Up to $1,500 cash back on Office 365

If you have been considering Office 365 for your business now may be the best time to sign up as Microsoft is offering up to $1,500 cash back for new subscribers before May 31, 2013. The details of the offer are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-au/buy/special-offers/Pages/fastcash365.aspx
A great incentive that you can take advantage of as we approach the end of the financial year. Remember if you need help deciding what Office 365 plans is best for your business or moving into the cloud don’t hesitate to contact me (director@ciaops.com).

A beginner’s guide to SharePoint Online

Microsoft runs a regular Office 15 minute webinar and recently it focused on SharePoint Online. You can find the video at:

If are interested in getting started with SharePoint Online this video will give you a brief overview. Once you have watched that you can also check out the CIAOPS SkyDrive Pro Primer video:

There are of course plenty of other SharePoint and Office 365 publications over at:

http://www.ciaops.com/publications

So take a look, however if you haven’t looked at SharePoint and especially SharePoint Online then I’d strongly recommend you do.

Connecting PowerShell to SharePoint Online

So you have configured your environment to have PowerShell connect to Office 365 using my previous blog post:

Configuring PowerShell access in Office 365

However, this only used to provide access to tenant and Exchange administration. With the Wave 15 release of Office 365 you can now also connect to SharePoint Online. here is how to do just that.

You are going to need a machine that has the Windows Management Framework 3.0 installed, which basically means you need PowerShell version 3.0. if you are keeping up with the times and running Windows 8 as your desktop then you already have PowerShell 3.

Next you’ll to install the SharePoint Online Management Shell. The latest one I found is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35588

I also found an earlier preview following some links but I’d suggest the latest version is what you want.

So on the Windows 8 machine on which you have the Microsoft Online Services Module for Windows PowerShell installed ,run it as an administrator and accept the UAC.

The next step is to load in the SharePoint Online cmdlets for use in this session. after some digging around I found that they are called:

Microsoft.Online.Sharepoint.PowerShell

So at the prompt type:

import-module microsoft.online.sharepoint.powershell

that should result in the above warning.

Now you will need to log into your Wave 15 account. i normally do this by saving the login details to a variable by typing the following:

$cred=get-credentials

A dialog windows as shown above will appear into which you need to enter the login and password of a suitably enabled Office 365 user who can administer SharePoint Online. If in doubt use the initial global administrator that was provisioned with your site.

The next step is now to use those credential to connect to SharePoint Online. To do this execute the following line:

connect-sposervice –url https://-admin.sharepoint.com –credential $cred

in my case this was:

connect-sposervice –url https://ciaops365e1-admin.sharepoint.com –credential $cred

In true PowerShell form, if everything is correct you will simply be returned to a prompt. Now you can execute commands against SharePoint Online. For example the following will display all your SharePoint Online sites by URL in a table:

get-sposite | ft “url”

Now you can start exploring all the cmdlets that are available for SharePoint Online which you can find at the bottom of this page:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/sharepoint-help/introduction-to-the-sharepoint-online-management-shell-HA102915057.aspx

Does the same process work on Wave 14 tenants that haven’t yet been upgraded to Wave 15 and SharePoint 2013?

I tried it on my Wave 14 tenant (https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com) above and it worked! Excellent, roll on SharePoint Online control via PowerShell everywhere.

74-324 Exam Cram notes available for purchase

Because every little bit of information helps you pass those Microsoft Certification exams, I am happy to announce that the training notes from my recent 74-324 Administering Office 365 for SMB Exam Cram sessions are now available for purchase.
In the download you will find:
– 4 x PowerPoint presentations covering each session
– 1 x OneNote 2007 course notes
You will need PowerPoint 2007 and OneNote 2007 or better to view these files.
The material contains over 60 exam questions and answers to help you prepare for the test as well as explanations and other links on Office 365.
You can purchase this product directly from:
http://www.e-junkie.com/ciaops/product/487843.php
or from the CIAOPS Publications page:
http://www.ciaops.com/publications
Remember, these notes are aimed at helping you pass the current 74-324 exam. Here are some testimonials:
“I sat the exam last night and passed. Roberts Exam cram and links helped tremendously.” – Doug Wilson
“I just passed the O365 exam, I highly recommend that if you are thinking of taking the exam to review all questions in the OneNote that was provided by Robert at the cram exam session and you’ll be guaranteed a high pass” – Gregg Mimmo
“I found the Exam Cram training with Robert, further study of his course notes and url references in the notes to be excellent.” – Darren Webb
“Passed 74-324 today thanks to Rob’s detailed notes and my brain, but mainly Roberts notes. I use O365 everyday and have done since its release but i still got a lot out of the training” – Damian Wiseman
“Robert’s focus on the things you need to know coupled with extensive relevant reference points are a sure formula for success.” – Boris Britbart
As always current subscribers to my SharePoint and Office 365 Guide receive these free as part of their subscription.

Clever Windows Phone ad

Go the Windows Phone

This is a clever ad for the Nokia Windows Phone. It is an interesting commentary on the current state of affairs around technology these days. I am still of the opinion that a Windows Phone is a better overall device but I fully accept that others can make their own choice based on their own preferences.

Perhaps what it signals most is the fact that mobile technology is moving so fast. People are turning over their devices at least every 2 years. That means that manufacturer’s need to come out with new models incessantly. That is pretty demanding.

It will be interesting to see whether this growth levels off or continues to accelerate. If history is any judge we’ll continue to see rapid growth until we reach a point whether only small incremental changes are made. Most modern devices are probably powerful enough for what people need to do these days. What we really need is more bandwidth to overcome the choke point to cloud services.

So sit back and enjoy the video, I’m sure it won’t be the last in this vain.

Office 2013 bulk deployments from Office 365

I wrote a post a while back on doing bulk deployments of Office 2013 from Office 365. since then Microsoft has released an Office Deployment Tool for Click to Run which you can find at:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36778

Once you have downloaded and installed the tool you can run the setup executable with a number of parameters like:

C:\download>setup /?

Usage:
SETUP mode [path to configuration file]

SETUP /DOWNLOAD [path to configuration file]
SETUP /CONFIGURE [path to configuration file]
SETUP /PACKAGER [path to configuration file] [output path]
/DOWNLOAD Downloads files to create an Office15 installation source
/CONFIGURE Adds, removes, or configures an Office15 installation
/PACKAGER Produces an Office App-V package from an Office installation source

This allows you to download a complete copy of Office 2013 that can then be deployed across a network. Here’s an article on how to do just that:

Download click-to-run for Office 365 products by using the Office Deployment tool – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219424

You can even go further than this by using the configuration.xml file to customize both downloads and deployments. The reference for this file is at:

Click to run configuration.xml reference – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426

It is great to see Microsoft making the bulk deployment of Office 2013 from Office 365 easier for IT Professionals.

Office 365 and SharePoint Guide turns five

I am proud to announce that the CIAOPS Office 365 and SharePoint Guide has reached it fifth birthday!
So what is it? The Guide is a collection of technical and training material on all aspects Office 365 and SharePoint. It contains, documents, videos, OneNote notebooks, links and more all accessed via a SharePoint portal. At last count there was over 9 hours of videos and 1,500 pages of documentation, all of which is updated monthly with new and additional content.
In the Guide you will find things like:
– Study and preparation material for the 74-324 Administering Office 365 for SMB exam.
– Every CIAOPS publication
– Learning tracks to help you get up to speed on the products
– so much more
Guide subscribers also receive discounts on other CIAOPS items such as:
– Bootcamps / Training
– Consultation
So what do some of subscribers say?
I just thought I’d add my accolades to Robert Crane’s guide and remind all our members that Robert’s wealth of knowledge in all things cloud, experience and willingness to help is unmeasurable. All the useful tips in one place. Why wouldn’t you spend the $299 to subscribe to the guide? – Mike Hatfield (HIT)
“I can truly credit Robert for his training day and his SharePoint Guide (which includes Office 365 notes and information on the exams we require to continue or certification with Microsoft). I managed to pass with the highest score I have ever achieved in a Microsoft exam (900+)” – ( Rod Arthur, LAN Creation )
I also take this opportunity to thank every single subscriber for their support of my business but I’d especially like to thank my foundation subscribers who have been with me from the start. Without your faith in me this product would not be what it is today.
Special Birthday offer
Therefore to celebrate the Guide reaching the five year milestone I am going to make the following offer to every new subscriber during May 2013:
– Receive 10% off the normal purchase price of AU$299. Use the offer code 5YEARSNOW at checkout.
– Receive up to 1 hours remote consultation/training session free in a single session available until 30 June 2013 (Valued at > AU$200).
For ANY existing Guide subscriber, in recognition of their continued support, I will offer during May 2013:
– Up to 1 hours remote consultation/training session free in a single session available until 30 June 2013 (Valued at > AU$200).
Finally to ANYONE who recommends my Guide to someone who takes up a new subscription during May 2013 I will offer:
– 10% commission of the retail price (i.e. AU$29.90) for every converted referral. Thus, if you make 2 converted referrals you’ll receive AU$59.80, 3 referrals AU$89.70, etc, etc.
This applies ONLY until the end of May 2013 and don’t forget that the Guide is undated every month and includes all existing CIAOPS publications.
For more information about the Guide and to subscribe visit: