7 Tips for creating a great privacy policy A privacy policy is not just a legal requirement, it is a tool to help earn your customers’ trust and to protect yourself. In many ways, it sets the stage for the next steps such as data security, sharing and storage. In this blog, we share 7 tips that will help you when drafting your privacy policy. Update your privacy policy if there’s a change in any process or procedures related to any of the 5 key elements of the privacy policy (data procuring, storage, security, sharing and customer rights) and notify your customers of the update. Even a simple pop-up on the website, telling them you have made some updates to the existing privacy policy and they need to ‘accept’/ authorize the new one, will do. You need to make sure the privacy policy is a part of your website’s sitemap or clearly visible in the footer. The goal is to ensure it is easily accessible to your website visitors, in case they wish to read it. With the same goal in mind, we recommend that you keep it simple. There’s no need to use fancy words and jargon in your privacy policy. Just ensure it covers and conveys everything. Give a link to the privacy policy wherever it can come into play. For example, before filling a form (for demo/appointment/asset download), before check out (at the time of a purchase) or even just as they enter your website. Don’t forget the cookies! If your site uses cookies to store visitors’ preferences with the goal to offer a more personalized browsing experience, you need to let your visitors know of that. A pop-up on your site during their first time visit is a good way to do this. There are many websites online that you can use to get a template or a framework for your privacy policy. A great resource to get started with is the Better Business Bureau’s privacy policy template. They have privacy policy templates customized as per the state you operate in. Here’s a link to one of them- https://www.bbb.org/greater-san-francisco/for-businesses/toolkits1/sample-privacy-policy/ Make sure your privacy policy mirrors the standards for the industry you are in. For example, a privacy policy for a business that sells products may differ from that for a service- oriented firm. An accounting firm or a healthcare service provider may have to cover more ground in their privacy policy owing to other regulatory requirements than a simple ecommerce based product seller. Stay abreast with developments that may affect your privacy policy. The GDPR is one of them. If you are afraid you won’t be able to keep tabs on such news, ask your MSP and legal counsel. If you are too busy to draft a privacy policy that suits your business or are just not sure if you have covered everything that you need to, it may be a good idea to sit with your Managed Service Provider and have them review your existing policy or create a new one for your business. NOTE: This blog is for informational purposes only and designed solely to encourage awareness of this complex topic. To learn more, contact legal and technical professionals for advice.

3 ways Office 365 helps cut down your IT costs Want to switch to Office 365, but are not sure if it is cost effective? In this blog, we discuss three ways in which Office 365 can help bring down your IT costs. You don’t have to pay upfront When you subscribe to Office 365, you can pay the licensing fee on a monthly basis. It is more of a pay-as-you-go format. In the traditional Office set-up, you had to pay for the number of licenses you bought and they were yours to keep--but, at the same time, they were tied to the device you bought them for, meaning legally, you could install them only on the device you bought them for. You are paying only for what you use In the traditional set-up, you are paying for installing and using the software program on individual devices. That means, if you cut down on staff or use seasonal staff, or staff working remotely from home or other locations, they won’t have access to the programs. With Office 365, you are paying per license, irrespective of the device you are using it in. That means anyone can access it, from anywhere, using their credentials. This flexible approach to Office also makes it easy when you scale up or down in terms of staff. Great admin tools Office 365 offers IT administrators tools that provide a lot of control and visibility over activities related to Office. Here’s what administrators can do with the new Office 365 Create and delete users Manage users by creating user groups based on user roles and requirements and set different access and permission levels for each user group Manage the security of data in Office 365 by setting access restrictions, password expiry, etc., Using the admin control tools, administrators can generate reports that tell them usage patterns, draw attention to bugs, or program downtimes. The reports also provide usage patterns which can help you streamline subscription costs. So, what are you waiting for? It’s time to make the switch to the more powerful, efficient and cost-effective version of Office. Talk to a Microsoft licensed MSP today!

Are you considering investing in Microsoft Office 365? Whether you already use the Microsoft Office Suite and are now thinking of switching, or considering whether to opt for this Microsoft product as your first Office tool, this blog will help you understand Microsoft Office 365 better. Learn what Office 365 is all about in our 2-part blog series. What is Office 365? Let’s start with what Office 365 is. Office 365 is a suite of Microsoft Office programs that includes email client, spreadsheet, presentation, document, calendar/reminder, collaboration and chat tools. How is it different from the regular Office package? Unlike the regular Office package, Office 365 is web-based. That means all your data is stored in the cloud and retrieved from there every time you need to access it. It is not necessary to store the software on your computer, though you have the option to install it if you wish. What are the benefits of Office 365? Web-based The regular Office package stores your data locally, on a computer. When you store your data locally, there are chances of downtime and data loss if the hard disk becomes corrupted or fails. Also, you cannot access it unless you have access to the specific computer or hard disk it is stored on. Office 365, on the other hand, is web-based and can be accessed from anywhere, as the data is not stored on any particular hard disk. Standard data security is taken care of Office 365 uses encryption, so, in general, your data is safer than it would be on the desktop version of the Office. Plus, it is HIPPA and FERPA compliant, which makes it easier if you are operating in the healthcare or education sector. Plus, the security in cloud-based storage is generally stronger than what you get when storing at the local level. More storage Office 365 offers more storage space compared to the traditional version of Office. In the traditional version, when you use Outlook email client, the emails are stored on your hard drive, slowing down your system and eventually making you run out of space, forcing you to delete a lot of those older emails. Often we see that clients don’t want to lose old emails. Maybe they find them all too important to let go of, or they just don’t want to spend time browsing through hundreds of them deciding which ones to delete. In any case, Office 365 comes with 50GB of storage space for emails, so you don’t have to worry about this issue anymore. Stay tuned for part two of our blog, Your Guide to Office 365-II.