Microsoft 365 Support

We set up, secure and support Microsoft 365 (still often called Office 365) for businesses in Cardiff and across South Wales, and we can supply your licences too.

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365, run properly

Microsoft 365 support means having someone who sets up, manages and secures your email, files, Teams and Office apps, and who answers the phone when something stops working. We do that for businesses across Cardiff and South Wales as part of our managed IT support, from £40 per user per month + VAT.

Most businesses that come to us already have Microsoft 365. What they usually lack is a tidy set-up: licences that match the people using them, files people can find, leavers’ accounts actually closed, and security switched on rather than left at the defaults.

We’re a Microsoft Partner, so we can supply your licences as well as manage them. Licences are billed separately from our monthly fee, and we’ll make sure you only pay for what you use.

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Licences supplied

The right plan for each person, bought through us and billed separately.

Moves and migrations

Email, files and Teams moved across with as little disruption as possible.

Starters and leavers

Accounts ready on day one, and closed properly when someone leaves.

Secure by default

Multi-factor authentication enforced and settings kept to the Cyber Essentials standard.

Licensing

Which licence, and how to buy it

Microsoft sells Microsoft 365 per user, and its business plans are designed for organisations with up to 300 users. For most small businesses the choice comes down to three:

Business Basic: email, Teams, OneDrive and SharePoint, with the web and mobile versions of the Office apps.
Business Standard: everything in Basic, plus the desktop versions of Word, Excel, Outlook and PowerPoint.
Business Premium: everything in Standard, plus Microsoft’s business security tools, including Intune for managing devices, Defender for Business, and Entra ID P1 for controls such as conditional access.

You can mix plans, so not everyone needs the same one. The term matters too. A licence on a monthly term costs more than the same licence on an annual term, but an annual licence can’t be reduced once the first seven days have passed, so it pays to get the numbers right first. Microsoft changes its prices from time to time, so we confirm costs when you buy and before you renew.

Set-up and migration

Moving in without the chaos

Whether you’re coming from another email provider, an office server or a Microsoft 365 set-up that grew without a plan, we plan the move before anything changes.

Email: mailboxes, calendars and contacts moved across, with your domain’s settings changed at the right moment so mail keeps flowing.
Files: shared drives moved into SharePoint and personal files into each person’s OneDrive, with permissions set up as part of the move, not afterwards.
Teams: set up around the way you actually work, so chat, meetings and files sit in the right place.
Devices: Outlook, OneDrive and the Office apps set up on every computer and phone.

Migrations are projects, so we quote for them separately. Moving off a server in the office? Our page on cloud migration explains how we decide what should move and what shouldn’t.

People

Starters and leavers, done properly

Starters and leavers are where many Microsoft 365 problems begin: a starter waits two days for an account, while a leaver’s account stays open for months, still able to sign in.

Tell us who’s joining and when, and we’ll have their account, licence, multi-factor authentication, email groups and shared folders ready for their first morning, along with their laptop if we’re setting one up.

When someone leaves, we follow a set routine:

Block their sign-in and sign them out everywhere.
Remove company data from their phone or tablet.
Keep their mailbox, usually by converting it to a shared mailbox, which doesn’t need a licence up to 50 GB.
Pass their email and OneDrive files to whoever is taking over their work.
Remove the licence, so you stop paying for it.

The order matters. Microsoft keeps a former employee’s email for 30 days after the licence is removed and then deletes it permanently, so the mailbox has to be dealt with first.

Teams and SharePoint

Files people can actually find

Teams and SharePoint work well when they’re planned, and turn into a maze when everyone creates their own: dozens of teams nobody remembers creating, the same document in three places, folders shared with “anyone with the link”.

We agree a simple structure with you first, typically one team or site per department or area of work, each with a clear owner. Then we set permissions so people see what they need and nothing else, and agree how sharing with clients and suppliers should work.

It’s worth doing for its own sake. It matters even more if you plan to use Copilot, which can draw on anything a person has permission to open.

Security and backup

Secure settings and a backup of your own

Microsoft 365 doesn’t arrive locked down. On every account we manage, multi-factor authentication is enforced, and we keep settings to the Cyber Essentials standard whether or not you’re certified. Business Premium adds stronger controls, such as blocking sign-ins from devices you don’t manage. Our Microsoft 365 security page sets out the baseline we put in place.

Microsoft keeps the service running, but under its shared responsibility model your data and user accounts remain your responsibility. Email emptied from Deleted Items can only be recovered for 14 days by default, and deleted SharePoint files for 93 days. That’s why your Microsoft 365 data needs a backup of its own, and why it’s part of the daily backups our team monitors. How our backup works.

Copilot

Copilot, switched on safely

Microsoft’s AI assistant comes in two forms. Copilot Chat is available to users with an eligible Microsoft 365 subscription, without a Copilot licence. The full Microsoft Copilot, which works inside Outlook, Word, Excel, Teams and your files, needs its own licence per user on top of a qualifying plan. We’ll help you decide who would genuinely use it before you pay for it.

Before switching it on, we check what matters most: permissions. Copilot only shows people information they already have permission to see, but in many businesses that’s far more than anyone realises, such as a salary spreadsheet shared with everyone years ago. We fix oversharing first, then switch Copilot on with the right settings. Microsoft states that prompts, responses and the data Copilot reaches through Microsoft 365 aren’t used to train its foundation AI models.

Getting real work out of Copilot, and building AI automations around it, is the job of our sister business AlphaOps. More on AI in your business.

Everyday support

Help when something stops working

Microsoft 365 support is part of our managed IT service, so there’s no charge each time you need help, whether it’s a forgotten password or Outlook misbehaving.

Urgent problems are typically picked up straight away, backed by our SLA, and you speak to the same small team each time, who know your staff by name.

Being honest

When you might not need us

If you’re a one- or two-person business with a simple set-up, you may be fine managing Microsoft 365 yourself through Microsoft’s own admin centre. We’re most useful once you have a team: people joining and leaving, shared files, client data to protect, and nobody whose job it is to look after it.

Unhappy with your current provider? Switching usually takes one email from you. See how switching works.

Questions

Microsoft 365 support: FAQs

Do you supply Microsoft 365 licences?

Yes. We’re a Microsoft Partner and can supply and manage your licences. They’re billed separately from our monthly support fee, and we’ll recommend the right plan for each person, on a monthly or annual term, before you buy.

Which Microsoft 365 plan does my business need?

For most small businesses: Business Standard if people need the desktop Office apps, Business Basic if the web and mobile apps are enough, and Business Premium if you want Microsoft’s stronger security and device management included. The business plans are for up to 300 users, and you can mix them.

Is Office 365 the same as Microsoft 365?

Mostly. Office 365 is the older name. In April 2020 Microsoft renamed its small-business plans, so Office 365 Business Premium became Microsoft 365 Business Standard, for example. Some enterprise plans still carry the Office 365 name. Whichever you have, we support it.

Does Microsoft back up our Microsoft 365 data?

Microsoft keeps the service running and protects its datacentres, but under its shared responsibility model your data remains your responsibility. Its built-in recovery options are time-limited: email emptied from Deleted Items is kept for 14 days by default, and deleted SharePoint files for 93 days. A separate backup covers the rest. More about backup.

Is it safe to switch on Copilot?

It can be, once permissions are in order. Copilot only shows each person information they can already access, so overshared files become easier to find. We check and tidy permissions first, then license and switch on Copilot for the people who will use it.

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