By Kirk Drake | December 4, 2013

Top reasons office 365 is not for Credit Unions

**This post no longer represents Ongoing Operations’ position on Office 365 for Credit Unions. Microsoft has made many updates to Office 365 since 2013 when this blog was published. Click to learn more about why Office 365 for credit unions can be a great solution.**

If you are a Credit Union considering moving to the cloud and you are considering moving to Microsofts Office 365 product, this blog is for you.

In reading this Tech Republic article, on the top 10 things you should know before moving to Office 365, it became apparent that this should be broken down more specifically for Credit Unions. The article highlights the following key areas:

• Migrating is not a simple process
• You may have to start over with spam filtering
• Outbound email address might change
• You can say goodbye to third-party utilities
• You might have DNS issues
• You may have to use different management tools
• You might have to reset file server permissions
• Prepare to be bombarded with phone calls and e-mail messages
• You might not be able to immediately connect users’ mobile devices
• Expect a loss of control

To be more specific – there are several issues that will specifically be a problem for Credit Unions:

Third-party utilities –

Does your Credit Union use or plan to use secure messaging to protect sensitive information in e-mails to members? If so, Microsoft doesn’t offer any options. Many Credit Unions use Cisco Iron Port, Zix, for secure messaging or they may use content management tools that prevent employees from e-mailing sensitive information like social security numbers of credit card numbers. None of these are supported with Office 365.

Future Integration and Control

While Office 365 offers some nice features and stability for basic Office functions like Lync or e-mail. Long term you will probably want to further integrate your applications with other functions. For example, many Credit Unions like to have integrated phone, chat or other member delivery channels to be integrated. Once you move to Office 365 you won’t have any ability to integrate your chat and voip system or your office documents into your workflows. This can cause havoc for technical advanced Credit Unions that want to use automation that uses key Microsoft components to create a streamlined delivery channel or business process. Even if you think this is a remote possibility, once you move to Office 365 you will build a huge barrier to doing things like screen pops or integrated loan documents.

Vendor Management

Let’s face it – it is unlikely Microsoft will fail. That being said – it is also unlikely that a Credit Union can get its proper due dilligence documents on Microsoft. I doubt they will provide a SAS70 or SSAE-16 for inquiring Credit Unions.

Control of Data

There is a big reason Microsoft and Google want to host your e-mail. There is tons and tons of data in there to be mined. All of your consumer and business information can be indexed, researched and correlated so that they can use it for their purposes. Why would you want to turn over any of this content to a third party that doesnt’ share common interests?

Do you have concerns about where your data will end up in the cloud? Do you want to make sure you can get to the cloud securely?