Michael Noel is an expert on Office 365 tools and features. His document provides an overview of the core pillars in Office 365 including Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business, and Skype for Business/Teams. It also examines additional value-added tools such as Yammer, Delve, Forms, PowerApps, and Flow. The document concludes with a discussion of Office 365 licensing plans and a comparison to competitor products.

1. 365;
Understanding the Tools
and Features of Office 365
MICHAEL NOEL, CCO

2. Michael Noel @MichaelTNoel
Authored 20 books including the best
selling SharePoint, Exchange, and
Windows Unleashed series
Presented at over 220 events in over 80
countries around the world
Microsoft MVP, first awarded in 2007
Partner at Convergent Computing in the
San Francisco Bay Area (cco.com)

3. Office 365 as a Suite with Core Pillars
When purchasing Office 365
licenses, you gain access to the
entire stack of Microsoft’s
online offerings, which includes
the following core pillars:
• Exchange Online (EXOL)
• SharePoint Online (SPOL)
• OneDrive for Business (OD4B)
• Skype for Business (S4B) / Teams
Office 365 also provides for an
increasing number of additional
value-added tools

4. Exchange Online
THE MESSAGING PILLAR IN OFFICE 365

5. Overview of Features in Exchange Online
50GB(+) Mailboxes for each user
Built-in archiving and records
retention options
High Availability and Disaster
Tolerance built-in
The same proven technology used by
Microsoft Exchange Server and used
and understood by millions of
Outlook users for messaging and
calendaring but without the back-end
server administration overhead

6. SharePoint Online
THE COLLABORATION AND DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT PILLAR IN
OFFICE 365

7. Common use case scenario
for SharePoint Online
Provides for the ability to
save and store documents
Advanced functionality
including:
◦ Document check-in/check-out
◦ Versioning
◦ Multi-authoring
Document and Records Management

8. Provides the ability to display business
information in graphical format
Tools include PowerPivot, Excel Services,
Power View, etc.
Create visuals based on dynamic real-
time on-premises data using Business
Connectivity Services
Business Intelligence

9. Skype for Business
THE INSTANT MESSAGING AND AUDIO/VIDEO CONFERENCING
PILLAR IN OFFICE 365

10. The Cloud based version of Microsoft’s On-
Premises Tool for Instant Messaging, Video
Conferencing, etc.
Currently related to ‘traditional’ consumer
Skype in name only, though integration
exists
Skype for Business

11. Microsoft Teams Replacing S4B
Threaded discussion
board for quick
communications
Frees organizations from
some of the slowness of
email-based
communications
Microsoft announced
that Teams will replace
the online S4B tool soon

12. OneDrive for Business
THE EXTERNAL AND INTERNAL FILE SHARING PILLAR IN OFFICE 365

13. Purpose-built
file sharing
application
Upload and
share large
files with local
and/or remote
users
OneDrive for Business Features

14. Additional Tools
EXAMINING THE GROWING NUMBER OF BUILT-IN ADDITIONAL
TOOLS IN OFFICE 365

15. Enterprise Social provides
‘Facebook for the
Enterprise’ capabilities
Microsoft acquired
‘Yammer’ to provide for
SaaS based Enterprise
Social features
Included in Office 365
Enterprise or Business
Plans
Enterprise Social and Yammer

16. Personalized Discovery with Delve
Delve automatically
personalizes content
across Office 365
Shows what
colleagues are
working on and
which documents are
popular

17. Collaboration with Office 365 Groups
Office 365 Groups are a
combination SharePoint
Site, team Calendar,
Mailbox, Notebook all
with conversation
threading
Users can self-create
Groups for Projects or
for specific teams

18. Organize Media with Microsoft Stream
Evolution of Office
365 Video
Videos can be
organized into
channels and
secured
Machine learning
based content
discovery

19. Create Surveys and Quizzes with Microsoft Forms
Quick and easy form
generation tool
Create surveys and
quizzes for users and
graphically display
results easily

20. Create Custom Apps with PowerApps
Design and deploy custom
mobile apps for mobile
devices
Quickly and easily surface
custom data sources to build
quick and easy apps that can
be immediately used

21. Create Stunning Presentations with Sway
Create next generation
presentations that look
great from any mobile
device
Quickly design and then
immediately release your
presentations to social
media platforms

22. Automate Activities with Flow
Create custom automation workflows that
allow you to focus on your work instead of
your ‘busy work.’
Automate with built-in templates or create
new actions
Large list of actions to choose from, and
integrates natively with several third party
platforms

23. Manage Staff Workers with StaffHub
StaffHub allows front-line
staff workers to manage
schedules and provide for
access to work resources
Useful for retail stores,
hotels, restaurants,
manufacturing and other
service-related industries
Available as an app in the
iOS/Android stores

24. Surface Business Data with PowerBI
PowerBI provides for
a rich set of data
visualization tools
that let you better
examine data
In Preview now –
directly integrate a
PowerBI dashboard
within a SharePoint
Online site without
code

25. Powerful AI with MyAnalytics
Uses Back-end
Artificial Intelligence
to analyze your email
habits and suggest
changes to help
focus
Outlook add-in
install, also built in to
Outlook Web App

26. Security and Compliance Center
A ‘one-stop shop’ for
all security and
compliance activities
in Office 365
Set DLP Policies,
analyze traffic and
threats, view security
report and perform
legal discovery

27. Organize Tasks with Microsoft To-Do
Designed to replace
Wunderlist, which
MS acquired
Create detailed task
lists and set due
dates
Currently in Preview,
must be enabled in
the admin center

28. Visit
roadmap.office.com for
the latest roadmap of
new features
Useful to understand
how Office 365 will be
updated and what new
tools are coming out
Office 365 Roadmap

29. Licensing and Plans
DETERMINING WHICH OFFICE 365 LICENSING PLAN IS RIGHT FOR
YOUR ORGANIZATION

30. Office 365
Business
Essentials
Office 365
Business
Office 365
Business
Premium
Price/user/month (USD) $5.00 $8.25 $12.50
Office on up to 5 PCs/Macs  
Office on up to 5 tablets/phones  
Online Office Word/Excel/PowerPoint   
1TB File Storage   
Professional Digital Storytelling Tools   
50GB Mailbox with Calendaring/Contacts  
Unlimited Online Meetings with Skype for Business  
Corporate Social Network  
Small Business (<300 Users)

31. ‘A la carte’ Plans Frontline
Plan
Enterprise/Govt/Edu Plans
Plan Office Pro
Plus
EXOL –
Plan 1
EXOL –
Plan 2
SPOL –
Plan 1
SPOL –
Plan 2
S4B –
Plan 1
S4B –
Plan 2
OD4B –
Plan 1
OD4B –
Plan 2
F1 E1 E3 E5
Price/user/month (USD) $12.00 $4.00 $8.00 $5.00 $10.00 $2.00 $5.50 $5.00 $10.00 $5.00 $8.00 $20.00 $35.00
Office Web App (R/W)  
Office Web App (Read)        
Full Office Pro Plus Suite   
Adv. Search, Access/Visio/Excel Services   
Collaboration in Sites     
Data Loss Prevention (DLP)     
Voicemail / Archiving (50GB+)    
Email / Calendaring     
Application Sharing / Multiparty / Advanced
IM / Online Meetings
  
IM / Presence     
Enterprise Social   
External File Sharing     
Hosted voice with Cloud PBX / PSTN 
Advanced Security Mgmt/Cust. Lockbox 
Power BI Pro / MyAnalytics 
Enterprise Plans

32. Comparison of O365 Tools with Competitors
= Slack, Jostle, Huddle, Convo
= Jive, Chatter, Workplace by Facebook
= BlueJeans, Webex, GTM, Hangouts
= Box, Dropbox, Google Drive
= Documentum, Jira, G Suite, Asana
= G Suite, Gmail, Zimbra, Hosted mail
= Trello, Asana, Basecamp
= Mavenlink, Primavera, Clarizen
= Huddle, Zoho
= Zinc, Jolt, Zoho, 7Shifts
= Jira, Asana, Zoho, Accelo
= Appian, Zudy Vinyl
= Tableau, QlikView, Spotfire
= IFTTT, Zapier
= Prezi, Keynote
= ERP and CRM Applications *
= Google Apps, OpenOffice, HyperOffice

33. Demo
USING OFFICE 365 TOOLS

34. Asante Sana! Questions?
Michael Noel
CCO.com
@MichaelTNoel
Facebook.com/michaelnoel
Linkedin.com/in/michaeltnoel
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Slideshare.net/michaeltnoel