Office 365 For Nonprofits A Primer All rights reserved Tech Impact 2 This eBook represents a collection of blog posts and other writings about Office 365 for nonprofits by Tech Impact. These posts are based on our experience moving hundreds of nonprofits, and thousands of users, to Office 365. It is our hope that you will find this information valuable as you consider moving to Office 365. All rights reserved Tech Impact 3 TABLE OF CONTENTS: Chapter 1: Office 365 for Nonprofits-----------------------------------------------> 4 Chapter 2: What exactly can Office 365 do? -------------------------------------> 6 Chapter 3: The Remote Workforce ------------------------------------------------> 9 Chapter 4: Why Your Exchange Server Is a Time Bomb------------------------> 12 Chapter 5: Word, Excel, and PowerPoint Online----------------------------------> 14 Chapter 6: Office 365, SharePoint, and Disruption-------------------------------> 17 Chapter 7: Replace Your Shared Drive With o365’s SharePoint-----------------> 20 Chapter 8: What does SharePoint look like?---------------------------------------> 24 For Case Studies please visit http://techimpact.org/our-impact/ All rights reserved Tech Impact 4 CHAPTER 1: Office 365 For Nonprofits You may not remember how earth shattering the release of Windows 95 was. Windows 3.1 preceded it and that was nothing more than another program that ran on DOS. It wasn’t useful. It was a curiosity. It did not change computing forever. Windows 95 changed computing forever. Specifically Windows 95 paired with Office. Together, they were a set of powerful tools with a completely new interface. The command line of DOS 6.0 was replaced with the point and click of your mouse. It was pretty, and it made computing accessible for a whole generation of folks who never wanted to learn about command lines or code. All rights reserved Tech Impact 5 Office 365 A new software package has arrived that is just as groundbreaking (in our opinion). Yet, it gets little fanfare. Office 365 does for cloud computing what Windows 95 did 20 years ago. It makes computing accessible in ways never before possible. You used to have to build a server to do this stuff. You used to need a computer that weighed 40 pounds (at home and at work). You used to have to remember to take the documents you needed home with you at the end of the night. You used to have to make sure the tape drive loaded properly. You used to have to know how to resuscitate a crashed server. Office 365 changes all of that. And it is available to qualified nonprofits as a donation. Let us show you what Office 365 can do for your nonprofit. Fill out this form to find out if your organization qualifies for an Office 365 donation: http://techimpact.org/our-services/cloud-services/npoffice/ All rights reserved Tech Impact 6 CHAPTER 2: What exactly can Office 365 do? In short, Office 365 is about collaboration and productivity. It is your “office in the sky”, so to speak. This is a hosted service, accessed over the internet. All the hard work takes place in a Microsoft data center and is delivered to you. Its core features replace your in-house Exchange server and provide a hosted email solution. It is, however, much more than email. With Office 365 you gain access to the following services: Email and Calendars: The same professional email you have from your server today, presented in the same format that you are comfortable using. Yes, you can still use Outlook on the web or on your computer. It also provides a calendar to keep track of your important appointments and the ability to share your schedule with your colleagues. No gimmicks, no unnecessary advertising, and your mail is not read by a search engine. In fact this service comes loaded with security features and over 25GB of storage. All rights reserved Tech Impact 7 Office 365 Instant Messaging With Lync Office 365 comes with Lync. Lync is where collaboration really takes place. It is much more than just an instant message tool. This allows you to see if your contacts are available for chats, conduct instant or planned group meetings, share desktops, share files, and develop presentations with each other, or a group, in real time. You can even use your PC as a phone and hold video conferences. This is truly collaboration at its best. Share Files With SharePoint Store your files, share your files, and manage your files. SharePoint is much more than a giant shared file system. This application gives an organization the ability to setup “sites”. You can develop sites that allow teams to share and collaborate on files. Collaborate in real time on documents or check one out to maintain version control. Instead of emailing large files between team members (you never do that right?), just share a link to the file that is stored on your site. You can also use this to manage external teams-think board members and committees. It is the hub of activity for an organization and it takes the dependency of a shared file system off of your server. It’s also highly secure and accessible wherever you are. All rights reserved Tech Impact 8 Office 365 “With guaranteed 99.9% uptime, you get to focus on what is important-your mission.” Replace Your Hard Drive With Sky Drive Pro This replaces your personal drive on the network. It is now your personal drive in the cloud. Easily store your private documents. You can also share them with others if you like. Each license of Office 365 provides the user with a 7 GB drive of personal storage. Work Remotely We will have another section in this eBook about remote users, but one of the most important features of Office 365 is the ability to work anywhere, anytime. When your files are in the cloud, you can access them from anywhere on any device: your Android or Apple phone, your tablet computer (yes, even your iPad), your office, or even your hotel room. Get Rid of Server Maintenance Perhaps the best feature of Office 365 is that it just works. Microsoft is now responsible for upgrading the software, backing up your files, and keeping your office up and running. With guaranteed 99.9% uptime, you get to focus on what is important- your mission. Move those support dollars and time to your programs and constituents and let Microsoft manage your email and files. Work smarter, not harder, and save money in the process. All rights reserved Tech Impact 9 CHAPTER 3: The Remote Workforce Imagine this. Your office is on the third floor of a three story building that is shared with other organizations. Someone leaves the coffee pot on overnight in an office on the second floor. It shorts and a small fire breaks out. Everyone is safe, and your office is completely untouched. BUT, you cannot get into the building. The fire department wants to investigate the incident and there is some water damage and smoke damage on the second floor. You may not be able to access your office for up to a week. “Stay home”, you advise your workers. “Get into the network using the VPN and stay current on your email”. Continue working on the grant that is stored on your shared folder. Then the calls start coming in, the team cannot remember their VPN passwords because they have not used them in months. The server is down because the fire caused the electric box to trip the outlet that your server is plugged into in your office. No one is there to reboot it. What now? Do you give your team time off until your server comes back online? All rights reserved Tech Impact 10 Office 365 This is where the value of cloud services comes in. That server in your office is a single-point-of-failure. Get rid of it! On the cloud, your email and files are not stored on that single- point-of-failure. You can still access your files and your email from anywhere at any time. Your staff can access their work from home, from the road, or from their local coffee shop with the same ease that they can from your office. You can still instant message, collaborate on that grant, and communicate with your board and external constituents. You pick-up and move-on as if nothing happened. That is powerful technology. That is a safety net. That is a disaster-proof strategy. Now, let’s imagine a different scenario: not about loss, but about productivity. Your field worker goes and meets with a client and takes notes. They come back to the office and type those notes into a form that is stored on your shared folder. Then they email the file to their manager so that they know what is going on with the client. How can we streamline this process? That is powerful technology. That is a safety net.” All rights reserved Tech Impact 11 Office 365 What if that same form were stored on SharePoint? The field worker, using their laptop or tablet computer, can update the notes in real time. Their tablet is their notebook. Since the document is in the cloud, the information is updated in real time. There is no duplicate entry. Before the end of the meeting with the client, the document is completed, the case history is updated, and an email is sent to the manger with a link to the document. That is productivity and efficiency. Now that case worker can see more clients instead of spending more time in the office. After all, your mission is not to create more paperwork; it is to reach more people! This is just a small example of how Office 365 can increase productivity for the mobile workforce.