The covid-19 pandemic was a key driver of digital transformation. Many firms were open to the idea that their staff can work, communicate, and collaborate seamlessly outside of the office space, across locations and platforms, while ensuring the security of systems and data. Office 365 has been at the forefront of this transition with the introduction of the Modern workplace, which has become a new normal across organizations in the world today. 

 Office 365 is Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity suite that helps organizations undergo complete workplace transformation and thrive in the new digital environment through a suite that works together effortlessly such as Edge, Excel, Exchange, Forms, one-drive, Outlook, PowerPoint, SharePoint, Skype, Teams, Word, Yammer, and so on, thereby making it a must-have for any business. 

Hence, Pan Ocean Oil Corporation (Nigeria) Ltd, an exploration and production firm founded in 1973, purchased an Office 365 license from Signal Alliance Consulting to equip their employees to be productive and efficient while working from anywhere.  

Over time, Pan Ocean Oil Corporation (Nigeria) Ltd discovered that some of their employees’ mailboxes failed to sync with Exchange Online, and when a new user is added or edited in Microsoft 365, they discover that no mailbox was assigned to the user, and the change is not reflected in Exchange Online. This prevented the user from collaborating effectively, limiting productivity. 

As a consulting organization, with many advanced specializations in Office 365, we stepped in to provide technical solutions that ameliorated the issue faced by Pan Ocean Oil Corporation (Nigeria) Ltd. 

Here’s the step-by-step guide on how the issue was fixed: 

1. Our experts ensured the user was assigned a valid Exchange Online license in the Microsoft 365 Admin Portal before the mailbox is created. 
2. After the license has been assigned or the user’s properties modified, we allowed 30 minutes for the change to apply while ensuring the user doesn’t receive any message on validation error. 
3. In less than 30 minutes, we were able to sync changes for a user which on a normal day could take up to 24 hours for provisioning to occur or for changes to sync.  

The solution helped Pan Ocean Oil Corporation Ltd to increase productivity by allowing employees to access files from anywhere, improved staff collaboration through simple communications across Teams and other platforms, secured online storage, centralized collaboration, and many more.