Technology, when used appropriately, has a distinct ability to tear down the walls that otherwise divide us.

Whether legally documented, tucked below the earth, or even cultural in nature, boundaries of any kind create defined separation between places or people. They exist in businesses, too. Example?

• Dallas to Little Rock? 339 miles.
• Fort Smith to Lufkin? 332 miles.

The distance itself + an antiquated on-premise technology environment invariably sets limits on how we would collaborate, share data, and swiftly post valuable intel to anyone across an organization that spans 11 offices.  But Microsoft 365 introduces sharing and collaboration without geographical boundaries. It tears down those invisible walls.

As he peers into the Datamax future, that’s precisely what gets VP of Strategic Technology Justin Huffaker jazzed about the recent company-wide migration to Hosted Exchange and, ultimately, Microsoft 365. The ability to break down the boundaries between offices, and share our rich, valuable content across all locations - essentially opening the door to limitless collaboration.

“We’ve talked about Datamax One for years, and this in many ways enables that idea,” Justin said. “As we collectively move to the cloud and utilize Microsoft 365, we’re no longer limited by geography.  We can tap into data and leverage good ideas regardless of location.”

Granted, we’re not there yet. The migration to Hosted Exchange (a necessary endeavor to bring on Microsoft 365) is not quite complete, and there is plenty of training to be done on the many applications that accompany Microsoft 365.

But rest assured, Datamaxer. Take it from Justin himself. Our internal utilization of technology, with this migration, is scaling up considerably.  The seas of collaboration are parting.

Scaling Up: It Has its Challenges.

Internal IT Administrator Stew Campbell looks forward to the day soon when the team literally turns off the on-premise mail servers. He, Jay Wise, and Aaron Sauer (with the support and expertise of folks like Richard Martin and other TSG personnel)  have been tasked with moving mailboxes to the cloud over the last several months. Stew himself has visited with users over the course of this year to learn what’s important, what needs to stay, and what needs to go in terms of email.

“It’s been a challenge,” Stew said. “But we’re close. As of today, I’m the only individual left that has a mailbox on-premise. Everyone else has moved. The good news? Once this project is completed, users can access their email anywhere in the world as long as they have an Internet connection.”

It goes without saying that a project of this magnitude doesn’t come without its challenges.

As of this Newsletter’s release, the migration team has been working to resolve issues related to public folders (which include items like email repositories, shared emails, shared calendars, etc.).  Justin says that once that is ironed out, it’s a matter of pulling the community together to find out who is experiencing other than optimal situations and resolving those matters individually.  

“What has complicated this project the most is the fact that our on-premise Exchange platform was about to be put into the end-of-life category by Microsoft. Trying to migrate something that old, to something that is the very newest can be challenging,” Justin said.

Even so, Justin can’t help but get excited when he looks ahead. The easy, seamless collaboration. The office-to-office sharing of ideas and data.

“The combination of Microsoft 365 and the Elevate communications platform allows us not just to survive, but to thrive,” he said. “Our ability to collaborate, to knock down geographical walls between marketplaces. It’ll be a game changer.”  

Justin also reiterates the necessity of migrating email to the cloud to fully embrace Microsoft 365’s potential.

“The real gem as it relates to this migration is not hosted exchange – it’s Microsoft 365,” Justin said. “When we talk about Hosted Exchange, my sincere hope is that it becomes invisible. It’s just there. Your email shows up reliably and it’s easy to communicate between offices. The more reliable it becomes, it’ll fade into the background and simply enable communication easily.”

Scaling Up: 6 Microsoft 365 Applications Justin is Considerably Jazzed About.

1. SharePoint Cloud-hosted collaboration: Take marketing documents as an example. With SharePoint, users can pull the latest and greatest brochures wherever they need to…. Without needing local server access.
2. OneDrive and Working from Anywhere: Let’s say Justin is at a conference in Las Vegas. From his hotel room and his laptop, he can collaborate with his team, review documents, and view posted information, just as if he’s using his operating system back at the office. “It’s a great way to always have your files with you,” Justin explains.
3. New Exchange/Outlook capabilities: Improved dynamic presence indicators (available, in a meeting, busy, etc.), calendar availability regardless of physical office location, improved performance with mobile devices (Outlook for iPhone, for example), Do Not Forward email options, and larger email storage options to name a few.
4. Microsoft Office Capabilities: All the tools you know and love like Word, PowerPoint, and Excel, they’re all here. They have just been updated fully and cloud-ready. What does that mean? The ability to share files via dynamic link vs email attachment. Ultimate collaboration. Let’s say you’re a salesperson and you email a Word attachment, with the WRONG numbers. With a dynamic link share, you can jump in and change what you need without having to send another email explaining your error.
5. Office 365 Applications: Yammer, Forms, Stream, Whiteboard… the list goes on. Whether it’s storing videos in the cloud (vs local server) or boosting collaboration through Whiteboard applications, there’s a lot to embrace when it comes to the list of applications available to us.
6. Tools to boost Datamax Culture: Here, Justin points immediately to Yammer, a corporate internal social networking application to enable company-wide communication through a familiar social interface. Here, Justin can envision DatamaxCares ideas, sales tips and tricks, and so much more. “Right now, you have to go outside to sites like LinkedIn. This will be inherently Datamax, something we can promote and publish from within, for every office location,” Justin said.

Scaling Up: Words of Advice Moving Forward.

Once fully implemented, jumping into these new applications can be tempting… and even advantageous. But Justin suggests that users proceed with a steady, calculated mind.

“One of the things I advise is being deliberate in how you use these tools,” Justin said. “Otherwise you’ll be all over the board and may get frustrated because there are so many options.”

He suggests a steady amount of collaboration on what we could use an application like Yammer for. Additionally, spend a little time on TechCare University, where a bevy of tutorials related to Microsoft 365 applications exist.

Educate yourself. Embrace the tools that are coming your way. Knowledge is power, and with such, we will soon have the power to collaborate like never before. As Justin puts it, "Power to the People!"