Optimising IT Ltd

Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based IT Management service that offers robust security, reliability, and user productivity. Microsoft 365 is the new way of managing your IT environment across desktop, and mobile, includes core security features and capabilities and can also include the full Office 365 productivity suite.

Features

  • Flexible licensing and features to support organisation needs
  • Desktop and mobile device control using InTune
  • Azure AD P1 and P2 are available
  • Cloud application security available in some versions
  • Can include the full Office 365 productivity suite
  • Can provide advanced threat monitoring and intelligence
  • Can provide advanced threat protection for desktop and email
  • https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/compare-all-microsoft-365-plans

Benefits

  • Highly scalable, flexible cloud based IT Management platform
  • Allows full system management capability from a central cloud repository
  • Can remove the need for onsite servers and infrastructure
  • Manage multiple devices per user from a single console
  • Has the capability to provide advanced security analytics
  • Increased security capability and insights
  • Can fully integrate with other Microsoft cloud capabilities
  • Can include the Office 365 productivity suite for best value

Pricing

£0.80 to £200 a person a month

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at contact@optimisingit.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.

Framework

G-Cloud 13

Service ID

7 4 9 6 8 9 9 6 3 2 7 9 8 7 1

Contact

Optimising IT Ltd GCloud New Business
Telephone: 01242 388530‬
Email: contact@optimisingit.co.uk

Service scope

Software add-on or extension
No
Cloud deployment model
Public cloud
Service constraints
There are multiple licensing options for flexibility, and not all services and features are available in every version. As an example, EMS P1 includes InTune and Azure Directory P1, but does not include any productivity applications. For full details, please visit - the following
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/compare-all-microsoft-365-plans

https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/enterprise-mobility-security
System requirements
  • A reliable internet connection
  • See https://products.office.com/en-GB/office-system-requirements for details
  • Compatible Operating system

User support

Email or online ticketing support
Email or online ticketing
Support response times
Microsoft 24/7 technical support.
User can manage status and priority of support tickets
Yes
Online ticketing support accessibility
None or don’t know
Phone support
Yes
Phone support availability
24 hours, 7 days a week
Web chat support
No
Onsite support
Yes, at extra cost
Support levels
Billing support is provided by Optimising IT from 08:30 AM–5:30 PM Monday–Friday.
Microsoft technical support is provided in English 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Support available to third parties
No

Onboarding and offboarding

Getting started
We offer a full implementation and migration service where required, as an additional and optional pricing option.
Services include service setup, user and data migration, integration with existing services such as user directories and where required, legacy system decommissioning.
We can also provide just software licensing as required to suit organisation requirements.
Service documentation
Yes
Documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
End-of-contract data extraction
Please see https://products.office.com/en-us/business/office-365-online-data-portability
End-of-contract process
Upon expiration or termination of your Office 365 subscription or contract, Microsoft will provide you, by default, additional limited access for 90 days to export your data. As part of the Mircorosoft Online Service Terms we specify that customers always own their own data. Microsoft acts as Data Processor. For more information please visit https://products.office.com/en-gb/business/office-365-online-data-portability

Should an organisation wish to stop using Microsoft 365 IT Management features, a full transition service to the chosen new platform, based on a defined scope and day rates can be agreed.

Using the service

Web browser interface
Yes
Supported browsers
  • Microsoft Edge
  • Firefox
  • Chrome
  • Safari
  • Opera
Application to install
Yes
Compatible operating systems
  • Android
  • IOS
  • MacOS
  • Windows
  • Windows Phone
Designed for use on mobile devices
Yes
Differences between the mobile and desktop service
Security feature availability varies between desktop operating systems and mobile operating systems.

Core functionality for mobile application versions includes, view, edit, and create documents with the familiar Office interface optimised for mobile phones and tablets.
Service interface
No
User support accessibility
None or don’t know
API
Yes
What users can and can't do using the API
You can create custom solutions that access and interact with all the richness of a user’s Office 365 data—and you can build those solutions across all mobile, web, and desktop platforms. The new Office 365 APIs enable you to provide access to Office 365 data, including their mail, calendars, contacts, files, and folders. All right from within your app itself.

Whether you're building web applications using .NET, PHP, Java, Python, or Ruby on Rails, or creating apps for Windows 8, Universal Apps, iOS, Android, or on another device platform. It's your choice.
API documentation
Yes
API documentation formats
  • HTML
  • PDF
API sandbox or test environment
Yes
Customisation available
Yes
Description of customisation
Admin - Customise the Office 365 theme for your organisation
Integration and automation with MS Flow and Power Apps
Users - Change your Office 365 start app, allow access to files from your OneDrive.

Full security feature customisation on Desktop and mobile devices can be provisioned to the capability available in the organisations selected and supported devices.

Further details can be found below https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dn788774.aspx

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint/dev/solution-guidance/modern-experience-customizations

Scaling

Independence of resources
Microsoft provide a high level of tenant isolation, both for security and for performance. Microsoft data centres are massively scaled and offer dedicated performance. For more information, please review the latest information below:
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/securitycompliance/office-365-tenant-isolation-overview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/enterprise/performance-tuning-using-baselines-and-history

Analytics

Service usage metrics
Yes
Metrics types
Please see the following link for details on current metrics
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/admin/activity-reports/activity-reports?view=o365-worldwide
Reporting types
  • API access
  • Real-time dashboards

Resellers

Supplier type
Reseller providing extra features and support
Organisation whose services are being resold
Microsoft

Staff security

Staff security clearance
Other security clearance
Government security clearance
Up to Developed Vetting (DV)

Asset protection

Knowledge of data storage and processing locations
Yes
Data storage and processing locations
  • United Kingdom
  • European Economic Area (EEA)
  • Other locations
User control over data storage and processing locations
Yes
Datacentre security standards
Complies with a recognised standard (for example CSA CCM version 3.0)
Penetration testing frequency
At least once a year
Penetration testing approach
Another external penetration testing organisation
Protecting data at rest
  • Physical access control, complying with CSA CCM v3.0
  • Physical access control, complying with SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
  • Encryption of all physical media
  • Scale, obfuscating techniques, or data storage sharding
  • Other
Other data at rest protection approach
Microsoft bitlocker is used to encrypt all data at rest in Microsoft data centre.
https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/securitycompliance/encryption
Data sanitisation process
Yes
Data sanitisation type
Deleted data can’t be directly accessed
Equipment disposal approach
Complying with a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v.30, CAS (Sanitisation) or ISO/IEC 27001

Data importing and exporting

Data export approach
Users can export their own data using microsoft tools, via data sync or by a chosen third party application or service. Should an organisation decide to move out of Office 365, we can also offer a managed service should this be required.
Data export formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data export formats
The original document formats are fully exportable.
Data import formats
  • CSV
  • Other
Other data import formats
All common file formats are supported

Data-in-transit protection

Data protection between buyer and supplier networks
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)
Data protection within supplier network
  • TLS (version 1.2 or above)
  • IPsec or TLS VPN gateway
  • Legacy SSL and TLS (under version 1.2)

Availability and resilience

Guaranteed availability
Microsoft provide a financially backed uptime SLA. For details, please visit
https://products.office.com/en-gb/business/office-365-for-business-support-options?SilentAuth=1&wa=wsignin1.0
Approach to resilience
Microsoft offers a high level of resilience using multiple redundant data centres across the UK and potentially the EU if required. Further details can be found the on the following link - https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/Office365/securitycompliance/office-365-data-resiliency-overview
Outage reporting
A tenant specific 'Service Health' Dashboard is available in the Admin Centre. A public page is also available via the below link
https://status.office365.com/

Identity and authentication

User authentication needed
Yes
User authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password
  • Other
Other user authentication
Conditional access is available as part of the Microsoft 365 security suite. This includes capability such as:
Login restriction by location
Logins only permitted by authorised devices
Login restriction by source IP address
Access restrictions in management interfaces and support channels
All support can be carried out by specified administration accounts only as required. Only those with granted permissions can access the admin centre and command line operations.
Administration access can also be governed using MFA and conditional access as required.
Access restriction testing frequency
At least every 6 months
Management access authentication
  • 2-factor authentication
  • Identity federation with existing provider (for example Google Apps)
  • Username or password

Audit information for users

Access to user activity audit information
Users have access to real-time audit information
How long user audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
Access to supplier activity audit information
Users contact the support team to get audit information
How long supplier audit data is stored for
At least 12 months
How long system logs are stored for
Between 1 month and 6 months

Standards and certifications

ISO/IEC 27001 certification
Yes
Who accredited the ISO/IEC 27001
BSI
ISO/IEC 27001 accreditation date
19/01/2019
What the ISO/IEC 27001 doesn’t cover
https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/ViewPage/MSComplianceGuideV3?command=Download&downloadType=Document&downloadId=1e84a14a-2468-45ac-9412-5e53250d57ec&tab=7027ead0-3d6b-11e9-b9e1-290b1eb4cdeb&docTab=7027ead0-3d6b-11e9-b9e1-290b1eb4cdeb_ISO_Reports
ISO 28000:2007 certification
No
CSA STAR certification
No
PCI certification
No
Cyber essentials
Yes
Cyber essentials plus
Yes
Other security certifications
Yes
Any other security certifications
Multiple Certifications, for full details visit https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/

Security governance

Named board-level person responsible for service security
Yes
Security governance certified
Yes
Security governance standards
ISO/IEC 27001
Information security policies and processes
Optimising IT operate a fully certified ISMS to ISO27001:2013, which is externally audited and verified. Full details of the Microsoft compliance programs, including ISO27001, PCI DSS and more can be found in the trust centre https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/

Operational security

Configuration and change management standard
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Configuration and change management approach
Office 365 has developed formal standard operating procedures (SOP's) governing the change management process. These SOP's cover both software development and hardware change and release management, and are consistent with established regulatory guidelines including ISO 27001, SOC 1/SOC 2, NIST 800-53, and others.
Microsoft also uses Operational Security Assurance (OSA), a framework that incorporates the knowledge gained through a variety of capabilities that are unique to Microsoft. OSA combines this knowledge with the experience of running hundreds of thousands of servers in datacentres around the world.
Vulnerability management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Vulnerability management approach
For specific information, please review the relevant Microsoft security statements for Office 365 for Gcloud users.

https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/ViewPage/UKComplianceResourcesV3?command=Download&downloadType=Document&downloadId=ec9219f0-a0ae-4690-b154-8b890cf5557b&tab=626aa9e0-3d7b-11e9-9157-b7b7eba45f26&docTab=626aa9e0-3d7b-11e9-9157-b7b7eba45f26_GRC_Assessment_Reports
Protective monitoring type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example CSA CCM v3.0 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Protective monitoring approach
For details in the Microsoft protective monitoring approach, please visit.

https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/
Incident management type
Conforms to a recognised standard, for example, CSA CCM v3.0 or ISO/IEC 27035:2011 or SSAE-16 / ISAE 3402
Incident management approach
For details on incident management for Microsoft, please visit,

https://servicetrust.microsoft.com/

Optimsing IT has pre-defined process based on ITIL for managing incidents, and our incident management process is certified to ISO27001:2013. User can report incidents direct to Microsoft in license only situations, or via our Service Desk using the agreed contact methods should a support contract be taken out.
Incident report provided by Microsoft can be found in the service dashboard. Optimising IT incident reports will be emailed to the customer representative by the assigned Account Manager.

Secure development

Approach to secure software development best practice
Independent review of processes (for example CESG CPA Build Standard, ISO/IEC 27034, ISO/IEC 27001 or CSA CCM v3.0)

Public sector networks

Connection to public sector networks
No

Social Value

Fighting climate change

Fighting climate change

We offset all of our employee CO2e We also plant a large number of trees in a sustainable, manged and tracked program via our partner. Details can be found on our Ecologi page - https://ecologi.com/optimisingit We also offer a Climate Conscious IT service which can be used to offset your organisation CO2e, plant trees for future benefit, or both - https://optimisingit.co.uk/managed-it-services/climate-conscious-it/
Covid-19 recovery

Covid-19 recovery

We work with organisations local to the office to offer non-service support including: Gloucester Rugby business club membership, Charity donations, Sponsorship of Cheltenham Town football club. We also run an apprenticeship program.
Equal opportunity

Equal opportunity

Optimising IT are fully committed to ensuring equal opportunities for all.
Wellbeing

Wellbeing

Optimising IT operate the following schemes: Staff wellbeing Staff recognition Staff benefits including employee assistance and private medical Allowing staff to purchase additional days off Cycle to work scheme

Pricing

Price
£0.80 to £200 a person a month
Discount for educational organisations
Yes
Free trial available
Yes
Description of free trial
A free trial for Microsoft 365 is available.

It's fully featured, but limited to one month.
Link to free trial
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoft-365/try

Service documents

Request an accessible format
If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need versions of these documents in a more accessible format, email the supplier at contact@optimisingit.co.uk. Tell them what format you need. It will help if you say what assistive technology you use.