Getting started with Microsoft 365

We start by registering and setting up the default services for your chosen Microsoft 365 subscription plan based on information you provide in a short questionnaire.  Then by applying the configuration settings in our process, we hand over to you with guidance and documentation so that you are up and running.   For anyone considering the move to 365 who may be currently using Zoom, read our comparison between Microsoft 365 Business Standard and a Zoom Pro subscription for the benefits.

We create the essential users for your environment and provide templates of these so you can easily create more if needed.

• Standard Users - These daily user accounts for accessing email, files & messaging services.
• Administrators-  Accounts with the ability to make configuration changes within the environment. For security reasons, these should be different to user accounts.
• Emergency Users - These are accounts kept purely for emergency use to ensure you never find yourself without access to your data.

By default, there's a number of email settings that are configured for you when you start using Exchange Online for your email.  Some of these cannot be configured such as the threat protection Microsoft enable to reduce the threat of viruses and malware attacking you via email

As part of our package we apply a default signature to your emails, a brief disclaimer which is automatically appended to all your outgoing messages and we configure settings to help prevent your emails ending up in customers spam folders. 

Access to your information from anywhere is fantastic but it also means the possibility of others accessing your information from wherever they may be.  To help provide extra layers of security we add additional configuration settings such as;

• Setup and enable Multi factor authentication (MFA) 
• Enabling users to reset forgotten passwords without admin involvement.
• Configure the ability to remotely instigate factory reset on lost/stolen devices.
• Implement restrictions on sharing files to help prevent them ending up in the wrong place.

Phishing attacks are quite common and usually work by re-directing users to a standard looking Microsoft 365 login page so that usernames and passwords can be recorded.  

Building on our security principles, we will brand your sign in page with colours, logos and a background (supplied by yourself) to help build confidence that your users and clients are signing into the right place.  

We also configure the ability for your clients without a Microsoft account to sign in with an existing Google username, making it even easier to work with non-Microsoft users.

We appreciate this might be a lot to take in and there's more we do behind the scenes.  That's why we also provide some helpful user guides to assist you with basic tasks such as: 

• How to share files from SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
• Setup and join meetings via Microsoft Teams
• How to add new users as your business grows 
• Resetting lost or stolen devices
• Instructions for onboarding users for MFA and password reset
• How to sign in without using passwords

If something does go wrong, tracking down issues and problems without a history of events can be a major headache.  Auditing is not enabled by default and capturing error messages is not possible unless it's running.  We will setup auditing to record events for 90 days and will also configure emails to be sent for the most common of alerts.