The N365 NHS agreement gives greater access to Microsoft 365 tools and guarantees significant cost savings for NHS organisations in England, in addition to those discounts still available through the Digital Transformation Arrangements (DTA). It is designed to strengthen cyber security, boost productivity, and improve collaboration across healthcare services.
As many as 1.2 million NHS staff will be able to communicate more effectively and will have access to the information, applications and services they need, using Microsoft 365, which will also help to reduce administrative duties and improve patient care.
Take advantage of N365
If your organisation is participating in N365, you should by now have signed up to meet the 17 July deadline. The next action is to purchase your N365 licenses by 15 September.
The aim of the agreement is not to simply buy new licenses to be used with the old versions of Microsoft Office, SharePoint, Outlook etc. Instead, it is to give greater access to modern workplace technologies and their functionality.
This is especially true if your organisation is using Office 2010, Exchange 2010, and Visio 2010 which go out of support on 13 October 2020. SharePoint 2010, Project Server 2010 and Lync Server 2010 also go out of support on 13 April 2021.
N365 at a glance:
- N365 is the lowest cost that NHS organisations in England can purchase their Microsoft 365 licenses
- Additional discounts on widely used and standard Microsoft products for NHS organisations to purchase locally via standard Enterprise Agreements (new and existing EAs)
- Two service options for Office 365 and Enterprise Mobility + Security
- Own Individual Tenant (nhs.uk)
- NHS Shared Tenant (nhs.net)
What does end of support mean?
Like all Microsoft products, the support lifecycle is approximately 10 years, with the last 5 years being extended support where only security and performance-related updates being made available. When a product end of extended support on the dates above, Microsoft will no longer provide any kind of update to the products including:
- Technical support for issues
- Bug fixes for issues that are discovered
- Security fixes for any future vulnerabilities
The lack of continued updates can potentially cause users to experience problems reducing their ability to do their roles and may also leave vulnerabilities that might be exploited by cyber criminals and malware.
Fully utilise your N365 investment
As would be expected, the Microsoft Office suite has improved exponentially over the last 10 years and its cutting-edge technology allows for not only greater collaboration and increased productivity but easier communication and sharing via Teams underpinned by SharePoint and OneDrive storage. Read more about what’s in Office 365.
Microsoft Teams has been available across the NHS for some time. NHS Digital rolled Teams out to 1.3m users with NHSmail accounts in just four days, between 16-20 March. This was key in responding to the challenges of COVID-19 to keep staff connected and maintain multi-disciplinary teams across organisations, with over 15.5 million messages sent between 23 March to 15 May.
NHS Digital News: Almost half a million MS Teams messages a day sent in the NHS during COVID-19 lockdown
If your organisation is using its own local tenant for N365 we can help you start your move immediately by onboarding you to our FastTrack Ready Service. If you are using the central tenant, we will now also be able to support you once NHS Digital and Microsoft have confirmed the process.
We can provide your organisation with direct remote assistance. This will be facilitated by one of our Microsoft certified technical FastTrack Managers who will assist you with various onboarding activities. Our FastTrack Ready Service uses a robust set of automated checks to assess your current environment, identity management, and domain configuration.
Our FastTrack record so far…
IN THE
TOP 3
UK FAST TRACK PARTNERS
WE’VE ONBOARDED
28 NHS TRUST’S TENANTS
ON TO THE FASTTRACK READY PROGRAMME
1 OF 7
MICROSOFT REFERRAL PARTNERS IN THE UK
Whether you have your own tenant or use a central tenant, we provide a full suite of Microsoft 365 solutions designed to accelerate your digital transformation and help you make the most of your investment in the N365 agreement. See a selection of our Modern Workplace solutions here.
Next Steps for N365
As previously mentioned, if you have already signed up to N365 (17 July), your next deadline is to purchase your N365 licenses by 15 September, you can contact your Trustmarque Account Manager for a quote.
Also, if you are still using any of the Office 2010 suite or Exchange 2010 you need to make urgent provisions to upgrade as soon as possible as unsupported software is a security risk. Again, contact your Trustmarque Account Manager for further information on your options or to book an appointment with one of our Microsoft 365 experts.
