Office 365 for business FAQ

"Office 365" refers to subscription plans that include access to Office applications plus other productivity services that are enabled over the Internet (cloud services), such as Lync web conferencing and Exchange Online hosted email for business, and additional online storage with SkyDrive and Skype world minutes for home.

Office 365 works best with the latest version of Office, Office 2010, and Office 2011 for Mac. Office 365 works with slightly limited functionality with Office 2007. If you have an earlier edition of Office, you will need to update to a newer version of Office in order to use Office 365; or you can subscribe to one of the many Office 365 plans that include the latest version of Office. In addition to getting the latest version of Office as part of your subscription, you will also get automatic updates, so your Office will always be up to date. Compare plans.

Internet access is required to install and activate all Office 365 plans and to manage your subscription account. Internet connectivity is also required to access Office 365 cloud productivity services, including email, conferencing, IT management, and other services.

"The cloud" is a friendly way of describing web-based computing services that are hosted outside of your organization. When you use cloud-based services, your IT infrastructure resides off your property (off-premises), and is maintained by a third party (hosted), instead of residing on a server at your home or business (on-premises) that you maintain. With Office 365, for example, information storage, computation, and software are located and managed remotely on servers owned by Microsoft. Many services you use every day are a part of the cloud—everything from web-based email to mobile banking and online photo storage. Because this infrastructure is located online or "in the cloud," you can access it virtually anywhere, from a PC, tablet, smartphone, or other device with an Internet connection.

Office 365 is highly scalable and can support everything from a one-person business to companies with tens of thousands of users: You can compare all the options here.

Office 365 is offered in a number of countries/regions and languages. If your country's/region's name doesn't appear in the list, we have not currently launched a version of Office 365 for your market. We're continuing to launch Office 365 in new markets and will publicly announce when we launch Office 365 in any new market.

The new Office 365 services for business launched on February 27, 2013. After this date we will start enabling our existing customers to upgrade to the new service, which includes the new client software. Find more details on how and when the upgrades will happen.

You don't need to install anything in order to use Office 365.
To help you easily connect your desktop version of the latest version of Office, Office 2010, or Office 2007 to Office 365, Microsoft provides Office 365 customers an installable piece of software—called "Office Desktop Setup"—at no charge.
Office Desktop Setup provides many benefits, including: You can find and install Office Desktop Setup in your Office 365 administration center.

If your plan includes a subscription to Office, you will also be able to install that directly from the Office 365 administration center.

You can add the domain name you own to Office 365 to create both domain-based email addresses and a public-facing website. Find your domain registrar or DNS hosting provider. Compare domain management in Office 365 subscriptions.

Yes. If you purchase Office 365 licenses for the accounts you create during your free trial, the information and configuration for these users' accounts will remain intact. Once your free trial expires, you won't be able to continue using Office 365 for free. You will have an additional 30 days to purchase Office 365 before your account information is erased. Once your trial account information has been erased, it cannot be retrieved.

To add your organization's custom domain to Office 365, you must have access to the DNS records for that domain. If you do not have access, you should contact the person at your company that manages the company domain account.

You can pay with all major credit cards, and your subscription amount will appear on your monthly credit card statement. For Office 365 Enterprise, Midsize Business, and standalone plans, you have the option to receive an invoice and, depending on your choice of services, you will be billed monthly or annually. You receive an email message when your invoice is ready to be viewed and, if a purchase order (PO) number is entered when you buy your subscription that number is included in your invoice.

Yes, discounts are available for Office 365 enterprise agreement customers (typically 250+ licenses) who want to purchase through volume licensing. A Microsoft expert can help you explore the purchasing options for large enterprises and help you determine which is best for you. Learn more about volume licensing. Find a Microsoft expert.

You can transition your account within plan families, for example, from Office 365 Small Business to Office 365 Small Business Premium, or from Office 365 Enterprise E1 to Office 365 Enterprise E3 or E4. You cannot transition between Office 365 plan families, that is, from an Office 365 Small Business plan to Office 365 Midsize Business or an Office 365 Enterprise plan, or vice versa. In order to change from a plan in one family to another (for example, from a Small Business plan to the Midsize Business plan, or from the Midsize Business plan to an Enterprise plan), you must first cancel your account with the plan you currently have, and then sign up for a different one.

You can cancel your subscription at any time. However, depending on the product and the type of subscription you have, there may be a penalty for canceling before the end of your contract. For subscriptions with a month-to-month commitment there is no penalty for cancelling your contract at any time. Subscriptions with an annual commitment may incur some penalties if canceled early. Read the complete Microsoft Online Subscription Agreement.

Your data is yours. If you decide to cancel your Office 365 subscription, you can download your data—for example, your email and documents on team sites—and save it to another location. You should save your data before you cancel. All the data associated with your Office 365 account is deleted 90 days after cancellation.

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Microsoft experts are trained IT and development companies that can help you move to Office 365 or develop custom solutions for your business. You can find a listing of all of our Microsoft experts in Microsoft Pinpoint.