The Five Most Common Issues with Office 365 for Credit Unions

Does your credit union still use an outdated legacy version of Microsoft Office? Are you considering a switch to Office 365?

Whether you’re already on Office 365 or you’re considering a switch, there are some things you should look out for. Ultimately, we think that Office 365 is a definite upgrade, but it’s not without its quirks and difficulties.

From our experience, here are the five most common issues with office 365 that we deal with.

Issues with Office 365

We’ve been working with Office 365 since it was first released. Since then, we’ve dealt with a wide range of concerns, from security, to file sharing, to exchange, and back again.

While our troubleshooting has taken us to some interesting places and helped us solve some unique problems, most issues with Office 365 stem from a handful of platform features.

1.    Office 365 vs The Cloud

One of the main selling points of Office 365 for credit unions is that it’s cloud-based. However, that’s not exactly true. In fact, one of the issues with Office365 is that it’s a hybrid system. 

This means that although many applications run in the cloud, several others do not. Not only that, but credit unions with lower bandwidths may need to run desktop versions of some applications or face some serious throttling issues.

Running a hybrid deployment of your exchange may present hurdles in the form of prerequisites. Especially in the case of legacy licenses, cloud access and functionality may be limited by older exchange systems.

On the other hand, Office 365’s hybrid system provides an additional margin of safety during network outages.

2.    Support Issues with Office 365

Needing tech support for any productivity platform is a question of “when,” not “if.” At some point, your credit union will need help with an Office 365 application.

Fortunately, Microsoft will absolutely be there to help…

When their schedule allows.

Although Microsoft’s support team is highly knowledgeable and capable, they’re rarely able to provide instant support. It’s not uncommon to wait days or weeks for help resolving an issue.

You can hire third-party support services to help you remain trouble-free. (In fact, this is one of the benefits of using a hosted and managed Office 365 solution.)

3.    Migration Woes

We’ve helped countless credit unions migrate to Office 365. In fact, you can read more about issues with Office 365 migration here. Difficulties with migration can lead to downtime, missed critical emails, and undue frustration.

If you’re having trouble syncing with exchange or trying to move from a legacy license, it’s better to call in the experts. Especially for communications and exchange platforms, minimal downtime is critical to operations.

4.    Bandwidth Issues

Especially for smaller credit unions, bandwidth could become a sticking point.

Office 365 for credit unions is great until you begin running out of bandwidth for your many users. Doing most or all your work online takes up network resources and slows things down.

We’d love to provide an interesting solution to this issue, but the only people who can help are the employees at your ISP. Hint: it means upgrading your credit union’s internet plan.

5.    Licensing and Customization

One of the most frustrating issues with Office 365 for credit unions is in figuring out which features and apps work with which licenses. Many important or even critical apps and features only come with higher tier licenses.

Some users may need to upgrade their license to include certain functions or options.

As for plugins, add-ons, and macros, not all of them work perfectly on Office 365. You may need to consult with your IT squad or third-party experts to see what you can and can’t use in the (mostly) cloud-based iteration of Office. Fortunately, there’s a huge amount of support for Office 365 compared to legacy versions now, so you will certainly be able to keep your productivity flow high in no time.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day, we definitely recommend Office 365. It’s come a long way in the last several years, and it should be a welcome addition to any credit union. See how your credit union can get started with Office 365 here.

If you’ve experienced any problems related to these issues with Office 365, we’ve posted some potentially-useful related articles here.

Ready to make the move to Office 366? We certainly believe the benefits outweigh any potential issues. Fill out the short form to the right and a team member will be in touch shortly!

The 7 Biggest Reasons to Migrate to Office 365

The 5 Most Common Questions About Migrating to Office 365

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