Two phases. Microsoft 365 first, AI behind it. Written from our September 16 conversation, not from a template.
They shape everything below, and two of them changed my mind about what Denver Equipment actually needs.
There is no vendor shutdown date and no burning bridge. The real problem is that almost nobody is using it. Most people never look, the calendar is the only piece still doing work, and Denver Equipment is effectively running without a system right now. That is a better reason to move than any deadline would have been.
Twenty Business Standard licenses and ten Business Basic. The shared calendar, Planner, Lists and Teams are all sitting there unused, because the move off Pegasus Mail took everything you had. There is nothing to buy to fix this.
You said it plainly in the room: learn 365 first, bring AI in behind it. That is the right call and it is how this is built. Calendar and Planner first, because those are the two everybody touches.
“We desperately need something.”
“We're not behind yet, but we got to figure it out.”
“Now's the time to gear up, learn, get it all set up, and then we're ready for 2027.”
Three things happen before the day so the day itself is spent learning rather than troubleshooting.
You are paying for thirty seats. We work out what is actually assigned, what is idle, and who needs what. This may find money.
Agreeing the structure before we build it. What the job phases are actually called here, what fields matter, who needs to see what. This is the part that outlasts everything else.
Groups, permissions and phone access sorted ahead of time. You have just been through the Windows 11 rollout. The training day is not going to be another one of those.
Times are a starting shape, not a contract. If a block needs longer, we take longer.
One shared calendar every installer can see on a phone
A Teams announcements channel and a channel for job photos
Planner running on your real, current jobs
At least one automation running with nobody retyping anything
A jobs list with views by phase, so the counts are on a screen instead of in someone's head
Four people who have done it themselves, not watched me do it
The fear is spending money on something people will not use. That does not get solved with a better demo. It gets solved because the four people who have to run it built it with their own hands on the first day.
Optional, and yours to decide. It is written out here so you can see the whole path, not because you are committing to it now.
The next morning, Wednesday October 21. Everyone is already assembled, already in the room, already in the mindset. Getting the whole team gathered twice is the expensive part, and this way you only do it once. Pick this if you already know you want it.
Or November, after Phase 1 has settled. You will have lived with the calendar and Planner for a few weeks, you will know what is actually slowing you down, and you will have watched me work before spending anything further. Pick this if you would rather see Phase 1 land first.
I have no preference and the price does not change. The first is more efficient on your time, the second lets you decide with more information. Both are fine.
Tiffany asked four times, in four different ways, whether Denver Equipment's information could end up somewhere it should not. That deserves a written answer rather than reassurance in a meeting, so it has its own page: where your files sit, what Claude can and cannot do with them, the standing rules we configure before anyone touches live work, and five things you can verify yourself without taking my word for any of it.
You both liked it and you are right to. It is genuinely good and it would visualize the numbers the way Tiffany described. It is also the piece where somebody has to sit down and build each dashboard, which is exactly the constraint that has stopped everything else here.
It belongs after Phase 2, once there is real data flowing through Planner and Lists worth charting. It is not included, and I would rather say that now than let it quietly become an expectation.
Named so there are no surprises later.
You are not agreeing to $9,000 today. Phase 2 is a separate decision you make in November, after you have watched me work.
Nothing here is marked up and nothing routes through me.
Phase 1 needs nothing new. It runs entirely on the Microsoft seats you are already paying for.
Phase 2 needs Claude seats for the handful of people actually using it. For five people that is about $100 a month, roughly $1,200 a year, on annual billing. Month to month runs about $125. You buy it directly from Anthropic, you own the account, and you can cancel it without involving me.
Worth knowing what that buys beyond the chat window: the business plan is where the administrative controls live. No model training on your content by default, central billing, admin control over what can and cannot connect, and it works inside Microsoft 365. That is the plan the guardrails page describes, not a personal subscription.
Anthropic can change their pricing, so we confirm the real figure at purchase rather than treating this as a quote. If you later want the premium Planner features or Power BI, those are separate per seat add ons from Microsoft and I will price them against what you actually have.
This is enablement work and it is priced by the time it takes, roughly four days for Phase 1 and three for Phase 2. It is a different thing from building custom software, which is a product with its own economics. Keeping the two separate means neither one distorts the other if you ever want both.
The difference this time is that there is nothing to buy and nothing to migrate to. You already own all of it. The only thing missing has been somebody sitting down with you to set it up and show you how it runs, and that is the whole job.