-some-real-live-edu-upgrade-questions.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/100028-cost-moving-live-edu-office365.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/99681-office-365-students-sub-domain-sso-question.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/99109-office-365-head-style-addresses.html

 

http://www.edugeek.net/forums/cloud-services/98828-office365-shared-calendars.html

 

 

Other Resources

 

Microsoft Office 365 Deployment Guide

 

Microsoft Exchange Deployment Assistant

 

Plan for and deploy AD FS 2.0 for use with single sign-on

 

Single sign-on roadmap

 

AD FS with Office 365 Step by Step Install Guide

 

Office 365 for Enterprise Service Descriptions (This should explain what each plan has, its poorly named)

 

Compare Office 365 Plans for Education here

office365_onesheet_V2b.pdf

Edited October 4, 2012 by ZeroHour

[zag]

An excellent product indeed.

 

No reason to have onsite Exchange servers at all these days.

 

Cloud Email and Office Apps is the future....

[Edu-IT]

Am I being stupid? Do you have to sign up for the trial then downgrade to the free plan or something?

[jamesbmarshall]

Do you have to sign up for the trial then downgrade to the free plan or something?

 

You sign up for the trial which gives you access to the A3 plan (which is paid for) while you verify that you're an eligible institution. Once verified you can "purchase" the free A2 plan, or pay for the A3 and A4 plans if you want.

[Edu-IT]

I see! Cheers. :-)

[zag]

Good video introduction here

 

[has]

Office 365 is also replacing Glow Scotland as VLE. All primary and secondary schools in Scotland will be using this from next year.

[SYNACK]

Interesting regarding the SSL certs, do we all need to buy external VeriSign or Thwart certs, no options for private signed or MS provided?

[Office365]

<--- BUMP --->

This thread has been updated to including some information about the next version of Office 365 as well as some more resource links.

[gshaw]

Is there a guide for students on how to access their "My Files" area and will the next release allow customisation of the landing page you see on login?

 

What I want is simple access to a cloud based file store for students working from home. Moving files around needs an easy drag and drop interface like Windows rather than lists and multiple click menus. Is this something we might see in the not too distant future?

Edited September 28, 2012 by gshaw

[CyberNerd]

What I want is simple access to a cloud based file store for students working from home. Moving files around needs an easy drag and drop interface like Windows rather than lists and multiple click menus. Is this something we might see in the not too distant future?

 

You need Google apps then. Google Apps vs Office 365 is like a Galaxy3 vs iPhone - You choose the Galaxy 3 if you want more features at a lower cost. You only choose the the iphone if your a sucker for marketing.

[ZeroHour]

Is there a guide for students on how to access their "My Files" area and will the next release allow customisation of the landing page you see on login?

 

What I want is simple access to a cloud based file store for students working from home. Moving files around needs an easy drag and drop interface like Windows rather than lists and multiple click menus. Is this something we might see in the not too distant future?

 

The o365 preview integrated skydrive I believe unlike now so I *think* those accounts would get skydrive for work when it comes out of preview.

[gshaw]

Interesting, will have to keep an eye on that. Ironically after being the weak link for so long Skydrive is now one of the biggest draws for MS in terms of its integration with Windows and Office. The interface is better as well now, certainly a lot better than Sharepoint as it stands.

 

As for the Google Apps argument it's the consistent Office interface that keeps us on a pure MS platform but the over complexity of 365 isn't doing it any favours at the moment imo.

[ZeroHour]

Interesting, will have to keep an eye on that. Ironically after being the weak link for so long Skydrive is now one of the biggest draws for MS in terms of its integration with Windows and Office. The interface is better as well now, certainly a lot better than Sharepoint as it stands.

 

As for the Google Apps argument it's the consistent Office interface that keeps us on a pure MS platform but the over complexity of 365 isn't doing it any favours at the moment imo.

 

Its possibly worth having a play with the preview using a subdomain to see the changes, nothing in the preview will get migrated though as a heads up.

There are a lot of changes to sharepoint too which should make it much easier. It looks much more like outlook.com does.

[vikpaw]

Some advice please.

Migrated to office 365 and now on exchange plan 1 for students. there are numerous free plans i can subscribe too, can i opt for them all, are some old and defunct. which is better? can't find any decent comparisons for education. Online chat told me to bog off and resellers here are useless!

I can see Exchange plan 1 for students , faculty, staff. Are all these superceded by Office 365 plans A2.?

I can also add "Sharepoint online plan 1" and "office webapps with sharepoint online plan 1". Do i need both, what's the difference.?

Will any of these affect the current setup / users.?

[jamesbmarshall]

Some advice please.

Migrated to office 365 and now on exchange plan 1 for students. there are numerous free plans i can subscribe too, can i opt for them all, are some old and defunct. which is better? can't find any decent comparisons for education. Online chat told me to bog off and resellers here are useless!

I can see Exchange plan 1 for students , faculty, staff. Are all these superceded by Office 365 plans A2.?

I can also add "Sharepoint online plan 1" and "office webapps with sharepoint online plan 1". Do i need both, what's the difference.?

Will any of these affect the current setup / users.?

 

Compare Office 365 Plans and Pricing for Schools - Office 365

 

There are licensing plans available (A2 through A4), and these are made up from individual components. For example, A2 includes Exchange Online Plan 2, Lync Online Plan 2, SharePoint Online Plan 1 and the Office Web Apps.

 

If you assign the whole plan to a user, they get all those services. You can elect to only assign individual parts of the plan (i.e. Exchange only) and the user will only get those services.

 

The difference between "SharePoint Online Plan 1" and "Office Web Apps with SharePoint Online Plan 1" is in the name.

 

Whether or not changing licences affects the users depends on what data they have in the system - if you remove an Exchange Online licence the user will lose access to their mailbox; similarly if you remove a SharePoint Online licence the user will lose access to SharePoint. If you've been through the upgrade all your users will have come across onto Exchange Online Plan 1 which is just an individual component SKU; you can now "purchase" the A2 plan if you wish and assign it to your users to offer the other services or just leave it as it is.

[vikpaw]

Cheers James, that helps. it makes sense now that i know the A2 plan envelopes the others. So i can just opt for that. The confusion with sharepoint plans is because on the english site, they are priced difference for with or without office webapps, but on my upgrade page they are the same price. If one has extra features for the same price it's a no brainer, so i assumed there's something else between them.

When i click on learn more on the A plans, rather than give me info, it takes me to a commercial page where it wants me to choose a bigger and higher plan for more money, rather than just tell me what i get in that plan.

 

It's just a little frustrating and not very clear.

 

I'm going for A2 free plan for students and the same for staff. That will encompass everything right? Then i'll add exchange online plan for alumni. And i'll have all that i can get for free? That's all i want, all the freebies.