Your data
Cloud & Microsoft 365
Most Microsoft 365 tenants were set up once, at migration, and left alone since. A proper review usually finds licenses nobody uses and security features that were never switched on.
Signs Your Microsoft 365 Tenant Needs Attention
Microsoft 365 was set up years ago by someone who has moved on, and nobody has reviewed the settings since.
If any of these describe your business, this service is usually the right place to start.
- Your tenant was configured years ago and never revisited.
- You pay for licenses and aren't sure who uses them.
- Your staff work from more than one location, and file access shows it.
- You still run a server whose only job is holding files.
Benefits of a Managed Microsoft 365 Tenant
- Your staff reach their mail and files from wherever they work.
- Licenses match the people you employ this month.
- When somebody leaves, offboarding follows a routine and nobody scrambles to recover access.
- Everything in the tenant is backed up, which Microsoft doesn't do for you.
How We Manage Cloud and Microsoft 365
We start by opening the tenant and telling you what's in there. Almost every tenant we inherit has unused licenses and at least one account belonging to somebody who left.
Then we configure it properly: security defaults, multi-factor authentication, sensible sharing and a backup. The data in your tenant is your responsibility, and that surprises most people the first time they hear it.
If you're moving to the cloud, we plan the migration around your working week. Mail, files, shared calendars and business applications move in an order that keeps you operating, and we tell you in advance which weekend will be inconvenient.
What Our Microsoft 365 Services Include
Tenant review and cleanup
What you're licensed for and what you use, plus anything configured in a way you wouldn't have chosen.
Cloud migration
Mail, files, applications and old file servers moved on a schedule built around your business. See cloud migration for how we plan it.
Identity management
Entra ID configured properly, with multi-factor authentication and a defined process for people joining and leaving.
Microsoft 365 backup
Held outside the tenant. Retention policies aren't backup, and the difference matters on the day you need a file back. Our Microsoft 365 backup page explains it.
License optimization
Tenants often pay for a tier nobody uses. We check at every renewal and tell you what we find.
Ongoing administration
New starters, leavers, permissions and shared mailboxes, handled as part of your agreement through Microsoft 365 management.
Microsoft 365 Cleanup and Migration, Step by Step
- We review the tenant you already haveLicenses, mailboxes, sharing settings and administrator rights. There's almost always a license still being paid for somebody who left. Our post on Microsoft 365 features you pay for and never turned on covers the other common finding.
- We fix the configuration before moving anythingMulti-factor authentication and sharing rules come first, because migrating into a badly configured tenant just moves the problem somewhere newer.
- We migrate in an order that fits your weekMail and files move first, planned around your busiest periods, with a way back at each stage.
- We manage and back it up from then onLicense counts get reviewed at each renewal, and a separate backup holds what lives in the tenant.
Microsoft 365 Backup Is Your Responsibility
Microsoft keeps the service running. What happens to your data inside it is on you, including a file somebody deleted three months ago or a mailbox emptied by someone who shouldn't have had access.
Retention policies help, and they still aren't a backup. This is the most common gap we find in an inherited tenant, and backup and business continuity covers how we close it for every cloud system you run.
If you're weighing a new server against a move to the cloud, read whether your server needs replacing at all. For nonprofit organizations we set up the nonprofit Microsoft 365 licensing they qualify for.
In their words
Related Case Studies
A finance and insurance client
A Year of Tickets, Solved in the First Meeting
A Financial Advisory Practice Switches Providers, and the Email Problem Goes with the Old Arrangement
Read the case studyA manufacturing client
The IT Department Was One Man, and He Was Retiring
Co-Managed IT as Succession Planning for a Manufacturer
Read the case studyCloud and Microsoft 365 FAQ
How is cloud and Microsoft 365 support priced?
In two parts, kept separate on purpose. Microsoft charges per user for the licenses, and we charge per user for managing the tenant.
Migration is a project, quoted once we know how many mailboxes and how much data are moving.
How long does a Microsoft 365 migration take?
It depends on how much data you have and how many applications touch it. A straightforward mail and file move for a company of 30 people is usually a few weeks of preparation and one weekend of cutover. You'll get a plan with dates on it before anything moves.
Will our staff lose access while it happens?
The plan is built to avoid that, and the disruptive steps happen outside working hours. We'll tell you which parts carry risk and what the fallback is if a step doesn't go as expected.
Can we keep some things on site?
Yes, and sometimes you should. A line-of-business application that runs badly over the internet belongs where it is, and so does equipment that has to sit next to the machine it controls. We recommend the cloud only where it suits the system.
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