InterlinkCloud

For any organization, it is incredibly important to have a system in place that enables employees to be efficient and productive. In most cases, employees take it upon themselves to use applications, usually unknown by the organization, to help manage their tasks and collaborate with their teams more efficiently. This presents a big issue for organizations because their employees use unauthorized and potentially unsecured applications, which can result in the data leakage of secured documents. So, how do you enable your employees to collaborate effectively while making sure they are productive? Microsoft has you covered with their approach to the Modern Workplace and their integration of products such as Planner, OneNote, SharePoint, and many others into their collaboration tool Microsoft Teams.

So, what is Microsoft Teams? If you have not already read our blog Microsoft Teams | A Hub for Teamwork in Office 365, it's Microsoft’s new chat-based work space in Office 365 that brings conversations, content, and people together, all in one place, so they can easily collaborate more. It truly feels like the future of workplace collaboration with everything you need built right in.

There are big changes coming for organizations that conduct business in, or store and collect data tied to citizens of the European Union (EU). From data protection and breach reporting to governance documentation, the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) calls for businesses in any location that hold data on Europeans to be more efficient and accountable with their IT operations – or face significant penalties.

With May 25^th, 2018 as the proposed GDPR enforcement date, you have just a few months to comply with the new (and slightly confusing) GDPR laws. Though that may seem far away, the date will come quick, as will the scrutiny into your data practices.

But the path to compliance doesn’t need to be difficult. At Interlink, through our cloud and on-premises solutions, we’ve identified a path forward. 

Microsoft announced their ‘new vision for intelligent communications’ recently at the Microsoft Ignite 2017 conference, which is to move towards merging everyday communication tasks that users navigate daily into a single application or teamwork hub in Office 365. The typical knowledge worker switches between many different Microsoft applications throughout their work day when interacting with files, meetings, conversations, phone calls, etc. Microsoft is paving the way for their Teams application to be the core communications client for collaborating as a group within Office 365.

Microsoft Teams was launched worldwide in March 2017 and is available to subscribers with the following plans: Business Essentials, Business Premium and Enterprise E1, E3, and E5. At the core, Microsoft Teams is a persistent chat and teamwork hub for Office 365. Built on top of Office 365 Groups and SharePoint, Microsoft Teams can tie together other Office 365 applications into a single client including Exchange, OneDrive and Skype for Business.

In our blog Introducing Groups in Office 365, we discussed how Office 365 Groups facilitates the storage of information so it’s accessible across different applications but remains secure and easily to manage. Office 365 Groups helps teams collaborate in their desired application, including: Outlook, SharePoint, Skype for Business, Planner, Yammer, OneNote, and Microsoft Teams.

But, it’s not just your administrative staff that will benefit from the use of Office 365 Groups. Your IT staff will also thank you for making end user access and management much easier to setup and administer. With a much less complex and time-consuming process, Office 365 Groups makes assigning permissions easy by automatically assigning users access to the tools they require. Groups can also make it easier to manage both security groups and distribution groups at the same time.

Like most businesses, your environment is ever-changing, and keeping up with all the new and constantly updating software applications and devices can get quite cumbersome. It often detracts focus from larger, or more critical, business projects and agendas. These changes are happening so frequently that many businesses are investing some of their dollars in to communications. Whether it’s a chat solution, video conferencing system or some other files sharing application, you’re most likely in the same ball park. This is where many businesses fail to adequately determine actual business requirements and establish some level of governance and standardization, which often leads to IT having to manage multiple platforms or applications to support end users. I’m sure you don’t want to negatively impact your IT staff’s productivity either.  

Skype for Business is a simple and affordable option. Yes, that’s right. You heard me correctly. Skype for Business is not just a video chat tool anymore, as it now offers instant communication via phone call, video, conferencing, screen share, file sharing, and provides users flexibility and efficiency to work from their PC, laptop or mobile device.