Tag: Office 365

Replacement for Microsoft Speed test

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A while ago there was a tool known as Microsoft Sped Test (www.microsoftspeedtest.com) but for some unknown reason it is no longer operational. It was a great way to get an indication of the speeds from a desktop to the Office 365 data centres.

So, now what can you use? The solution is the Lync Online Transport Reliability IP Probe (TRIPP) tool that can be found at:

Just choose your closest data centre and plug in the URL to your browser. You’ll need to have Java on your machine to run the variety of tests available.

One of the tests (shown above, on the speed tab) allows you to do what Microsoft Speedtest used to do.

I’d strongly recommend you spend the time getting to know this tool as it provides a lot of information and is invaluable in troubleshooting issues with Office 365 in my experience.

Deleted items is NOT for email archiving

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One of the really bad email habits that I see people adopt is using their Deleted Items folder as an archive. The belief would seem to be that it is an ‘easy’ way to archive because it only takes a single keystroke (i.e. the Delete button) to ‘archive’ the email.

Because most on premise mail servers never enforced a retention policy (i.e. how long emails are kept) people were not penalized for their bad habits. However, in the world of Office 365 things are a little different. Let me illustrate this with an example.

After a user recently moved to Office 365 they were shocked to find that their ‘email filing system’ (i.e. their Deleted Items folder) had been emptied. Where was it? Why had it been emptied? How do you get it back? Panic! etc , etc, etc.

The reason those emails were removed is that by default Office 365 has a number of default email retention policies in place. One of these is that:

By default, in Exchange Online, the retention period for deleted items is 14 days. The retention period starts when the item deleted is moved to the Recoverable Items folder. After 14 days, items in the Deletions subfolder are automatically moved to the Purges subfolder.

From – http://help.outlook.com/en-au/140/hh125820.aspx

Thus, 14 days after migrating to Office 365 the deleted items folder will be emptied by default. Then 14 days after that the deletions are then sent to purges where they remain for another 14 days. After that they are permanently removed from Exchange Online, i.e. bye, bye filing system. The best way to understand all this is look at:

http://help.outlook.com/en-au/140/hh125820.aspx

Can the default retention policy be changed? Yes, but probably an easier way is simply NOT to use Deleted Items as an email archive. Create another folder and drag and drop the ‘email filing system’ there to ensure it is always retained! Deleted Items is designed for exactly what it is called! Deleted Items!

You can read more on Office 365 retention policies and tags here:

http://help.outlook.com/en-ca/140/gg271153.aspx

Up to $1,500 cash back on Office 365

If you have been considering Office 365 for your business now may be the best time to sign up as Microsoft is offering up to $1,500 cash back for new subscribers before May 31, 2013. The details of the offer are here:
http://www.microsoft.com/business/en-au/buy/special-offers/Pages/fastcash365.aspx
A great incentive that you can take advantage of as we approach the end of the financial year. Remember if you need help deciding what Office 365 plans is best for your business or moving into the cloud don’t hesitate to contact me (director@ciaops.com).

A beginner’s guide to SharePoint Online

Microsoft runs a regular Office 15 minute webinar and recently it focused on SharePoint Online. You can find the video at:

If are interested in getting started with SharePoint Online this video will give you a brief overview. Once you have watched that you can also check out the CIAOPS SkyDrive Pro Primer video:

There are of course plenty of other SharePoint and Office 365 publications over at:

http://www.ciaops.com/publications

So take a look, however if you haven’t looked at SharePoint and especially SharePoint Online then I’d strongly recommend you do.

Connecting PowerShell to SharePoint Online

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So you have configured your environment to have PowerShell connect to Office 365 using my previous blog post:

Configuring PowerShell access in Office 365

However, this only used to provide access to tenant and Exchange administration. With the Wave 15 release of Office 365 you can now also connect to SharePoint Online. here is how to do just that.

You are going to need a machine that has the Windows Management Framework 3.0 installed, which basically means you need PowerShell version 3.0. if you are keeping up with the times and running Windows 8 as your desktop then you already have PowerShell 3.

Next you’ll to install the SharePoint Online Management Shell. The latest one I found is here:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=35588

I also found an earlier preview following some links but I’d suggest the latest version is what you want.

So on the Windows 8 machine on which you have the Microsoft Online Services Module for Windows PowerShell installed ,run it as an administrator and accept the UAC.

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The next step is to load in the SharePoint Online cmdlets for use in this session. after some digging around I found that they are called:

Microsoft.Online.Sharepoint.PowerShell

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So at the prompt type:

import-module microsoft.online.sharepoint.powershell

that should result in the above warning.

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Now you will need to log into your Wave 15 account. i normally do this by saving the login details to a variable by typing the following:

$cred=get-credentials

A dialog windows as shown above will appear into which you need to enter the login and password of a suitably enabled Office 365 user who can administer SharePoint Online. If in doubt use the initial global administrator that was provisioned with your site.

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The next step is now to use those credential to connect to SharePoint Online. To do this execute the following line:

connect-sposervice –url https://-admin.sharepoint.com –credential $cred

in my case this was:

connect-sposervice –url https://ciaops365e1-admin.sharepoint.com –credential $cred

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In true PowerShell form, if everything is correct you will simply be returned to a prompt. Now you can execute commands against SharePoint Online. For example the following will display all your SharePoint Online sites by URL in a table:

get-sposite | ft “url”

Now you can start exploring all the cmdlets that are available for SharePoint Online which you can find at the bottom of this page:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/sharepoint-help/introduction-to-the-sharepoint-online-management-shell-HA102915057.aspx

Does the same process work on Wave 14 tenants that haven’t yet been upgraded to Wave 15 and SharePoint 2013?

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I tried it on my Wave 14 tenant (https://ciaops365.sharepoint.com) above and it worked! Excellent, roll on SharePoint Online control via PowerShell everywhere.

Office 2013 bulk deployments from Office 365

I wrote a post a while back on doing bulk deployments of Office 2013 from Office 365. since then Microsoft has released an Office Deployment Tool for Click to Run which you can find at:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=36778

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Once you have downloaded and installed the tool you can run the setup executable with a number of parameters like:

C:\download>setup /?

Usage:
SETUP mode [path to configuration file]

SETUP /DOWNLOAD [path to configuration file]
SETUP /CONFIGURE [path to configuration file]
SETUP /PACKAGER [path to configuration file] [output path]
/DOWNLOAD  Downloads files to create an Office15 installation source
/CONFIGURE  Adds, removes, or configures an Office15 installation
/PACKAGER  Produces an Office App-V package from an Office installation source

This allows you to download a complete copy of Office 2013 that can then be deployed across a network. Here’s an article on how to do just that:

Download click-to-run for Office 365 products by using the Office Deployment tool – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219424

You can even go further than this by using the configuration.xml file to customize both downloads and deployments. The reference for this file is at:

Click to run configuration.xml reference – http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219426

It is great to see Microsoft making the bulk deployment of Office 2013 from Office 365 easier for IT Professionals.

Office 365 and SharePoint Guide turns five

I am proud to announce that the CIAOPS Office 365 and SharePoint Guide has reached it fifth birthday!
So what is it? The Guide is a collection of technical and training material on all aspects Office 365 and SharePoint. It contains, documents, videos, OneNote notebooks, links and more all accessed via a SharePoint portal. At last count there was over 9 hours of videos and 1,500 pages of documentation, all of which is updated monthly with new and additional content.
In the Guide you will find things like:
– Study and preparation material for the 74-324 Administering Office 365 for SMB exam.
– Every CIAOPS publication
– Learning tracks to help you get up to speed on the products
– so much more
Guide subscribers also receive discounts on other CIAOPS items such as:
– Bootcamps / Training
– Consultation
So what do some of subscribers say?
I just thought I’d add my accolades to Robert Crane’s guide and remind all our members that Robert’s wealth of knowledge in all things cloud, experience and willingness to help is unmeasurable. All the useful tips in one place. Why wouldn’t you spend the $299 to subscribe to the guide? – Mike Hatfield (HIT)
“I can truly credit Robert for his training day and his SharePoint Guide (which includes Office 365 notes and information on the exams we require to continue or certification with Microsoft). I managed to pass with the highest score I have ever achieved in a Microsoft exam (900+)” – ( Rod Arthur, LAN Creation )
I also take this opportunity to thank every single subscriber for their support of my business but I’d especially like to thank my foundation subscribers who have been with me from the start. Without your faith in me this product would not be what it is today.
Special Birthday offer
Therefore to celebrate the Guide reaching the five year milestone I am going to make the following offer to every new subscriber during May 2013:
– Receive 10% off the normal purchase price of AU$299. Use the offer code 5YEARSNOW at checkout.
– Receive up to 1 hours remote consultation/training session free in a single session available until 30 June 2013 (Valued at > AU$200).
For ANY existing Guide subscriber, in recognition of their continued support, I will offer during May 2013:
– Up to 1 hours remote consultation/training session free in a single session available until 30 June 2013 (Valued at > AU$200).
Finally to ANYONE who recommends my Guide to someone who takes up a new subscription during May 2013 I will offer:
– 10% commission of the retail price (i.e. AU$29.90) for every converted referral. Thus, if you make 2 converted referrals you’ll receive AU$59.80, 3 referrals AU$89.70, etc, etc.
This applies ONLY until the end of May 2013 and don’t forget that the Guide is undated every month and includes all existing CIAOPS publications.
For more information about the Guide and to subscribe visit:

Once again, I thank all subscribers for their support of my business and I look forward to adding even more content in the coming year.

CIAOPS Podcast–Episode 51


In this podcast Ryan Phillips, a Technical Account Manager (TAM) in the Microsoft Online Services Division, will discuss how Office 365 can be used, in concert with certain applications, components, etc. to properly scope, plan, deploy and use Synchronization and Single Sign-On (SSO) services to provide end-users with the best login and usage experience.  Ryan will discuss specifics around Directory Synchronization, Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS), differences between Online (Managed) users versus Federated Users and how end-users will experience sign-on into Office 365 services, such as the Microsoft Online Portal (MPO), SharePoint Online (SPO), Exchange Online (EXO) and other services.
You’ll also learn about the new version of DirSync coming soon that will allow password synchronization from a local network to Office 365!
You can listen to this podcast and subscribe to the series at:
http://ciaops.podbean.com/2013/04/30/episode-51-ryan-phillips/
You can support this podcast via http://donation.ciaops.com
Don’t forget all the other previous podcasts at
http://ciaops.podbean.com
and appreciate a like over at
http://www.facebook.com/n2kpodcast.
Remember if you want to be a guest please contact me (director@ciaops.com).