Office First Release filtering

A while back I posted how I had jumped the gun on wanting the First Release option of Office 365 being restricted to certain users inside an IOffice 365 tenant (mainly to restrict the potential use of Office 2016 Preview).

The good news is as you can see from the above it has arrived in my tenant. To access it you login to Office 365 as an administrator and then select Service Settings, Updates from the admin portal. You will now see the option to be on the Standard release (slower) or First release (faster) when it comes to new Office 365 features. You’ll also see the option, if you select First release, to select those people in your organisation who will receive First release features, leaving the remainder on the standard release path.

This allows you to elect a subset of users within your Office 365 tenant who can access the new features without them becoming available to everyone immediately.

Office 365 release options

I got my Office 365 Sway

Seems like Sway has now made it into my Office 365 tenant as you can see from the apps launcher at the top of Office 365.

You will also find some control options under Service Settings, Sway as shown above.

so when you go to Sway, which is a web based application, and sign in with your Office 365 credentials, you’ll be taken to the Sway portal at:

http://www.sway.com

but as you can see from the above screen shot you can still navigate to any Office 365 using the app launcher.

Given what I see here and Sway having a free offering, it wouldn’t surprise me if we see some premium Sway features arrive and be included with Office 365 plans. Just speculating mind you.

So if you have Office 365, have a look and see whether you can Sway yet. if you can, give it a go.

Revised bootcamp notes publication now available

As I detailed a while back I have now updated my Bootcamp products offering to include:

1. Latest version of my Office 365 bootcamp notes. This OneNote notebook is something I use everyday to capture information about Office 365. It is my reference ‘bible’ covering everything from Exchange to Sharepoint, Delve to Single Sign on as well as troubleshooting, best practices and a range of PowerShell scripts and third party solutions that work with Office 365.

2. Latest version of my Azure bootcamp notes. This OneNote notebook contains my daily brain dump about Azure. It contains links, information, tutorials and more. Again, this is something I use everyday and update constantly.

3. Exam cram notes for the Office 365 70-347 and 70-346 exam. It contains information and links to help you pass the exam. It also has a number of practice exam questions to give you an idea of what might be covered in an exam.

4. Five (5) supporting Office 365 checklists and templates that you can use for your Office 365 implementation. These documents are in various Office formats (Word, Excel, etc).

There are two ways to get access to this material:

1. You can join my Cloud Business Blueprint community via:

http://www.cloudbusinessblueprint.com/members-sign-up/

where you’ll get immediate access to the latest versions plus heaps of other unique on demand training, cheat sheets, re-brandable content, articles AND access to the members forums to converse with other cloud resellers.

2. You can purchase the existing Office 365 bootcamp notes via;

http://www.e-junkie.com/ciaops/product/488325.php

for AU $148. This purchase will also entitle you to a 12 monthly subscription for updates to these products (generally updated monthly).

Also, given that the 74-325 Office for SMB exam has been superseded I have made the OneNote exam cram notes I created for this available for free download with all my other free material at:

http://www.ciaops.com/downloads

If nothing else, those bootcamp notes are going to provide a centralised and searchable way to locate just about anything to do with Office 365 and Azure. This will save you inordinate amounts of time and easily pay for your outlay. You’ll also get free updates for to all of these for 12 months once you purchase. Like I said, I use these notebooks EVERY DAY.

If you want some testimonials about these bootcamps and information provided visit:

http://www.ciaops.com/bootcamp/

Please support this material so I can continue creating more.

Need to know podcast–Episode 83

In this episode I’m joined by a real SharePoint and Office 365 rockstar (who also happens to be an MVP) – Benjamin Niaulin.

Benjamin shares his insights and experiences from the recent Microsoft Ignite Conference. We then deep dive into the new Office 365 Groups and how important they are becoming to the service overall. Finally, I couldn’t let Benjamin escape with out providing some guidance around SharePoint migrations.

A huge amount of value in this episode from a doyen of the community, so don’t miss it. You can listen to the episode at:

http://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-83-benjamin-niaulin/

The podcast is also available on Stitcher at:

http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr

Don’t forget to give the show a rating as well as send me any feedback or suggestions you may have for the show. I’m also on the hunt for some co-presenters so if you are interested on being a regular part of the show please contact me.

Resources

Microsoft Ignite on demand – http://channel9.msdn.com/events/Ignite/2015/

Blogging comes to Delve – https://blog.ciaops.com/2015/05/blogging-comes-to-delve.html

New OneDrive Sync client – https://blog.ciaops.com/2015/05/more-onedrive-information-from-ignite.html

Mobile device management – https://blog.ciaops.com/2015/05/mobile-device-management-has.html

Offline Azure backup – https://blog.ciaops.com/2015/05/offline-azure-backup.html

Sharegate – http://en.share-gate.com/

Sharegate blog – http://en.share-gate.com/blog/

Benjamin Niaulin – https://twitter.com/bniaulin

Webinar on Office 365 Groups – http://en.share-gate.com/blog/groups-for-office-365-webinar

Benjamin’s wrap up of Microsoft Ignite – http://en.share-gate.com/blog/ignite-collaboration-in-a-modern-workplace-transformed

Office 365 data import now in preview

As I spoke about in a previous post, Microsoft has started started to roll out the ability to import data like PST files directly to Office 365.

If you have the first release enabled on your tenant you may now see the Import option appear on your administration menu on the Office 365 portal. Select that will take you to the above page.

You can then elect to Ship the data on physical hard drives or Upload files over the network.

All of the information about this new option, which is still in preview, can be found at:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn948519(v=exchg.150).aspx

It is expected that we will soon see the ability to not only upload PST data but also data to SharePoint and OneDrive for Business via this method. This is going to make it a lot easier to get large volume of information up to Office 365 much quicker than before.

Blogging comes to Delve

The more I see of Delve in Office 365 the more excited I become. Why? Firstly, Delve is HUGE point of differentiation between Microsoft and its competition. Secondly, it provides powerful yet simple insights for average users into the vast array of information sources they have in Office 365. Delve quickly integrates information from SharePoint, OneDrive, Email, Yammer and more in a single pane of glass and prioritises that based on your interactions. It also allows you to not only view your Delve but the Delve of others in your team to see what they are up to.

Delve is also become the central location for information about you in Office 365. It contains your profile information, who you are and what you do in the business. One of the options that you can now incorporate in your Delve profile, as you can see above is a blog. This new Delve blog features replaces the old one from SharePoint and provide a much easier way of creating and sharing your thoughts.

When you select the Start Writing link, Office 365 will take a minute or two to set up your blogging platform. From what I can see it creates this a dedicated SharePoint Site Collection at:

https://tenantname.sharepoint.com/portals/hub/loginname

In a short order of time your blogging platform is read and you can create your first post. The editing platform is currently very simple (which is great) and very, very reminiscent of the new Office product, Sway (also coming to Office 365 soon). The easier it is, the more likely people will use it. All editing is now done directly in the browser (or the mobile app).

You basically create a title and add a banner. Then you type some text for the body as well as featuring a document from SharePoint that is embedded in your post if desired. This potentially allows you to use more detailed formatting if you need. This is great since if you wanted to be really visual you’d include a PowerPoint or potentially a Sway when it come to Office 365.

You then Publish the post when you are ready and there you have your first blog article.

Posts will now show up in your Delve activity feed, as seen above, that will also be made available to others in your team via the magic of the Officegraph technology that is powering Delve.

One of the big advantages of Delve is that you will be able to blog on the go using the mobile Delve app. As yet I can’t see how to do that just yet, but I know it is coming. So you can be out on the road, snap some pictures, write some text and get that up onto Delve to share with your team. Magic!

To my way of thinking Delve is becoming such an important part of Office 365 because it offers a gateway to unlock the vast treasure trove of information and value that a business creates around all Office 365 services. Having all of that surfaced quickly and automatically for users based on its relevance to them is a huge boost to productivity and collaboration that has never before been available. Combine that with the ability to consume and create content on a mobile device demonstrates to me that Microsoft really does get the concepts of the new way of working, that is social and mobile.

My questions to you however are, do you get it? Are you using Delve for increased productivity? If not why? Delve is the key that unlocks all the power that the complete Office 365 product brings to a business and it is only going to improve. Embrace the new way of working today with Delve.

Farewell to SharePoint Foundation server

Although I spend 99% of my time working with SharePoint Online these days I still have a soft spot for SharePoint Foundation server, give my roots in Small Business Server (SBS).

Microsoft have confirmed a new version of SharePoint Server on premises but as you can see from the above tweet it would appear that the free version (Foundation) is being discontinued going forward. Not surprising really and something I have been telling people for a while.

The solution for SMB clients now is really Office 365 and SharePoint Online. It gives them access to the full enterprise suite of SharePoint at a low per month cost. For bang for you buck, it can’t be matched.

Farewell SharePoint Foundation server and thank you.