Microsoft Office Download For Government Employees

[Geneva Andreotti]

The Microsoft Workplace Discount Program empowers government employees to extend their use of Microsoft technology from professional to personal needs. The program lets you save on Microsoft 365 Family and Personal annual subscriptions, providing access to the latest versions of apps in Microsoft 365, including the ability communicate and collaborate with Microsoft Teams. It also provides 1 TB of OneDrive cloud storage, to store and share files and photos, and advanced protection for data and devices.

Microsoft 365 is increasingly embraced by government agencies and organizations worldwide. Listed below are examples of how various government customers have leveraged Microsoft 365 to achieve their desired outcomes:

Which option is right for your organization will depend on its unique needs and priorities. Keep in mind that you will have access to more features as you move up to higher tiers, but all benefits featured in the remainder of this article are included in each plan.

Microsoft Office for government employees home use capabilities enable staff to work from their house, your office, or any remote location with ease. For government employees that are constantly working from various locations or regularly traveling, this mobility is essential for success. Office 365 Government plans provide users with the Office applications they know and love that are optimized for their devices so they can work efficiently and effectively wherever they are.

The Microsoft Home Use Program (HUP) is a benefit available to Microsoft customers with active Software Assurance coverage on their Office applications. Federal government employees who use the covered licenses at work are eligible to purchase these Office applications for just $9.95 to use on a personal device during the term of their employment.

The Military/Government Purchase Program is a benefit provided by Apple Inc. to current and retired employees, contractors and family members of government entities, and current, former, and retired members and family members of the US Military, National Guard and Reserve. The Program is intended for personal use. The discounts apply to a broad range of Apple products. Click here to learn more.

All Department of Homeland Security (DHS) employees have access to low-price, tax-free shopping privileges at www.shopCGX.com, the online store of the Coast Guard Exchange System (CGX), or in person at any of the 64 CGX locations. CGX offers brand-name merchandise including apparel, shoes, electronics and other consumer products. Other benefits include a generous 14-day price-match guarantee and competitor price matching.

CGX is the only non-appropriated military resale activity within DHS. It has a 70-year history of providing goods and services at a savings to military customers, their families and Coast Guard civil service employees and civil service retirees. Some benefits, such as the purchase of alcohol and tobacco products or military uniform items, will continue just for military members.

To shop online, a secure online two-step process is required to validate your identification using a Common Access Card (CAC) or a DHS-issued Personal Identity Verification (PIV) card. Contractors with a CAC or DHS PIV card may only shop in person and are only able to purchase consumable products (drinks, snacks, etc.) for consumption on base.

The Microsoft Workplace Discount Program replaced the Home Use Program frequently used by federal employees. CBP employees are eligible to save on Microsoft 365 Family and Personal subscriptions. The process involves entering a work email address to receive a personalized link that allows you to shop Microsoft products and subscriptions at a discount. Microsoft Workplace Discount Program FAQs provides detailed information on what is included, how to purchase software, and how to download and manage subscriptions.

CBP works with LifeCare to provide our employees and their family members with valuable services such as worklife webinars, backup care, wellness and resiliency resources and LifeMart discounts. You can find deals on top brands, services and destinations from national and local vendors.

Employees and their family members can use the complimentary access button below to access LifeCare resources and view LifeMart discounts without registering for a membership account. Complimentary access may not provide access to all features and services. Employees can use their government email address to register for a membership account or personalized access for family members.

Perks at Work also provides members exclusive access to the Community Online Academy free of charge. COA offers live classes, on-demand videos and a Kids Club feature to help you get healthier, smarter and stronger. Kids Club offers a free after-school program Monday through Friday with activities for kids between the ages of 5 and 16.

COLLINS: Besides connecting with customers and partners, what made me happy about the excellent exchanges hosted at NASCIO was the progression of the conversation around the future role of the CIO and the CIO organization to drive government transformation. Fostering an enterprise strategy for service delivery instead of a fragmented, agency-by-agency approach is a key area that the CIO can champion. I loved hearing about the focus on constituent experience and the increasing use of human-centered design principles. This represents a real shift from designing online services from the internal technology and business process perspectives to prioritizing the constituent experience. That shift is sure to drive totally different designs and outcomes. These concepts that have been germinating and nurtured over the years are finally coming to fruition.

No one was to blame, because technology was not advanced enough for the level we aimed for, and now we are in a position where customer needs and the technology innovations can enable us to work with customers and partners to achieve some of those aspirations.

We collaborated with an agency that had difficulties with car theft. They would file a report when they found a stolen car. When an officer had the time, they would mark the car as recovered in a database. But until then, other officers were still searching for that car because the database was not updated. And so, the owner would be stopped by the police for suspected of car theft, and they would have to prove their ownership. We helped them develop an app where they can update the database in real time when a car is recovered. Now, no more owners are suspected of stealing their own cars. This may seem like a minor issue, but it was a serious problem.

I went to an office recently, and an executive assistant had an impressive number of monitors in front of her. And she described to me how many systems she leveraged to fulfill her duties. Well, Windows 11 can make it easier for her to organize that work. It offers an enhanced user interface and secure integration across our platforms. Office, Azure and Teams are all integrated, and they work seamlessly together. Plus, it has improved performance overall.

COLLINS: As someone who was a CIO before, I know the challenges of updating large organizations. Sometimes, you have legacy systems that limit your options. You must rely on what you know works in your situation. If you have incompatible systems, then you must deal with that risk as part of the upgrade planning. It is essential to coordinate testing in collaboration with each agency to make sure that applications work in a test environment to avoid affecting services.

COLLINS: The development of the graphical user interface enabled everyone to instruct computers what to do without mastering computer commands. The GUI let people just use mouse clicks to guide machines, and now we are touching phones and tablets. That was a moment that made technology accessible to everybody. It boosted innovation tremendously. This is one of those moments with AI.

Our enterprise AI tools provides the same role-based security and data controls that customers are accustomed to with Azure and our other products. When they bring that technology into their enterprise environment, customers have the same assurances that they would with all of our products.

People should be aware that, in some instances, using AI for search or otherwise could be capturing data to train the models. That is not the case with Microsoft enterprise AI tools. Our enterprise AI tools do not use customer data to train models, and the data is kept separate from the model. We assure our customers that their data is their data.

I thought I had a good understanding of what digital government could look like in the future, but when we launched AI earlier this year, I had to rethink everything. AI can create that enterprise experience without a bunch of custom programming and custom interfaces. AI can immediately change the constituent experience.

Constituents want to serve themselves. So, the city has set up a chatbot that is leveraging its existing data to respond to inquiries in natural language. The MyCity Chatbot reviews every file and responds with answers to help people start and manage businesses in New York City.

With Microsoft Forms, employees can easily solicit client input, measure customer satisfaction, and organize team events within minutes. The app is simple to use and works on any web browser, so it can be accessed from anywhere, anytime. Microsoft Forms also makes it easy to understand the data right away, with real time responses and automatic charts that are in-built. And for more complex surveys, Forms supports question branching and Likert scales, plus the ability to collect 50,000 survey responses per form.

Additionally, Forms supports the addition of themes, logos, and images, for organizations and agencies that want to custom brand their surveys. Microsoft Forms has enterprise-grade security, supports such features as SOC FedRAMP and compliance, and has the ability for IT admins to manage user licenses.

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