Office 365 can help you develop the way you work online
Office 365 can replace Skype for Business, Dropbox, Zoom, Trello and more. It lets you work in an integrated way that is consistent with other teams at Kent.
Office 365 is the new University of Kent collaboration platform. Make it the first place you visit to collaborate with colleagues and students, or contacts at other organisations.
What Office 365 offers
- The full suite of Office applications available online on any device: log in here with your Kent IT Account to see them
- Extensive file storage for you and your team: individual OneDrive cloud storage (1 Terabyte) and collaborative storage within Teams sites (25 Terabytes)
- Live multi-user document editing are possible on files in both Teams and OneDrive
- Collaboration and productivity tools such as Teams, Planner, and To Do
- Teams offers web, video and audio chat which can include presenting or screen sharing
- Teams meetings can be set up from your Outlook calendar
Integration saves time
Unlike third-party applications such as Zoom and Dropbox, Office 365 applications are integrated:
- with each other
- with our Kent IT Accounts and user directories
- and with existing services such as email and shared mailboxes.
When you book a meeting in Teams it goes into your email Calendar. Or you can book a Teams meeting directly from your calendar.
You can see colleagues’ availability and chat instantly or arrange a virtual meeting. You can plan project work and integrate this with your personal online to-do list and your team’s or project group’s work plan.
Read why O365 tools offer much more than other video conferencing, storage, messaging or planning tools.
Secure and supported
Office 365 provides all of the security and account governance that comes with a University IT Account. Office 365 is regularly updated by Microsoft, with new features expected for Teams very soon (including the ability to ‘raise your hand’ in a large video chat, and see 9 participants at once on screen).
Save money on third-party licenses
Departments should use the functionality within Office 365 to avoid incurring costs for third-party software licences. Third-party tools may be less secure, and many of them (such as Zoom or Dropbox) offer similar features as Office 365, without the integration or collaboration benefits.
We aim to develop services to meet your needs: if you believe the functionality you need doesn’t exist in the tools provided, please contact us.
Development of the service
From September 2020 Office ProPlus will be installed on student and staff PCs (managed desktops). Teams will replace Skype for Business as our staff instant messaging service.
Our Office 365 portal will offer more applications over the coming 12 months including Stream, Sway, Forms and Bookings. These will offer you new ways to share video, create online media, create interactive forms, and manage interviews and events.
Support and guidance
- Visit the University Staff Guide to O365
- For further help with O365 tools, contact us