Cloud based IT services are appealing to business owners for several solid reasons, namely the removal of the amount of time and money that is required to manage your own servers. Subscription based cloud services, such as Microsoft 365 remove the need for any local servers or unnecessarily complex license management, and offer the same capabilities for small businesses as those available to larger enterprises.
Does it feel like a huge undertaking on top of your business as usual to make the move? As many organisations on a smaller scale don’t have an in-house IT team, it can be comforting to know that you can setup Microsoft 365 Business with the support of a consultant from a managed service provider.
Whether you’re setting it up solo, or using IT managed services, we’ve compiled five steps to setup Microsoft 365 business that you should consider when making the transition.
- Create Your Microsoft 365 Organisational Account
- Purchase Licences
- Set up User Accounts & Allocate Licenses
- Migrate Any Existing Mail, Calendars & Messages
- Link Your Business Domain
Before we dive into the steps to setup Microsoft 365 business, there’s a few housekeeping considerations to be across.
- Establish how many user accounts you need. If you require more than 25 accounts, you’ll be needing a midsize plan, which covers up to 300 accounts.
- Will you be migrating data from an existing server? The ideal scenario (read: easiest option) is to start fresh without the need to be migrating data. Realistically though, you’ll likely want to retain your archives for reference, which means data migration will form part of your transition process.
- Consider how you’ll communicate user ID and passwords to staff so they can access the new setup – remember they won’t be able to access their email accounts, so you may need to email them via personal accounts or call them.
Without further ado, your five steps to setup Microsoft 365 Business.
Step #1 Create Your Microsoft 365 Organisational Account
A straightforward process, you’ll need to firstly create your account. Be mindful when completing the information needed to supply an email address that isn’t connected to Office 365 so you can be sure to access all correspondence during the changeover.
Step #2 Purchase Licences
The licenses you buy will need to be linked to user accounts, so it’s important you are aware of how many user accounts are needed for your business (as outlined earlier). You will be given the option to skip this step to sort out later, but it’s preferable that you organise the licenses once you’ve set up your organisational account.
Step #3 Set up User Accounts & Allocate Licenses
The process for setting up individual user accounts is fairly straight forward and involves providing a full name and username for each account. You can also link a license at this stage, which is why it is helpful if you have already arranged them.
There are options to include additional details about users beyond name and username, such as contact numbers and position titles, if you wish. You are also able to assign users as administrators. The original organisational account is automatically an administrator, but you can add others. This gives the ‘power’ to perform tasks such as password resetting and adding or editing user accounts. It’s in the best interests of company security to limit this role to only a trusted few.
Step #4 Migrate Any Existing Mail, Calendars & Messages
Many businesses looking to make the switch to Microsoft 365 choose to bring existing documents, emails and calendars along with them. As mentioned earlier, this can be a complex undertaking, but one that is important to get right so you can jump into business as usual as quickly and painlessly as possible.
If you’re only needing to migrate a small number of users, it could be worth doing this manually, however if we’re talking multiple users and large amounts of data, it can be reassuring to have Microsoft 365 business support to guide the process.
If you’re feeling overwhelmed at the thought of data migration, you’re not alone. At Discover, we can take care of the full migration over to Microsoft 365, so you can have peace of mind that your business data is shifted across safely and seamlessly.
Step #5 Link Your Business Domain
Microsoft 365 will automatically create a domain for your business, for example cutekittens.onmicrosoft.com, when you sign up. This also applies to the user ID you create when you create an account – you’ll receive something like: [email protected].
To assign your business domain with your Microsoft 365 account is an important step for a seamless transition, which will then allow your domain to appear as it did before on your previous set up. You can buy a domain in Microsoft 365, or buy and transfer one you already own across.
Need Microsoft 365 Business Support?
Running successfully for over 20 years, we are a managed IT support provider helping organisations of all sizes to setup Microsoft 365 business. As Melbourne’s Office 365 support experts, we manage all of your IT needs so you can focus on growing your business. Beyond the O365 migration phase, we offer ongoing IT managed services. Contact the team today to book a free IT discovery session.