Which Office 365 Package

[CrouchingWayne]

Hi guys

My wife and one other run a small business. They are looking to have backups & shared files so I have been recommended Office 365 instead of a local NAS.

What do you guys think is the best package for them with the following requirements:

1) There are two users who live at different addresses
2) They have a website domain which I have hosted & set up a couple of mailboxes - they will want to use Outlook to manage them however as the webmail offered by my host is pretty basic
3) They want desktop applications
4) They want to be able to backup and share documents

I had hoped they would get away with the Home version, but not sure it offers the same shared drive options? Plus with them at different addresses I think it is against the TOS.

That leaves 365 Business vs 365 Business Premium - difference seems to be built in mailbox. If I've got hosting already with email addresses am I as well going with the cheaper Business, or am I missing a trick somewhere?

Thanks

[randlemarcus]

Personally, i would go with Premium, but that's because i then wouldn't have to support the mailboxes (and the inevitable "i have a cheap Android, how do i" type questions).

Work looking at things like Bookings to see what stuff is rolling down from Preview. Clever Microsoft.

[CrouchingWayne]

Yea I guess for £18 a year it might be worth going with the premium for ease.

Probably a stupid question, if I have their domain (Godaddy) is it easy enough to use it for email with Office 365 but host a website somewhere else (Vidahost in this case?)

Unless Office 365 offers any kind of hosting for their site which I don't think it does?

[TheD]

You just need to allow Microsoft to look after the dns and then create an A record with Microsoft to point back to your website IP

[Wombat3]

TheD said:

You just need to allow Microsoft to look after the dns and then create an A record with Microsoft to point back to your website IP

+1 a world of pain if you try & run the DNS elsewhere, just let Office 365 do it.

[Whoozit]

Wombat3 said:

+1 a world of pain if you try & run the DNS elsewhere, just let Office 365 do it.

?

I'm reasonably IT literate but a newbie to MX records. I was still able to set up a website with Weebly, and point the email to Outlook with Office 365. Took a little fannying around to make sure I was entering the right records, as the Weebly MX record management interface wasn't user friendly. Otherwise it's been seamless and stable for 5 months now.

[CrouchingWayne]

Thanks guys - I've gone with the Pro version to get the full email package. I'm not an IT wizard, but found the setup process to add the MS DNS to the domain via Vidahost the easiest way to set up. That said, I'm not sure it's working fully yet as I set it up and then turned off for the night!

It seems to give me an onmicrosoft email, how do I add @mydomain.com ones? I spent 5 mins looking last night but it didn't seem immediately obvious.

[Whoozit]

CrouchingWayne said:

Thanks guys - I've gone with the Pro version to get the full email package. I'm not an IT wizard, but found the setup process to add the MS DNS to the domain via Vidahost the easiest way to set up. That said, I'm not sure it's working fully yet as I set it up and then turned off for the night!

It seems to give me an onmicrosoft email, how do I add @mydomain.com ones? I spent 5 mins looking last night but it didn't seem immediately obvious.

From memory, go into the O365 account settings and change the users. I don't recall exactly. At one point I had 3 different Microsoft accounts, one original personal, and two other onmicrosoft.com ones, for some reason.

[randlemarcus]

portal.office.com,admin and find domains.

You are basically adding a label to the domain, and then change the users smtp addresses.

[cpjitservices]

If you want to send me a message, I run cloud email services for businesses and starts from 6.50 a month.

It will Sync with every device and is compatible with MS Outlook. I can also add cloud antivirus into the offering.

[Wombat3]

Whoozit said:

Wombat3 said:

+1 a world of pain if you try & run the DNS elsewhere, just let Office 365 do it.

?

I'm reasonably IT literate but a newbie to MX records. I was still able to set up a website with Weebly, and point the email to Outlook with Office 365. Took a little fannying around to make sure I was entering the right records, as the Weebly MX record management interface wasn't user friendly. Otherwise it's been seamless and stable for 5 months now.

Couldn't get it to behave itself. It was much easier to let MS deal with the DNS & just point the web traffic elsewhere.

[P4ulB]

I use Office 365 Premium and can't recommend it enough although it would be over £18 a MONTH for 2 users not a year based on an annual commitment.

[alock]

CrouchingWayne said:

Probably a stupid question, if I have their domain (Godaddy) is it easy enough to use it for email with Office 365 but host a website somewhere else (Vidahost in this case?)

We had exactly the same last year. Website on vidahost and email elsewhere. 25 person company with no internal IT department (just a couple of hypervisors running a few dozen test environments which take very little management).

I'm a developer so techie but no specialist knowledge. I migrated everything one Sunday morning from home to avoid weekday downtime. The Office 365 administration area provides details instructions for modifying the MX records which I applied to our vidahost control panel. Easy.

[MintyScot]

If you have business broadband with BT you can get 365 premium free with a premium fiber broadband package or if you have just normal fiber you can get £5 off the 365 premium.

Good way of saving some pennies if your already with BT Business.

Overall its a decent packaged but Microsofts admin side is super flaky right now and a right pain in the backside.

[GlenMH]

alock said:

The Office 365 administration area provides details instructions for modifying the MX records which I applied to our vidahost control panel. Easy.

+1 for this. Vidahost DNS and website, O365 mail has been faultless for a couple of years now after I set it up and likewise, I am no techie!

[Sheepshanks]

MintyScot said:

Overall its a decent packaged but Microsofts admin side is super flaky right now and a right pain in the backside.

Agree with this. I run 365 Business Premium for our company of 30 people spread across europe. There's often an "uncertainty" about the way the admin console works - sometimes some pages just won't load.

At a superficial level it's quite easy to use, but I think it sometimes expects that you're a guru in every area - is Echange, Sharepoint, etc etc.

One thing I'd advise (sorry if this is obvious) is set up a separate Admin account (doesn't need a licence) with two factor authentication for the log-in. Don't use a user account for admin puposes.