Microsoft 365 vs. Microsoft Entra ID

I usually recommend Microsoft 365 to my clients to keep them away from the Exchange server (sorry!) Our business has a lot of issues with exchange email functions and copy machines. I always recommend they download the desktop version and use the online version as needed. You never know when you will be without an internet connection, but you can usually trust your laptop will have a decent charge, and you can still be productive! Let it sync when the powers are back on - or your connection is alive.

For one, a significant factor for us is that it is integrated with HelloID, which gives us, as the IT department, a lot of time back because we don’t need to create user accounts manually. It is great for the roles we have defined, as they can be used repeatedly. A great feature is that guest accounts can be created for external users; we only need to be in a closed area of your domain.

Incentivized

• keeps me extremely organized. It is so easy to link calendars, emails, and documents.
• keeps me well connected. It is so easy to send a quick message on teams or send an email to a group (for example, my particular team within the company).
• easy to use. Everything is straightforward, making it easy to find an answer to a question. There is even a search option to figure out how to do something within Microsoft.

• It addresses the issue of identity management very well with respect to putting in that multi authentication.
• It can also support with respect to we can push these policies into another product that is not Microsoft, but it needs that SSO so we can have one account going into multi different accounts. I think that's the biggest pros and the easy use of Microsoft 365 also is one of those pros also in terms of administration.

Incentivized

• I wish it was a little simpler to integrate things from one Microsoft Feature into another one. Perhaps I just don't know the tricks for that yet...after all these years of using it.
• I didn't like how it defaulted to saving the document automatically with changes, like Google Docs, but it seems that has now changed, and is better now.
• Generally, I really like how the suite works as is.

Incentivized

• Well, I'm an active ad admin, so there's a lot of features in active directory that Entra ID seems to be just adding now. We're kind of figuring out that the policies are different than Entra ID that they were in active directory and we're finding other products to do that, like Azure policy. Some things I'm used to seeing in identity products or like active directory aren't in Entra iID, but are doing good job of managing stuff that it does so far.

Incentivized

I am completely satisfied with the product, and helps me on a daily basis. I do not the exact cost (it is not a cheap suite) but on the medium and long term the return on investment is guaranteed.

Incentivized

Entra ID is a vital part of our Identity management/administration. With the integrations it has to other Microsoft products, setup and configuration is a breeze. Additionally, Microsoft has been around a long time and have the resources to ensure this product is stable and secure for many years to come. We know it will evolve with time to provide us what we need as technology changes.

Incentivized

It being the default office suite means it's user experience and idioms are things that everyone is generally very used to and fluent with.

The sharing is relatively simple, being directly hooked into Entra AD, and expiry being a first class concern.

It's usability decreases at scale, with multiple people simultaneously making edits can make documents unusable.

Very easily usable. It could be easier to use. Implementation was kind of tricky. We do run a hybrid environment, so we're syncing a local active directory instance with Entra ID, so that could be a little tricky. But outside of that, if you're not running a hybrid deployment or a version of Entra ID usually, it's pretty straightforward.

Incentivized

There has been a handful of outages but they have been either minimal or rarely severe

Incentivized

I could probably rate this a 10 but I'm always conservative on giving out perfect scored bt performance has not been a problem for us using Entra ID.

Incentivized

Over the past 8 years of using Microsoft 365, I have noticed that they change vendors often. This always leads to a poor experience in the beginning, then levels out after some time for the company to get things worked out. As a customer, it is really frustrating because I don't have time when something isn't working to have them "look into my issue" and get back with me. They have even closed a ticket I specifically told them to keep open. Your applications are only as good as the support.

Incentivized

Microsoft has offered Azure Active Directory as a solution for a couple of decades now, so they have seen and anticipated almost any issue that an organization may face and can therefore help. The cloud offering of Azure Active Directory offers some additional "self healing" or monitoring services that can minimize the need for a service call. However, as with most large companies supporting a fast growing market, there may be some gaps in service knowledge (and particularly processing) from the front line / tier one staff as they follow a corporate script at first contact.

Incentivized

Most training was internally produced

Incentivized

Everything works and I use it all the time.

Incentivized

Make sure you use a good partner. Our implementation was a bit longer and more problematic than we expected. Our partner got it done, but, in my opinion, some of their inexperience and staffing issues were evident.

Incentivized

BTE, this search bar is not the best; I couldn't find Google Suite. In any case, it's challenging to find a suite with advanced tools that serves as an office. Google comes close, no one uses OpenOffice (hyperbole), and there isn't much else to use. If you add to that the recent collaborative functionalities, nothing really stacks up or compares; this has everything a person in an office (oversimplifying) needs to get work done.

Incentivized

Microsoft Entra ID is not as stand-alone product as competitors like Okta. It may lack some of the features that competing products have but on the other hand it integrates both technically and license wise with other Microsoft cloud services and is easy to deploy. It is also the easiest way to extend identity management to the cloud if you already have Microsoft Active Directory in use.

Incentivized

Scalability is pretty trival for Entra ID. It's not difficult to manage a few or many accounts.

Incentivized

• Microsoft 365 has really been effective and cost saving option for our organization in terms of managing the mailboxes, collaboration and messaging.
• There is multiple must have features which comes all together in one package and therefore is cost effective.
• The only negative impact according to me is its inability to protect the environment or domain from external attacks effectively.

• I don't know if I can really quantify that. It's one of those products that just exists and so there's not a whole lot of changes that we need to make with the product. And so I guess in terms of value, what we get is we don't have to worry about the identity management piece. We know that that's taken care of.

Incentivized