Tackling Latency and Slow Response Times in Microsoft 365: A Growing Concern

As many organizations rely heavily on Microsoft 365 for daily operations, it's becoming increasingly evident from my experience that latency and slow response times are sometimes productivity issues. This isn't just a localized problem—it's happening across various regions and environments, indicating a broader systemic issue.

What's Happening?

Users are experiencing a range of issues, including:

• Lost Changes to Documents: Critical updates are being lost, causing confusion and rework.
• Co-Authoring Latency: Real-time collaboration is hindered by delays, making it difficult for teams to work together efficiently.
• Versioning Issues: Document versions are not being saved correctly, leading to data integrity concerns.
• Flows Not Completing: Automated processes are failing due to identity errors, processing latency, and disrupting workflows.

These slowdowns can disrupt workflows, frustrate employees, and ultimately impact the bottom line. Some of the issues seems to be more pronounced in environments using split tunneling VPNs, which are supposed to optimize traffic flow but are instead introducing complications.

Why Does This Matter?

In today's fast-paced business world, time is money. Every second lost to waiting for an application to respond is a second not spent on productive work. This cumulative effect can lead to significant inefficiencies, especially for organizations that depend on Microsoft 365 for their core operations. Moreover, these issues can undermine the user experience, leading to dissatisfaction and decreased adoption of these critical tools.

A Personal Concern

As someone who personally loves Microsoft products and relies on them daily, I am deeply concerned about these ongoing issues I have been seeing with a few of my customers. Microsoft 365 has the potential to be a cornerstone of productivity and collaboration, but these performance problems need urgent attention to ensure it can meet the high standards we expect. I have personally witnessed a team that heavily relied on SharePoint and Power Platform now turning to ServiceNow and abandoning Microsoft platform services.

The Call for Action

It's time we bring this issue to the forefront. Microsoft needs to prioritize the performance and reliability of its 365 platform. This means:

1. Enhanced Monitoring: Implementing more robust monitoring tools to detect and diagnose latency issues in real time.
2. Infrastructure Improvements: Investing in infrastructure upgrades to support faster and more reliable service delivery.
3. User Feedback: Actively seeking and responding to user feedback to understand the real-world impacts of these issues.

Sharing Our Stories

Let's use our collective voice to highlight these challenges. If you've experienced similar issues, share your story. Together, we can push for the improvements needed to ensure that Microsoft 365 remains a reliable backbone for our business operations.

See my new article on OneDrive and SharePoint coauthoring: Mastering Co-Authoring in Microsoft 365 – Best Practices for Syncing, Versioning, and User Training | LinkedIn