Editor’s Note: Voices for Innovation leader and AvePoint CMO Dux Raymond Sy shares how his company has stepped forward to support remote work collaboration during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In these trying times, it is heartwarming to witness people coming together to support each other to overcome challenges we are facing. It’s clear that all of us can help in many ways and make an impact in our respective communities.
Ever since Microsoft announced they would be offering Microsoft Teams for free, we’ve been thinking about how AvePoint can help those who support the digital workplace during these unusual times.
Microsoft Teams and Office 365 are seeing their usage surge as the digital workplace becomes, well, the workplace. However, we are seeing IT teams heroically firefighting issues as their organization’s collaboration environments and processes become overrun with well-meaning collaborators.
And let’s face it, having hundreds of users suddenly being directed to a new service while not having any direct, physical access to IT is a HUGE challenge.
The heroes that make remote work possible are AvePoint’s people. They have grown with us for more than 19 years and we’d like to give something back to help them scale during this time.
Our Microsoft Teams #WFHready Kit
What we have seen across organizations is that collaboration structures and processes are moving online, which mean a lot of new virtual workspaces like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint sites, and Office 365 Groups.
We are also seeing admins fielding a lot of restore requests as users store more data in Office 365 and find creative ways to lose it.
To that end we are offering:
- GroupHub Free Through 2020: If your users are getting buried in the amount of Teams, SharePoint sites, or other Office 365 workspaces they have joined in the last few weeks, GroupHub is a powerful tool to help them organize their digital workspace. Users can find, search through, and access their virtual workspaces and public workspaces in just two clicks. You can even group workspaces by function (group your Office 365 groups!). Now all of your department or management workspaces can be accessed from a central hub whether it is a Team, site, or Group. Previously $6 per user per year, its now available for free with 24×7 support.
- AVA: When Office 365 users accidentally delete—or can’t locate—files, documents, or emails, they won’t need to call IT. Instead, they can chat directly with our helpful bot in Microsoft Teams. She will automatically perform a search based on the user’s permissions in Exchange, Outlook, and OneDrive’s recycle bin to restore the requested item (even if it’s out of place). She’s even more powerful when connected to Cloud Backup.
- WFH Kickstart Session: Office 365 and Microsoft Teams experts from AvePoint will be freely available for a consultation to recommend how you can best move to, configure or manage Office 365 to support remote work for your organization. We’ll assess your current collaboration landscape, sensitive information concerns, remote worker experience, growth planning, and more!
Check out our Microsoft Teams #WFHready Kit for additional details.
Why More Americans Can’t Work Remotely
For millions of Americans, our nation’s broadband infrastructure has made the switch to working from home possible. We hardly need to miss a beat.
Unfortunately, broadband in the U.S. doesn’t reach far enough. Millions of people, especially in rural communities, don’t have affordable, reliable access to broadband. They can’t work online, they can’t access online information, and they can’t access telehealth right now when it’s most needed.
Through my work at AvePoint, I’m thankful for the opportunity to support solutions that empower digital workers. And as an active member of Voices for Innovation, I’m grateful to be able to support public policies aimed at giving more people a chance to benefit from technology.
This past year, VFI has helped advance public policies that are closing the broadband gap. Our nation has pulled together to fight COVID-19. When we get past this crisis, we must continue to work together to finish closing the digital divide.
