Deactivating an Office Pro Plus license

One of the big benefits of using an Office 365 subscription that includes Office Pro Plus is that you can install the Microsoft Office Desktop software on up to 5 devices, Macs or PCs.

This means you get the latest version of Office on your desktop, delivered typically via ‘click-to-run’ so it is always up to date.

So here we are using Outlook from Office Pro Plus via Office 365 on a desktop, with everything operating as expected.

One of the other great features that you may not know about is that if you return to the location in your web console where you actually installed the Office Pro Plus software from you can see all the machines that it is currently active on. This makes it easy to track how many installations you have implemented.

You may also notice in the list on the right you have the ability to Deactivate any instance. So what happens when you do this?

When you select the deactivate link you’ll be prompted to confirm that you do indeed want to deactivate this instance. You’ll be warned that the product on that desktop will go into ‘reduced functionality mode’. It won’t be uninstalled but you won’t be able to do things like save documents.

Select Yes to proceed.

You should then see a message indicating that the instance has been deactivated and it should no longer appear on the list of activated instances in the Office 365 console.

But what happens on the actual machine you have deactivated? Well, a certain amount of time later (not immediately) but within 12-24 hours, then time you go to use an Office application on that desktop you will receive the above message indicating that the product is deactivated.

If you wish to use the product again will all the features enabled you will need to sign to your Office 365 account or enter a product key.

if you instead cancel the dialog and proceed to use the Office application you will see a red activation banner across the top.

In any Office application you attempt to use. You will notice that all the Office applications now operate in ‘reduced functionality mode’ but they still operate and you can regain the full functionality by simply licensing them again.

The same thing will occur if the user account is deleted in Office 365 or the license from Office Pro Plus is removed for that user. This allows an Office 365 administrator to control exactly who is licensed for Office on the desktop from their tenant.

Changes to the Office 365 P and M plans

Microsoft has release a blog post:

http://blogs.office.com/2014/07/09/evolving-office-365-plans-for-small-and-midsized-businesses/

That details some significant changes to the P and M plans. Basically they are being replaced by 3 simpler plans:

Office 365 Business – The full Office applications – Outlook, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote and Publisher, with 1TB of OneDrive for Business cloud storage to access, edit and share your documents across your Windows PC, Mac, iPad, Windows tablet and smartphone.
Office 365 Business Essentials – The core cloud services for running your business – business class email and calendaring, Office Online, online meetings, IM, video conferencing, cloud storage and file sharing and much more.
Office 365 Business Premium – Get everything from both the Office 365 Business and Business Essentials plans.

You can read the details in the post but here are my initial thoughts on what I have read:

– It is going to greatly simplify the options for businesses. Effectively now one plan with desktop Office, another with cloud services and the third with a combination of both.

– Effectively no more seat limitations. Experience indicates that customers initially select the cheapest current plan and get stuck with a 25 user hard limit as they grow. No more. These plans scale to 300 users.

– A smoother way to upgrade plans. It seems that moving from any of these three new plans to existing Enterprise plans will not be the rip and replace we see now if you need to upgrade from P to M or E.

– The ability to add other plans like Project, Visio,, etc that you used to be only able to add to Enterprise plans.

– Yammer will be available with any plan that includes cloud services (i.e. not the entry Business plan). This highlights Microsoft’s continuing focus on Yammer as an important tool for its cloud services. So, if you are not into Yammer yet you should be.

– AD federation with all plans. This to me indicates that Microsoft is focusing more on identity management and on premise integration. This is good because it is a point of differentiation for their service.

– The new plans are going to be cheaper than the existing plans. This will always be the trend with cloud services but it is good to see that you are effectively getting more features for less money.

– OneDrive for Business is become are much more important part of Microsoft’s plan going forward. It is really the way to bring SMB’s easily to the cloud. The plain Business offering gives them OneDrive with 1TB and Office on their desktop and devices. From there it is an easy step up to add more cloud services. Less friction, lower barrier to entry means an easier transition. However, what it does mean for many is that they need to learn more about what OneDrive can offer and how to manage and maintain the product.

– The only down side I see is that during the transition there will be some confusion around how the migration will happen, how to get the new features, when the new features will become available, etc. That is part of technology and has been the case before with Office 365. However, the end result is that it will be dimplier which is a great result. For people selling and supporting Office 365 it means a little more work to understand all this.

So in conclusion after digesting all this and reflecting on it a bit I believe this is a very positive move for the product and bring it more into line with what people have been asking for (and who says Microsoft doesn’t listen?). I also think that it unlocks a huge amount of more features and abilities for SMBs who are currently on P and M plans that they eventually find limiting.

It is still early days for all this change but in short I like what I see and acknowledge the fact that Microsoft is will to make these major changes to the product offerings and that it is announcing these early in the piece. I’m sure I’ll have more to say as time goes along and we get more details but it is all very positive.

Deleting an Office 365 Site Collection using PowerShell

In the last post I showed you how to remove a complete Office 365 SharePoint Online site collection via the web interface. Now I’ll show you to do it with PowerShell.

This time I want to remove a site collection whose URL is https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp. You can see that it appears in the list of sites in the web interface.

You’ll need to connect to Office 365 PowerShell and SharePoint Online via PowerShell firstly.

Then you need to run the following command:

remove-sposite –identity –nowait

thus in my case:

remove-sposite –identity https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp –nowait

You’ll then be prompted to confirm the deletion. Press Y to delete the site and send it to the recycle bin.

If you refresh the page with the list of site collections the deleted site collection no longer appears.

If you now got to the sites collection recycle bin you will see both sites that have been deleted. One via the web interface and the one just now via PowerShell.

PowerShell provides you an ability that the web interface doesn’t. You can delete the site from the recycle bin and remove it completely.

To do that you need to run the command:

remove-spodeletedsite –identity

thus in my case:

remove-spodeletedsite –identity https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com/sites/bootcamp

You need to confirm the permanent removal by pressing Y.

If you refresh the web page displaying the site collection recycle bin you will see that the site has been removed completely.

Since I don’t need the other site I deleted previously using the web interface I will use PowerShell again to remove it permanently.

If we check the site collection recycle bin in the web interface there are no more site collections in the recycle bin as expected.

PowerShell provides you with more options when it comes to managing Office 365 and that is why you should be using it if you aren’t already!

Deleting an Office 365 site collection

There comes a time in the life of every Office 365 tenant where you need to do some house cleaning. In this case we are going to delete whole SharePoint Online Site Collection.

This means all the sites, apps, sub site, web parts, everything is going to be deleted. Note, I’ll be showing you how to do this for an M and E plans. The P or Small Business Plans only have a single private site collection and in most cases you probably don’t want to delete that! However, given the flexibility of both M and E plans to create multiple private Site Collections it means that you may need to clean house now and again.

You’ll need to be an Office 365 administrator to do this and for this post we’ll do our deleting via the web console. Login to the Office 365 portal and select the Admin option in the top right of the window and then SharePoint from the drop down menu that appears.

This will take you to the SharePoint Admin Center as shown above where you can see a list of all your Site Collections.

From the list of Site Collections place a check to the left of the one you wish to delete. You should then find the Delete button is available on the Ribbon Menu at the top of the screen. Press the Delete button to remove the Site Collection.

You’ll receive the above warning asking you to confirm the deletion. You’ll see that the deleted Site Collection will remain in a Recycle Bin for 30 days allowing you to recover it if necessary. Beyond that it is gone for good.

Press the Delete button to proceed.

In the top right of the window you will see the message about the Site Collection being deleted and then a message when the process is complete.

The Site Collection will no longer appear the the list in the SharePoint Admin Center.

But if you now go to the Recycle Bin via the Ribbon Menu it should appear as you see above. You can from there recover it for up to 30 days if desired.

Getting Started with SharePoint Designer in Office 365

I get a lot of questions about workflows and SharePoint Designer. You will see that I did a series of blog posts on that topic:

Creating a SharePoint Workflow

You’ve read the blog posts now see the video:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gw-P-4YR6dw

Hopefully, all these will show you how easy it is to get into workflows for SharePoint Online.

As with most areas with technology, the rabbit hole goes as deep as you want it. SharePoint Designer is a very, very powerful tool that can create some really amazing things when it comes to workflows and SharePoint site design. Best of all SharePoint Designer is free.

So if you have been meaning to get your feet wet with automation in SharePoint Online, hopefully all this material will get you off the blocks to a flying start.

My Lync for Mac returns

A while back the version of Lync I had installed on my Macbook started prompting to verify certificates and then wouldn’t connect to Office 365. I fiddled around a bit but couldn’t get it to work so I put it on the too hard pile for the time being.

Eventually got back to it and low and behold, once I apply this update:

Update 2963369 for Lync for Mac 2011 14.0.9

That was recently released it all works as you can see above.

Now all we need is a OneDrive for Business Mac desktop sync app (which I don’t think is far away).

Creating a SharePoint Workflow

I wrote two previous blog posts about creating workflows with SharePoint Designer:

What are SharePoint Workflows

and

SharePoint Workflows – first steps

This post follows on from those.

In this case we’ll create a simple workflow that sends an email when a document is added to the library.

Firstly give the workflow a name and a description and then select the platform type (which you normally leave set as SharePoint 2013 Workflow) and press the OK button to create the workflow.

SharePoint 2013 allows you to create either SharePoint 2010 or 2013 Workflows. Each has differences and the following:

What’s new in workflow in SharePoint 2013

Is the recommended place to start when it comes to understanding the differences between the versions. In most cases you will want to work with SharePoint 2013 Workflows.

This now takes you to a location where you can edit and create the workflow.

For a SharePoint 2013 Workflow you will see a stage box or “block” divided up into two sections. The upper box is for a set of Actions and the lower box (Transition to stage) which allows you to jump to other stages you may have created. This Transition to stage is a unique feature of SharePoint 2013 workflows and allows you to bypass code by ‘jumping’ to certain locations.

You should also see a blinking cursor under the top section as shown above. You position this cursor where you wish to insert a command in the workflow.

In the Ribbon Bar you should see a number of buttons contained in the Insert section as shown above. Press the Action button to insert an execute command.

When you press the Action button you will see a list of all the actions that can be taken, as shown above. Scroll through the list until you locate Send an Email and select it.

You should now see that command displayed in the workflow area below in the location where your cursor was as you can see above. The cursor now moves to the line just below what you inserted.

You will also note that the text these users is hyperlinked. This indicates that additional details are required for this command to complete. In this case you will need to specify the email address that you wish the email to be sent to. To do that simply press the hyperlinked text these users.

Now the additional settings for each Action will vary. In this case you should now see a dialog as shown above, basically asking you to complete the details for the email.

There are plenty of options that can be configured here (including data lookup) but we’ll keep this simple and plug in just an email address, subject and some text in the body.

When complete, press the OK button to save.

You should now see that the workflow action has updated with the email address you entered. You can modify these properties again at any time by simply clicking on the hyperlinked email address.

Although this is the only command that will be run by the workflow at this stage it is good practice to correctly terminate the workflow. To do this, click once in the Transition to stage area so the cursor appears there as shown above.

Select the Action button again from the Ribbon Menu. From the menu that appears select Go to a stage.

Once again, this will place the Action in the workflow window as shown above.

To complete the options for the Action select the hyperlinked text a stage.

From the drop down menu that appears select End of Workflow. Doing so will ensure that the workflow does not continue to run in the background consuming resources.

The completed workflow should now look like the above.

You now need to set the workflow so it runs whenever something new is added to the Document Library. To do this locate the Workflow Settings button in the Ribbon Menu in the Manage section and select it.

On the right hand side you will see a box called Start Options as shown above. Place a check in the Start workflow automatically when an item is created.

If you need to return to your workflow and edit it select the Edit Workflow button under the Edit section on the Ribbon Menu.

You can also Save your workflow if need be but in this case we are ready to Publish to the SharePoint site so we select the Publish button from the Ribbon Menu.

You should now see the workflow being Published to the SharePoint site. If there are any errors you will be notified and have to make changes.

If there are not errors, your workflow has been successfully Published to SharePoint.

You can check that your SharePoint element has a workflow attached to it by navigating to that location (in this case Documents).

If you then select the Library tab at the top of the page.

Then the Workflow Settings button on the very right of this.

You should then see the name of the Workflow you just created.

If you look closely at the SharePoint element that now has a workflow attached you will see an additional column has been added to the default view. This column is the same as the name of your workflow (in this case Send email workflow as shown above).

When you trigger a workflow (in this case by uploading a new document) the new workflow column will report what stage the workflow is at. Remember, that each “block” of Actions and Transition to stage is designated by its name.

In this example, there is only one code “block” called Stage 1 as shown above. Thus, when the workflow is triggered by the addition of a new document to the element the workflow executes and start and ends on Stage 1. This status is then reported in the workflow column in the SharePoint element. This allows you to more easily debug your code since it allows you to easily see where a workflow is currently situated.

As you can see from the above, the workflow was completed and an email has been sent with the subject and text created in the workflow.

You can now return and edit the workflow and create additional Actions. You can create additional workflows for the same elements if you wish or you can create them for other elements.

Conclusions

SharePoint workflows provide the ability to automate processed in SharePoint. However, workflows are not like pure coding, they are more like constructing a flow chart. They are great for simple and straight forward processes but become quite cumbersome and difficult to create when the task gets complex or involved.

Best practice is always to map out your workflow prior to developing with SharePoint Designer. Keep your code as simple as possible and make sure you maintain good documentation elsewhere about what you have created because SharePoint Designer doesn’t provide for adding comments to your code.

If you ever need to debug a workflow, break it down and look at the stages that are reported in the SharePoint element to which the workflow is attached. Also, don’t overlook the workflow start conditions. If you set a workflow to commence when something changes, that means when ANYTHING changes. That may mean you have multiple workflows running at the same time causing confusion. That is why it is so important that you programmatically terminate your workflow upon completion, rather than simply letting the process end.

Use correctly, SharePoint Designer and workflow can be huge source of productivity improvements. Use incorrectly or poorly implemented they can be a huge source of frustration. Remember, SharePoint Designer is not the only tool that you can use to create workflows. You can use Visual Studio for far greater control, but for that there is a much greater investment in both time, material and knowledge. SharePoint Designer allows a balance to be struck and be used by people who aren’t software developers.