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Town IT director says Office 365 rollout complete for staff, Teams to replace Zoom for meetings
Summary
IT Director Brett Marchand told the selectmen the town has installed Office 365 on all active staff desktops, will schedule short training sessions on Teams and Outlook features, and plans to transition meeting hosting from shared Zoom accounts to individual Teams accounts.
Brett Marchand, the town's IT director, told the Board of Selectmen that funding in the 2025–26 budget paid for Office 365 licenses for town staff and that installations are complete for all active desktop users.
Marchand said the rollout was customized to limit changes from Office 2019 and was deployed during off hours to minimize operational disruptions. He highlighted new features staff are looking forward to, including Teams and real‑time collaboration, and said the IT department will organize short training sessions (30–60 minutes) on Teams, Outlook, Word and Excel features.
On remote meetings, Marchand said the town plans to transition from shared Zoom accounts to individual Teams accounts after staff training, which staff and some board members said should reduce cost and simplify scheduling. Board members asked about whether phone/calendar behavior would change for users; Marchand said the underlying cloud services remain the same but access will be via the new application.
What happens next: IT will schedule training for staff, plan the Teams rollout for additional departments (police deployment planned for late July/early August), and provide follow-up information to the board on timing and any costs associated with the next deployment phase.
