Office 365: What plan is the right one? There s a lot to like about Office 365. You have access to cloud-based productivity suites, Microsoft email servers, SharePoint and more. But not all Office 365 license plans offer the same features and services. When looking for an Office 365 plan for your business, make sure to follow these tips. Business or Enterprise? If you re running a cloud-first business, you ll have to decide between Office 365 Business and Enterprise. Both may have access to Office Online and OneDrive, but there are some notable differences between the plan. For example, Office 365 Enterprise E3 and E5 plans have unlimited archive and mail storage space, while Business plans have a 50-GB storage limit and don t provide archive access from the Outlook client. When it comes to SharePoint, Business plans are short on enterprise search, Excel services, and Visio features. Additionally, unified communication solutions, Power BI and Delve analytics are also missing from the Office 365 Business offering. Although it may seem like Enterprise subscriptions are superior, and in some ways they are, Business plans are perfect for smaller companies running on a tight budget. Office 365 Business and Business Premium cost $10 and $15 per user per month respectively, while E5, the biggest Enterprise plan, costs $35 per user per month.
As a general rule, start looking for Enterprise plans when your employee headcount exceeds 50 people and users require more storage space and solutions. E1, E3, or E5? If you do opt for Office 365 Enterprise plans, you ll have to examine the features and choose one of three plans (E1, E3, and E5) that suits your needs. E1 offers basic enterprise solutions such as Outlook and Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Excel online for only $8 per user per month. Apart from this, users also get access to SharePoint Team sites, video conferencing and Yammer for enterprise social media. E3 provides all E1 features and adds data loss prevention, rights management, and encryption to ensure business security and compliance. While E5 is a full enterprise-grade solution with all the previously mentioned features plus analytics tools, advanced threat protection, flexible Skype for Business conferencing and unified communication solutions. Small- and medium-sized enterprises will usually select either E1 or E3 subscriptions and decide to add third-party applications to meet cloud security and VoIP demands. But if you have the resources and prefer a fully-managed suite of Microsoft applications, E5 plans are the way to go. Migrating to an Office 365 platform is a big step, and if you re still undecided about which plan to opt for, contact us today. We don t just provide Office 365; we assess your business and find the best solution that meets your budget and objectives. Four helpful Cortana commands Like Apple s Siri and Google s Google Now, Cortana is an intelligent personal assistant that assists you with a variety of tasks such as making phone calls, setting reminders, as well as searching for files. All of this is possible, with the right commands of course. To fully utilize Cortana, we ve created an unofficial list of things you can ask or say to Cortana on Windows 10 devices. Hey, Cortana Before asking her to do anything, we need to get Cortana's attention by clicking or tapping the Cortana button on the taskbar. If you don t see Cortana on your taskbar, right-click the taskbar and go to Cortana > Show Cortana icon. To enable 'Hey, Cortana', simply say "Hey, Cortana," followed by your question. If you're using a Windows Phone, you can press and hold the search button to activate Cortana.
Basics tasks If you re looking to launch a program or open a website, simply use the word Launch or Open followed by the website s name. Make notes by uttering the words take a note or note it down. As for making drafts, start with Write an followed by email or text and end with the contact name and the message itself. Lastly, Show me emails from [contact] will display all the texts or emails sent from the specified contact. Scheduling/Reminders It s important for small- and medium-sized business owners to stay on top of their schedules. Take a glance at your calendar events with commands such as How s my schedule looking? or What do I have next week? Add or move appointments with Add or Move followed by the appointment and time. Reminders are easily scheduled by uttering the words Remind me followed by whatever you need to be reminded about and when. Search If you can t locate the file you need, don t worry. By asking Cortana to Find a document, video, or picture on your device from a specific time frame, she will sift through everything quickly to find what you need. You can easily initiate search queries with Can you find followed by whatever you are looking for. You can even look at basic search results without having to open a browser window: Simply ask whatever question you have and enjoy combing through the results. Window s voice-activated personal assistant, Cortana, helps you accomplish daily tasks with ease and efficiency, but only if you use the right commands. If you have further questions or would like to know more Cortana commands, feel free to contact us. We re ready to help! CCaRe Learning Center Simple, effective and highly personalized training that your team will love! The CCaRe Learning Center s Office 365 training solution empowers your team to be more successful with less effort! The CCaRe Learning Center is a knowledge base that allows you to search through the extensive library to answer all of your Microsoft Office questions!
For more information to access the CCaRe Learning Center, contact your technical account manager. Click Here for More Features! (www.ccarelearningcenter.com) Trying to organize windows across your desktop is usually a messy process. Two word documents open, a window for your internet browser and your chat client all jumbled about your desktop in a make shift overlapping set of tiles that leaves you guessing which is which. Using Windows Snap Assist feature you can easily manage and evenly divide your display into halves and cubes. You can drag a window to the top left or top right corners of a monitor and you ll see the ghost image of a square over that corner of your monitor. Release the mouse to leave that window perfectly taking up that top ¼ of your screen. Repeat this process to get 4 perfectly sized windows taking up your entire screen.
If you drag the window to the right or left side as close to the edge as possible, not in the corner, you will that half of the monitor ghost and you can drop the window to divide your monitor in half. If you do this option in Windows 10 the other half of the monitor will load a window selector picking one of those will then fill the other half of the display. Giving you a perfect 50/50 split.
This effect can also be accomplished with a keyboard shortcut. If you simultaneously press the Windows key and the left or the right arrow key at the same time it will send the active window to the left or right side of the display and open the window selector screen to fill both halves. Also if you press the windows key and up arrow you will maximize your active window. The windows key and down arrow will minimize your active window. Just a few tips to make your windows experience a little smoother, and a little more organized. Greg Bastien Helpdesk Engineer