Moving from Google Workspace to Windows 365. What am I getting into?

[Parliament 14,370]

Our company is consolidating divisions, and our division is getting with the program.  Today we use the Googles; Gmail, Google Slides, Google Drive, Google Sheets, etc.  I came here from Windows (the old style, not cloud) and I love the capabilities that cloud-based files offer; especially with sharing and collaboration.  

I know Windows 365 can do that as well, but there are differences.  What are those differences?  What are the pros/cons?

[tigol 2,421]

10 hours ago, Parliament said:

Our company is consolidating divisions, and our division is getting with the program.  Today we use the Googles; Gmail, Google Slides, Google Drive, Google Sheets, etc.  I came here from Windows (the old style, not cloud) and I love the capabilities that cloud-based files offer; especially with sharing and collaboration.  

I know Windows 365 can do that as well, but there are differences.  What are those differences?  What are the pros/cons?

I've used both and prefer Google.  You can kind-of work with shared documents in Teams, but it's not as well organized as Google Drive.  Gmail is easier than Outlook.  If you use Sharepoint, it is not as seamless as Google Drive.  Microsoft goes out of their way to avoid simplification, in my opinion.

[TwiceHorn 31,684]

5 minutes ago, tigol said:

I've used both and prefer Google.  You can kind-of work with shared documents in Teams, but it's not as well organized as Google Drive.  Gmail is easier than Outlook.  If you use Sharepoint, it is not as seamless as Google Drive.  Microsoft goes out of their way to avoid simplification, in my opinion.

If I had to guess, M$ hangs on to a lot of relics of offline office, while the Google suite was designed to be online from jump.

I do a lot of fairly highly formatted documents, and neither WP is adequate for that.

[tigol 2,421]

5 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

If I had to guess, M$ hangs on to a lot of relics of offline office, while the Google suite was designed to be online from jump.

I do a lot of fairly highly formatted documents, and neither WP is adequate for that.

Yes, I think that is the best way to look at it.

[Parliament 14,370]

37 minutes ago, tigol said:

You can kind-of work with shared documents in Teams, but it's not as well organized as Google Drive. 

I've played with M365 some, and I'm sharing files and docs within in it; similar to G Drive.  Not as simple, but it seems to work.

 

Where I've been disappointed with G Drive is the mobile apps.  Hard to find files and you gotta flip from the browser to G Drive app for stuff.  My experience with the Excel app has been MUCH better.  For anything you wanna do on a small screen with no keyboard or mouse, the Excel app...excels at it.  That's something I'm looking forward to.

Re: Gmail v Outlook, yea.  Not looking forward to it.  Google Meet rocks too.  Not sure how you could make it better.

[tigol 2,421]

54 minutes ago, Parliament said:

I've played with M365 some, and I'm sharing files and docs within in it; similar to G Drive.  Not as simple, but it seems to work.

 

Where I've been disappointed with G Drive is the mobile apps.  Hard to find files and you gotta flip from the browser to G Drive app for stuff.  My experience with the Excel app has been MUCH better.  For anything you wanna do on a small screen with no keyboard or mouse, the Excel app...excels at it.  That's something I'm looking forward to.

Re: Gmail v Outlook, yea.  Not looking forward to it.  Google Meet rocks too.  Not sure how you could make it better.

Teams is really good for meetings.  You can mute participants.  I don't think Meet let you do that.

Assholes that haven't figured out that they are/are not on mute suck.  I forgive an occasional slip-up, but when I see "I don't know how to mute myself" join a meeting I mute that bitch pronto.  Fells good.

[Parliament 14,370]

Meet let's you do that and yes it is awesome.  I've been the recipient of a mute easily as often as I've doled it out.

[CooterBrown 18,089]

A huge drawback to gmail is that, ironically, the search function is terrible. If an email is older than a year or two, it may be lost forever. The search cannot locate it. This is a known issue with gmail and it’s bizarre that a company that exists because of Search, cannot implement one that works with their email service.

[KaiserSoze 998]

1 hour ago, CooterBrown said:

A huge drawback to gmail is that, ironically, the search function is terrible. If an email is older than a year or two, it may be lost forever. The search cannot locate it. This is a known issue with gmail

WTF? I've never encountered this with gmail. A search I did a couple of days ago returned emails that matched the criteria from over a decade ago.

Edited May 31, 2021 by KaiserSoze

[Apep 645]

I think I've run into this issue, but it's hard to tell. Did I accidentally delete an email? Did I use the wrong search terms? Because I can find decade-old emails, but there are tons that seem to be missing from search.

[Telegraph_it 3,371]

Office 365 is great. Power Automate is a great tool that lets you automate remedial tasks with low code. Throw in some AI form recognition and you never have to do manual entry into spreadsheets again. 

[CooterBrown 18,089]

WTF? I've never encountered this with gmail. A search I did a couple of days ago returned emails that matched the criteria from over a decade ago.

It is super inconsistent. Somethings it will find and some it won’t. If you Google the issue there’s lots of blog posts about it.

One example I experienced recently is I needed to find an old receipt for hardwood floors from 7 years ago so I could match the color. I remembered the sales rep’s name, company, etc. Gmail search would even auto fill her email address as I typed her name but couldn’t retrieve any emails. Luckily, I knew the month and year. Used that as a filter, zero. Used just the year, zero. So, I manually clicked the back arrow a few hundred times until got to it. There were a half dozen emails between us. Every search I used should’ve found it.

[Jkwellborn 6,877]

We did the same thing at work last year. It took me some getting used to the Google stuff. It wasn’t bad, but I grew up using MS.

Outlook sucks compared to Gmail. Teams seems pretty good. I’ve used it quite a bit here lately. I never used Goggles version.

[Parliament 14,370]

I am a fiend for the shortcut.  Looking for a file, you go into the folder you think it's in.  And it isn't.  Check the next on and nope.  Etc, Etc.  So I make shortcuts and drop them on those folders.  Hence, files are easier to find.

I can't figure out how to do that in Win365.  Is it possible?  Note that I'm using the web version exclusively; not folders on the computer itself.

 

[dcbc 14,568]

If you're used to offline MS Office, a 365 license should let you download the desktop programs, which are more robust than the 365 web apps. It's all set up to sync to the cloud. Sharing documents in Word is just clicking the share button, which puts it in SharePoint. One drive is easy. So is teams

Sent from my Pixel 5 using Tapatalk

[Parliament 14,370]

Wtf is SharePoint, and what can it do that I can't do just by sharing my OneDrive folder with them? 

[52-80 19,277]

9 hours ago, Parliament said:

Wtf is SharePoint, and what can it do that I can't do just by sharing my OneDrive folder with them? 

even microsoft doesnt know that

then throw in the repository built into Teams... a fustercluck

[Celery Man 21,026]

I may be missing or misinterpreting the point, but sharepoint has file sharing as well as... wiki, forms, a whole bunch of stuff. I've used it more like Confluence (Atlassian suite, not sure about a google equivalent) in the past, but I think a big problem with sharepoint is that it is a giant pile of functionality and is easy to have no idea what the fuck to do with it

[Parliament 14,370]

I need to upload a buncha contacts into Outlook.  Looks like I can't upload directly into Outlook.com?  I need to go through the Outlook program itself.  If so, that's a problem, as my POS Macbook doesn't have Outlook.

[TwiceHorn 31,684]

1 hour ago, Parliament said:

I need to upload a buncha contacts into Outlook.  Looks like I can't upload directly into Outlook.com?  I need to go through the Outlook program itself.  If so, that's a problem, as my POS Macbook doesn't have Outlook.

You can, using csv file.  Click the people icon on the left "sidebar" thing.

[Parliament 14,370]

Bam.  Thank you.

[StruggleBus 3,922]

On 5/31/2021 at 11:41 AM, CooterBrown said:

A huge drawback to gmail is that, ironically, the search function is terrible. If an email is older than a year or two, it may be lost forever. The search cannot locate it. This is a known issue with gmail and it’s bizarre that a company that exists because of Search, cannot implement one that works with their email service.

Nah, you’re just stupid 

[dcbc 14,568]

On 6/28/2021 at 9:46 PM, Parliament said:

Wtf is SharePoint, and what can it do that I can't do just by sharing my OneDrive folder with them? 

Sharepoint is basically the function of sharing a file in a onedrive folder.  Kind of an overlay of sorts.  But there is a way to access a sharepoint page on the web where shared files are arranged outside of the onedrive setting.  I agree that it seems redundant and not intuitive. 

If I'm working on a document in word and I want to share it with someone in our group, I click the share button in the top righthand corner of the window, type the person's name into the field, select the level of editing controls, enter a message, and send.  The document still is saved to my one drive, but editing is enabled. 

[Parliament 14,370]

Well that's what I thought.  Turns out I am NOT a moron.

[Apep 645]

Anyone have a good AND *free* mbox to .pst converter?

I've found one for $25 in the MS app store, but was hoping I could save a buck.