The Ultimate Guide to Planning a Microsoft 365 Strategy

Our Microsoft 365 Masterclass Series is a new webinar series from Valto. Our series aims to help organisations get the most out of their subscriptions including planning a Microsoft 365 Strategy, adoption the platform, improving security and a dive into key technologies.

The first event in our Microsoft 365 Masterclass series is “Planning a Microsoft 365 Strategy” and how you can create an effective plan for the next 12-36 months.

365 Strategy Planning Webinar Video

Key Topics – Defining an effective Microsoft 365 Roadmap

The important considerations when defining a roadmap and strategy are as follows:

  • Governance – Key areas to define governance policies including defining SharePoint & Teams structures and limiting key settings that make governance difficult to enforce.
  • Adoption – Defining an effective adoption strategy including communication, training, champions and resources.
  • Security – Implementing an effective baseline of security for Microsoft 365 and rolling this out across your Microsoft 365 platform allowing additional services to easily be enabled.
  • Migration – Best practices for migration of files from legacy platforms to Office 365 Services.

Generally, as part of any Microsoft 365 planning you need to consider the toolsets that are available, we often break these down into two categories

Productivity Tools

Productivity tools enable users to get the most out of the platform and provide productivity benefits and functionality to streamline the user’s way of working including:

Security Tools

Security tools ensure the Microsoft 365 is secure and aligned to the objectives and company policies including:

  • Enterprise Mobility & Security
  • Conditional Access
  • Azure AD
  • InTune
  • Azure Information Protection
  • Advanced Threat Protection

Get in Touch – Start your Microsoft 365 Master Plan with Valto

All of the products outlined above our included in a Microsoft 365 Business Premium license. Valto are here to help with your Microsoft 365 Strategy Planning. Get in touch via 03335 779 009, [email protected] or Contact Us.

Top 10 Security Tips for Microsoft 365 in 2022

Microsoft Office 365 Security is one of the main concerns when organisations consider moving their data to the cloud. With new threats emerging on a regular basis, organisations must use the tools at their disposal to lock down and secure their data. Microsoft Office 365 is considered a very a secure platform when configured correctly by an administrator. This article outlines 10 security features available to organisations using Microsoft 365. For more information on Microsoft security visit our service options for office365 enterprise mobility security (EMS), Microsoft 365 security and compliance or Microsoft Office365 hacking prevention.

Securing Microsoft 365 Video

1. Activate Multi Factor Authentication

Multifactor factor authentication requires more than just a username and password from a user when they try to log into office 365. It’s one of the most effective ways off securing your account. When activated, users logging in will have to type in a code sent to their mobile phone or respond to a notification using a free Microsoft app. This prevents attackers from gaining access to your account even if they have the password.

2. Use dedicated Admin accounts

Admins should have a separate standard user account for everyday non-administrative tasks. Office 365 Administrator accounts have elevated privileges making them targets for hackers. Admins should only sign into these accounts when performing administrative duties. This reduces the attack vector if accounts are compromised.

3. Disable Auto-Forwarding of email

If an attacker gains access to a user’s mailbox they may automatically forward all mail to an external address without the user knowing. Using mail transport rules admins can prevent auto-forwarding being enabled on user mailboxes.

4. Protect against malicious email attachments with ATP

ATP Safe attachments is part of Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection. Its function is to protect users from malicious email attachments such as ransomware and viruses. All attachments are scanned and executed in Microsoft “sandbox” environment to determine if the attachment performs any malicious actions. Files deemed safe are re-attached to the message and delivered to the recipient’s mailbox.

5. Protect against phishing attacks with ATP Safe Links

ATP Safe links is part of Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection. Its function is to protect users from malicious links sent within emails. Administrators should configure policies to enable time-of-click verification on URLs within emails and office documents.

6. Enable Mailbox Auditing

Customers who procured Office 365 before January 2019 won’t have mailbox auditing enabled by default. Administrators should check if auditing is in place and enable if not. Once activated mailbox auditing allows you to track actions that users take within their own and other users mailboxes.

7. Use Role Based Access Control

Using Role Based Access Control within Office 365 gives administrators the ability to assign roles to users to allow them to carry out specific actions whilst denying others. An example would be allocating the billing administrator role to a member of finance to allow them to access billing only within office 365. This prevents Global Admin roles being assigned to users giving them more permissions than they need. RBAC provides a more distinct level of administration given the large number of products and applications with Office 365.

8. Lock down SharePoint and OneDrive sharing

By default, users in Office 365 can share documents and files outside the organisation with external users. Administrators should review their organisational policies to lockdown down sharing to specific sites to reduce risk of data leakage. SharePoint sites with public information could be enabled for external sharing with expiration on links. Sharing can also be locked down to trusted domains only.

9. Email Alerts

Alerts is a feature in the Office 365 security & compliance centre. Administrators should configure and enables alerts to prompt for suspicious or abnormal activity. Once Alerted Administrators can investigate issues that could be potentially problematic. Examples could include large volumes of data being deleted from SharePoint sites.

10. Use Microsoft Secure Score

Microsoft Secure score is an analytics tool providing a numerical value of an organisation’s current security status within Office 365. The score is presented on a dashboard and is based on the current configuration, users’ actions, and other security measurements within Office 365. Administrators should follow and implement the recommended list of actions on the portal. Each action addressed will increase the security score and reduce the overall threat to your office 365 environment.

Speak to a Microsoft Security Expert

All of the products outlined above our included in a Microsoft 365 Business Premium license. Valto are here to help with your Microsoft 365 platform. Get in touch via 03335 779 009, [email protected] or Contact Us.

Microsoft 365 & Teams for Internal Communications

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Our latest webinar “The Silver Bullet for Internal Communications” covered a pertinent topic with the prevalance of remote working and how your organisation can unleash the most powerful, yet under-utilised tool in your internal comms arsenal – Microsoft 365 & Teams.

Face to face communication can be a challenge in the easiest of times, yet it is vital in helping colleagues feel valued and part of an organisation. As more and more businesses find themselves working remotely, either as a result of the pandemic or normal business practice, maintaining the connection between colleagues, managers and leaders intensifies. A cost effective and fit for purpose digital solution is crucial.

With special guests Sarah Edwards, Fabrica Group and Clare Milsom, Ocuix, our focus for this event was delivering targeted communications to a range of audience groups, based on the fundamental principles of engagement, experience and motivation.

We demonstrated how a blend of interactive Microsoft technologies, strategic internal communication planning and dynamic aesthetics will enable you to connect and engage colleagues with business goals, activities and programmes.

Whatever the mix of working arrangements you have in place – home-based, field, office locations or a combination – we can explain how to communicate effectively with your teams and colleagues, through a continuous, engaging and integrated stream of content hosted via Teams.

Specific Microsoft technologies to be covered:

  • SharePoint Online
  • Microsoft Teams
  • Teams Live Events
  • Microsoft Stream

The Silver Bullet for Internal Comms

About Hugh Valentine:

Over 10 Years deploying Microsoft & Cloud Technologies for Customers & Partners. Loves cycling and raising money for charity. Managing Director of Valto.

Areas of expertise:

modern workplace IT, digital transformation, Microsoft services, technology adoption, IT strategy, flow, cloud roadmap, cloud automation, cloud security and much more.

About Sarah Edwards:

An accomplished internal communication, engagement and change expert, and founder of Fabrica Group, Sarah has over 20 years’ experience in helping businesses piece together strategy and objectives with people and the way they work.

Areas of expertise: Strategy development and deployment; Internal communications; Employee engagement; Cultural analysis and change; Coaching and facilitation; Leadership and employee events and conferences; Certified Myers Briggs practitioner; Accredited change management practitioner; Certified Hogan practitioner

About Clare Milsom:

Clare is an award-winning Producer working in the corporate communications and events industry. Having started her career as a graphic designer in the late 90s, Clare has evolved a particular talent for understanding complex technical information and communicating it by developing strong creative message architectures with visual clarity. Clare has a thorough understanding of the creative tricks and broadcast technologies that turn a video call into a digital event.

Areas of expertise: Graphic design; video and event production and delivery.

Microsoft 365 Services for Internal Communications

Valto provide a range of services including:

Using SharePoint for internal communications

Using SharePoint for internal communications can take your business collaboration to a whole new level. SharePoint has been designed with innovative collaboration in mind. With content management and teamwork applications, utilising SharePoint to the fullest will connect all your Microsoft tools and encourage easy file sharing and communication.

This powerful software makes it easy for your team to co-author documents and connect with remote workers and those in other offices. The expert SharePoint consultants at Valto can offer remote IT support for SharePoint and all other Microsoft products. Read on to discover our top tips for using SharePoint for internal communications.

Gather around the discussion board

The Discussion Board found within SharePoint is the perfect place to promote discussion and teamwork. This intuitive program allows you to start a conversation and discover the opinions of your staff in real time. Discussion Boards only take minutes to set up and can save time in place of an in-person group meeting.

Develop a shared Wiki Library

Creating a Wiki Library is a fantastic way to connect your staff and organisational information using SharePoint. A Wiki Library is a shared database of documents that users can access and edit. Your library will grow organically as you link more documents together. This is also an excellent way to see what information you lack. You can then create the pages that you need.

Be heard with the Announcement List

The Announcement List in SharePoint allows you to make important announcements to your staff with absolute simplicity. By setting expiry dates, you can also pre-plan your monthly announcements to save time. Putting your group Announcement List on the landing page of your SharePoint Intranet makes it easy for every member of staff to see your announcements.

Create a SharePoint Survey

Creating surveys is the quickest and easiest way to get the opinions of your team. With question branching, stored answers and Excel exportability, managing your findings is also incredibly easy. Anonymous surveys are a perfect way to encourage interaction from shy and quiet members of your team.

Use a SharePoint Community site template

Using a SharePoint Community Site Template to create a centralised social media style network allows you to connect with your staff in a familiar way. Whether it’s for team discussion or around a specific topic, this is a great way to encourage engagement. You can use the SharePoint Community Site Template to implement and encourage Microsoft gamification.

Contact Us

We hope you found our “Microsoft 365 & Teams for Internal Communications” blog post useful. Valto are here to help with your Microsoft 365 Internal Communications Challenges. Get in touch via 03335 779 009, [email protected] or Contact Us.

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