Business Setup

[PCForumHelp]

Hi,

I have been help a charity out for 10 years or so and never been allowed to do much on the software side. As such, each PC has different OS, and stand alone Office versions. A mess.

I've finally been asked about bringing everyone up to a common level and need advice.

In this instance we are talking about 10-12 PCs and Laptops in total.

There needs, in general, are very basic: Outlook, Word, OneDrive primarily.

I will be updating/Upgrading all of them to Windows 10 (or purchasing new PC with Windows 10) so the OS should be okay. Where I need advice is Office. How does one setup a corporate multi-license MS365 setup so I can say get 10 license (add more if needed) and manage things easily? Or do I buy them 1 by 1 separately?

What about a common OneDrive so they can share folders and files amongst themselves?

I'm looking at MS365, but if you think Office 2021 is a better option, please say so. I am open to all advice.

Any advice on this is truly appreciated.

Thank you.

[PCForumHelp]

After digging a bit, I think I understand that OneDrive are user based, no way of sharing. So to share file with each other this would require setting up a SharePoint Library. Now SharePoint comes with Business Standard, but what is the storage limit, how do I cost that aspect? Such a shame Microsoft doesn't have a shared corporate OneDrive with their Business offerings! Searching online show many other people trying to figure the exact same thing out and finding it impossible to determine what is needed and most importantly how much it actually costs!!!

Is it poorly viewed upon to simply setup an in-house file server nowadays? More and more, trying to make sense of what Microsoft now requires, the never ending costs once we'd make such a technology shift, I'm more leaning towards an old fashion file server with raid installed. Is this a bad idea?

[HansV]

Welcome to Eileen's Lounge!

If your users' needs are basic, Microsoft 365 Business Basic might be sufficient. Users can use the online (browser) versions of Word, Excel, Outlook and Outlook. It also comes with OneDrive storage and Sharepoint. It's $6 per user per month in the USA.
If you prefer to have the locally installed versions of the Word, Excel etc., get Microsoft 365 Business Standard. It's $12.50 per user per month in the USA.

See Find the best Microsoft 365 plan for your business

If you're a registered charity, you might qualify for Microsoft 365 for Nonprofit. The Business Basic version is free; the Business Standard version is $3 per user per month in the USA.

See Find the right Microsoft 365 enterprise plan for your organization

[PCForumHelp]

Thank you HansV. I had looked the at those pages.

The OneDrive doesn't permit sharing amongst themselves. So a SharePoint library would need to be created and used. How do we find the pricing of that? How much does SharePoint space cost (I see no information on any of the pages I've consulted)? How hard is it to administer? Will they be capable of doing so (creating folder structures, adding files)? It it requires special logins, admin panels, etc it won't work. I need something as easy as OneDrive, but sadly OneDrive can't be shared amongst multiple users.

12.50/user/month + xx.xx$/user/month for SharePoint this will quickly become expensive me thinks.

I should have mentioned the nonprofit pricing. I've tried many times to get them to get them to go down that route, TechSoup, but they want nothing to do with it. They do not like the idea of having to share all their financials with 3rd parties (Microsoft, TechSoup, etc). Can't do anything about it. Their loss.

[HansV]

SharePoint is included in all Microsoft 365 Business subscriptions, even the Basic version.
According to SharePoint limits, you get 1 TB of SharePoint storage + 10 GB per user.

[JoeP]

You could set up one user as a common user and share a OneDrive folder. You could give access to all the other users. It would cost another user account. So, the money would depend on the plan although you may be able to mix and match. Even if the real users required the more expensive plan the shared user would only need the basic one to get the storage.

[PCForumHelp]

@HansV - Thank you for that great link. I hadn't come across that page yet.

@JoeP - Thank you for the suggestion, that may be the best solution.


I have 2 remaining questions:

1. Is SharePoint easy to manage or will they need an Admin to manage it and create structure, etc?
2. Microsoft 365 Family states it can be installed on 5 devices has 1TB storage per person. Can it be used for a small business? Is there some fine print somewhere that I have yet to locate that states it is not for business usage?

[HansV]

I don't think you'll be prosecuted if you use Microsoft 365 Family for non-profit organizational use.

[jolas]

I understand that you are looking into Microsoft solutions and this may sound off topic but google also offer solution that may fit what you need at a starting price of "free" and you don't really have to upgrade your existing system because it works on different platforms and devices as long as you have internet access and an updated browser to use.

I say this because I belong to a school who is lucky enough to qualify for google apps for education. We originally use microsoft solution much like your situation and moving to google made more sense as our user made use of it on a daily basis. Sharing/editing files (at the same time) and folders are strong suite of google infrastructure. We find google drive, google mail and the many available apps very fast and reliable. Searching is quick, it even feel faster than searching your physical drive.

The available storage space per user are pooled together that means if you have 12 user using the free version (if you are qualified for a non-profit status) effectively all 12 user may use more than the alloted 30GB and not run into storage problem. You may also opt for additional storage space if you wish

There is also a google drive offline app that will act like another drive letter on Windows and you can access and upload file including Microsoft Office files. MS Word equivalent is Google Docs, MS Excel equivalent is Google Sheets which could also save file in MS Office format as well as other file formats.

There are two interesting sharing method in google drive. Sharing My Drive and Shared Drive. Sharing in My Drive have a fine grain control on how you share files and folders and basically the creator of the file/folder owns the document and have control on how it is shared (read/write, read only and comment only).

Shared Drive is sharing based on the role assigned by the file creator to specific users. Roles define how a user can interact with the share file. With this setup the owner of the file uploaded to the Shared drive belongs to the Shared Drive and not the creator of the file. The beauty of this method is that if a particular user is no longer connected to the company any sharing to other user will not be lost even if the account is eventually disabled.

Files created have version history (which can be named) and very useful to come back in case you need a certain version to compare to.

If you have a existing domain name then you can use it to create google accounts using that domain. There are many apps that you may find useful including google sites (intranet or even internet website creator), Google Calendar, Google form and others.

All your files accessible anywhere in the world as long as you have a working internet connected device and a browser. Single Sign On with option to have 2 Factor authentication for more secure computing both Desktop (my preferred way to access google) and portable devices can be use best of all you can test it for free and even stick with the free version for the time being as it allot generous amount of pooled space for started.

Just a thought or just ignore if not relevant to your need.

[jolas]

https://www.google.com/nonprofits/

Free Version

https://workspace.google.com/intl/en_id/

Business Starter Pricing

In case you are interested

[JoeP]

Have you checked to see if you qualify for nonprofit pricing? See Nonprofit eligibility requirements and Nonprofit plans and pricing.