SharePoint Online file size increases

In the SharePoint Online Storage FAQ post I wrote recently I noted with interest that the maximum file size had increased from 250MB to 2GB.

Now when I actually tested that in a browser I received the above error indicating that the file could not be uploaded.

Unfazed, I broke out the SkyDrive pro client app and used that to sync the same file from my desktop and as you can see from the above screen shot SUCCEESS! Yeah! In the above screen shot you see a file of size 414,262 KB. Thus, you CAN upload a file of greater than 250MB to SharePoint Online. Just seems you have to use SkyDrive pro client app from the desktop.

If you look at the SkyDrive Pro location on your desktop you will also see it there.

I get the feeling that the browser is probably not the best vehicle for transferring large files (as time outs are involved). I did do my initial tests with Chrome and Internet Explorer and expect the same issues with all browsers.

However, ring the bells, SharePoint Online now supports file sizes greater than 250MB. Another great leap forward fro Office 365!

I’ll be at TechEd Australia will you?

During the first week in September I’ll be up on the Gold Coast participating in Microsoft Tech Ed Australia. While I’m there I’ll be giving the following sessions:

Managing Microsoft Office 365

Date:Wednesday, September 4
Time:9:45 AM – 11:00 AM
Room:Theatre 2
Session Type:Instructor-Led Lab (ILL)
Technical Level:300

During this lab, tour the Microsoft Office 365 admin and user portal. Throughout the lab, review areas of the user interface and perform tasks highlighting administration features of Office 365 Technical Preview. You are encouraged to explore all areas of the portal covered and not covered in the lab in order to become familiar with Office 365.

http://techedsessions.cloudapp.net/SessionDetail.aspx?id=6977

Administering Office 365 for Small Business – 74-324

Date:Wednesday, September 4
Time:3:30 PM – 5:00 PM
Room:Exam Cram
Technical Level:100

The Administering Office 365 for Small Business Exam Cram session will prepare you to take the 74-324 Certification exam through a mixture of course work and real world exam questions. These skills are key to administering Office 365 for Small Business clients and are especially designed for Microsoft partners looking to achieve a Small Business Competency. This session will also provide you with a greater insight on the capabilities and opportunities around the Office 365 product for SMB customers.

http://techedsessions.cloudapp.net/SessionDetail.aspx?id=6986

Deploying Microsoft Office as a Service

Date:Friday, September 6
Time:9:45 AM – 11:00 AM
Room:Theatre 3
Session Type:Instructor-Led Lab (ILL)
Technical Level:300

During this lab, you prepare for, deploy, and manage a Microsoft Office 365 Professional Plus deployment.

http://techedsessions.cloudapp.net/SessionDetail.aspx?id=7010

So if you are also attending TechEd please let me know (director@ciaops.com) and we can catch up. Even if you are not going but will be in the area I’d love to hear from you. So again get in touch.

I get a lot of questions from SMB resellers about whether TechEd is worth attending. So my initial response to that is to go and have a look at the session content. From there you’ll probably see that much of it is enterprise focused. That doesn’t mean it isn’t relevant for SMB but you should be aware that it is more ‘M’ than ‘S’ here.

There are still heaps of sessions that are totally relevant and anyone who works in IT field will learn something. However, from a business side you need to factor in the cost of attendance, travel, accommodation, meals and finally time away from your business. That can be tough for a smaller reseller to justify.

Finally, I would also tell you that many of the sessions (especially from other TechEd’s around the world) are recorded and made available online for free after the fact. So if you like the content just keep an eye for when the presentations are posted online.

However, the major benefit in my experience is business networking, the people you meet and the relationships you build during the event have the greatest value. If you are keen to build and you’ll be in the vicinity during the first week in September, let me know, I am always keen to catch up with people. If you are attending TechEd I hope I’ll see you in one of my sessions.

SharePoint Online Storage FAQ

Which Office 365 plans include SharePoint Online?

– Small Business Suite (P1)

– Small Business Premium Suite (P2)

– Mid Sized Business Suite (M)

– Enterprise Plan 1 Suite (E1)

– Enterprise Plan 3 Suite (E3)

– Enterprise Plan 4 Suite (E4)

– SharePoint Online Plan 1

– SharePoint Online Plan 2

– Office Web Apps Plan 1

– Office Web Apps Plan 2

How much storage to I get with SharePoint Online?

Every plans that includes SharePoint Online comes with:

– 10 GB of Shared Storage

– Adds 500MB to Shared Storage per licensed user. e.g. 7 users adds 3.5 GB to the initial 10GB making 13.5GB of shared storage

– 7GB of private (via SkyDrive Pro) storage per licensed user. Thus, in the above with 7 users you would have a total of 13.5GB of shared storage and 49GB of private storage shared amongst users.

Can I add additional pooled storage beyond the default that is provided?

Yes, all plans support the purchasing of additional pooled storage space. However, beware as of the date of this blog post (August 2013) this option is not available for P1, P2 or M plans although it should be available very soon.

There is currently no option to purchase additional private (SkyDrive Pro) space for any plan.

What is the maximum pooled storage capacity I can have including additional storage?

– Small Business Suite (P1) = 100GB

– Small Business Premium Suite (P2) = 100GB

– Mid Sized Business Suite (M) = 2,000GB

– Enterprise Plan 1 Suite (E1) = 25,000GB

– Enterprise Plan 3 Suite (E3) = 25,000GB

– Enterprise Plan 4 Suite (E4) = 25,000GB

– SharePoint Online Plan 1 = 25,000GB

– SharePoint Online Plan 2 = 25,000GB

– Office Web Apps Plan 1 = 25,000GB

– Office Web Apps Plan 2 = 25,000GB

How many site collections can I have in pooled storage?

– Small Business (P1) = 1 internal + 1 public

– Small Business Premium (P2) = 1 internal + 1 public

– Mid Sized Business (M) = 20 internal + 1 public

– Enterprise Plan 1 Suite (E1) = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– Enterprise Plan 3 Suite (E3) = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– Enterprise Plan 4 Suite (E4) = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– SharePoint Online Plan 1 = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– SharePoint Online Plan 2 = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– Office Web Apps Plan 1 = 3,000 internal + 1 public

– Office Web Apps Plan 2 = 3,000 internal + 1 public

Can I allocate user SkyDrive Pro space as pooled storage?

Basically no. Each user get 7GB of storage for their ‘personal’ use. This space cannot be reallocated elsewhere. However, it is certainly possible to change the default security settings on each users personal SkyDrive Pro and make the 7GB per use available to all users as a ‘de-facto’ addition to pooled storage. In that case, you could think of this configuration as another site collection added to the total available space. No the recommended method but certainly possible.

What is the maximum file size that I can upload?

All plans now say they support a maximum of 2GB per file. The previous limit was 250MB.

Interestingly, when I attempt to upload a file of > 250MB to my E3 tenant I get an error, however the specs certainly now say 2GB is the limit for individual files. I am sure this will change when tenants are upgraded over time.

How much space do I get with my public website?

With all plans by default you receive 5GB of space which can be increased to 100GB for your public SharePoint Online site.

Where can I find more information about SharePoint Online storage?

SharePoint Online: software boundaries and limit – http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/sharepoint-online-software-boundaries-and-limits-HA102694293.aspx

Office 365 Mail flow trouble-shooter

One of the most common problems you see with Office 365 (or any email system actually) is people asking why their email’s aren’t being received. Microsoft has now created a Mail Flow Analyser to help you track down any issues.

You can find it at:
http://support.microsoft.com/common/survey.aspx?scid=sw;en;3568&showpage=1
They have also made available this nice graphic overview of email operations

to help you understand the process of sending and receiving emails.
Nice.

CIAOPS Virtual Technical Meeting September–Register Now

So there is a slight change of dates for our September meeting as I will be presenting some sessions TechEd Australia on the Gold Coast during the first week in September. Thus, I have shifted the meeting back a week to the second Wednesday in September (11th from 4.00 – 5.30pm.

After being held over from last month September will feature presentation on Yammer.
All about YammerIn this session you’ll receive an introduction to the Yammer product and learn how it will be integrated into Microsoft products such as SharePoint Online.
Presenter = Robert Crane, Office 365 MVP
I will also endeavour to record the session and make it available after the fact but if you attend the meeting you’ll be able to ask specific questions and interact with other attendees during the general discussion part of the meeting. If you haven’t already I urge you to register for the event at:
http://ciaops0913.eventbrite.com.au
The event is free and I hope to see you there.

Lync Web Scheduler

Many Office 365 Lync users don’t realize that it is possible to schedule a Lync meeting directly from a web page. Here’s how you do it.

Navigate to:

http://sched.lync.com

You’ll then be taken to the Create New Meeting tab. Complete the details (times, etc) of you meeting.

and the Save the details.

If you now select the My Meetings tab you should see a list of all your scheduled meetings. Select any of the meetings from the left hand side to view their details.

After you do this you can select a number of buttons on the right.

If you select the View Meeting Join Info you will see window like that shown above that provides the URL for the meeting that you can copy and paste and send to people.

If you then select Export as iCalendar you will be able to save a calendar invite with the meeting details as shown above. You can add this to your own calendar or forward it to others.

As you can see, Lync meetings can be directly scheduled and managed all via a web page. For more details on all the options that are available visit the following reference link:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/communicator-help/lync-web-scheduler-HA102756689.aspx

Lesson in selling Office 365

I see so many IT resellers now realizing they need to sell and support Office 365 because their clients ARE asking for and using it. Unfortunately, most have sat on their hands, denied the momentum of the cloud and so. They find themselves in a world of hurt, falling further and further behind the eight ball in terms of what Office 365 offers.

The simple answer to understanding how to sell Office 365 is to USE IT! All Microsoft partners are eligible to qualify for a free partner Office 365 tenant of their very own. Get, configure it and use it. Simple.

One of the easiest things to get up and running is Lync. Lync allows messaging, video conferencing and more. It is also something that few clients have seen so it has a real impact when you show it to them.

By default Lync only allows connection to users within your Office 365 tenant, however you can enable ‘federation’ with outside parties also using Lync or even Skype. To my way of thinking you should enable this ‘federation’ immediately and being to connect with others.

To enable federation to external parties login to your Office 365 portal as an administrator.

Select the Admin menu item from across the top and then the Lync option that appears in the drop down menu.

In the Lync admin centre select organization from the menu on the left. You should then see the options for external sharing as shown above.

It is recommended you set external access to On except for blocked domains and enable public IM connectivity.

Once you have made these changes it will take 15 or so minutes for the federation update to flow through the system but once complete you can now connect up with others using Lync or Skype.

If you now select the users menu on the left you will see all your users who are licenses to used Lync.

If you select and edit any of these users you will find that you can control their individual rights to external communication if desired as shown above.

If you return to your Office 365 portal and look at a users license you will see whether they are enabled for Lync. In the above example, this user is enabled for Lync as part of the E3 suite. Remember, you can always remove the Lync option here to prevent access to any of the suite products. However, also be aware that removing a single product from a user doesn’t magically give you one more license you can assign to a new user.

With all that enabled you can now install the full Lync client on your desktop (it comes with Office 2013) and then login with your Office 365 login details.

Once you have logged in you can search for other users via their login details within your organization and externally if you have enabled that (and you should).

All CIAOPS Office 365 and SharePoint Guide subscribers are free to connect with me via Lync and use that as quick and easy method to contact me for support if needed. If you are not a Guide subscriber (and you should be) then feel free to email me (director@ciaops.com) and request to be connected via Lync.

Now that you have Lync working, spend some time learning how to create and schedule meetings. Work out how to do remote presentations and record them. Work out how to share files and chat online all directly from Office documents. You’ll find an eBook on Getting Started with Lync Online in my publications area. It is only AU$4.99 and it will show you everything you need to know about getting up to speed with Lync options.

Once you have those skills go out and start showing clients. Start running webinars. Start demonstrating your knowledge of the product. Look at how a product like Lync can be used to improve your clients business. Once you work it our for a few I’m pretty sure you’ll find it applies to just about every other one in the same way.

Office 365 products are extremely powerful, full of features that most businesses have never seen and ultimately full of endless opportunities for those who sell and support them. So stop procrastinating, get in there and USE them, because that is the best way to work out how to sell them. Simple.

Web Browser Cookie Forensics

There is a lot of talk these days about tracking, cookies and so on. You can read a lot of good and lot more bad information about the role that cookies play on your system but rather than go through a whole heap of stuff here I’ll refer you to:

https://www.grc.com/cookies/forensics.htm

which will not only explain to you about all the different forms of cookies but also test your system to let you know where you are potentially expose.

The first step to being is more secure is having an understanding of what being secure actually means. The above site should put you well down that path.