Microsoft 365 for organisations that already depend on it
Almost every organisation has Microsoft 365. Very few have it set up the way they would choose today.
It usually arrives one piece at a time. Email first, then files, then Teams, then a licence added for a new starter and never reviewed. After a few years the result works, but nobody can say why it is arranged the way it is.
Logic Networks takes it on as one environment: the mailboxes, the files, Teams, the licences and the sign in rules that sit behind all of them. We work with organisations across London and the rest of the UK, from a handful of users upwards.
That can mean moving you onto it, taking over the running of it, or simply reviewing what you have and telling you what we would change.
Microsoft 365 is not a product you buy once. It is a set of decisions that keep needing to be made.
Who can share outside the organisation, what happens to a leaver’s files, which devices can reach your data. Left unmade, those decisions get made for you by whoever is in a hurry.
- One tenancy, documented, with the administrator accounts in your name
- Licences matched to roles instead of to everybody at once
- Files in one place, with permissions by role
- Sign in protected by a second check, including the administrators
What is included
Six pieces of work, from the mailbox to the licence line.
Most organisations need two or three of these. We say which, after a short review, rather than quoting for all six.
Email and mailboxes
Mail that arrives, and leaves, correctly.
User mailboxes, shared addresses such as enquiries and accounts, distribution lists, calendar permissions and the delegation that lets an assistant work on somebody else’s diary.
We also look after the records in your domain that tell the world who is allowed to send mail as you. When those are wrong, your own messages go to junk and somebody else can send mail in your name. It is a fifteen minute job that is left undone in most organisations we review.
Files, SharePoint and OneDrive
One place, and everybody knows which.
Where documents live, who can reach them, what happens when somebody leaves, and what happens when a file is shared with somebody outside the organisation.
The common failure is not a technical one. It is three places to save a document and no rule about which to use, so the current version depends on who you ask. We set the structure, move what is scattered and write down the rule in one line.
Teams and meetings
Tidy enough that people can find things.
Teams grows on its own. After two years most organisations have teams nobody uses, channels with one message in them and guests from projects that finished.
We set up a structure that matches how you are actually organised, agree who can create a new team, review the guest list and decide what happens to meeting recordings so they do not accumulate for ever.
Licensing and cost control
Paying for the people who are here.
The plans differ in what people can do, and putting everybody on the same one is usually the most expensive choice available.
We review the licence list against your staff list, mix the plans by role, remove what is assigned to leavers and put the renewal dates somewhere you can see them. The review is repeated, because the count drifts every year.
Security and sign in
A stolen password should not be enough.
Multi factor authentication for every account including the administrators, rules about which devices and which places can reach your data, and a proper process for joiners and leavers.
This is where the largest part of the risk sits, and where the smallest amount of work removes the most of it. The wider layers are on the cybersecurity page.
Migration onto Microsoft 365
Moved over a weekend, not over a month.
Moving from an on premises mail server, from Google Workspace or from another provider’s tenancy. Mail, calendars, contacts, files and the devices that have to be set up again afterwards.
The work is planned backwards from the cutover, tested with a small group first, and scheduled so the busiest part lands outside your working hours.
How it works
Three ways in, depending on where you are starting from.
They are not steps in a sequence. Many organisations begin with the review, act on part of it themselves and hand over the rest later.
Tell us which of the three sounds like your situation and we will say what the first piece of work would be.
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A review first
We look at your tenancy and come back with what we would change, in order, with costs. You can act on it yourself or ask us to. No commitment either way.
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A migration project
Moving you onto Microsoft 365 from a server, from Google Workspace or from another provider. Defined scope, defined date, one cutover.
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Ongoing management
We run the tenancy as part of managed IT: licences, permissions, joiners, leavers and the settings behind them.
Who it is for
Microsoft 365 work is worth doing when the environment has grown past the point where one person remembers how it was set up, or when something about it has started to cost you money or time every month.
The sector changes the answers, because the rules about sharing, retention and student or client data are not the same in each.
- Businesses whose licences and permissions have drifted over the years
- Charities and non profits eligible for discounted or granted licences
- Education organisations with staff and student tenancies to keep apart
- Organisations still running their own mail server
- Teams on Google Workspace who have decided to move
- Anyone who has just failed a client or insurer security questionnaire
What we need from you
Three things, and the first one is the only difficult one.
Where you cannot supply something, say so early. A migration planned around a missing piece of access is the one that runs over.
Administrator access
A global administrator account for the tenancy, and access to where the domain name is registered. Without the second one, mail cannot be moved.
A decision maker
Somebody who can settle the questions a migration raises: who keeps a licence, what happens to a leaver’s files, whether external sharing is allowed.
A list of the awkward cases
The scanner that sends email, the application that reads a mailbox, the person with twenty years of archived mail. These decide the plan more than the headcount does.
What we usually find in the first review
These are the items that come up in almost every tenancy we look at. None of them is unusual, and all of them are worth knowing about.
- Licences assigned to people who have left
- Everybody on the same plan, including staff who only use email
- Administrator accounts without a second factor
- Mail records in the domain incomplete, so your own mail is distrusted
- Files in three places, with no rule about which to use
- External sharing switched on for everything, or off for everything
- Guests in Teams from projects that ended years ago
- No record of what happens to a leaver’s mailbox and files
Our steps for working together
A migration is the version of this work with the most moving parts, so these are the stages we use for one. A review or a handover follows the same shape with fewer of them.
- Review what exists Mailboxes, files, licences, devices, the domain records and the awkward cases. Written up as it is.
- Agree the decisions Who keeps which licence, where files will live, what external sharing is allowed, what happens to leavers. Written down before anything moves.
- Prepare in the background The new tenancy configured, accounts created, mail copied while the old system stays live. Nobody notices this part.
- Test with a small group Three or four people work in the new environment for a few days. Every problem found here is a problem not found by everybody at once.
- Cut over Outside working hours. Mail redirected, the last differences copied, devices reconfigured.
- The first week Somebody available for the questions that only appear in real use, and a written note of what changed for staff.
How we set priorities during the work
Anything that stops a person working comes first, and mail comes before files, because a person can wait an hour for a document and not for a customer’s message. Anything with a date you have told us about is treated as urgent whether or not it looks it.
What we tell your staff
- What changes and when One page, in plain words, sent before the work rather than during it.
- What to do on the first morning Including what they will be asked to sign in to again.
- Where files are now With the one rule about which place to use.
- Who to contact A name and a number, not a form.
- What is not changing Usually more than they expect, and worth saying.
Why Microsoft 365 is not a backup
This is the point most organisations discover at the wrong moment. Microsoft keeps your service running and protects it against their own failures. It does not protect you against yours.
- A deleted mailbox item is recoverable for a limited period, then it is gone
- A deleted site or team has a retention window, and then it is gone
- A file encrypted by ransomware syncs to the cloud copy as an encrypted file
- A leaver’s account removed to save a licence takes their files with it
- A staff member who deletes a folder in anger is doing something Microsoft treats as a valid instruction
The answer is a separate backup of the tenancy, held somewhere your own accounts cannot reach, with a restore that has been tested and dated. It costs a small amount per user and it is the single most common gap we find. See backup and disaster recovery for how we set it up.
What good looks like afterwards
New staff are working within their first hour. Nobody asks where the current version of a document is. Your licence count matches your staff list, and you know the renewal date. Sign in asks for a second check and nobody complains about it any more. A leaver’s access ends on the day they leave, not when somebody remembers.
Where this meets security
Sign in rules, device rules and the joiners and leavers process sit inside this work. Email filtering, staff awareness and the wider layers are covered on the cybersecurity page, and the day to day questions afterwards go through IT support.
Related services
Microsoft 365 touches most of the other work. Once the tenancy is in order, the pieces below become easier and cheaper, because the accounts and the permissions are already sorted out.
You do not need to take more than one. It simply costs less when the same team already knows your environment.
- IT support for the day to day questions from staff
- Managed IT to have the whole environment run for you
- Cybersecurity for protection beyond sign in and patching
- Cloud and Azure for the servers and systems that are not in Microsoft 365
- Backup and disaster recovery because Microsoft 365 is not a backup
Articles and news on Microsoft 365
Notes on licences, files and sign in, written for the person who has to explain the change to everybody else.
Turning on multi factor authentication without stopping work
The single change that prevents most account takeovers, and how to introduce it across a team of thirty people in a fortnight.
Read the articleMicrosoft 365 licences explained for small teams
Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium and the Apps plan, described by what each one lets your team actually do.
Read the articleTalk to us about Microsoft 365
Tell us how your tenancy is set up today, or that nobody is sure. We will review it and tell you what we would change, in what order, and what it would cost.
No obligation, and no sales call unless you ask for one.