Office 365 is a great solution for businesses of all sizes across a range of industries, but it can be difficult to troubleshoot problems when they arise if you don’t have IT support in your ranks. In this article, we will discuss the three most common Microsoft Office problems business owners experience and how to fix them. We will also provide tips on how to prevent these problems from happening in the first place.
Let’s check out the top 3 issues:
- Spam Filters
- Managing Updates
- Backups
O365 Spam Filters
Sometimes, emails can be blocked or sent to the junk folder when they shouldn’t be and the emails that you would prefer to be blocked or not seen at all, flood your inbox.
The spam filters that come with your ‘out of the box’ set-up can often be too extreme and not reflect what you really want and need for optimal email filtering. This can cause a lot of problems for businesses who rely on email communication for their day-to-day operations. There are a few things you can do to troubleshoot.
Sort Trash from Treasure
First, you can check the spam folder to see if any legitimate emails were accidentally flagged as spam. If you find any emails that should have been delivered to your inbox, you can add them to your safe senders list or contact the sender and ask them to remove you from their mailing list.
Adjust Filter Settings
If you have a lot of legitimate emails that are being blocked, you can increase the sensitivity of the spam filters or add specific email addresses to the safe senders list.
Managing Updates
One of the benefits of using O365 is that businesses can manage updates centrally. This means that all users in the organisation will be updated with the latest security patches and features simultaneously.
However, this also means that there is a greater risk of things going wrong when updates are released. In some cases, updates can cause compatibility issues with existing software or cause the system to crash.
Test Updates First
To prevent these problems from happening, it’s important to test updates before they are rolled out to all users. You can do this by staging a group of test users and rolling out updates to them initially. If there are any issues, you can address them before the update is released to the rest of the organisation.
Create An ‘Error Plan’
You should also make sure that you have a plan for dealing with updates that have gone wrong. In some cases, it may be necessary to roll back to an earlier version of O365 until the problem is fixed.
Backups
One of the best ways to protect your data is to back it up. To reduce the risk of data loss and corruption when Office 365 is down or accidental deletion, it is wise to have a backup solution in place as Microsoft does not backup any Office 365 data.
While the Cloud can be very useful it’s important to remember that it isn’t perfect and like with any other hardware, things can go wrong from time to time. A 3rd party Office 365 backup can give you peace of mind knowing your emails and document data is protected. If you’re using a third-party solution, make sure that it supports O365.
Cloud-Based Backups
Microsoft also offers an optional service called Office 365 Data Loss Prevention (DLP) which can be used to protect sensitive data. DLP allows you to set rules for how certain types of data should be handled. For example, you can specify that credit card numbers should not be stored in the cloud.
Solving For The Most Common Issues With O365
So there you have it – three of the most common Microsoft Office problems we find businesses face when using Microsoft O365 and how you can manage them. Whilst it is one of the most utilised software programs by businesses across a range of industries, like any software – it isn’t perfect. However, here are the ways you can mitigate a few of the common shortfalls that exist.
If this has helped you understand how you can better manage O365 in your business, but still sounds like a bit too much to manage, you can leverage our experience to ensure you’re getting the most out of Microsoft Office 365 business plans.
With over 20 years’ experience, Discover is a trusted Melbourne IT Services company supporting small to medium size businesses like yours with a range of Managed IT Services.
For a fraction of the cost of hiring someone to manage your IT software and hardware – you can have a complete IT department to resolve your email spam filter issues, safely manage O365 updates across your business, as well as give you peace of mind with remote backups of your business’ O365 files.
When filters, updates and backups are all managed effectively, other aspects of your business operation can function with ease. If your I.T is mismanaged or you simply don’t have the resources to handle it in house, engaging the services of an experienced managed I.T provider can be a game changer for you, your team and the bottom line of your business.
Contact us now to discuss how we can support your technology, so you can manage your business.
