TechQuarters

TechQuarters are a market leader in IT Support and Cloud migrations. In May 2013 Microsoft awarded us with the World Cloud Partner of the Year SMB award.

[techquarters]

Microsoft will be ending its support for Windows XP on the 8th of April 2014. The time is coming to upgrade your network to Windows 8 and Office 2013. 

Give us a call for more information on 0800 148 8001 or email us at [email protected]

Or visit www.techquarters.com

[techquarters]

Introducing Office 365 Message Encryption!

The next version of Office 365 Message Encryption, will provide you with a new service that lets you send encrypted emails to people outside your company. No matter what the destination-Outlook.com, Yahoo, Gmail, Exchange Server, Lotus Notes, GroupWise, Squirrel Mail, you name it! You will have the ability to send sensitive business communications with an additional level of protection against unauthorized access. For many businesses encryption is essential, i.e.:

A bank sending credit card statements to customers over email.

An insurance company providing details about the policy to clients.

A mortgage broker requesting financial information from a customer for a loan application.

A healthcare provider using encrypted messages to send healthcare information to patients.

An attorney sending confidential information to a client or another attorney.

A consultant sending a contract to a client.

A therapist providing a patient diagnosis to an insurance company.

Office 365 Message Encryption is the new version of Exchange Hosted Encryption (EHE). This version includes all of the capabilities of EHE and a couple of extra features, such as the ability to apply your company’s branding to encrypted messages. Like EHE, Office 365 Message Encryption works with Office 365 mailboxes as well as with on-premises mailboxes that use Exchange Online Protection.

Furthermore, Office 365 E3 and E4 users will get Office 365 Message Encryption at no extra cost. Microsoft is including it in the Windows Azure Rights Management, which is already part of E3 and E4 plans.  They are also including it in the standalone version of Windows Azure Rights Management, and this at no extra cost.

Why don’t we take a look into how the encryption works exactly?

Setting up the encryption

The system administrators set up transport rules to apply to the Office 365 Message Encryption when emails match specified criteria. Transport rules provide great flexibility and control, and can be managed via a web-based interface or PowerShell.

In order to set-up the transport system, administrators simply need to select the action to apply or remove the encryption in the Exchange admin center. This is an improvement over EHE, which required complex headers and multiple setup steps.

You set up Office 365 Message Encryption rules in the Exchange admin center.

Once the rules have been set by the administator, whenever anyone in the company sends a message that matches the conditions, the message is encrypted using Office 365 Message Encryption. The outgoing message is encrypted before it is delivered to the outside mail server to prevent any spoofing or misdirection.

Receiving and responding to encrypted messages

When an external recipient receives an encrypted message from your company, they see an encrypted attachment and an instruction to view the encrypted message.

The encrypted message appears as an attachment in a message in the recipient’s inbox, with instructions for how to view it. 

The attachment can be opened from your inbox and the attachment opens in a new browser window. To view the message, you just follow the simple instructions for authenticating via your Office 365 ID or Microsoft Account.

Once you are authenticated, the content of an encrypted message appears.

The Message Encryption interface – on Outlook Web App, is modern and easy to navigate around. You can easily find information and perform quick tasks such as reply, forward, insert, attach, and so on. As an added measure of protection, when the receiver replies to the sender of the encrypted message or forwards the message, those emails are also encrypted.

When you reply to an encrypted message you’ve received, your reply is also encrypted.

  Applying custom branding

Office 365 Message Encryption allows you to customize the branding on your company’s encrypted messages and portal where the message is viewed. The customization is not limited just to your company logo, but can also extend to the text in the header, disclaimer, and the portal text in the sent email.

With Message Encryption, you can customize the disclaimer text and header text in your company’s encrypted emails.

  You can also customize your company Logo and portal text that appear in your encrypted emails.

  Administrators can use PowerShell cmdlets to set up the branding for these texts and images.

  PowerShell can be used to set up different branding texts and logo emails encrypted in Message Encryption.

  With Office 365 Message Encryption you can send sensitive information to people outside your organization with the confidence that that information is protected.

[techquarters]

The similarities and differences of Office 365 and Google Apps.

Call on 0800 148 8001 or email us at [email protected] for more information

[techquarters]

10 Reasons why users prefer Outlook to Gmail for Work

1. Integration across email, calendar and contacts

Email now has become the primary method of communicating at work. It is crucial for businesses to be able to communicate effectively in one place, whether involves setting up meetings, finding out information on a contact, dialing into conference calls or going to online meetings – everything is in one place.

The lack of smooth integration on Gmail across these different communication channels makes Outlook the obvious choice.

2. Offline access to emails

This is an obvious benefit, when using Gmail, you do not have the ability to access your inbox without an internet connection. This really comes into its own if you like working on-the-go, especially on planes or trains where internet is limited or non-existent.

3. Organise Email your Way

Everybody has a different way of working and organising things such as their mailbox.  Some people like to have their emails sorted from oldest to newest, others like it alphabetically or search emails in a specific folders. Gmail users only have to option to organise their emails from newest to oldest – for many, this may feel like taking a detour to more work rather than it being a solution.

4. Categorise your emails

Outlook provides users with the opportunity to categorise their emails through the use of colour coding. The colour coding provides a simpler solution for users to organise their emails as they will have an immediate prompt about what the specific email is related to.

5. Rules to reduce email clutter

You can now create rules to move specific items into different folders – this helps to de-clutter your inbox by removing unwanted emails to these folders. Gmail is yet to have this facility.

6. Rich Contact Data

Outlook has rich Contact Data, this means that Outlook will store all your contact details in one location. This includes email, company name, address, phone number and so on. This facility makes it easier for you to manage your contacts without using a 3rdparty application. You can also sync your contacts with your phone, this means that you will always have access to your contacts on-the-go.

7. Scheduling meeting rooms

Outlook gives users the ability to schedule resources such as meeting rooms, projectors and so on. This can be done by adding them as a resource when sending out a meeting request. This feature helps to prevent the occurrence of a double booking, as well as making it easier for you to book what you need for a meeting. With Gmail you are faced with a long winded multi-step process involving primary and secondary calendars.

8. Sharing and delegating Calendars

Calendar sharing and delegating access makes controlling and updating multiple calendars far easier for administrative assistants. The level of control you have with Outlook far exceeds that of Gmail, such as just sharing your free/busy status along with subject, but not sending out any of the actual meeting details e.g. attendees, location etc.

9. Multiple ways to find email

Users require various ways to search for emails in their inbox, which will prevent them from getting stuck with a simple search like Gmail. Outlook users have the ability to search in a variety of ways whether they undergo a search in folders, categories, sort emails in inbox, search folders, etc.

10. Changing importance of emails

Outlook has the facility to send emails at difference importance level whether it be “high importance” with the red exclamation mark or “low importance” blue arrow. This makes easy to distinguish between difference emails at a glance. The lack of this with Gmail often confuses end users.