This guide to the new Office 365 portal covers the following topics:
- Signing into the Office 365 portal (Nexus 365)
- Checking your Email
- Safe Cloud Storage via Microsoft OneDrive
- Using Office 365 apps and editing files from any location
- Installing & Managing Office on up to 5 personal devices
- Recovering Office licences from old devices
Signing into the Office 365 portal (Nexus 365)
Navigate to https://portal.office.com where you will see a login screen. Enter your Oxford email address (e.g. firstname.surname@bnc.ox.ac.uk) and click Next.
You’ll be redirected to the familiar Oxford University SSO login screen. Enter your SSO credentials as usual and click Login.
Next you will see a prompt asking if you would like to stay signed in. If using a public computer, we strongly recommend that you click No. If using a personal device that is not accessible by other people, you can click Yes. This setting dictates how quickly you will be automatically signed out of your account after a period of inactivity.
You will now see your Nexus 365 homepage, from which you can access the various features of Nexus 365.
Checking your Email
Once logged into the 365 portal, you can check your emails either by:
1. Clicking the Outlook icon under the Apps section of the homepage:
OR
2. Clicking the grid menu in the top left-hand corner of the screen and selecting Outlook from the Apps section of the pop-out menu:
The Outlook web app will now load, and you will see your Nexus mailbox:
Safe Cloud Storage via Microsoft OneDrive
Nexus 365 provides users with 5TB of cloud-based document storage, which can (when configured correctly) can synchronise all your files between your various devices. Microsoft OneDrive is now an allowed storage location for Brasenose College data as per the College’s Information Security Policy.
The IT Office is currently offering one-to-one appointments to discuss how to make the best use of OneDrive to share data across your various devices. Please contact computer.office@bnc.ox.ac.uk to make an appointment (appointments will take place from 13th April onwards).
As well as via your personal devices, you can access your OneDrive documents from any web browser by logging into portal.office.com as above, and looking for OneDrive either under the Apps heading on the homepage or via the grid menu in the top left-hand corner of the homepage.
Using Office 365 apps and editing files from any location
One of the benefits of the Office 365 portal is the ability to work on your documents via your web browser using online versions of popular Office applications. You will have access to:
- Calendar
- Delve
- Excel
- OneDrive
- OneNote
- Outlook
- People
- PowerPoint
- Tasks
- To-Do
- Word
You can access these in the same way you would access your Outlook web app, as described in the above section “Accessing your Nexus Mailbox”.
Files worked on via Nexus 365 web apps will automatically be saved in your OneDrive, and are only accessible by you unless you choose to share them with other people. However, when saving documents, you will also be given the option to save the file directly to the device you are working on.
Installing & Managing Office on up to 5 personal devices
You can now install the latest version of Office onto on up to 5 compatible personal devices, plus 5 tablets, including iPad and mobiles.
To install Office on a particular device, log into the portal on that device and click Install Office apps from your Nexus 365 portal homepage:
You’ll see the following list of options. Selecting Office 2016 will automatically download the 32-bit (En-US language) installer to your browser’s default download location. If you require either the 64-bit version (see below) or a different language version, select Other installation options to be taken to a page that allows you to download different versions of Office. The Other installation options link will also allow you to manage existing installations of the software across your devices.
32-bit vs 64-bit: Almost all modern computers now work on 64-bit architecture. All devices (regardless of 32 or 64-bit) will run the 32-bit version of Office. Only 64-bit devices can run 64-bit Office so it is worth checking your device before installing the 64-bit version. The 64-bit version does have performance benefits over the 32-bit, particularly when dealing with large Outlook files.
To download the 64-bit version of Office, select Other installation options as per the earlier screenshot, and on the next page you’ll see a dropdown menu asking you to choose which language version of Office you would like to download. Choose your preferred language from the dropdown, and then click the Advanced link next to the version type:
A dropdown menu will appear, allowing you to select 64-bit. Ensure this is selected before clicking the Install button. The 64-bit installer will now be downloaded to your browser’s default download location (usually your Downloads folder).
When you have downloaded the correct version of Office, run the installer and follow the on-screen prompts to install and sign into Office 365.
Recovering Office licences from old/decommissioned devices
Nexus 365 allows you to install Office on up to 5 personal devices. You may wish to check your existing installations, or to free up a licence by removing it from a decommissioned/lost device. In order to do this, log into the portal and click Install Office apps followed by Other installation options:
On the next page, under Manage installs, click My account > Install status. You will now be taken to a page that lists your detected installs. It will show the number of detected installs and give the name of the device on which each licence is installed in order to help you identify the correct device.
To deactivate a licence and allow it to be used on another device, simply click Deactivate under the name of the device from which you want to remove the licence.
