Question

To ask the hon. Member for Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross representing the House of Commons Commission, what assessment the Commission has made of the effectiveness to date of the introduction of Office 365; and on what evidence and measures the Commission based that assessment.

The Commission has made no formal assessment of the effectiveness to date of the introduction of Office 2013 and Microsoft 365 email.

Parliamentary ICT (PICT) acknowledges that the implementation has not been as simple and straightforward as was hoped, and is aware that it has caused problems for some hon. Members. PICT is working to resolve most of these problems, the most common of which are described below. The lessons learned from these problems are being implemented to improve deployment and support arrangements. PICT apologises for the inconvenience experienced by hon. Members.

Following the upgrade to Office 2013, PICT received a large number of support calls, including from users who found that the process of upgrading to Office 2013 remotely took much longer than expected. Some Members have also commented negatively on the look and feel of the new product.

Access to 365 requires an update and reconfiguration of both desktops/laptops and mobile devices. In some cases the upgrade to the desktop and user profile has needed adjustment once the migration has been completed. In a greater number of cases hon. Members who have mobile devices have required assistance to reconfigure the devices to receive the 365 services. All BlackBerry owners have needed assistance to do this because it is a technical task and, depending upon the ownership of the model and its software version, some hon. Members have had real difficulty with the migration process.

365 has a limit on the number of people who can be added to a single email distribution list, and some hon. Members have found this causes difficulty. PICT have offered assistance and advice has been offered to work around this issue.

Once successfully migrated, the Office 365 service offers significant benefits to users, including a much larger email box, an easier to use login process, and access to services from any location and device as long as there is an internet connection and a modern browser.