Dove Cloud Blog

Office 365 Enterprise Preview - Part 2 Email.

Technology can expand the power of education and unlock the potential of students, educators and schools. To make this technology available worldwide we partner with education communities, delivering solutions, services and programs that help people learn.

At Dove Cloud, we have the expertise to help migrate both Commercial and Education customers to Office 365. You are in great hands…. Microsoft Office 365 for education value 1. Meet student and educator needs

  Works seamlessly with Microsoft Office programs * that users already count on and teaches students new software skills that will help them prepare for the future

Provide sites for students and educators to work together in real time on assignments, group projects, and research  – both inside and outside your institution

Communicate seamlessly from email to instant messaging to online classrooms, including audio, video and screen sharing 

Helps students and educators become more productive with a 25GB mailbox that unifies email and voicemail (Unified Messaging)

Makes scheduling easier by showing who and what resources are available, such as projectors or meeting rooms

Allow users to see whether other students or educators are online  2. Learn from Anywhere - Solve problems with others from more places

Provide users anywhere-access to their email, assignments and calendar on nearly any device*

Works with devices that students and educators use most  -- including PC, Mac, Windows Phone, iPhone, Android and  BlackBerry**

Rich experience with Outlook Web App on a broad set of browsers or offline access via Office desktop applications on PCs and Macs 

View and edit assignments with Office Web Apps across a broad range of browsers (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome) 

Connect securely* over Internet with HTTPS without the need for VPN 3. Lower Costs - IT Control and Efficiency

Reduce the time and effort spent managing email and collaboration servers, such as patch upgrades and security updates, while still keeping you in control

24/7, IT professional phone support or via electronic ticketing

Hybrid deployment scenarios allow on-premises and online users to work together seamlessly 

Simplified management with a single administration center with role based access 

Ease of interoperability with existing systems, such as Sunguard and Blackboard, through extensible platform 4. Enterprise class security, reliability and privacy - Keeps you in control

Same 99.9% uptime commitment, backed by a SLA, as Office 365 for enterprises 

Safeguard your data with enterprise-grade reliability, disaster recovery capabilities, geo-redundant, replicated, data centers and a strict privacy policy

Compliant with ISO 27001, SOX 70 Type I, FERPA, HIPAA, FISMA, EU Safe Harbor Seal

Helps protect your email environment with premium anti-spam and antivirus protection provided by multiple virus scanning engines

Configure services to meet your institution’s unique needs and give your users access to only the services they need

Emails and Documents: anywhere, anytime, on any device. Try Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud services.

We’ve all been without our machine and needed that all important email or document, right at that critical moment in time. Frustrating, I know.  If only you had access to your emails and files via a Windows Phone or iPad? Office 365 users can using Office Web Apps, plus many other time and cost saving perks. Yes, it’s secure too. Microsoft helps keep your data safe and private.

Now is the time to look at how Office 365 can streamline your business communication, making life easier, saving you time and the big one, saving your business money.  The future is to move away from big costly in-house servers and move towards cloud computing. Why, you ask?  Previously you would need a capital investment (CapEx) of £5,000-6,000 for a server, which would give a live expectancy of say 6 years.  Compare that against cloud computing and its Office 365 – emails and documents are stored via the cloud.  Giving you 24/7 access no matter where you are, and from any device. How much you ask? Forget the costly upfront investment, it’s more of an utility cost (OpEx), costing from £5.25 per licence (user), per month. So if staffing levels change, licences can be added or cancelled to suit you. Automatic patches, updates and back-end upgrades ensures that you always give your users access to the latest capabilities.

Don’t be put off by the cloud, the team at Dove Cloud are the experts and will gladly talk through how your business could benefit. Call today and we’ll arrange for a free one to one meeting.

What’s next?

Try a free 30 day trial at http://www.dovecloud.co.uk/free-trial

Have you ever wanted to search for information on Twitter or Gmail? CloudMagic allows you to search across Exchange, Twitter, Gmail, Google Apps, Chat, Docs, Calendar and Contacts. 

Attachments.me seamlessly integrates your email with Dropbox, Box and Google Drive

Cloud CRM (Customer Relationship Management) Providers SalesForce 

Salesforce is the no.1 sales CRM service in the cloud. Salesforce has expanded it's range of services to cover Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Chatter and Social Enterprise. Sales Cloud pricing starts from £3 per user per month for up to 5 users. Right up to the unlimited plan at £170 per user per month. Service Cloud gives your business the tools to deliver great customer service. Plans from from £45 per user per month to unlimited at £178 per user per month. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online 

Combine familiar Microsoft Office applications with powerful CRM software to improve marketing effectiveness, boost sales, and enrich customer service interactions. Microsoft Dynamics CRM equips business professionals with access to customer information through a familiar Microsoft Outlook experience which helps ensure rapid user adoption and fast results. Prices start from £29.50p per user per month for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online.

SugarCRM 

Sugar is an affordable and easy to use customer relationship management (CRM) platform, designed to help your business communicate with prospects, share sales information, close deals and keep customers happy. Thousands of successful companies use Sugar everyday to manage sales, marketing and support.

As an open-source, web-based CRM solution, Sugar is easy to customize and adapt to your changing needs. Ideal for small and medium-sized companies, large enterprises and government organizations, Sugar can run in the cloud or on-site. Pricing starts from $30 per user per month for the professional plan. The corporate plan is $45 per user per month, the enterprise plan is $60 and the unlimited is $100.

Each edition includes:

On-premise or cloud deployment

Scheduled data backups

Social media integration

Mobile device accessibility

Zoho CRM 

Get the complete picture of your sales cycle. Stay on top of your business opportunities with Zoho CRM's sales tracking tools. 

Zoho CRM’s Opportunity Tracking tool gives you a current, comprehensive view of all your sales activities. Know where every customer is in the sales cycle, deal size, contact history, even competitor information to help craft more effective messaging. Dynamic Reports & Dashboards provide an easy, accurate read of everything going on.

Be in the know when on a call. Use Zoho CRM’s Business Card View to instantly get a detailed look at all pertinent customer information. No scrolling, no searching. The Notes Section also displays the time and content of past conversations, so you can make each call more personal and productive. 

What’s the latest with your prospects and customers? Let them tell you. Link their LinkedIn and Facebook profiles into your Zoho CRM system. Associate profiles to contacts or leads, send invitations to connect, view updates and share your comments. 

Stay connected and up-to-date wherever you go. Zoho’s Mobile Edition gives you instant access to customer info and sales activity on your iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry devices. Zoho CRM offer a free plan for up to 3 users. The professional plan is priced at $12 / user / month and finally the enterprise plan is $25 / user / month. 

OpenCRM.co.uk 

OpenCRM gives you advanced fully featured hosted CRM software is easy to use and intuitive with a familiar interface and powerful cloud features. We also offer a flexible bespoke Consultancy, Training and Support service which can be tailored to suit your needs by our clever team of professionals.

Unlike some of our competitors, when you subscribe to OpenCRM you get all of the features, all of the time, regardless of the subscription level. Our goal is to give you a tool that will help your business grow and that's why, regardless of your business size, you can take advantage of everything we do.

Because OpenCRM is a Cloud CRM solution whenever we deliver a new release, this is available for your system without any complicated upgrades, risks to data, loss of any customising that you may have done, the whole process is managed by our team of dedicated professionals. OpenCRM price plans start from £75 per month for up to 3 users, the business plan is £125 per month for up to 15 users, the Pro plan is £260 per month and finally the Enterprise plan is for 50+ users at £580 per month. All plans come with 2TB of file storage. 

FreeCRM 

Free CRM is a web based software solution for customer relationship management and sales force automation. Free CRM is great for contact and lead tracking, sales and contact management, sales pipeline management and forecasting, customer service and business management. Automate sales processes and close more deals, forecast revenue and share sales reports with Free CRM. Our Free CRM helps you track leads, prospects, opportunities and close more deals in less time.

The free edition is for up to 3 users. The Pro edition costs $14.95 per user per month.

OnePageCRM

OnePage is simple CRM software that produces amazing results. It combines a proven sales methodology with the elements of CRM to greatly increase sales.

Inspired by GTD, OnePageCRM encourages upfront decision making on every contact. Focusing on that one next action ensures that leads and prospects are constantly being moved through your sales process to success.

All other CRM are a dead list of contacts. OnePageCRM is unique. It sorts your contacts according to their next action and creates a dynamic list which prioritizes your time. One look at our main screen and you know what actions you need to take now, today and tomorrow. That’s uncluttered focus on what’s important.

Keeping our CRM fast and simple to use was not a design decision to be different, but imperative to ensuring continued everyday usage. At OnePageCRM, we know that sales actions are not long administrative chores, but a multitude of nudges required to get a prospect over the line.

Plans start from $15 per month for the SOLO edition. The Growing edition is $30 for 3 users and the Team edition is $90 for 10 users.

Sage CRM

Sage CRM is available in three different editions, giving you unrivalled deployment choice. Whether you want cloud-based or on-premise CRM, want to accelerate your sales performance quickly or manage all of your marketing, sales and customer service activities, Sage CRM has the right solution at the right price for you.

Sage CRM Essentials (Cloud)

Fully cloud-based, Sage CRM Essentials delivers contact management and helps you manage your sales function, for a low and predictable monthly cost. £20 per month.

Sage CRM Professional (Cloud)

Sage CRM Professional automates marketing, sales and customer service operations in a simple to deploy, cloud-based solution. From £50 per month.

Sage CRM (On-Premise)

A fully featured solution, Sage CRM (On-Premise) automates marketing, sales and customer service operations and can be easily customised to meet your unique business requirements.

HighRise

Save and organize notes and email conversations for up to 30,000 customers and contacts.

Keep track of proposals and deals. Share status with your company, department, or team.

Never forget to follow-up. Get a text message or email so you never forget to make the call.

When you use Highrise, contacts and communication history can be shared across your entire company. No more “Jim has the client’s number and he’s out of the office today.” No more “I don’t know what Jane told the printer last week.” No more “Oops, I didn’t know you already called her back—I just did too.” With Highrise, everyone’s always on the same page.

Highrise is your homebase for everyone that’s important to your business. It puts together all those little points of contact so you can see the bigger picture. It makes one history out of many interactions. Highrise helps you make sense of it all.

Your address book doesn’t do enough. CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software tries to do too much. That’s why we built Highrise. It’s the just-right, more thoughtful way to keep track of the people, conversations, and tasks that are the lifelines of your business.

Basic plan $24 per month. Up to 6 users, 5GB storage and 10 deals.

Plus plan $49 per month. Up to 15 users, 15GB storage and unlimited deals.

Premium plan $99 per month. Up to 40 users, 30GB storage and unlimited deals.

Capsule CRM

  Use Capsule to keep track of the people and companies you do business with, communications with them, opportunities in the pipeline, and what needs to be done when.

The contact page gives you a birds eye view of everything you know about a contact so that you can keep track of the people, companies and other organizations that you do business with.

Use Capsule to track bids, deals, proposals and other opportunities.

Manage your to-do list and calendar using tasks in Capsule to ensure things don't get forgotten.

Create custom categories using tags such as vendor, lead, customer.

Create lists by filtering your contacts using your own criteria such as which city they're in, how you've tagged them, when they were added, or using a custom field you have added.

Free Edition

Up to 2 users

10MB storage

250 contacts

Unlimited opportunities

Unlimited cases

Professional Edition

£8/month, per user

2GB storage per user

50,000 contacts

Unlimited opportunities

Unlimited cases

Integrates with Xero, KashFlow, 

FreeAgent, FreshBooks and MailChimp

Online Accounts Providers (Cloud Accounting)

QuickBooks online by Intuit

QuickBooks online comes in three editions: Simple Start, Essentials and Online Plus.

QuickBooks Online Simple Start gives you a basic package to take care of your accounting needs. Great for self employed individuals. Cost is £9 per month.

QuickBooks Online Essentials is for small businesses and can be used by up to three users. Essentials includes the ability to create vAT returns and see your company snapshot. Cost is £19 per month.

QuickBooks Online Plus gives you full business financial management including creating budgets, purchase orders, and generate extra business reports. For £29 per month, five users plus your accountant has access to this great online accounting package.

Sage One by Sage

Sage One Services Account

An online accounting service for small business owners who don't have time to learn accounting. £10 per month.

Sage One Services Cashbook

An online cash-based accounting system for sole traders to keep organised for HMRC and the bank. £5 per month.

Sage One Services Payroll

A simple, online payroll service that's easy to use. Developed for small businesses in the UK. Up to 5 employees £5 per month, up to 10 employees £10 per month, up to 15 employees £15 per month.

Sage One Services Accountant Edition

Sage One Accountant Edition lets accountants manage and collaborate with their clients, online. Extend the reach of your practice – using cloud accounting services means that you can work with clients all over the UK.

Liquid Accounts Liquid Accounts makes accounting easy with great features like unlimited user access, automated backups and upgrades, banking and budgeting. Pricing starts from £20 per month with optional modules like stock control, contact management, payroll, job costing, multi currency etc.

KashFlow

Automated accounting

Would you rather be working on your business or doing repetitive tasks? KashFlow automates raising invoices, chasing payments and much more. So you have more time for the important stuff.

Integrated Accounting

Access your DropBox files, send customer data to MailChimp, plug in your merchant account, automatically download data from PayPal. We're integrated to the hilt with these and many other business applications.Free 24/7 

Support

We don't think it's very nice to charge people more if they need help, so we don't. Our support team are always on hand any time of day, every day of the week. You work evenings and weekends, right? So do we.

Cost £17.99 per month

FreeAgent

FreeAgent online accounting

The FreeAgent dashboard brings all finances together into one place. Free support and upgrades. No setup fees. Export your key tax payment and invoice dates to your usual calendar. Bank level security and data protection. Price £15 per month for the sole trader plan. £20 for partnerships and LLP. £25 per month for limited companies.

AccountsPortal

Web-based accounting software that is easy to use, intuitive and flexible. Empowering contractors, freelancers, small businesses, bookkeepers and accountants to manage their books from just about anywhere in the world.

Email invoices. Send customer statements. Import bank statements and PayPal transactions. AccountsPortal helps simplify your bookkeeping and accounting requirements so you can focus on running your business. £8 per month gives you unrestricted access per company. 

FreshBooks

Billed as Cloud Accounting, accessible everywhere, on all your devices and your data is backed up and secure. FreshBooks allows you to track time at your desk or on the go. Get paid faster with online payments. Capture expenses with ease.

FreshBooks free package lets you manage up to 3 clients. The paid plans start from $19.95 per month for up to 25 clients and $29.95 pm to go unlimited clients.

Xero 

Xero lets you see your cashflow in real-time. Login anytime, anywhere. Xero automatically import and code your bank transactions. Create and send invoices automatically and get paid online.

Top Cloud Storage sites

DropBox gives you 2GB of free storage. The Pro plan starts at 100GB at $9.99 monthly for team collaboration or $99 per year if you pay annually.

Apple iCloud is well known with Mac users syncing their files and settings between Apple devices. iCloud customers are provided with 5 GB of free cloud storage. Purchased music, TV shows, apps, and books, as well as photos in your Photo Stream don't count against your 5GB of free storage. You can purchase the following amounts of iCloud Storage:

10 additional GB (15 GB total): $20/year

20 additional GB (25 GB total): $40/year

50 additional GB (55 GB total): $100/year

SkyDrive from Microsoft gives you 7GB of free storage. Paid storage plans start from 20GB @ £6.00 per year to 100GB @ £32 per year.

Ubuntu One gives you 5GB storage free. Windows and Mac downloads to sync your files. Also iPhone and Android apps to view and edit your files on the go.

Box.com gives you 5GB of free storage. 25GB is £7.50p per month or 50GB @ £15 per month.

LiveDrive offer their briefcase plan which allows you to sync files online across all computers. 2TB of synced cloud storage at £9.95p per month.

Mozy Stash is still in beta and works in conjunction with Mozy Backup to sync and backup your files. Currently offering 2GB of free storage.

Cubby Beta is another offering from the LogMeIn guys who provide remote access software. 5GB of free storage is provided if you receive an email invitation to join.

Amazon Cloud drive lets you easily store your important photos, documents, videos and other digital files in the cloud using any internet connected computer. 5GB of free storage. Additional storage starts at $10 per year for 20GB, $25 for 50GB and $50 per year for 100GB.

Google Drive gives you 5GB free to begin with of cloud storage. 25GB is $29.88 per year and then $59.88 for 100GB. If you have large storage needs you can go up to 16TB of storage with Google Drive.

  SugarSync allows you to sync and share your files from any device. Free 5GB account and paid plans starting from $49.99 per year for 30GB to $149.99 per year for 100GB.

Google Drive is everywhere you are – on the web, in your home, at the office and on the go. So wherever you are, your stuff is just...there. Ready to go, ready to share. Get started with 5 GB free. Google Drive is available for:

PC and Mac

Chrome OS

iPhone and iPad

Android devices

Go beyond storage. Collaborate.

Google Drive lets you do more than just store your files. Share files with exactly who you want and edit them together, from any device.

Customer: I can't email out my attachment?

Tech Support: What size is the attachment?

Customer: 153Mb

Cubby Beta from the people who give you LogMeIn remote access service, is a DropBox new kid on the block. The beta service is by email invitation only and you receive 5GB of storage compared to 2GB if you sign up to the Free DropBox account. If you refer a friend you will receive an extra 1GB of storage.

Cubby allows you to download an desktop application to sync you files between devices using the My Cubby folder. For example, between your home and work computers. This is very similar to SkyDrive which has a 'My SkyDrive' folder to sync and retrieve your files.

Use the Apple iOS or Android app to access stuff from your cloud.

Browse your cloud content and open files on your device

Save files from your cloud to your device for offline viewing

Built on the same architecture used for LogMeIn's connectivity products, Cubby takes advantage of encryption standards to ensure data is protected at all times. As an additional step, Cubby is designed to give users the ability to be the sole owner and holder of their encryption keys.

Sign up to Office 365 at www.dovecloud.co.uk to start using great productivity tools for your startup. If you are a startup, Microsoft Office 365 should be on your technology wishlist. It’s a cloud-based suite based on the world’s most popular office software. The online services that 365 specifically offers are Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Lync Online, and Office Web Apps. In addition, there’s a set of Web Apps, which are slightly slimmed down versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that are accessible through a web browser. A typical startup client would be looking at a email solution so they could check their emails from a desktop, smartphone like an iPhone and web based if they use a laptop on the road. The great feature with Exchange online is that all the emails, contacts and calendar entries are stored at Microsoft data centres. So not only can you check all of your emails from any device, but also your emails are backed up safely and securing.

Your business data is growing

Digital data is rapidly growing at a rate of 80% each year, and businesses like yours are responsible for maintaining 85% of that information.

Data loss happens

Hard drive crashes, spilled drinks, and accidental file deletion can occur at any time and put your company’s future in jeopardy. In fact, 93% of all companies that suffer significant data loss close down within 5 years!

You need to do more with less

Traditional backup solutions can be expensive and take weeks to implement, leaving your business vulnerable to revenue and productivity loss.

Secure Access Anywhere

Send more and Store more

Office 365 offers up to 25 GB worth of inbox space and allows you to send emails up to 10GB. You can also easily store your documents in the cloud and simply grant access to those who need to review or contribute to it, rather than sending large emails back and forth. Office 365 also enables you to review previous draft version of your document.

Collaborate easily

Several people can be working on the same document at once, seeing changes that have been made instantly in a shared workspace. This workspace can also be used for brainstorming, sharing large documents and creating project timelines. Office 365 also gives you an integrated calendar which allows employees to view their colleague’s timetables, plan meetings and set reminders for events.

Greater security

By hosting your emails and documents in the cloud using you never have to worry about the loss of data as it is continually backed up and monitored by Microsoft IT professionals. Office 365 uses a series of safety measures to ensure your data receives the highest level of protection. Firstly, your data is encrypted before it leaves your computer and goes into the cloud. Then it is stored within secure data centres which have the benefits of increased security. You also don’t need to worry about in-house virus’s destroying your data as it will be stored safely in the cloud.

Availability

With Microsoft Office 365, any user can access information anywhere there is an internet connection including on their iPhone or Blackberry (as long as they have been granted permission). Microsoft Office 365 also offers in-built business continuity, with a 99.9% money-back guarantee ensuring you can always access your data.