Hi,
I have a query and an experience to share.
As you must know that a FREE user can only put a maximum of 200 Items in his/her sway. Whereas if you are an Office 365 subscriber there is no such limit or maybe there is of about 1500 items, I am not sure.
But let me tell you what my concern is:
Recently I had to create a presentation regarding my college project. So I found this as a perfect opportunity to try it.
It took me a little while to get to know the interface and know how it works. And while I was in between creating my presentation, there came an error stating that I had reached my limit of 200 Items and to continue creating my sway I would have to subscribe to Office 365. At first I was a little worried because the next day was the deadline for the submission of my project and this issue was wasting my valuable time. But seeing no other option I immediately went to grab my credit card and subscribed myself to Office 365 Home. And then there I was back to creating my presentation without any worries.
I was able to complete the presentation and submit it the next day. By the way it went wonderful, the teacher liked it a lot.
A few days went. One day while I was scrolling through my emails, I found one regarding the next deduction of the my monthly subscription of Office 365. Then I wondered why I was wasting my valuable money each month when I was already over with my work. So I immediately went towards cancelling my subscription. And just when I was about to click on the cancel button, there hit me something in the mind.
"What will happen to my existing sway once I cancel the subscription?"
I wondered many scenarios:
- Maybe the whole sway will get deleted
- Maybe it'll be cut in half i.e. only the first 200 Items would remain and the rest won't
- Maybe nothing will happen, I will have my sway forever.
While I was thinking about the consequences I remembered that I would be needing this sway in the future.
Since I was not using my Office 365 Home subscription for anything else except sway, I thought of it as a waste of money.
But, before coming to any conclusion I thought to better search about this issue online and was pretty confident about finding an answer immediately
But my assumption turned out to be way more than just wrong. I couldn't find anything regarding my issue anywhere on the several support pages of Microsoft. I even went through all the FAQs. But no answer.
Then I thought to contact Microsoft Support about it.
First I went in chat with an Answer Tech. What that person basically told me was that there was no such thing as Sway in Office 365 Home and also that he/she was unable to find anything regarding that issue in their databases so, they were unable help me. Also this chat between us went for about an hour or so because of their delay in replying.
I don't know how many persons does one Answer Tech handle at a time.
Then I thought it would be better to have a one on one talk with a support person. So I went into another feature "Call Me As Soon As Possible". It showed me that I would receive a call after a minute, but no one called. I gave it another try a few hours later hoping to get a call this time. But again no one called. I then tried this again the next day, but still no one called. And what was surprising was that, every time it showed me that I would receive a call after a certain minutes. All of this what I did was in their business hours as mentioned by them on their website.
Later I went for another feature "Schedule a Call". And you know what, the same story happened again. which I don't wanna repeat.
Tired from not finding any solution I thought to gave up. But after getting over with the frustrations of the last experience. I thought to gave it another try. So I went looking for an alternate way to contact support. And I thought it would be the best to myself call the Microsoft Support.
So in search for a number to call, I again got in chat with an answer tech and straight away asked them for a number rather than explaining the whole issue. Since I live in India so, they gave me the support numbers for my country. What I figured out later was that all the numbers were basically the same i.e. all of them redirected towards one location.
And so finally I had a chat with someone on the phone who at first seemed like qualified person. But I was disappointed as they too gave the same excuse, even they didn't had any solution to my query in their databases. Also they gave me another number, which they said would be the best place to get the help as those people (on that number) were more qualified than them.
Without thinking I dialed the number. And what that number turned out to be was of the Microsoft's American Support center. After getting connected to an American support executive, he/she refused to help me stating that I should call on the numbers for my country, And gave me those same numbers that were given to me by that answer tech.
But, This time I was determined on finding a solution. So I called again on those Indian numbers. Again told them my trouble and again received the same response as earlier, asking me to contact on that same American number as earlier. I even told them that I already did so. But they kept on saying they were not that qualified.
As I mentioned earlier that this time I was determined. So I called them back again on that American support number. The person on the other side this time said the SAME thing again. Now this was getting me angry. But I was determined , So I called back again on the same number hoping that this time some other person might help me. This time the support executive told me that they only handle Office 365 Business subscribers and if I am one then only they could help me otherwise they had another solution for me.
Now guess what that solution could be.........YES YOU ARE CORRECT..!! THOSE INDIAN NUMBERS AGAIN.
Now here I am at present. Days have past and what I only have with me are those numbers and my pending query which I didn't expected to be that unique.
I have given all the hopes and have no other option left but to pay my hard earned money each month just to keep my presentation alive.
THE END
