Digital Communication & Email Platforms

• All emails are hosted on a private enterprise class server meaning potentially sensitive information is kept safe. Free email accounts are consumer products and do not provide users with the same level of privacy, protection or support. 
• Data is backed up so you can retrieve something you may have deleted by mistake.
• With a custom domain name such as firstname.lastname@prestonscouts.org.uk, Parents and outside organisations can be a lot more confident of your identity when receiving emails. Anyone can set up a free Gmail or Hotmail account with something similar to prestonscoutsmedia@gmail.com and pose as a leader. We want to make sure our adult members are protected from identity theft and safeguard our young people from imposters.
• A Scouting email address allows you to manage and maintain a Scout-Life balance by keeping your Scouting mailbox separate from your personal inbox.
• It looks professional. Quite often Scouting will lead you to have contact and dealings with public officials, MPs, Councillors, Business leaders and having your own custom scout email address will give a much better impression.
• When your group sign up for the system, you will automatically get a address book of all the people in your own group as well West Lancs County which will update as people join the organisation and leave – so you can always get hold of the people you need to.
• Centrally managed distribution lists can be setup so that you can be confident everyone who is supposed to receives your email.

By hosting your Group’s email with us, you will receive for FREE:

• Use of a scouting domain name (prestonscouts.org.uk)
• Secure personalised business class email, calendar, and contacts with a 50 GB inbox  (Microsoft Exchange)
• Personal File storage and sharing with 1 TB of OneDrive storage
• Collaboration services to securely store & backup documents (SharePoint). Essential for succession planning.
• Unlimited online meetings, instant messaging, audio, HD video, and web conferencing (Teams)
• Secure social media and networking platform (Yammer)
• Power Automate for Automation of processes and integration with third party services.
• Microsoft Forms for secure data collection.
• Web versions of Word, Excel, Powerpoint and more
• Kanban style management tools to help teams create plans, organise, assign and collaborate around tasks (Microsoft Planner). 
• Professional digital storytelling tools to create interactive reports, presentations, newsletters and more (Microsoft Sway)
• District-based technical support when you need it.
• Access to the Preston members area based on SharePoint.
• Access to the District Directory
• Full GDPR compliance & alignment.

Microsoft Teams is a unified communication and collaboration platform that combines chat, video meetings, file storage (including collaboration on files), and application integration. The service integrates with our Office 365 subscription and features extensions that can integrate with non-Microsoft products. Microsoft Teams is a comparable to services such as Slack, WhatsApp and Zoom and is the evolution from Skype for Business. Teams allows communities, groups, or teams to join online voice or video meetings through a link or invitation or host live broadcasts.