Pretty much everyone is familiar with Microsoft’s products such as Microsoft Office, Outlook, and its components, which includes Word, Excel and PowerPoint. These are amazing tools that can significantly help the operations of your clinic however they require a significant up-front cost as you are expected to pay full price for newer versions in order to stay on top of patches/security updates, and are more or less “tied” to the workstation where they have been installed.
Enter Office 365!
This new model of “Software as a Service”, aka SaaS, gives you the option to have access to the full office suite with Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook you have come to know as well as other productivity services such as OneDrive, SharePoint and much more. All these are available on the cloud, meaning you can access your applications and documents from anywhere in the world! All of the above are available through a low monthly subscription fee. Best of all, if you do not need to use all the applications offered through Office 365, there are subscriptions options that can help you reduce your monthly cost even more!
As an example, a Business Premium subscription to Office 365 includes the following applications:
Word, Excel, Outlook, PowerPoint, Publisher, OneNote, OneDrive with up to 1TB of cloud storage SharePoint, & Exchange. You also get a number of collaboration tools like Delve, Skype, Yammer, and Sway. These tools allow users to communicate, brainstorm ideas, share documents, and have video meetings while on the go.
Why does BlueBird recommend Office 365?
Security: By working with BlueBird over the years and through our newsletter articles you must have gathered that we are big on security. Security is priority at Microsoft data centers. With Office 365, you can benefit from the systems used by Microsoft to help protect email, documents, and networks. These systems scan your messages and documents for spam and malicious software (also called malware) 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Microsoft data centers help safeguard your data and are certified to meet multiple industry-standard certifications.While we’re on the topic of data centers, Microsoft’s Office 365 services are now hosted in Canadian data centers as required by Canadian Health Care Data Privacy Requirements.
Reliability: Often users are concerned with cloud services reliability. Microsoft Online Services provides a service level agreement (SLA) and has a 99.9% scheduled uptime. Their network infrastructure has built in redundancy ensuring minimal impact to its users.
Compatibility: Often users are unable to upgrade or use applications incompatible with their operating system. That’s not an issue with Office 365. Microsoft Online Services supports not only Windows 10, 7 and Vista (SP2), but also Windows XP SP3. Even XP Home edition or Media Center edition can be used, although it doesn't support federated identity. MAC users can also access the Office 365 applications, using OS X 10.5 (Leopard) or 10.6 (Snow Leopard).
Accessibility – Anywhere, anytime, any device: You are no longer tied to your desk or clinic! Since Office 365 lives in the cloud, you can access your applications and files anytime, anywhere, from virtually any device (your smart phone, notebook, tablet, or home workstation) as long as there is internet access available!
Updates & new versions: You no longer have to worry about paying full price for new versions of Office. You will always have the most up-to-date version for all your subscribed applications. Best of all, updates and bug fixes are automatically available rather than having to wait for the next release from Microsoft.
Flexibility: Office 365 works on a “you pay for what you have” principle. That means as your clinic’s needs change, you can quickly add or remove licenses as needed! Furthermore, due to its flexibility you can offer different license versions for different staff needs, thus better managing your costs.
Keep your email history: If you wish, you can migrate your old emails to your outlook application so they are all saved in one place and easy to access! (An additional one-time fee applies.)
Create a professional impression: Set yourself apart from health organizations that use free @yahoo.ca or @google.com email accounts by adding a custom domain name. An email address with custom domain name (i.e. Dr.smith@health.com enhances your credibility and professional presence.
Still wondering if Office 365 is the right solution for your practice?
Please give our team a call at 888.930.9933 or send us an email at support@bluebirdinc.com and we will gladly discuss your goals and options with you.