O365 Fully Installed vs. Online Versions
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@wirestyle22 said:
I suppose moving to O365 just for e-mail would alleviate the $8 (I think) fee that we pay for it from Techsoup. Is that what you mean?
From your own link, yes - that is what I mean.
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@wirestyle22 said:
My thought process: If I can't use O365 to access local files then it's useless for me regardless of the savings especially considering the limitations.
Why? You are looking to move all of the files to the cloud anyway using ownCloud. Sure, local MS Office could open a file you receive in email and you're using some other email system. But if you are using O365, those MS Office attachements would open right in the browser window right along side the email.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
With the OwnCloud server hosted by Vultr my users would at least have access to the file server, which for what we do is essentially 99% of their job. Everything else is web based now. I think just my domain controller would be a great start as far as a datacenter goes.
Sure, so it sounds like LANless design would be good for you. ownCloud for files (non synced unless require offline access) locally install MS Office - keep current version.
Do you need AD? maybe, maybe not. If yes, can you upgrade everyone to Windows 10, and use Azure AD? Do you need things like GPO? If yes, well, you're going to have spend some money or convert to Linux AD. On the money side, you'll have to maintain a Windows server with some type of connection, site to site VPNs, or ZeroTier, etc, or purchase a MDM solution that handles PCs as well as mobile devices.
Or look into Azure AD. You can natively authenticate to it via Windows 10 now. This could help alleviate some costs and makes Office365 more attractive.
O360 will never be attractive to my directors with those price points, even at non-profit discounts. They don't think in terms of saved money supplementing other purchases.
Have you had a good experience with Azure? I've heard nothing but bad things.
Azure AD and Office 365 work pretty flawlessly from what I can tell. Azure the cloud vendor has some issues though.
Maybe that is what I'm thinking of. Does Azure AD allow me to access local files using O365 though?
No, just like AD locally has nothing to do with files locally being accessed on a desktop - they are not related.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
With the OwnCloud server hosted by Vultr my users would at least have access to the file server, which for what we do is essentially 99% of their job. Everything else is web based now. I think just my domain controller would be a great start as far as a datacenter goes.
Sure, so it sounds like LANless design would be good for you. ownCloud for files (non synced unless require offline access) locally install MS Office - keep current version.
Do you need AD? maybe, maybe not. If yes, can you upgrade everyone to Windows 10, and use Azure AD? Do you need things like GPO? If yes, well, you're going to have spend some money or convert to Linux AD. On the money side, you'll have to maintain a Windows server with some type of connection, site to site VPNs, or ZeroTier, etc, or purchase a MDM solution that handles PCs as well as mobile devices.
Or look into Azure AD. You can natively authenticate to it via Windows 10 now. This could help alleviate some costs and makes Office365 more attractive.
O360 will never be attractive to my directors with those price points, even at non-profit discounts. They don't think in terms of saved money supplementing other purchases.
Have you had a good experience with Azure? I've heard nothing but bad things.
Azure AD and Office 365 work pretty flawlessly from what I can tell. Azure the cloud vendor has some issues though.
Maybe that is what I'm thinking of. Does Azure AD allow me to access local files using O365 though?
Azure AD is an AD replacement. It has nothing to do with your file shares.
Right so my problem is still a problem if we move to Azure. I still wouldn't use O365 (the free version) and the paid version is still too expensive to justify for my company (from managements perspective) regardless of money saved.
Please explain the alternative.
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@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
With the OwnCloud server hosted by Vultr my users would at least have access to the file server, which for what we do is essentially 99% of their job. Everything else is web based now. I think just my domain controller would be a great start as far as a datacenter goes.
Sure, so it sounds like LANless design would be good for you. ownCloud for files (non synced unless require offline access) locally install MS Office - keep current version.
Do you need AD? maybe, maybe not. If yes, can you upgrade everyone to Windows 10, and use Azure AD? Do you need things like GPO? If yes, well, you're going to have spend some money or convert to Linux AD. On the money side, you'll have to maintain a Windows server with some type of connection, site to site VPNs, or ZeroTier, etc, or purchase a MDM solution that handles PCs as well as mobile devices.
Or look into Azure AD. You can natively authenticate to it via Windows 10 now. This could help alleviate some costs and makes Office365 more attractive.
O360 will never be attractive to my directors with those price points, even at non-profit discounts. They don't think in terms of saved money supplementing other purchases.
Have you had a good experience with Azure? I've heard nothing but bad things.
Azure AD and Office 365 work pretty flawlessly from what I can tell. Azure the cloud vendor has some issues though.
Maybe that is what I'm thinking of. Does Azure AD allow me to access local files using O365 though?
No, just like AD locally has nothing to do with files locally being accessed on a desktop - they are not related.
That was my point
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@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
My thought process: If I can't use O365 to access local files then it's useless for me regardless of the savings especially considering the limitations.
Why? You are looking to move all of the files to the cloud anyway using ownCloud. Sure, local MS Office could open a file you receive in email and you're using some other email system. But if you are using O365, those MS Office attachements would open right in the browser window right along side the email.
So I would use the O365 versions of the programs necessary to open the attachments. That's what you're saying? I save $8 per exchange client but then need to spend $40 per license still for each machine for the rest of office to be able to access the file server.
(Sorry I'm not getting it btw)
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So from what I can see this is how I would set it up.
Create a SharePoint Team Site. Copy all files from the current network location to the team site.
Going forward you would have two kinds of users E1 users and E3 users.
E1 users would launch their browser, open O365, open their SP site find the file they want to work on today (and by file they want to work on I mean Excel/Word/PowerPoint) and edit it.. close be done. If they receive an email with an attachment, then just double click on it in O365 OWA and it opens in the browser with the correct app. From there you can save it to your personal ODfB, but as JB mentioned, you couldn't save it directly into SP - a process would need to be created for that part.
You're E3 users would have local MS Office installed. They would open Excel locally - browser to their designated SP team site, choose the file they want to open, same as if they were picking a file from a local network share and edit it, save it and be done. If they receive an attachment in local Outlook, then open it like they do today. Through local Excel/Word, they could save it directly to the SP Team site if required, or to their personal ODfB account.
You're E1 users are all free, your E3 users are $4.50/month
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Unless you have more than 300 users I believe you'd actually want Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium. It gives you email and local Office without the enterprise features and is only $2/m/u. That gives you pretty competitive pricing on Office.
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@Kelly said:
Unless you have more than 300 users I believe you'd actually want Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium. It gives you email and local Office without the enterprise features and is only $2/m/u. That gives you pretty competitive pricing on Office.
I have 500
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@wirestyle22 said:
@Kelly said:
Unless you have more than 300 users I believe you'd actually want Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium. It gives you email and local Office without the enterprise features and is only $2/m/u. That gives you pretty competitive pricing on Office.
I have 500
So how much are you spending currently on Office/Email/File Server? You might be able to justify the $4.50/m/u by showing overall cost savings.
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@Kelly said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@Kelly said:
Unless you have more than 300 users I believe you'd actually want Office 365 Nonprofit Business Premium. It gives you email and local Office without the enterprise features and is only $2/m/u. That gives you pretty competitive pricing on Office.
I have 500
So how much are you spending currently on Office/Email/File Server? You might be able to justify the $4.50/m/u by showing overall cost savings.
Just getting the email out of house would be a significant cost savings. It is free to do and you could still purchase Office for the desktop via techsoup or a similar organization.
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I haven't read the thread yet but I know the context and this is nothing to do with Office 365. The topic is about MS Office, no relationship to O365.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@JaredBusch said:
Word/Excel online also do not like to save into the SharePoint team site documents folder. Once you open one through there, you can see it in the recent history, but you cannot directly save a new document into it easily.
SharePoint team site documents also have to be xlsx/docx to be opened in their respective online applications from the web interface.
Thank you for the information. Is there a viable way to do what I am trying to do or is this not really feasible yet? I see that they have an ODfB sync client. Zero experience with any of this.
Why bother with the sync client? The locally installed versions will download and upload on the fly directly to ODfB, no reason to sync other than offline access.
I'm asking because I don't know. The locally installed versions would cost us more than our local file server costs us to maintain. We have a very basic file server and around 500 users. At $4.50 per user per month I can't justify it. They won't pay it.
How much offline access to files do you need? Do most of your users work at their desk or do they work at odd hours remotely? How often are people not on the network.
Do you need Office? Does something like LibreOffice work to fill that gap?
I'm not sure if it does fill the gap. I'm sure LibreCalc's formulas work differently than excel. That would require me to convert thousands of files, right?
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@JaredBusch said:
Word/Excel online also do not like to save into the SharePoint team site documents folder. Once you open one through there, you can see it in the recent history, but you cannot directly save a new document into it easily.
SharePoint team site documents also have to be xlsx/docx to be opened in their respective online applications from the web interface.
Thank you for the information. Is there a viable way to do what I am trying to do or is this not really feasible yet? I see that they have an ODfB sync client. Zero experience with any of this.
Why bother with the sync client? The locally installed versions will download and upload on the fly directly to ODfB, no reason to sync other than offline access.
I'm asking because I don't know. The locally installed versions would cost us more than our local file server costs us to maintain. We have a very basic file server and around 500 users. At $4.50 per user per month I can't justify it. They won't pay it.
How much offline access to files do you need? Do most of your users work at their desk or do they work at odd hours remotely? How often are people not on the network.
Do you need Office? Does something like LibreOffice work to fill that gap?
I'm not sure if it does fill the gap. I'm sure LibreCalc's formulas work differently than excel. That would require me to convert thousands of files, right?
Why would you even think that they might be different let alone be sure that they are? Why would they be likely to differ at all? Math is math, right?
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@wirestyle22 said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@JaredBusch said:
Word/Excel online also do not like to save into the SharePoint team site documents folder. Once you open one through there, you can see it in the recent history, but you cannot directly save a new document into it easily.
SharePoint team site documents also have to be xlsx/docx to be opened in their respective online applications from the web interface.
Thank you for the information. Is there a viable way to do what I am trying to do or is this not really feasible yet? I see that they have an ODfB sync client. Zero experience with any of this.
Why bother with the sync client? The locally installed versions will download and upload on the fly directly to ODfB, no reason to sync other than offline access.
Is the way for me to sync ODfB across all my users and still be able to use O365 using the client I listed? If so, has anyone ever attempted this? What was the result if so?
You have to stop using the term O365. I can't tell what you mean by it. O365 is a licensing program, not a tool. And when I read things that you write, I cannot tell what you are trying to imply by the term.
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@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@JaredBusch said:
Word/Excel online also do not like to save into the SharePoint team site documents folder. Once you open one through there, you can see it in the recent history, but you cannot directly save a new document into it easily.
SharePoint team site documents also have to be xlsx/docx to be opened in their respective online applications from the web interface.
Thank you for the information. Is there a viable way to do what I am trying to do or is this not really feasible yet? I see that they have an ODfB sync client. Zero experience with any of this.
Why bother with the sync client? The locally installed versions will download and upload on the fly directly to ODfB, no reason to sync other than offline access.
Yeah, WAY better than syncing.
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@wirestyle22 said:
@Dashrender said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@Kelly said:
@wirestyle22 said:
@coliver said:
Oh the difference between Office Web Apps and Office.
Office Web Apps (Word Online, Excel Online, Etc.) leave a lot to be desired. They are more akin to Google Docs then the full version of Office.
I wanted to know specifically what they are capable of doing and what they aren't but I don't see any of that listed. For my average user I'm sure the online version would be fine but I was asked the difference and I really didn't know from a features standpoint.
The largest, and starkest, difference is file access. Office Web Apps will open files stored in One Drive for Business (ODfB). I don't believe (unless something has changed recently) that there is a way to access LAN or local files without sync'ing them to SharePoint Online or ODfB. You also cannot use any macros or scripts, and some advanced functions are missing. There are some others that are oddly MIA as well. I'd have some of your users trial it and see if they can make it work.
My plan was to create an OwnCloud server on Vultr. There is no other way to access the files on that server without syncing to ODfB and having them use ODfB as the primary file server? There is no way for me to use the OwnCloud server as the main server and sync to ODfB as a remote backup?
Why would you want to do this though? If you're plan is to use O365 Online Apps, why use ownCloud at all?
I didn't know that you couldn't access the files on it. I wanted to go from a local file server to a hosted solution but obviously that isn't going to work
What is the perceived benefit of using two rather than one?
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@wirestyle22 said:
@Kelly said:
There are some caveats with SharePoint Online. It has issues with certain characters, file name lengths, you cannot have more than 5,000 items in a given view, etc. I haven't attempted to use it as a file server in about a year, but there were enough issues that we were not able to retire our local file server for all of our teams.
That is essentially what I am trying to do. @dafyre this is basically where I'm at.
Which of those issues is giving you a problem? If it is file names being too long or special characters... this sounds like you have some problematic processes to look into. Might not be easy to fix but anything reasonable is going to work in Sharepoint.
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@dafyre said:
@wirestyle22 said:
Has anyone attempted to use ODfB as their primary file server?
I think NTG & co do that for some things, if I'm not mistaken.
We use Sharepoint as a our central shared document system, yes. Works great.
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@wirestyle22 said:
Has anyone attempted to use ODfB as their primary file server?
SP, not ODfB. You can use either or, or mix them together.
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I definitely didn't have enough information. Sometimes I don't know what I'm asking (sorry). After talking to Microsoft for awhile and realizing I could combine plans it turns out it only costs me $2 per user by using E1 and ProPlus together. I also get e-mail encryption out of that as well as a local install. Definitely worth it.
