Home Business & Other Office 365 Essentials

Office 365 Essentials

By Nuno Arias Silva
books-svg-icon Book
eBook $25.99 $17.99
Print $32.99
Subscription $15.99 $10 p/m for three months
$10 p/m for first 3 months. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel Anytime!
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats, plus a monthly download credit
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with video?
Stream this video
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
What do you get with Exam Trainer?
Flashcards, Mock exams, Exam Tips, Practice Questions
Access these resources with our interactive certification platform
Mobile compatible-Practice whenever, wherever, however you want
BUY NOW $10 p/m for first 3 months. $15.99 p/m after that. Cancel Anytime!
eBook $25.99 $17.99
Print $32.99
Subscription $15.99 $10 p/m for three months
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 7000+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook + Subscription?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats, plus a monthly download credit
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with a Packt Subscription?
This book & 6500+ ebooks & video courses on 1000+ technologies
60+ curated reading lists for various learning paths
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Early Access to eBooks as they are being written
Personalised content suggestions
Customised display settings for better reading experience
50+ new titles added every month on new and emerging tech
Playlists, Notes and Bookmarks to easily manage your learning
Mobile App with offline access
What do you get with eBook?
Download this book in EPUB and PDF formats
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Read whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better reading experience
What do you get with video?
Download this video in MP4 format
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with video?
Stream this video
Access this title in our online reader
DRM FREE - Watch whenever, wherever and however you want
Online reader with customised display settings for better learning experience
What do you get with Audiobook?
Download a zip folder consisting of audio files (in MP3 Format) along with supplementary PDF
What do you get with Exam Trainer?
Flashcards, Mock exams, Exam Tips, Practice Questions
Access these resources with our interactive certification platform
Mobile compatible-Practice whenever, wherever, however you want
  1. Free Chapter
    Introduction to Office 365
About this book
Office 365 is suite of advanced collaboration tools used by many well known organizations and their system administrators. This book starts with an introduction to Office 365 and its basic fundamentals. Then we move towards workload management and deployment. You will delve into identities, authentications, and managing office 365. We also cover concepts such as collaboration with Microsoft teams and tools such as Delve and Skype for collaboration. Towards the end of the book, you'll master monitoring and security concepts. By the end of this book, you will have hands-on experience working with Office 365 and its collaboration tools and services
Publication date:
May 2018
Publisher
Packt
Pages
394
ISBN
9781788622073

 

Introduction to Office 365

In this chapter, we will introduce you to the foundations of Office 365. This chapter will cover the following topics:

  • Office 365 products
  • Office 365 plans
  • Licensing
  • Terminology

With this introduction of the foundations of Office 365, you will have a better understanding of what Office 365 is.

 

Products within Office 365

The cloud is the latest innovation in the information technology (IT) world. Companies are changing the way they use their technologies, migrating their workloads to the cloud to access new technologies, and optimizing their budgets to be more competitive in the market. These kinds of technologies have their own innovations and new features that are only available in the cloud, while others might, eventually, be available on premises at a later time.

Office 365 is a software as a service (SaaS) product, which means you don't need to worry about energy, data centers, hardware, redundancy, operating systems, security, or features updates. It is an enterprise solution available to organizations of all sizes, and one of its big advantages is that you only pay for what you want to use.

 

Office 365 Enterprise versus Office 365 Home

The difference between Office 365 Enterprise and Office 365 Home has to do with the difference between the requirements of enterprises and large organizations versus those of home users. Home users simply want to use the email system and simple editing tools, and be able to share documents and files. Organizations need security auditing and access to other types of information that the home users do not need.

 

Office 365 plans

What are the Office 365 plans? Plans are predefined mixes of products and features of Office 365 that you can use in your organization based on your needs.

This mix of products will consist of a combination of Exchange, SharePoint, Skype for Business, and other workloads and features, for example:

  • Office 365 ProPlus or Essentials: Desktop productivity suite
  • Exchange Online: Enterprise-class email solution
  • SharePoint Online: Collaboration, repository, and file sharing
  • Skype for Business: Online communication, including video and voice calls

These productivity tools have their own features and, combined with other products, they will have the integration that the end users need. Organizations need to keep their software and solutions updated to be competitive in the market, and they need to evaluate their IT costs based on what is needed and when. But with Office 365, these features are updated on a weekly or monthly basis to help organizations stay up to date without requiring big upgrade projects, such as those that are needed for on-premises systems.

While this book is based on a technology that is constantly changing, the core products and plans have not changed much since the beginning of Office 365. The Office 365 plans differ with respect to the Enterprise and Business plans according to the size and type of your organization.

At the time of writing this chapter, the plans are divided into six different groups:

  • Home
  • Small business
  • Education
  • Nonprofit
  • Enterprise
  • Firstline Workers

There are also individual services, such as the following:

You can view the updated version of these plans here at https://products.office.com/en/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans. The plan that is most used by organizations is the Enterprise plan.
 

Periodic table of Office 365

One of the best ways to understand Office 365 is to start with the periodic table of Office 365, created by Matt Wade and Niels Gregers Johansen. To have access to the full-site experience of the periodic table of Office 365, go to http://jumpto365.com/.

This periodic table was created for potential customers and users to easily and quickly understand the products that make up Office 365, and to visualize the features combined in the areas of each workload.

Office 365 encompasses several workloads, and the periodic table of Office 365 shows these as being grouped in several areas:

In summary, this periodic table will help you understand the services and tools that are included in Office 365.

If you are Portuguese like me, you can view the translated version (made by me) at http://jumpto365.com/#/periodictable/pt.
 

Home

In Office 365 Home, there are four plans:

  • Office 365 Home
  • Office 365 Personal
  • Office Home & Student 2016 for PC
  • Office Home & Business 2016

These plans have the following features:

  • Office 365 Home:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Personal:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Home & Student:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
  • Office 365 Home & Business:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices

To view all the latest features, go to https://products.office.com/en/office-365-home.

 

Business

In Office 365 Business, there are three plans:

  • Office 365 Business
  • Office 365 Business Premium
  • Office 365 Business Essentials

The main features of these plans are as follows:

  • Office 365 Business:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Business Premium:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Business Essentials:
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business

To view the latest features, go to https://products.office.com/en/business/office-365-business.

 

Education

In Office 365 Education, there are two plans:

  • Office 365 for Education (100% free)
  • Office 365 Education E5

The main features of these plans are as follows:

  • Office 365 for Education (100% free):
    • Office on the web
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Education E5:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 100 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business

To view the latest features, go to https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/education/products/office/default.aspx.

 

Nonprofit

In Office 365 Nonprofit, there are five plans:

  • Office 365 Nonprofit Business Essentials
  • Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E1
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E3
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E5

The main features of these plans are as follows:

  • Office 365 Nonprofit Business Essentials:
    • Office on the web
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E1:
    • Office on the web
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E3:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 100 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Nonprofit E5:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 100 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business

To view the latest features, go to https://products.office.com/en/nonprofit/office-365-nonprofit-plans-and-pricing?tab=1.

 

Enterprise

In Office 365 Enterprise, there are four plans:

  • Office 365 ProPlus
  • Office 365 Enterprise E1
  • Office 365 Enterprise E3
  • Office 365 Enterprise E5

The main features of these plans are as follows:

  • Office 365 ProPlus:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
  • Office 365 Enterprise E1:
    • Office on the web
    • 50 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Enterprise E3:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 100 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
  • Office 365 Enterprise E5:
    • Office installed on PC, Mac, or mobile devices
    • 100 GB of mailbox
    • 1 TB of OneDrive for Business
    • Advanced security
    • Analytics (My Analytics)
    • Advanced voice features Public Switched Telephony Network (PSTN)

To view the latest features, go to https://products.office.com/en/business/compare-more-office-365-for-business-plans.

 

Firstline Workers

 

Office 365 plans – summary

This summary is intended to provide you with a better understanding of the fact that the plans that Microsoft has created are always based on the type and size of your organization.
It is possible to combine plans in the enterprise that fit your needs based on your experience of these kinds of products. However, it is advised that you contact a gold productivity partner to help you select which plans best fit your organization.
You can also see that the Office 365 service descriptions provide additional details about each plan. For more information you can refer to https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office-365-service-descriptions.aspx.

Feature availability across Office 365 plans

For specific information about the plans pricing and features regarding specific business types, see the following web pages:

Many of the Office 365 business plans have add-ons that you can buy for your subscription. An add-on offers added functionality to the subscription. For more information, you can see the specific add-ons that are available for different versions of Office 365 for Business at https://support.office.com/en-us/article/buy-or-edit-an-add-on-for-office-365-for-business-4e7b57d6-b93b-457d-aecd-0ea58bff07a6?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US.

The following table is a summary of features across business subscriptions:

Features

Office 365 Business Essentials

Office 365 Business

Office 365 Business Premium

Office 365 Education

Office 365 Enterprise E1

Office 365 Enterprise E3

Office 365 Enterprise E5 /Office 365 E5 Education

Office 365 Enterprise F1

Administers Office 365 by using the Office 365 admin center or Windows PowerShell

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Protects content by using Azure Information Protection

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

No

Microsoft Bookings

No

No

Yes

No

No

No

No

No

Microsoft Flow

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Forms

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Graph API

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft MyAnalytics

No

No

No

No

No

No

Yes

No

Microsoft Planner

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

No

Microsoft PowerApps

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft StaffHub

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Microsoft Teams10

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Office Delve

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Office 365 Groups

Yes

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Office 365 Video

No

No

No

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

OneNote Class Notebook

No

No

No

Yes

No

No

Yes

No

Sway

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

Yes

 

Licensing

Office 365's licensing is based on the type of organization you have. Office 365 is Microsoft's productivity solution in the cloud. It is sold as suites that are available for every organization, regardless of their size. Depending on the suite, Office 365 can include the full downloadable Office client, also available as a set of web-based applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and so on), business-class email, file sharing, meeting and communications solutions, and an internal collaboration social network—all while helping to keep data private and protected from potential threats. Office 365 provides users with simple management IT solutions, grants them access to the productivity solution from anywhere, and comes with a financially backed service level agreement.

Subscription model

Office 365 provides the ability for organizations to add and remove licenses, and enterprises are billed on an annual or monthly basis, depending on the type of subscription and the way that you purchased them from our partner.

Office 365 volume licensing

 

Office 365 technical dependencies

The previously mentioned Office 365 suites are a collection of online services that, when purchased together, give customers what we call a suite discount. Customers who do not need or want to buy full suites can purchase individual services as separate products. Note that some of these online services have technical dependencies on others. For example, Exchange Online Protection (EOP) provides an added level of security to the Exchange Online and/or Exchange server services; customers can't use EOP if they don't have either Exchange Online or Exchange server deployed.

For more information on the technical dependencies, refer to https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/office-365-service-descriptions.aspx.

 

Terminology

As more and more organizations move to the cloud, Office 365 is continuing to grow in popularity. With this growth comes a variety of new terms that users and organizations need to understand. The following is a list of common Office 365 terms that you should familiarize yourself with as you explore this new world:

  • Microsoft Office 365: Microsoft Office 365 is a suite of productivity tools and services that can be used both online and through desktop versions. Microsoft Office 365 includes many productivity programs, such as Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, SharePoint, and OneNote among others. It can be used like a brand or just Office 365.
  • Microsoft 365: Microsoft 365 is a packaged offering of Windows, Office 365, and security products.
  • OneNote: Microsoft OneNote is an application that helps you to take and share notes, and supports multiple users editing at the same time. Users can use it to take both handwritten and typed notes, audio, drawings, and screenshots.
  • OneDrive for Business: OneDrive for Business allows users to store, modify, sync, and share files collaboratively in real time. OneDrive is a fully cloud-based service.
  • Sway: Sway is a digital storytelling tool that helps to create new types of presentation or personal stories.
  • SharePoint: SharePoint allows organizations to create websites to store, share, and organize information from almost any device. With SharePoint, all of an organization's important data can be accessed from any web browser and with any device.
  • Outlook: Microsoft Outlook is the business email client that is part of the Office 365 suite. Outlook can also refer to a webmail client, Outlook Web Access (OWA), which can be used to access email through a web browser.
  • Excel: Microsoft Excel is a spreadsheet tool that offers organizations the ability to access and analyze many types of data.
  • PowerPoint: Microsoft PowerPoint is a program that helps to create presentations. Users integrate data from other Office programs directly into their presentations for presenting and sharing, and to share knowledge.
  • Skype for Business: Skype for Business is an enterprise product that is used for messaging, voice calling, and video calling. Skype for Business has tools that help organizations to communicate in an easy way. The following are some of these tools:
    • Skype Meeting Broadcast: Skype Meeting Broadcast is a platform that helps organizations to broadcast and host online meetings to large audiences of up to 10,000 attendees
    • PSTN Conferencing: PSTN Conferencing is a feature that allows users to dial into a meeting from a physical phone as opposed to a mobile device or PC
    • Cloud PBX with PSTN Calling: Cloud PBX with PSTN Calling allows people in your organization the ability to connect to the existing PSTN
  • Microsoft Teams: Microsoft Teams is a new way of coworking, and is quickly becoming the next generation of digital workplaces. It combines multiple Office 365 products, and exposes them so that they can be accessed in a central place. Some examples of these products are Skype for Business, SharePoint, OneDrive, and Planner, among others.
  • Yammer: Yammer is a private social network for your organization. Yammer helps your organization to connect and share information, and can be configured to have groups outside of your organization.
  • Office Online: Office Online is a suite of full, web-based versions of Word, Excel, OneNote, and PowerPoint. It helps the users to work with documents from any device using a browser.
  • Microsoft Stream: Microsoft Stream is a new cloud-based video service that uses the power of intelligent enterprise video to enable knowledge sharing, easier communication, and connectivity in a secure enterprise environment. Microsoft Stream is the successor to Office 365 Video, built on Azure Media Services. It allows playback at scale across any device.
  • Azure Rights Management Services (Azure RMS): Azure RMS is an information-security solution to help organizations protect their data where the content resides.
  • Data Loss Prevention (DLP): DLP in Office 365 allows the management and monitoring of and response to sensitive information within your organization through content analysis.
  • Delve: Office Delve helps the users of your organization to reach and collaborate more in a way that can view what is happening within your organization and across Office 365.
  • Azure AD Connect: Azure AD Connect helps your organization to synchronize its on-premises identities to Office 365.
  • PowerShell: PowerShell is another tool that helps organizations to automate and perform several tasks. It allows administrators to write PowerShell scripts to create users, create external contacts, and change user attributes.
  • Admin delegation: Using admin delegation in Office 365, organizations can assign some or all of Office 365's admin tasks to other users or to a Microsoft Cloud Partner.
  • Hybrid identity: If our organization includes both cloud and on-premises infrastructure, hybrid identity management provides a method to integrate both environments. With Azure AD Connect, you can synchronize users, groups, contacts, and passwords to Office 365.
  • Exchange Online: Exchange Online is a hosted email messaging solution of Office 365 cloud-based services.
  • Tenant: The word tenant refers to an Office 365 cloud area specific to your organization.
  • Tenant name: The tenant name is your domain name, such as yourdomain.onmicrosoft.com. It is set up when you subscribe to Office 365 and it cannot be changed. When you create your tenant, the wizard that creates your Office 365 subscription asks for your organization's name. If it is available, it can be used. Now, with Office 365, within many organizations worldwide you may have to choose a different name, such as yourdomaincorp.onmicrosoft.com because some other organization in another country may have chosen that name already.
  • Screenshots and examples: The screenshots, examples, and instructions described in this book are based on Office 365 with the 2016 versions of the software in a tenant that has the first release option active, which might include features that are previews of the final release before this book's publication date. Given the constant evolution of Office 365, your Office 365 may not match some of the instructions or screenshots in this book. This book will have regular updates to address the changes to this new world.
  • Trust Center: This is a portal in which Microsoft shows, with great transparency, a lot of information about security and privacy. In this portal, you can see which products and services within your location have which certifications. You can access it at https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/trustcenter/cloudservices/office365. The Office 365 Trust Center is the portal that aggregates all updated privacy and security issues related to Office 365 in just one location. The Trust Center has three pillars:
    • Privacy
    • Security
    • Compliance

In this portal, you will have access to recommended resources, documents, blogs, white papers, and the service trust platform.

 

Summary

In this chapter, you learned about the main Office 365 products that are used in organizations, the Office 365 plans that best fit most companies and which benefits Microsoft has to give your organization, a summary of licensing that Microsoft uses for organizations and how it will cover your support, and finally, terminology to help you in this book to learn or to go over certain points or products that your organization already has or will have in the near future.

You now have more information on what can be used in Office 365, and this chapter has helped you understand the foundations of Office 365.

In the next chapter, you will learn the fundamentals of Office 365 to help you implement Office 365 in your organization successfully.

About the Author
  • Nuno Arias Silva

    With a master's degree in IT and more than 20 years of working experience, Nuno Árias Silva is a specialist in Office 365, focusing on Exchange, Virtualization, and System Center. Nuno has over 30 certifications—MCT, MCSE, MCITP, MCSA, MCTS, and many more. He has worked in the aerospace, transportation, financial services, government, and health care industries. Currently, he is a manager at Gfi Portugal, and he has assisted Microsoft with various workshops. He also contributes to blogs. He has been a speaker at Microsoft events such as Microsoft Ignite, SPS Events, and TUGA IT.

    Browse publications by this author
Latest Reviews (1 reviews total)
I was looking for this books
Office 365 Essentials
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Start now