Office 365 Recommended Downloads

IMPORTANT: Read all three notes below before installing.

1.       Microsoft Office Professional Plus (recommended optional paid subscription; if you are using this subscription, you must install this before the next two installations) 

Microsoft Office 365 (Plan P1) is designed to work seamlessly with Microsoft Office 2010 and 2007. For the best experience, we recommend installing Office Professional Plus, which is available for purchase through the admin portal.  The admin portal can be accessed through the links at the top of your screen after you have logged into your account.

·         It is not required to uninstall versions of Office before Office 2010, such as Office 2007 or 2003, before installing Office Professional Plus. Office 2010 will need to be uninstalled to use the Office Professional Plus full product

·         Office Professional Plus (with the exception of Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft SharePoint Workspace) can co-exist with previous versions of Office by selecting that option from within the Customize menu. Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft SharePoint Workspace cannot co-exist with previous versions, so you will need to select one version of the program to have installed on your computer

·         Before installing Office Professional Plus, please be sure you have the CD-ROMs/DVDs and product keys necessary should you later choose to reinstall your current version of Office

·         Please note that some of the walkthroughs involve using Office applications with Office 365

·         Please review Microsoft Office Professional Plus system requirements

·         See additional information in our Frequently Asked Questions

2.        Set up and configure your Office desktop apps

For the best experience with Office 365, a set of required components and updates must be applied to each workstation. To simplify the installation and maintenance of these components and updates, Microsoft provides an installable piece of software — called Office desktop setup — at no charge.  The software checks your PC for required updates and configures your Office desktop apps to work with Microsoft Office 365.  After setup, you will be able to:

·         Send email from Outlook 2007 or 2010

·         Save files directly to SharePoint Online from your Office desktop apps

3.       Microsoft Lync

With Lync, you can exchange instant messages, initiate audio and video web conferences, and see presence information for your colleagues. You can also set up Lync to enable users to communicate with others outside your organization who use Office 365 or Windows Live Messenger.

Getting Started With the Office 365

Explore the Admin and Home pages

The Office 365 Admin page will help you navigate many of the important administrative functions of the service. The Home page, available to both admin and non-admin users, will help you navigate many of the services included in Office 365. Please familiarize yourself with these pages because they are the starting point for completing many common tasks in the service.

Log on to the Office 365 service, and click on the Admin and Home links at the top of your screen:

Note: If the Outlook and Team Site links are dimmed as shown above, these features are still being configured. Check back or reload the page in a few minutes. For a complete list of known issues, please view the Release Notes for Office 365 for professionals and small businesses (English).

Verify That You Have Access to Your E-Mail, Team Site, and Microsoft Lync

E-mail

Access your new Microsoft Office 365 e-mail inbox in your browser through the Microsoft Outlook Web App, a Web-based version of Microsoft Office Outlook. In Walkthrough 2 (below), you will learn how to access your Office 365 

e-mail through your Outlook desktop application. All users will have a free non-custom e-mail address (e.g., joe@contoso.onmicrosoft.com). Customers will have the option to use their existing domain name to create professional e-mail addresses (e.g., joe@contoso.com). 

1.       Click on Inbox on the Home page:

2. You will be prompted to select your language, time zone, and whether you want to use accessibility features.

3.       Make your selections, and click on OK to access your Inbox.

Team site

The Office 365 Microsoft SharePoint Online-based team site makes collaboration easier with a password-protected portal to share large files both inside and outside your organization. Please verify that you can access your team site from within the Web browser.

Click on Team Site on the Home page. 

Note: If the Team Site link is dimmed, this feature is still being configured. Check back or reload the page in a few minutes.

Microsoft Lync

With Lync, users can send and receive instant messages, conduct PC-to-PC audio and video calls, conduct online meetings with up to 50 participants, and view presence information for their colleagues.

Launch the Microsoft Lync 2010 desktop application, and sign in to the service. Please note: If you have not installed Lync, please follow the instructions in Office 365 Recommended Downloads above.