Improving productivity is one of the main goals of a small business. As a small business owner, you want your employees to work at their best and give it everything so that your long term business objectives can be achieved. Incorporating technology to your business operations always helps in realizing some of these objectives. And what better way to embrace productivity technologies than to integrate Windows Server 2012 Essentials with Office 365 for your small business?
The best part about making this integration is that it allows you to manage your Office 365 services and many of your business’ online accounts together with your on-premises resources from the Windows Server Essential Dashboard hence allowing for maximum efficiency and simplifies operations. Everything is already taken care of with the user friendly Windows Server 2012 Essentials interface.
Windows Server 2012 Essentials
For Windows Server 2012 Essential one can argue that it is Windows Server 2012 at its core as it combines all the great enhancement in Windows Server 2012 for maximum productivity. It comes with unique capabilities including new storage features such as storage spaces and improved performance for maximized efficiency. Not only does the Windows Server 2012 Essentials provide for the combination of Office 365 but it also allows small businesses to back-up their entire server or PCs into the cloud for easier access.
For small enterprises, Windows Server 2012 Essentials offers easier setup, installation and a simplified management experience through the user’s web based, touch friendly login access to their PCs. Your employees can access their desktops from anywhere using devices like smartphones and tablets making it easier to work on projects. This packaged solution is designed for small to medium sized business that have less than 25 employees.
Moving your business’ on-premise email server solution to the cloud server could essentially turn out to be the smartest decision for your small business as it helps to take care of issues such as higher email service availability and you get to enjoy low administration costs. It also helps to know that by embracing the cloud, you automatically shift disaster tolerance responsibilities to the cloud provider.
Why it’s important to integrate Office 365 with Windows Server 2012 Essentials
Integrating these two allows you to easily manage your Office 365 services and resources from the Windows Server 2012 Essentials together with your on-premise resources.
Allows your small business to manage online accounts
By integrating Office 365 with your server, you get to manage online accounts which in turn gives your employees access to Office 365 together with the user accounts. This means that the integration allows you to create Microsoft Online Service accounts for your employees using a single step and also makes it possible for you to add an online account to an existing or a new employee.
Anytime an account is created using the Dashboard, your small business employees get to sign into Office 365 using the same password as the one they normally use to log into the Windows Server 2012 Essentials. In an event a password is changed, the same changes do reflect on their online password as well.
As the owner of the business, you get to manage an online account together with the user account throughout the existence of the user account. In an event where you choose to deactivate a user account the same also applies to their online account.
Create and manage your small business’ SharePoint Online libraries
With the Windows Server 2012 Essential Dashboard, you get to create and manage your SharePoint Online libraries if that is included in your subscription. In addition to this, you can also change permissions for a SharePoint Online team site via the same Dashboard.
Helps you to manage mobile devices connected to your small business’ server
If you’ve subscribed to the Exchange Online service, you can manage the mobile devices accessing your Windows Server 2012 Essentials by requiring a password protection, blocking devices from connecting to the Exchange Online if they are a security concern and even wipe the device to erase sensitive business information in an event the device is stolen or lost.
Enjoy new ways of connecting to Office 365 resources and services
The integration allows you to easily open Office 365 integration services straight from the Windows Server 2012 Essentials Launchpad. There are also a number of feature apps which offer opportunities to work with documents in your SharePoint Online libraries including your Windows phone, Android devices and even your laptop.
Integrating Windows Server 2012 Essential with Office 365 offers your small business improved productivity as your employees can work on project regardless of their location and use their portable devices to access assignments. In addition to this, the value added features also helps to protect your customer’s data and simplify your employees path to the cloud.