What is Microsoft 365?

For more detailed information, visit https://www.microsoft.com/en-ww/microsoft-365/support.

Microsoft 365 is a subscription service that provides users with the basic productivity applications necessary to get work done in the modern enterprise. Productivity applications include, but are not limited to, a word processor, a spreadsheet, an email client, a calendar, and a presentation application. In fact, because of Microsoft 365’s cloud-based structure, the suite of productivity applications is constantly being updated and improved.

As an example, a Premium subscription to Microsoft 365 includes these applications:

• Word: This app sets the standard for word processors and is available with Microsoft 365 for both Standard and Premium. If users in your enterprise need to create documents, this is the tool they will use. 
• Excel: The spreadsheet has been the workhorse for basic data analysis since its invention back in the previous century. Excel is the current standard-bearer and comes with Microsoft 365 for Standard and Premium. 
• Outlook: Microsoft 365’s solution for managing email and an appointment calendar is called Outlook. The app has been around for many years and its busy interface tends to be either loved or hated by users.
• PowerPoint: Communicating information to a group of individuals at a meeting often involves a presentation. Microsoft 365’s PowerPoint allows users to create, display, and disseminate information in formats ranging from the basic slide to animation to video. 
• Publisher: Sometimes communicating information to a broader audience requires something more permanent and more formal than a presentation at a meeting. The Publisher app in Microsoft 365 provides users with the tools they need to publish professional-looking newsletters, brochures, and booklets. 
• OneNote: As the workforce has become more mobile, the need to capture information on the go has become increasingly important. Applications like OneNote allow users to take notes on any device and then retrieve those notes from any other device. It’s your basic productivity cloud app. 
• OneDrive: The other basic and fundamental cloud-based application is storage. With each Microsoft 365 subscription, Microsoft provides users with up to 1 TB of cloud storage in the form of an application called OneDrive for Business. 
• SharePoint: A subscription to Microsoft 365 Premium also provides an enterprise with a few applications for backend infrastructure management. SharePoint, for example, can be used to host intranet websites for the enterprise. It also can be used to host smaller sites designed for smaller teams or divisions. The permissions for these sites can be designated by the users themselves or by appointed administrators. 
• Exchange: Each Microsoft 365 for Business subscription includes an Exchange Server, which handles all the email management duties. By default, each user is granted 50 GB of storage for email. Maintenance of the Exchange Server is generally handled at the administrator level. 
• Microsoft Teams: Younger members of the modern enterprise workforce are very familiar and comfortable with chat applications. To satisfy the needs of those employees, Microsoft 365 now includes a chat-based workspace that integrates people, content, and tools into a single platform. 
• License scope: One licensed subscription to Microsoft 365 covers five phones, five tablets, and five PCs or Macs per user.
• Collaboration tools: Along with the typical productivity applications, Microsoft 365 includes many collaboration tools like Delve, Yammer, and Sway. These tools allow users to communicate, brainstorm ideas, share documents, and have video meetings while on the go. 
• Infrastructure: All Microsoft 365 subscriptions include a reliability guarantee of 99.9% uptime. In addition, permissions for internal access control are handled by administrators designated by the enterprise using tools supplied by Active Directory. Each Microsoft 365 subscription includes five layers of security and proactive monitoring to help safeguard your data. 
• Flow: Managing workflow in a dynamic business and across various applications can consume precious time and resources. Flow provides a simple system to manage notifications within Microsoft 365 across all of the applications you use. 
• To-Do: An update to Microsoft 365 has added the To-Do app to the productivity suite. No longer an afterthought piggybacking on the Calendar app, To-Do is now a feature-rich standalone application that integrates with the rest of Microsoft 365.