Seems like migration between Office 365 plans is coming soon!

This blog post by Mary Joe Foley:
http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-simplifies-moving-between-office-365-skus-7000017783/
reports that Microsoft recently announced ‘Office 365 transition SKUs’:
Microsoft partners can now make available to customers Office 365 “transition SKUs” which will enable customers in different Office 365 customer tiers to more seamlessly upgrade to a different set of Office 365 offerings. Before today’s announcement, Office 365 midsize customers couldn’t move to an Office 365 Enterprise plan without having to migrate all their data out and back into a new tenant.
No further details as yet but this is certainly something that will make life a lot easier for customers (and resellers) because in my experience, although most customers want to start out on the cheapest plan as soon as they appreciate the benefits of Office 365 they want to scale up. Allow the option to do so between plans is going to make moving to the cloud a much more flexible option.

CIAOPS Virtual Technology Meeting – August

I am happy to announce that for the August meeting of the CIAOPS Virtual Technology we have managed to secure Microsoft Technical Evangelist Jeff Alexander to talk about Windows 8.1 (a.k.a. Windows Blue).

The meeting will feature a presentation by Jeff, questions and answers then time for general discussion by attendees. I am once again aiming to record the presentation by Jeff and make it available via my YouTube channel.

Remember, that all you need to do to attend is have access to a device connected to the Internet. You can register for the event at:

http://ciaops0813.eventbrite.com.au/

and the details are:

Wednesday 7th of August 2013

4:00pm – 5.30pm Sydney time

When you register you’ll receive information about gaining access to the meeting which will be conducted via Lync. If you want to test out your configuration beforehand to ensure everything is working feel free to contact me (director@ciaops.com) to arrange a check.

Remember, the presentation from the last meeting is available for viewing on YouTube:

I hope to “see” you at the upcoming meeting.

Context decisions

I have come to realise something of late. Every time you are faced with a tough choice you are at your context boundary. Think of the world in which you inhabit as a glass container. When you reach one of the sides you are at the context limit of that container.
So too it is with your mental state. Let’s look at this in a business context, although it applies just as readily elsewhere. When you are faced with something that you ‘can’t do’, is ‘too hard’ or is ‘too difficult’ you should recognize that you are at your context boundary. This is a good thing because it means that you are now only a short distance from expanding your context and growing to the next level.
The problem is that pushing through this context boundary is much more difficult than actually getting to it. That’s why so many people simply give up or back off when it gets ‘too hard’. Those that end up being successful are able to push through this context boundary and expand to the next level.
The simple thing I have come to realize is that when you hear yourself say it is ‘too hard’ you firstly know that you have reached your context boundary. The second thing to realize is that to grow and expand your context all it takes is a little more effort to move through that barrier.
As simplistic as it sounds I have found a lot of strength understanding and acknowledging these two points. It has allowed me to step back and say ‘you know what? If I can go just a little bit more I’ll be through this and onto bigger things’. That has certainly provided the energy to actually push through the barriers and achieve what I want to achieve.
Simple stuff I know but in most cases that is what makes all the difference for success.

Discover SharePoint

If you haven’t seen Microsoft is starting to build out a Discover SharePoint site at:
http://www.discoversharepoint.com/home
that includes some great content. At the moment it is mainly about the SharePoint but I can see they are going to extend it to specific case scenarios.

In the meantime there is plenty of great stuff there worth having a look at including these guides which you can download directly by clicking on their hyperlink.
Discover SharePoint
Store, Sync and Share your content
Keep Everyone on the same page
Stay on track and deliver on time
Find the right people
Find what you need
Make informed decisions
I’d encourage you to take a moment and have a look at what is developing over on Discover SharePoint site because I think you’ll fid it pretty helpful.

Office 365 Speedtest is back

A while back I wrote a post about how you could use the Office 365 Lync IP probe site as a replacement for ‘missing the action’ Microsoft Speedtest.

Now thanks to Office 365 MVP Benoit Hamet it has returned it seems!

Here are the URLs (apparently):

As Benoit notes, not all of the URL’s are functional, however if I go to http://ap1-fasttrack.cloudapp.net for my region I see the following:

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(after accepting to use Java as per usual with this stuff). When I put my Office 365 tenant address in I see it running through each of tabs doing tests:

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After a few minutes the tests complete and provide some interesting results.

The results from this site and Lync IP probe are somewhat different. Lync IP Probe still seems to provide more detail but there are some interesting figures produced by the new Speedtest site.

My advice would be to still use both as required but I get the feeling that Microsoft will be developing this new Speedtest site to be the most encompassing so stayed tuned because I think you’ll see plenty of changes and improvements coming here. The only question is are they going to migrate it back to the original URL of http://speedtest.microsoftonline.com?

InfoPath not authorized to perform current operation

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I had been battling with some issues when publishing InfoPath 2013 forms to Office 365. For some reason I kept getting the above error when I tried to open a site.

I work with a number of different Office 365 sites that all have different logins and for the life or me I couldn’t work out what was happening. I wasn’t even being prompted with the Office 365 login to the site I was trying to publish to.

image

After some fiddling I worked out that it has to do with the Windows 8 account I am logged into my machine with. I use a Windows Live account to do that. When I look at the account information in InfoPath I see this Windows Live Account.

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If I then select the option to switch account

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I see my two Office 365 accounts listed as shown.

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Once I login with this Office 365 account I see a different list of connected services below as shown above.

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Now I can successfully publish my InfoPath forms.

I can’t say that I’m a real expert on how all these accounts work and interact in Windows 8 but I’d say if you are having the same issues I was, try switching account in InfoPath. It worked for me.

Getting Started With SharePoint Online 2013 for Small Business eBook now available

GSWSOFSMB-300

Please to announce that my latest eBook “Getting Started With SharePoint 2013 for Small Business” is now available for purchase at AU$2.49. You can purchase from the major online book sellers but also directly from my site at:

http://www.ciaops.com/publications

The abstract for the book is:

This book helps novice users understand the basic usage and operation of SharePoint Online 2013 that is available via the Office 365 Small Business P plans. It examines the following basic components of SharePoint Online: Documents, Calendars, Tasks, Picture Libraries, Recycle Bin, Search, Site Notebooks and Public website . The reader will be taken through a tutorial process on how to use each item. Much has changed since previous versions of SharePoint and Office 365, however there are still some similarities. This book may still provide some insight into the basics of SharePoint Online 2013 for Medium and Enterprise Office 365 plans. It will show you how to start interacting with SharePoint Online 2013 so it can be put to use in your business as well as provide a number of resources for continuing familiarity with SharePoint Online 2013.

This booked is aimed at users who have never used SharePoint Online 2013 or Office 365 P plans.

Even if you have no need for this book I commend you to let others who might.

Watch out for additional topics coming soon.