How to Control and Manage Office 365

In many ways Office 365 is a digital workplace. It enables employees to improve productivity and job satisfaction by removing the dependency on a centralized office, desk and device. With a focus on enabling collaboration without boundaries, Microsoft's cloud productivity suite is continuously being updated with tools that allow employees to engage with each other and share enterprise content using any device from anywhere at any time.

The challenge facing enterprise IT administrators’ lies in the ability to control and manage this digital workspace with its broad feature set and frequent updates, not to mention managing the digital worker’s expectations. Microsoft knows this. As a result, there are various ways that the company is helping to ensure that the control of Office 365 environments for organizations lies in the hands of the IT admin.

Office 365 Configuration

Given the daunting task of delivering a consistently great user experience, Microsoft has proactively introduced learning and support tools for Office 365 administrators. For instance, the process of assigning service licenses to specific users can become a repetitive process required each time a user is added. If you have a Microsoft Gold Partner, like CallTower, at your disposal, they can help you manage this process. 

For each new user, a number of settings will need configuring, which often requires a substantial amount of time and effort often from multiple administrators. But with the Office 365 Admin Dashboard, users can be added in bulk using the bulk add users wizard which only manages user configuration and not service settings.

Office 365 Admin Center

The Office 365 Admin Center is also another component in Office 365 which enables the administrator to add users, manage domains, licenses, etc., by making use of a number of features and settings for managing the organization. It's also possible to open separate admin centers for various services which can be used for managing the available settings for the individual services, although this largely depends on the plan and region the organization fall into.

The Message center is another tool that ensures that any changes and updates to the organization's environment or services are communicated effectively to the Office 365 administrator. It also provides quick access to the latest product innovations before they become publicly available.

Admins looking for help and advice can gain access to a number of useful articles from a list on the Office 365 Admin help website. The learning center category of content is useful for both business and education, and provides learning for admins on installing Office, setting up mobile devices and navigating Office 365 for business.Microsoft works hard on iteratively improving Office 365, which obviously means that administrators will need to be up to speed on subsequent releases and ongoing change.

Partner Admin Portals

CallTower, as a Microsoft Gold Partner, has developed an admin portal that gives easy access for IT administrators to Office 365 management (as well as management for other services like Microsoft Teams and CT Cloud Voice). Teaming with a Microsoft Gold Partner can empower your team with faster access, reduced admin workloads and a robust US-based 24/7/365 support system. Partner Admin Portals, like CallTower's CallTower Connect, can also help manage voicemail, password sync, email, audio conferencing, auto attendants and analytics. 

CallTower is offering free Office 365 consultations for inquiring businesses - please sign up by clicking below: