Tag: Exchange

Answering common questions with Office 365 Part 1

I was recently lucky enough to present at the Australian Partner Conference 2016 with Microsoft and two other resellers. The focus of our presentation was around how to answer common user questions with Office 365 and the features that it includes.

What I thought I’d do is share these questions and answers over a few blog posts. So here is part one.

Customer question – I know a lot of businesses that are getting hit by this crypto locker malware where their documents are being encrypted and there are being asked to pay a ransom. I am really worried that one of my employees may inadvertently open an infected file and we’d be in the same boat as we get lots and lots of attachments every day. How can Office 365 protect me against that?

Office 365 already includes advanced malware protection in email by default. With the E5 license you also get:

Advanced Threat Protection

as well which includes the ability to open suspect attachments in a sandboxed environment to determine what happens and take the appropriate action. More details of these features can be found in this video:

By default, every time a document is updated in SharePoint Team Sites or OneDrive for Business the previous version is saved. Thus, if a file does become encrypted it can be quickly rolled back to a previous version.

At the moment, if multiple files do become encrypted and uploaded there is no single command sequence that would allow you roll back multiple files. Unfortunately, rolling back to a previous version has to be done one file at a time. However, as I understand it, Microsoft is working on a process to roll back multiple files via a single command. I also believe it is possible to do this using advanced scripting (aka PowerShell).

Exchange Online also allows you to create rules to automatically exclude certain attachments and quarantine them before they are delivered to end users. A good reference is:

Reducing malware threats through file attachment blocking

You can also use a third party mail cleansing service, such as Mailguard, in front of Exchange Online.

Of course, the best best protection that you can have is informed and paranoid users. Part of any security policy for a business needs to be education not abdication of this to technology. Technology is not 100% reliable, there is always the chance of some attack slipping through the protective technology security net that is erected around the business. On the odd occasion that this should transpire if it greeted with informed and paranoid users then the chance of the payload being delivered, and the business being interrupted, is much lower. You know, an ounce of prevention and all that.

Office 365 provides some excellent protection by default. The premium Office 365 licenses provide better protection. Appropriate configuration and user education provide even more protection. Finally, there is always the option to integrate third party solutions.

Office 365 Collaboration, Skype and Backup

 

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-2267-4946-0970-001023757425%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-2098-0759-5380-001420694364%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

https://docs.com/d/embed/D25192961-1989-0156-9410-001012602264%7eMd4186d87-61d5-259a-4d26-00a8bd86cfff

Here are some recent presentations I gave around Office 365:

Collaboration

Skype for Business

and

Backup

In essence they all point to the opportunity Office 365 provides IT resellers to go out and build services on stuff other than email migrations.

In short, if you are not adding value then your days are numbers. And simply moving data from one location to another and doing nothing else is not adding value!

Where to put data in Office 365?

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Office 365 has lots of choice when it comes to storing corporate information and that confuses many people. The first place to start to avoid confusion is to understand exactly where information can be placed inside Office 365 and whether that information is available to all users or just an individual by default.

Hopefully the above diagram makes things a little bit easier to understand and here’s a breakdown of what it’s all about

The large box that contains everything is Office 365.

The first box in the top left is Exchange Online. This can contain a user’s personal mailbox (which is private), shared mailboxes (which are public) and public folders (which are public). Into the Exchange box you normally store emails shared between the three smaller boxes within.

The second box on the top row in the middle is SharePoint. This contains OneDrive for Business (which is private), Team Sites (which is public) and Video (which is public). Into the SharePoint box you normally store files shared between the three smaller boxes within.

The box in the top right of the first row is Yammer into which goes conversations (or discussions) that are public.

The box on the left in the bottom row is Office 365 Groups which are composed of a public shared mailbox and a public shared OneDrive for Business. Thus, any information that goes into the Office 365 Groups box will be public. Into the Groups box you normally store files and emails that should to be stored together because they relate to a single topic.

The box on the right in the bottom row is Office 365 Planner which is comprised of public Groups and public Tasks. Thus, any information that goes into Planner will be public. Into Planner you normally store files, emails and tasks that need to be stored together (i.e projects) because they relate to a single topic.

As you can see by the colour scheme, green is shared information amongst the business while red is private information unique to an individual user.

Of course you don’t need to use every storage location in Office 365 that is available to you immediately and your usage locations may also change over time. Best practice is to start with information in Exchange, then expand into Office 365 Groups, then Planner, then SharePoint and finally Yammer. The important thing to remember is that Office 365 gives you lots of choice of where to save your information, it is up to you to work out what makes the most sense for your business.

Hopefully, that makes a little easier to understand when it comes to determining where to put different types of information. Let me know what you think by leaving a comment or contacting me directly (director@ciaops.com).

Need to Know podcast–Episode 92

Thanks to my very special guest for this episode, Marc Kean, for not only agreeing to being interviewed but for also doing a new intro and extro for the podcast. Let me know what you think!

I cover off the latest Office 365 news and then dive into Office 365 compliance with Marc who shares his knowledge and experience around ensuring business information is kept secure and how to achieve that with Office 365.

You can listen to this episode at:

http://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-92-marc-kean/

or subscribe to this and all episodes in iTunes at:

https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2

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

Marc Kean – Twitter

My Office 365 Nation wrap up

The new Office is here

Office 365 Planner

Meet the new OneDrive

Office 365 compliance features

Use Office 365 to help be compliant

Outlook on the web improvements

If you have a look at your Outlook on the web experience in office 365 you might notices some differences. Microsoft has introduced some changes to the interface as well as added new features.

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If you now visit Outlook from your Office 365 web portal and select an email you will see a range of menu options now displayed across the top of the page.

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You’ll also find new features inside the inbox including the ability to ‘pin’ messages to the top of the list.

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A new option called Sweep allows you to more easily create rules to manage your inbox. You simply select the message to action on and the select the Sweep option from the menu across the top of the screen.

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Not only do Sweep rules work like traditional inboxes rules but they also have the ability to run automatically if required keeping your inbox organized when you aren’t there or email are flowing in.

The full details about these changes can be found in a recent blog post from Microsoft:

New features coming to Outlook on the web

Which you should take a look at to see all the new features they are incorporating. Hopefully by now you should bee seeing these new features in your Outlook on web, if not, they will be rolling out to you soon.

New Outlook on the web features

Microsoft recently announced some updates to Outlook on the web. You can read about all of them here:

New features coming to Outlook on the web

But I thought I’d highlight a new feature that I have found pretty handy, and it is called Sweep.

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So when you visit your mail in the Office 365 portal you should find a new toolbar across the top as shown above. In there you see an option called Sweep.

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To use Sweep simply select a message from your inbox and then select the Sweep option from the menu. This should display a dialog box as shown above.

In this case I select the second option, Delete all messages from the inbox folder and any future messages.

Then select the Sweep button to complete the process.

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You should then receive a confirmation like shown above. if you select the View rules button.

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You’ll then be shown the rule that was just created from your actions. At the bottom you’ll also see any automated Sweep rules that have been created to keep your inbox tidy between visits.

Sweep is just one of the ways the Microsoft has improved your ability to manage your emails with the updated functionality in Outlook on the web. For more details on all the new features make sure you read the blog post:

New features coming to Outlook on the web

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.

Office 365 data import now in preview

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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.

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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.