CloudM Archives - Page 5 of 7 - Version 2 Limited

More control and improved insight with the CloudM November product release

On November 15th, we released a number of new features and improvements to the CloudM platform. These provide users with more insights into the health of their projects and systems as well as give them more control and flexibility when it comes to managing data in Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

CloudM Backup 1.3.1: new backup storage option, new offboarding step and improved insights
CloudM Archive 2.0: more storage regions, new audit logs and better UI
CloudM Automate 2.9.0: new offboarding step, better visibility of performance and quicker email signature syncs
CloudM Migrate 3.42: Google Takeout support, seamless migrations

CloudM Backup 1.3: New backup storage option, new offboarding step and improved insights

With the latest Backup 1.3 release, users can now choose to backup their data to AWS as an alternative to Google storage for improved data governance. New audit logs and stats placed prominently within the module give your further insight and control over your systems.

In addition, admins will be better positioned to troubleshoot when things go wrong: should delta backups fail more than 5 times in a row, further delta backups will be put on hold and the status set to “Requires Action”. Users can filter by status, dive into details to understand why the failure occurred and resume the backup once resolved.

Lastly, a new “Purge Backup” step in our offboarding workflow is particularly useful for customers who use Backup and Archive: leavers data will be moved into Archive while backups will be purged after a customisable period of contingency. Since Archive storage is typically cheaper, this functionality can significantly reduce storage costs.

CloudM Archive 2.0: More storage regions, new audit logs and better UI

Archive 2.0 is also seeing feature updates that give you more control and insight, such as an expansion of storage regions and a new audit log for user views of the “Restore” section for regulatory, compliance and internal investigative purposes.

We’ve also made some improvements to the UI so that Archive phases can be better distinguished.

CloudM Automate 2.9.0: New offboarding step, better visibility of performance and quicker email signature syncs

For customers using our onboarding workflows to reduce the need for manual interference and free up IT admin time, we’re introducing an additional offboarding step that automatically assigns a Google Workspace license to historic users, so that further steps that require a license such as Archive, Migrate Mail and Transfer Ownership can be completed without intervention. As historic users typically still have Google Archive User (AU) or Cloud Identity licenses assigned, offboarding these users can result in significant savings.

In addition to the new onboarding step, we have also added your offboarding and Archive statistics to the dashboard for better visibility. Lastly, we’ve made manual email signature syncs quicker as they can now be pushed through at Smart Team level rather than the organizational unit (OU).

CloudM Migrate 3.42: Google Takeout support, seamless migrations

Migrate already has a host of source platforms and we have now added Google Takeout into the mix. To continue the theme of more insight kicked off with our Backup and Archive modules, environment scan now allows you to access historical results. This is particularly useful when making use of another feature we recently added, allowing failed users in environment scans to be re-run. You will now be able to easily access both the original results as well as the retried users.

Note: there is an important update with specific instructions for customers with secondary servers. Find out more here.

For migrations from/to Google Workspace

Making migrations as seamless as possible for end users and admins alike has always been one of our goals, and the 3.42 release adds a few small yet important features to achieve just that: with this release, you will be able to migrate the last 10 messages from your Google Spaces to the new destination so that users can continue working without disruption.

And good news for those looking to migrate from Google Vault – we have significantly improved throughput speeds and migrations speeds by up to 50%!

For migrations from/to Microsoft 365

Another feature that ensures a smooth experience for end users allows account delegates to be migrated in Microsoft 365 tenant to tenant scenarios. In addition, mail delegation settings can now also be migrated over in M365 to M365 migrations.

Read the full release notes here.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023

Navigating Dropbox’s shift away from Google Workspace: What you need to know.

For the last 5 years, Dropbox users could create, edit and share Google Docs, Sheets and Slides directly in Dropbox without ever leaving the site. Dropbox are now phasing out their native Google Docs, Sheets and Slides integration. After receiving questions from our customers, we decided to look at the challenges that this move creates. Here’s what we found.

How is this change rolled out?

Dropbox is following a phased approach: Once notified via an email with the subject line “[Action Required] Migrating your Google files”, users with Google Workspace files in their Dropbox have 30 days to connect their Google and Dropbox accounts. This will enable Dropbox to replace files with shortcuts to Google Drive. If they don’t connect their accounts, the files will be automatically converted to Microsoft Office files.

What could go wrong?

This change has caused some stir and it is not difficult to see why, as it can create a challenge for users and businesses alike.

Firstly, it creates friction as those used to the previously seamless integration will have to get used to operating in both Dropbox and Google Drive. In fact, forum users see it as a feature deprecation. When files are automatically converted to Office files, chances are that some detail and formatting will not transfer – an unacceptable risk for organizations with customer facing assets or files that, if corrupted, threaten business continuity.

There is also a risk that advanced sharing settings like password protection might be lost regardless of whether you choose Google Drive or let your files be converted to Microsoft Office files. Dropbox’s help center article does not go into too much detail, increasing the risk that organizations make the wrong decision while at the same time feeling that they are receiving a poorer service and not enough support.

“Why can no one help me with this ASAP? This is an enormous issue, and if I am having it, I have to assume there are others. Perhaps your call centers are flooded with business users like myself demanding answers and help.

What on earth should we do? Work has stopped. Clients need answers and work must resume.”

A user from the Dropbox support forum*

What can you do?

While the options seem fairly black and white, all is not lost even if you have already been notified and made your decision. Here are some common routes that you can take whether you are still to receive the notification or are in the midst of managing the transition.

1. Connect your Google Drive and Dropbox accounts

Dropbox recommends this as the preferred option for most users. Your organization will still be able to use the latest Google Workspace features and the migration should be largely straightforward. Existing folder structures should be maintained, but it is worth pointing out that password protection is not immediately available upon migration to Google Drive as Dropbox’s “Send with password” is removed when a document becomes a native Google document. Organizations with a lot of business-critical files may therefore want to consider using an external migration tool such as CloudM to ensure that all files are migrated correctly and with as little interruption as possible. While this adds cost, it also gives peace of mind that your critical files are safe.

2. Do nothing

If you choose to do nothing, your files will automatically be converted to their Office counterparts after 30 days. There is a significant risk that not all settings and formatting will be maintained, so it is unlikely that many business users will choose this option. However, if you do wish to permanently migrate to Microsoft 365 and see this change as the opportunity to do so, there are tools that can make the transition as frictionless as possible while maintaining critical document details.

3. Feeling buyer’s remorse?

If you have already been through all of the above and whichever path you chose turns out to be the wrong one, you can migrate to your preferred ecosystem using both integrated as well as external tools.

As 9to5google.com points out “[…] you can convert Microsoft Office files back to Google format at any time by uploading them to Google Drive, though some document formatting may be lost or altered.” As noted previously, there are (paid for) tools that will reduce if not completely remove this potential risk.

Equally, if you are considering moving ecosystems to M365, a migration tool like CloudM can help you safely migrate email, contacts, calendars and files with little to no downtime.

Want to find out more about CloudM’s migration tools and services? Book a free consultation now and one of our experts will be in touch with you shortly.

Find out more about data migrations to Google Workspace and Microsoft 365.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023

How a UK retail giant saved a LOT of time and money with CloudM

A UK based high street retail giant with over 500 stores across the UK, Europe, Asia and the Middle East and a global online presence, employing nearly 50,000 staff worldwide. With over a century and a half of retail experience, they cater for 5 million+ active customers globally in 70 countries, specializing in Clothing, Footwear, Accessories and Home products.
Even after 150 years, this retailer actively researches and invests in the latest technologies, including eCommerce, digital transformation and security, to keep their processes moving forward and continue to offer greater value to their customers.

The Issue

The retailer wanted to cut down license cost as their VFE licenses were due to be renewed as costly Google AU licenses, whilst also retaining the data in accordance to data regulation laws.

Offboarding was also taking them too long with an average of 1000 offboarding processes a month eating up the valuable time of their IT team. They also wanted to be able to standardize the process across all departments to speed up offboardings and avoid costly human error.

The Process

The retailer had spoken to us several years previously about our user management software before ultimately, and unsuccessfully, choosing a competitor. Upon reengaging with CloudM, they were pleasantly surprised by not only the growth and maturity of the product modules and features, but the attentive, professional and knowledgeable service they received throughout.

Being a company of their size, they wanted to make sure that CloudM would be a good fit for them long term. Our Sales Architects quickly allayed any fears that they had with a series of product demos with senior members from their IT team, explaining how CloudM Automate and CloudM Archive modules would combine to deliver a seamless process for their administrators, as well as scoping out potential issues.

As soon as the customer started to use CloudM, our Customer Success Team was on hand to guide them through the initial stages, helping them to set up their roles, groups and offboarding policies and archive storage buckets.

Claire Robinson, Customer Success Manager at CloudM, explained “The enablement process is crucial with every customer. Helping them start on the right track means that they can get the very best out of CloudM as quickly as possible. We want our customers to succeed so we are always on hand to help, listen and resolve, whether it’s day one or year 10 of their journey with us”.

It’s this cycle of communication and collaboration that encouraged the retail giant to suggest several software improvements that would make their experience easier. This feedback has helped us to develop and add several new features to the suite, benefiting all of our CloudM Automate and Archive customers. We also looked for new and innovative ways to use our current features to solve some of these issues.

The Result

As far as returns on investment go, few are as quick and evident as the saving the retailer made by simply using CloudM Archive and Google Cloud Storage as an alternative to transitioning to Google Archive User (AU) licenses.

“CloudM pay for themselves – We saved so much in license costs and the amount of time and resource needed to do really quite simple tasks.”

With almost 3000 free VFE accounts due to transition to paid AU licenses at their next renewal, the business was looking at an eye watering bill of nearly $350,000 over the next two years alone. CloudM helped to eliminate that need with CloudM Archive, allowing them to keep all their user data, securely and totally compliant, at a fraction of the cost. CloudM Archive has been proven to save customers as much as 75% compared to renewing to AU licenses.

But ROI shouldn’t be counted in purely financial terms alone. Time can be equally as valuable as money. Our offboarding features allowed the retailer’s IT team to easily build bespoke workflows, customizable for each Organizational Unit and Smart Team, so the entire offboarding process is automated and triggered with one button. As they routinely offboarded around 1000 users a month, we worked out that CloudM would save them an incredible 21 full days on manual offboarding tasks…every single month. Even better, with CloudM Automate, they no longer have to rely on GAM scripts or continually accessing the Google Admin Console.

Now, their IT teams can get on with the important tasks, assured that we are taking good care of the monotonous offboarding work in the background.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

2023 CloudM

Setting your office to autopilot

How do you want your IT team to spend their valuable time?

Do you want them to prioritize the big ticket, business critical projects such as keeping your business secure and optimizing your internal systems, continuing to add value to your company?

Or do you want them to spend hour after hour (after hour) responding to the backlog of little time sync tasks that stack up through the day? The “can you add my new job title to my email?” or the “John’s just joined but he can’t access…”

With CloudM Automate, you can put thousands of tasks a year on autopilot, saving days worth of work hours and allowing your team to concentrate on the important, interesting challenges keeping your organization moving forward.

Onboarding

When a new employee joins the business, or an employee moves to a new role, we want them to hit the ground running. Nothing stalls this enthusiasm more than having to wait for access to the resources that they need.

With CloudM Automate, you can make sure that they have access to all the shared documents, drives and calendars required for their role and department, on day one. All you have to do is make sure they are added to the correct dynamic user group.

You don’t need to go into each resource that they need and share it with the new starter. A 30 minute slog is now down to 2 minutes, at most!

Offboarding

When it comes time to say goodbye to an employee, a lot of individual tasks land in your IT team’s inbox. For example, you need to secure the user’s account (including changing passwords), transfer the ownership of Docs, Sites, Calendars and Groups, migrate emails, and claim back licenses. Even a simple manual offboarding process can take up roughly 30 minutes of your IT team’s valuable time.

CloudM Automate allows you to craft bespoke offboarding workflows of up to 30 individual tasks, automatically assigned to users based on group membership, all triggered with the press of a single button. No more delays, no more errors, no more manual tasks.

Integrations

CloudM Automate plays well with a host of other SaaS applications including Slack, Box, Dropbox, Bamboo HR and ADP, giving you even more ways to put menial tasks on autopilot.

The first way we do this is to allow you to secure and delete SaaS licenses assigned to a leaver as a simple, single step in your offboarding workflows. This is great for making sure that leavers no longer have access to your company data, but will also save you money on used SaaS licenses.

Then, secondly, we have integrations that allow you to make changes to a user’s profile in one SaaS application and have them automatically sync to CloudM Automate. Even better, these changes can automatically trigger onboarding and offboarding workflows, and email signature changes.

Email Signature Management

Any recently promoted or hired employee needs to update their email signature, but instead of hassling the IT department with a ticket, what if it was all done automatically? We use “variable” labels in our templates that take the latest synced information from a user’s CloudM profile or your organization profile.

In fact, with the integrations mentioned in the section above, your HR team can even change the details directly in Bamboo HR or ADP (as they would have to do normally), with the changes syncing over to CloudM Automate, and triggering changes to the user’s email signature. With ZERO interaction from your IT team required.

Also, our role permissions means you can give the right people the right access to our platform. IT admins can give a Marketing or HR team the permissions to create and assign email signatures, without allowing access to any other administrative features, such as onboarding, offboarding and archive.

Streamline your business with CloudM Automate, the award-winning platform that gives you the ability to automate your office, saving you time, stress and money.

Contact us today and discover for yourself just how valuable office automation can be.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

2023 CloudM

Great Minds Make Great Tech with Claude Morings Jr

It’s been an exciting month for us here at CloudM as we get set to officially launch our US subsidiary, CloudM Inc. With over 10 years of experience in the US market already, this natural evolution promises to deliver an even better customer experience for our amazing North American customers.

What better time to celebrate the staff that have supported our US market and made this next step possible. And, who better to speak to than US employee no.1 – Claude Morings Jr.

Hi Claude – Tell us a little bit about yourself?

Hey! I’m the Global Product Support Manager here at CloudM. I joined 4 years ago (this month to be exact) as CloudM’s very first US employee.

Wow! And now we have 13 US based employees and growing, with a US subsidiary being established. You must’ve seen some changes in the past 4 years

Absolutely. Personally, I’ve been able to grow the Support Team out from a solely UK based operation to a truly global department, with dedicated, knowledgeable staff located around the globe (including APAC), delivering true 24 / 7 support.

None of this was in place, and to have that set on my shoulders as a deliverable when accepting the role was a lot of pressure. But, it has created the amazing support team we have now, which I’m extremely proud of.

In the US, helping the business get the right people in place and seeing the business grow to generate the revenue to get here, establishing CloudM Inc., has been so rewarding. In the last year alone, the number of US based employees has skyrocketed and it’s only set to continue. That can only be good for our customers.

So, what do you enjoy about working at CloudM?

Firstly, my team. My favorite parts of the week are when someone within the team achieves a goal, receives good feedback, or puts a process in place that benefits them and their colleagues. I was given the opportunity to build the team and put people in those positions to showcase their talents so it feels like validation.

I really like how we make remote working work, even across multiple time zones and regions. It’s great to feel like one team with colleagues across APAC, Europe and North America (from sea to shining sea).

Saying that, getting the opportunity to meet up in person is amazing. I’m from a small town in North Carolina, and while I have traveled across the world during my 12 years in the Army, my family is amazed when I tell them I’m visiting the head office based in the UK or that I get to go to Spain for a company kickoff meeting.

What is your favorite CloudM value?

My favorite value is to appreciate others. I can crack on, try new things, and get involved, but showing others that they’re appreciated (and feeling appreciated) makes the other values easier to achieve.

Any advice for someone looking to join the CloudM team?

It will be challenging, but we will have fun and you will feel supported. At CloudM, you will only fail if you choose to. The team here is pretty good at circling the wagons around someone who needs extra assistance, sharing their own experiences and knowledge.

It’s a great time to get involved. The CloudM team, globally and in the US, is growing and there are so many opportunities for personal and career growth. If you are hard working, eager to learn and challenge yourself, CloudM is a great place to work.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023

CloudM announces brand new B Corporation certification

CloudM, a cloud migration and management software provider, has announced today its certification as a B Corporation, joining a growing group of companies reinventing business by pursuing purpose as well as profit.

CloudM has been certified by B Lab, the not-for-profit behind the B Corp movement, as having met rigorous social and environmental standards which represent its commitment to goals outside of shareholder profit.

CloudM has achieved certification across five key impact areas of Governance, Workers, Community, Environment and Customers. Thanks to CloudM’s efforts, the company has been able to reach a score of over 80 while providing evidence of socially and environmentally responsible practices relating to energy supplies, waste and water use, worker compensation, diversity and corporate transparency.

In addition to completing the certification, CloudM also legally commits to a purpose beyond profit in the future as an extension of this brilliant achievement. Further to this, CloudM is also an official Greater Manchester Good Employment Charter supporter which means it takes looking after its people seriously and can evidence this.

The recent certification is all part of CloudM’s “Do Good Plan” which is about encouraging everyone to do the right thing, supporting the people and the planet. As part of this initiative, CloudM has “Culture Champions” with specific specialisms and targeted aims ranging from environmental sustainability to racial equity. From getting the chance to sit on hiring panels to coordinating team events, CloudM’s Culture Champions aim to make a real difference in the lives of employees.

Gary Bennion, Chief Technical and Customer Officer, from CloudM, said:

“We are pleased to have achieved the B Corp certification and to represent the cloud services industry. This was a really important step for the business as we truly believe in the power of doing good as a business and focusing on the environment, people and the planet as much as profit. Beyond the certification we hope to continue to make an impact on the world around us as we all move towards a more sustainable future for everyone.”

Chris Turner, Executive Director of B Lab UK, says “We are delighted to welcome CloudM (and CTS) to the B Corp community. This is a movement of companies who are committed to changing how business operates and believe business really can be a force for good.”

Born out of a UK based Google Partner in 2018, CloudM has grown to become one of the world’s leading data movement and management solutions, with over 40,000 customers in over 107 countries across the globe, including the likes of Netflix, Uber, Booking.com and Spotify. CloudM has performed over 75 million migrations to the cloud and are on a mission to make it easy to manage Microsoft 365 and Google Workspace user data.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

2023 CloudM

A true partnership for success: The evolving relationship between Kempinski Hotels and CloudM

The Company

Kempinski is a luxury hotel management group celebrating its 125th anniversary this year. Steeped in history, the iconic company dates back to 1897, crowning them Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group.

A growing collection of distinguished properties proudly bears the Kempinski name. Their illustrious portfolio currently boasts 81 of the world’s most breathtaking destinations spread across 35 countries, each possessing their trademark exclusivity and European flair.

Kempinski’s prestigious heritage is equally matched by its ambitious vision for the future. And the group understands that embracing technology is the key to offering a world-class guest experience for another 125 years.

The evolution of the relationship

Kempinski has been a valued CloudM customer since 2010 when they used CloudM Migrate to transition from Novell GroupWise to Google Workspace.

Their relatively early adoption of Google Workspace shows their early commitment to cloud solutions: they could see the value on offer and understood the pivotal role the technology would play in the future.

Moving to the cloud enabled Kempinski to create a flexible, agile platform which allowed them to react to market opportunities faster than their peers and capitalize on innovation opportunities as they’ve presented themselves.

CloudM has played a central role in Kempinski’s tech stack ever since. Kempinski benefits from the CloudM Automate features with our Staff Directory being at the heart of their staff collaboration.

CTS, our partner and sister company (as part of the CTS Group), manages the Onboarding and Offboarding Workflow features on Kempinski’s behalf, setting up automation that work behind the scenes to streamline Kempinski’s day-to-day operations.CloudM’s automated onboarding solutions help new employees integrate seamlessly into the company.

New employees are granted immediate access to the resources they need for their role, including shared documents and calendars.

From company policy and culture training, to team introductions and job benefits, everything is accessible from day one, making new employees’ experience as straightforward and stress-free as possible.

At the opposite end of the employee journey, CloudM’s Offboarding Workflow feature automates Kempinski’s offboarding process, revoking passwords and permissions for employees the moment they leave the company.

Both of these features free up untold labor hours that would otherwise be spent manually onboarding and offboarding members of staff.

Holly Simpson, the Account Manager for Kempinski at CTS, recognises the values of CloudM’s features. She said: “Our fruitful relationship with Kempinski stretches back over a decade now. And only grows stronger with each passing year. The CloudM features form an integral part of the efficient, automated, managed service that CTS delivers to keep the hotels running day-to-day.”

Shaping CloudM’s Archive solution

Kempinski’s more recent uptake of the CloudM Archive module shows a continuing confidence in CloudM (and CTS) to sit at the center of their digital operations.When Google replaced their free Vault Former Employee (VFE) licenses with paid Archive User (AU) licenses, at a cost of ~€50 each per year, Kempinski was potentially looking at an eye-watering bill in the hundreds of thousands.

So they turned to CloudM for help.CloudM rose to the challenge, providing a managed migration of thousands of Kempinski’s archived profiles to cloud storage quickly and automatically, using CloudM Migrate. This slashed their expected expenditure drastically while keeping their offboarded user data secure, easily accessible and compliant.

We used CloudM Migrate to perform this initial transfer because it was the fastest way to move the data. Then, we added the Archive step to Kempinski’s offboarding policies so anyone offboarded in the future would automatically have their data archived to the same storage bucket (or another of their choice).

Archived data can be retrieved in just a couple of clicks and data is automatically purged forever after a set length of time to keep businesses compliant.

“We’re proud to have embraced CloudM solutions for over a decade now. And we believe they are providing solutions geared for the future. They’re an essential part of our strategy going forward.”

Here’s to the future

CloudM simply wouldn’t exist without collaboration with our customers. We’ve consistently grown out of our customers’ requests, needs and feedback.

“Kempinski has been a partner in the truest sense of the word,” says Gary Bennion, CloudM’s Chief Technology and Customer Officer. “They have collaborated closely with us for years to help shape CloudM and they continue to be a key customer.”

We’re currently working with Kempinski to centralize and manage their staff user data across HR, SSO (via a third party application), Google Workspace, People Application, and CloudM. This will undoubtedly further strengthen our relationship and may even lead to the creation of new products.

Our symbiotic relationship with Kempinski has enabled both of us to achieve greater success, and our ongoing dialogue fosters continuous growth and innovation.

So, as Kempinski raises a glass and reflects on 125 years of excellence, CloudM looks forward to supporting their future success.

Want to benefit from the same features that Kempinski, and other industry leading companies such as Spotify, Netflix and Uber, use?

With over 35,000 customers worldwide, CloudM’s user management features have helped companies put office life on auto-pilot by automating time-consuming tasks, allowing them to focus on the big picture, eradicate human error and save both time and money.

For more information on our platform, request a free 15 minute demo call with one of our team.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

2023 CloudM

Improving Offboarding for Google Workspace

When it comes to our offboarding features, we’ve had a very busy couple of years

Our dynamic Dev Team has put in the hard work, constantly innovating, to continue to increase the number of automated steps you can add to your leaver’s process. Our Google Workspace Offboarding Workflow now has a massive 30+ individual steps that CloudM Automate allows you to process with a single click of a button.

And, the hard work has paid off – It’s by far one of the most popular features in the CloudM suite. In 2022 alone, CloudM Automate helped our customers offboard over a million leavers – 1,107,403 over 195 domains to be exact. If an average offboarding takes 25 minutes, that’s nearly 50 years worth of manual tasks saved in 12 months alone.

But, success brings its own challenges. As the number of users increased, we also saw the number of support tickets, minor issues and feature requests increase (at the same rate). That’s why we put together a specialized group dedicated to improving the offboarding experience for our customers in the following three key areas:

Stability and Performance

When you are offboarding a user, nothing is more annoying than a process failing on its own. Except maybe for the amount of time the process is taking to complete. That is why the first area for improvement we looked at was making the workflows more stable, removing the need for unnecessary manual intervention and speeding up the processes.

Here are a few examples :

If there’s a step in the workflow that isn’t relevant to the leaver (e.g. they have a license type that doesn’t include mail), that step will automatically skip rather than fail the entire workflow, keeping the process moving forward.

CloudM Automate will now automatically retry a failed offboarding step up to 5 times, where appropriate, so you don’t have to restart the step manually.

Minor bug fixes and code changes to speed up the transfer of resources such as documents and mail etc, using our award-winning CloudM Migrate technology at its core.

Troubleshooting and Error Reporting

Our brilliant Support Team is always on hand to help CloudM customers (they are literally available 24 / 7) and pride themselves on responding to support requests in record-breaking time.

However, they were seeing more tickets for minor offboarding issues that, quite frankly, were very quick fixes with the correct knowledge and reporting. No one wants to wait hours for a response to a problem they could fix themselves in minutes.

That’s why we have made it so much easier for our customers to troubleshoot their own issues, making error reporting more detailed and transparent.

For example:

We have added more detailed troubleshooting articles to our Knowledge Base for both Google Workspace and Microsoft 365 offboarding workflows, including expected behaviors and common issues. You can also link directly to the article from the CloudM Automate UI.

When one of the steps that deal with transferring resources fails or errors, you can now see more information about the issue on the offboarding status screen. This includes detailing the resource that has failed and whether the error occurred on the source or destination endpoint so you can quickly troubleshoot and remedy the issue.

You can now export a full error log for the “Transfer Ownership of Documents” step. This means that it’s easier to see when multiple documents are causing issues, allowing you to resolve all of them before retrying the step.

More Automation and Options

You didn’t think we were just going to stop innovating, did you? The initial focus of the team was to improve the existing offboarding features, but we had some great feedback from our customers and partners about features and options that we couldn’t wait to include.

We’ve added more steps that you can add to your workflows, taking the number of individual steps to over 30, allowing you to automate even more tasks, saving you even more time. The steps we’ve added include:

Transfer Looker (Google Data) Studio – Transfer the ownership of Looker Studio (previously known as Google Data Studio) data to a specified user.

Preemptively Suspend User – This step will allow you to suspend the user at the start of the offboarding process, preventing them from logging in and accessing any services from the account. This step is ideal for workflows that include custom delays between steps.

Remove Email Forwarding Settings – Emails sent to the email address will no longer be forwarded, stopping a leaver from being able to set up forwarding to a personal account.

We’ve also been adding additional settings to existing steps, giving you more flexibility and control over the processes. For example, on the “Migrate email” step, we have made it possible to “Disallow Label Truncation” so that if a new label is too long (based on Google limitations), you can decide whether the step fails or continues using an alternative label.

We chatted to James Ford, Senior Software Developer at CloudM, and he said;

“I’m glad we took the time to address some issues and feedback we were getting about our offboarding features. I think that the changes we have implemented will not only make the user experience smoother and more enjoyable, but the behind the scenes updates we’ve made have put us in an even better position to improve the feature even more over the next few years.”

To keep up to date with all of the new features being added to CloudM Automate, bookmark the CloudM Automate release notes from our Knowledge Base, or see what we have in the pipeline for 2023 and beyond on our product board.

New to CloudM? Why not book a 15 minute discovery call to find out how CloudM Automate, including our onboarding and offboarding features, can save your organization time and money today.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023

CloudM help JLee Technology with Complex Migration

The Organization

Cloud Technology Consultancy JLee Technology, partners with business leaders and IT decision-makers to help customers perform complex user data migrations to Microsoft 365. JLee Technology aids small to medium-sized business leaders with Microsoft 365 migrations, file structure, asset planning, and technology strategy.

The Project

JLee Technology came to the CloudM team when a customer wanted to perform a complex migration from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365. The customer needed to migrate to Microsoft 365 for resource consolidation, unified management, and to benefit from the features of Microsoft 365.

The Process

After discovering CloudM’s migration capabilities on Google, JLee had a demonstration of the product, which gave them a chance to ask questions about the platform to completely understand its powerful features. JLee compared other products on the market but stated that they found “CloudM’s product demo to be notably better than other platforms”. As JLee was getting familiar with the platform, CloudM offered email and telephone support provided by CloudM Senior Technology Strategist Lloyd, to aid John in becoming more familiar and proficient with the CloudM Platform.

The Result

The migration was a success and ran smoothly with ease of configuration, management, and detail of reporting. There were no difficulties, just efficiency questions that CloudM was able to offer support with. Regarding the support JLee received, they said it was ” Incredible. Seriously, it was amazing” and would recommend the platform to others.

Testimonial

“The process was fantastic. CloudM’s reporting is robust and fully featured. I feel confident that when using CloudM I will have successful projects.”

John Lee – IT Consultant, JLee Technology

“It was truly a pleasure working with the team and I am extremely grateful to have found CloudM. The solution and team empowered me to really come through on my high-value deliverables.”

John Lee – IT Consultant, JLee Technology

You’re in good company

Over 68 million migrations. In 107 countries. Across the globe.
Some of the world’s biggest brands use CloudM to unlock the potential of cloud productivity.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023

How to Guarantee a Completely Secure Migration to M365

Many organizations are now choosing to migrate to Microsoft 365 for a number of reasons including collaborative working options and Microsoft 365. Doing so has a number of advantages, but the movement of data can be difficult. A main consideration during the migration process can be maintaining data integrity whilst securing the data throughout the migration. Here are some migration security measures to consider to ensure a secure migration to Microsoft 365.

Encryption of Data
End-to-end encryption is the most secure way to communicate securely and with privacy online. The messages are encrypted at both ends of the conversation which prevents anybody in the middle from reading the private communications. Neither hackers nor unwanted third parties can access the encrypted data on the server.

CloudM Migrate has end-to-end encryption between migration endpoints. The option to Self Host CloudM Migrate will completely isolate your migration data from your source environment to the destination cloud tenant.

Both primary and secondary servers use the following components to temporarily store migration data during a migration.

Encrypted SQLite databases (AES256)
Encrypted temporary file storage (AES256)

Where CloudM Migrate requires a username or password to interact with a system, and stores sensitive data like this, that data is stored encrypted within SQL Server (AES256). SQL Server 2019 Express is installed by default but you can specify your own SQL instance.

Know your source data
Before you start migrating data, you need to know exactly what it is you’re moving. Ensure you know the format of the data, where it is in the system, and if it does actually need to be migrated. Ensure the data is clean and any data that does not need to be kept, can be disposed of to reduce costs and decrease the chance of security risks.

Know your destination
Knowing everything about where the data is coming from is half the battle, the other half is knowing where it’s going.

Ensure that you know the exact destination your data will be going to. From simple things like username conflicts to license fees, the new system will have its own set of rules and regulations.

For example, if you are moving from a legacy endpoint to Microsoft 365, you need to know that all data will be working as expected and the appropriate security compliances are in place. It is also important to ensure everything will be compatible
Back up data
Before the migration begins, ensure all data has been backed up, especially the files you will be migrating. If there are any issues or problems during the migration, such as corrupt or missing files, then you can always restore from the backup.

Get us to help
Migrations are a specialized area, bringing with them their own challenges and solutions, and the right advice from experts like us can make things go a lot smoother. It’s important to understand your limitations, as mishandling a migration can have disastrous consequences.

We know how important security is during migrations. Move to the cloud with confidence with guaranteed data integrity with zero downtime for users with our secure cloud migration tool.

About Version 2 Limited
Version 2 Digital is one of the most dynamic IT companies in Asia. The company distributes a wide range of IT products across various areas including cyber security, cloud, data protection, end points, infrastructures, system monitoring, storage, networking, business productivity and communication products.

Through an extensive network of channels, point of sales, resellers, and partnership companies, Version 2 offers quality products and services which are highly acclaimed in the market. Its customers cover a wide spectrum which include Global 1000 enterprises, regional listed companies, different vertical industries, public utilities, Government, a vast number of successful SMEs, and consumers in various Asian cities.

About CloudM
CloudM is an award-winning SaaS company whose humble beginnings in Manchester have grown into a global business in just a few short years.

Our team of tech-driven innovators have designed a SaaS data management platform for you to get the most from your digital workspace. Whether it’s Microsoft 365, Google Workspace or other SaaS applications, CloudM drives your business through a simple, easy-to-use interface, helping you to work smarter, not harder.

By automating time-consuming tasks like IT admin, onboarding & offboarding, archiving and migrations, the CloudM platform takes care of the day-to-day, allowing you to focus on the big picture.

With over 35,000 customers including the likes of Spotify, Netflix and Uber, our all-in-one platform is putting office life on auto-pilot, saving you time, stress and money.

CloudM 2023