Many organizations are moving to Office 365 and Teams (Microsoft’s solution for chat, messaging, conference calling and collaboration) as they deal with the impact of the current COVID-19 pandemic.

For most, holding meetings online is a simple task among colleagues that both know each other and have had access to formal training or experience using online applications, like Teams, Zoom or Go to Meeting. For organizations required to hold formal Open Meetings, available to the public, that task becomes more complex.

Of course you are interested in maximizing your revenues by spending less time troubleshooting end-user issues. So it makes sense to explore as many self-serve options as possible.

The realities of COVID-19 including the current mandated social distancing and “work from home” orders have changed our lives and our businesses. As a small business owner my company, KnowledgeWave, has had to adapt to the new ways of doing business during this pandemic. 

At your company, you are most likely doing the same.

We have seen a large spike in requests for Microsoft Teams Training as a result of businesses across the globe moving to remote work solutions during the COVID-19 pandemic. Companies are rushing to implement solutions like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to remain functional while employees (who can) are working from home.

Microsoft has seen a 775% increase in the use of its cloud services in regions that have enforced social distancing, and the use of Microsoft Teams is now a daily activity for over 44 million users. Microsoft has done an amazing job, with little impact on the quality of service, meeting this unprecedented surge in demand. The need to work remotely continues to increase as stay-at-home orders around the globe continue to expand.

As an IT professional, you're probably up-to-speed on the idea of automation. Automation of repetitive tasks simplifies processes providing efficiencies and saves you and your team time.

In response to increased requests regarding the need to work remotely, we wrote our blog post last week: How to Be an Effective Employee While Working from Home. We also created a free webinar that ran for several sessions discussing how employees can maximize their efficiency and effectiveness while working from home (or pretty much anywhere).

After the live webinars, we received requests from multiple clients and prospective clients for access to the recorded version. Today, we have uploaded this premium webinar to YouTube for all to access. The webinar video is embedded below.

The COVID-19 outbreak has left many companies scrambling to respond to government social distancing recommendations. Business today is anything but usual, but it is also an opportunity to expand your capabilities and learn new approaches. Working from home with remote business solutions is easier than ever before. Your business productivity doesn't have to stop just because you aren't able to make it into the office. Office 365 & Microsoft Teams give organizations the flexibility to work from anywhere in the world. KnowledgeWave is now offering a series of FREE webinars, open to the public, on how to effectively work from home.

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is encouraging citizens to find out how their workplaces and schools are planning for the current Coronavirus (Covid-19) outbreak, including options for working from home.

What would you do if tomorrow you were unable to go to your office?

Microsoft Teams with Office 365 is a great option; it provides users with the ability to collaborate, share files, make voice calls and even host meetings all without having to leave home.

How many end user apps do you think are part of Office 365? Go ahead, take a guess.

If you’ve been nominated to help your organization with Microsoft Teams training, then you’ve come to the right place. KnowledgeWave is a national leader in Teams training and we’ve been collecting and refining training materials along the way.

Microsoft Teams training materials come in many different options, most of which are electronic. After all, if you are moving to Office 365 and Teams then your organization is committed to using modern workplace collaboration tools.

There is sort of an unwritten rule: as an MSP, your clients expect you to help with all things IT-related.

As an IT service provider, it’s helpful to keep an ear to the ground and figure out where your industry is going, what your market is demanding, and what combination of services and pricing will make it all count where it matters most: right on your bottom line.

Here are 3 quotes I wanted to share with you from recent conversations that can help you picture how you can benefit from reselling end-user Office 365 training to your clients.

I was discussing Office 365 end-user engagement recently with a respected IT security professional. Our conversation centered on the necessary tension between a user who is trying to get their work done efficiently, and IT’s obligation to protect organizational data. Nowhere is this more evident than with Office 365.

Update: July 8, 2020

This blog post was originally posted in January 2020 before the world-wide COVID-19 pandemic touched us all in March. With the need to work remotely and/or work from home, the number of businesses reaching out to KnowledgeWave for support around Microsoft Teams quadrupled.

This blog post was very relevant for several businesses reaching out for guidance around Microsoft Teams deployment and Microsoft Teams training. Many of these new businesses seeking guidance knew that Teams is included and integrated with Office 365. They were already using Office 365, but weren't using Teams. Instead, they were spending additional money trying to use Zoom.

I originally wrote this licensing blog post back in May of 2016 and it received a lot of traffic and has helped many people in their planning for Office 365 deployments. I thought it was time for a new post to address some of the biggest licensing changes. Back in 2016, I noted that you couldn’t go a week without hearing about a well-known business making the move to Office 365. Companies are still making the move, but the buzz we hear now is around Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams.