Microsoft 365 and IT support, set up properly and kept that way

What we support, and what we do not

We give full tier 1 and tier 2 support for Microsoft 365 and everything that comes with it. That is where we are strongest, so that is where we keep the work.

• Email and Exchange Online. Outlook, mailboxes, shared mailboxes, forwarding, and mail that will not send or does not arrive.
• Teams. Chats, channels, meetings and the files that sit behind them. Teams calling too: we can set it up so your team makes and takes calls through Teams.
• SharePoint and OneDrive. The company’s files and each person’s own, with the permissions and syncing that go with them.
• Accounts and sign in, through Entra ID. Entra ID is the part of Microsoft 365 that holds your staff accounts and decides who can sign in, and how. It used to be called Azure Active Directory.
• Devices managed through Intune. Company laptops and phones enrolled, kept to one standard, and locked or wiped remotely if one goes missing.
• Licensing. Who has which licence, what each one includes, and what nobody is using.
• Security settings. Multi factor authentication, conditional access, security alerts and the mail records on your domain.

General IT is a different job. We do not repair hardware, fix printers, install or look after office networks, or set up traditional office phone systems. Calling through Teams is different, because it is part of Microsoft 365, and we can set it up. A laptop that will not enrol in Intune is ours. A laptop with a cracked screen or a dead hard drive is not. If what you need sits outside Microsoft 365, we will tell you up front rather than take on work we are not the right people for.

Two ways to have it

A monthly support contract. Your users and devices looked after on an ongoing basis. Full tier 1 and tier 2 support across your Microsoft 365, starters and leavers handled, licences kept in step with the team, and security alerts dealt with as they come in. What is covered and how quickly we respond are written into the contract before it starts, not left vague.

One off projects. A migration, a new tenant, a SharePoint rebuild, an Intune rollout, a security tidy up or a licence review. Scoped, quoted, done and handed over with a written record, with nothing ongoing unless you want it.

Both are quoted rather than priced on a page, because the number of users and devices changes the work. A small office on laptops and a company with a phone in every van are not the same job.

Support is Patrick’s side of the business, and his background is enterprise IT and cloud services. You deal with the person doing the work.

What tier 1 and tier 2 actually mean

IT support is usually split into tiers by how deep a problem goes. Tier 1 is the first line: the common problems with known fixes. Tier 2 is the second line: problems that need admin access and a real understanding of how your Microsoft 365 is set up.

Tier 1, first line

• Password resets and account lockouts
• Email and Outlook problems, from a missing folder to mail that will not send
• New starters and leavers: accounts, licences, mailboxes and access set up when someone joins and removed when they leave
• Signing in: multi factor prompts, a new phone for the authenticator app, an account that will not sign in
• New laptops and phones signed in to Microsoft 365 and enrolled in Intune
• “How do I” questions about Outlook, Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive

Tier 2, second line

• Permissions on SharePoint sites, Teams and shared folders
• Accounts in Entra ID: groups, admin roles and the rules on who can sign in from where
• SharePoint and Teams problems: sites, file sync, channels and sharing that are not behaving
• Mailbox and licensing problems: shared mailboxes, forwarding, delegation, mail not arriving and licences assigned wrongly
• Device policies in Intune: a laptop that will not enrol, or a phone blocked by a rule
• Security alerts: suspicious sign ins looked into, and a compromised account locked down and cleaned up

When it needs Microsoft

Some problems can only be fixed by Microsoft: a fault in the service itself, a billing problem on their side, something broken inside the platform. We raise it with Microsoft on your behalf and follow it up, so you are not the one chasing it.

What an implementation covers

Microsoft 365 was formerly called Office 365, so if that is the name you know it by, this is the same product. Your tenant is your company’s own space inside it: the accounts, mail, files and settings that belong to you.

• A new tenant, or a migration. Set up properly from the start, or moved across from another email provider or from Google Workspace, with mailboxes, calendars and contacts coming with you. The change to your domain’s mail records is planned so mail keeps arriving while it happens.
• Exchange Online and shared mailboxes. Exchange Online is the email service behind Outlook. Shared mailboxes for enquiries, accounts and info addresses let several people work from one inbox, and they are included in your licences rather than costing extra.
• SharePoint and OneDrive. SharePoint for the company’s files, OneDrive for each person’s own, rolled out with real permissions by role and version history switched on.
• Teams. Teams and channels that match real departments and projects, the files for each kept in the library they belong to, and a written rule for what is a chat, what is a channel post and what is still an email.
• Teams calling. Calls made and taken through Teams, on a laptop or a phone, set up for your team. Calling ordinary phone numbers from Teams needs extra licensing from Microsoft on most plans, and we will tell you what yours needs before anything is bought.
• Intune. Microsoft’s device management. Company laptops and phones enrolled, encrypted and held to one standard, with a lost device locked or wiped remotely. On staff’s own phones, company email and files can be protected without managing the whole phone.
• A licence review. Who has what, what it includes, and what you are paying for that nobody uses.

Some of this depends on your plan. Intune and conditional access come with some Microsoft 365 plans and not others, and we will tell you plainly whether upgrading is worth it for your business.

The security basics, in plain terms

These matter more than anything else on this page, and in most tenants we open at least one of them is missing.

Multi factor authentication. A password on its own stops being a defence the moment it appears in somebody else’s data breach. A second factor is the difference between an annoying morning and a fraudulent invoice sent from your own account to your own customers.

Conditional access. Rules about when and how people are allowed to sign in. For example, blocking sign ins from countries you do not work in, asking admin accounts for a second factor every time, or only letting company managed devices open company files.

SPF, DKIM and DMARC. Three records published on your domain that let receiving mail servers check a message claiming to be from you really is. Without them, your quotes and invoices are more likely to be filtered, and anyone can send email wearing your name. Publishing them costs nothing beyond the time to do it properly.

We will also turn off the defaults that make no sense for a small firm, tighten external sharing, and leave you a short written record of what was changed and why.

More than email and files

You are already paying for these, and in most businesses we look at they have never been opened.

• Bookings. A public page people book themselves into, writing straight into a real calendar with your working hours, buffers and reminders.
• Lists and Excel. Structured records with columns, views and permissions, for the spreadsheets currently living on somebody’s desktop.
• Power Automate. The approvals, notifications, filing and reminders that sit between everything else. This is where Microsoft 365 stops being storage and starts being a system, and where it meets our automation work.

The cheaper answer, when it is the right one

Bespoke applications start at £5,000 and they are worth that when a business has a process nothing off the shelf fits. Plenty of the jobs people come to us with are not that. They are a form, a list, a permission model and a couple of notifications, and Microsoft 365 already does all four.

So we look at what you own before we quote you for anything new. If the platform can already do it, we will tell you that rather than sell you a build. That costs us the bigger project sometimes, and it is still the right way round, because selling somebody something they did not need is how you never get the second job.

The honest split is this. If the answer is a form, a list and a flow, it belongs in Microsoft 365. If it needs a designed interface, logic the platform cannot express, or field staff using it all day on a phone, that is an application and we will say so.

What we will not claim

We are not a Microsoft partner and we hold no Microsoft accreditation, so if that matters to your procurement, we are not the right supplier and you should say so early.

We do not resell licences. What you pay Microsoft is between you and Microsoft, which means we have nothing to gain from you buying more of them.

We will not quote a support contract before we know how many people and devices it covers, and we will not promise response times that are not written into it.

And nobody can promise that every email will always arrive. What SPF, DKIM and DMARC do is remove the common reasons yours does not.