Office 365 getting a new app launcher

The Office 365 navigation experience continues to evolve and simplify. Take a look at the above new features coming to a tenant near you soon.

If you want to be the first kid on the block to get these features ensure you have enabled the first release option in your Office 365 tenant as I detailed in an earlier blog post.

Enabling Office 365 first release

This new navigation experience is first going to make things much easier for users and also make Office 365 even more consistent with things like Windows on the desktop. Can’t wait to see it on my tenant!

Here’s the blog post from Microsoft:

http://blogs.office.com/2014/10/16/organize-office-365-new-app-launcher-2/

Enabling profile picture editing in SharePoint Online

In a recent post I showed how you can update a users SharePoint Online profile as an administrator from the web console.

A sticking point you may come across is shown above. When you go to edit the users picture it says:

Only user can change this photo

And the only option available is to remove the photo, you can’t upload a new one. This can be a pain if you are an administrator and want to set up people’s photos before hand.

Here’s the way to enable this

Scroll through the profile until you locate the field:

Picture Exchange Sync State

change this field to 0 (or delete the value that is there) and then Save the profile.

Now, when you return to the profile you should find the ability to upload a new photo for that user.

Changing a SharePoint Online users profile

One of the first things I encourage all SharePoint Online users to is go in and edit their profile and update the information contained in there. They can do that by clicking on the user image in the top right and then selecting the About Me menu item that appears.

However, what happens if a business wants to enter this information ahead of time from one central location? Here’s how to do just that.

Sign into the Office 365 web portal as an administrator.

In the top right of the portal select Admin, then SharePoint from the menu that appears.

In the SharePoint admin center select user profiles from the menu on the left.

On the right hand side select Manage User Profiles from under the People section at the top of the page.

Search for the user profile you wish to edit (here, Lewis Collins) by entering the search text in the Find profiles box and press the Find button.

The user should then be listed below.

If you now click on the account name a menu will be displayed. Select the item Edit My Profile.

You should now be able to go into every item for that user and make any changes required.

Remember to Save your changes when complete.

Emailing OneDrive for Business files

Office 365 now supports the ability to attach files directly from your OneDrive for Business via Outlook Web Access.

To do this simply navigate to your Office 365 web portal and select Outlook from the top navigation bar.

Compose a new email and select the Insert button at the top of the window. That will reveal the above menu. Select Attachments or OneDrive for files.

You’ll then be taken to a screen like the above where you can select from a number of different sources. Under the OneDrive option for example select My Files. You should then see all the files you have in OneDrive for Business displayed. Select the file you wish to attach and then the Next option in the top left (above the OneDrive icon).

You are then prompted as to whether you wish to send this file as an attachment (i.e. the whole file is added to the email) or you just want to send a link to the file. In essence this ‘shares’ that file from your OneDrive for Business rather than sending the whole file. That allows you to potentially revoke that sharing at any stage in the future.

If you elect to attach the file you will see the attachment displayed as above with the actual file size displayed.

If instead you elected to Share with OneDrive you will see the attachment but also the text Recipients can edit.

When the recipient receives the file, if it was sent as an attachment they can view it as they normally could.

However, if you elected to Share with OneDrive they will be taken to a link to view the file. If the shared file is an Office document they will see that document in Office Online as shown above.

This feature is something that has been missing from Office 365 for a while now and makes more sense as more people move all their information to the cloud. What would be nice now is some similar integration with Outlook on the desktop. Having the ability to attach or share from Outlook on a standard PC desktop would really accelerate cloud adoption in my option.

This feature is currently rolling out to all tenants. If you don’t have it yet you will soon.

Office 365 RDS world changes again

In the long running story that is Office via Office 365 on a Remote Desktop Server (RDS) things have once again changed from October 1, 2014.

If you have not reviewed my last post on this topic then you will find it here:

https://blog.ciaops.com/2014/09/installing-office-365-pro-plus-on-rds.html

in essence what that blog post said was that from September 1 2014 ANY Office 365 plan that included Office Pro Plus was licensed for RDS no matter where it was obtained for. It also detailed how you could now install directly on RDS from the click to run install using the Office Deployment kit.

However, 1 October 2014 brought new SMB plans and the retirement of M and P plans so things have changed again and here’s the summary to bring you up to date.

1. If you have purchased E (Enterprise plans) that include Office Pro Plus via any means you remain licensed to use these on RDS.

2. If you have an existing M or P plan that include Office Pro Plus you remain licensed to use these on RDS UNTIL either October 1 2015 or whenever you elect to upgrade these plans to the new SMB offerings.

3. If you purchase the new SMB Plans after October 1 2014 or migrate to these plans from any existing plan you are NOT licensed to use these for RDS. This is because the version of Office via the SMB plans is no longer Office Pro Plus (i.e it doesn’t includes things like Access any more for example).

The positive with the new SMB plans however is that you can now mix and match with E SKUs. That means that if you do need RDS capability to can purchase and add onto your existing SMB plan an E SKU that includes Office Pro Plus (say the Enterprise stand alone version of Office Pro Plus).

This may mean you have users that are licensed twice for Office, once with their SMB plans and once via the Enterprise SKU that permits RDS capability.

Now the question is if you have say 10 users but only 5 at any time require RDS capability how many additional E SKUs that allow RDS rights for Office would you need to purchase? The answer is that if all 10 need RDS access at any point in time you would need 10 addition Office Pro Plus E SKUs because each license in Office 365 is assigned to an individual user. Thus, for all users to have the rights for RDS they would each need an E Office Pro Plus license assigned to them.

I had this confirmed by Jeremy Chapman from Microsoft where he told me:

Each user accessing the Office 365 ProPlus install via Shared Computer Activation on the RDS box would need an Office 365 ProPlus license. The users unable to sign in would only get viewing rights with a red info bar stating that Office is not activated.

So in summary:

1. The new Office 365 SMB plans are not licensed for RDS

2. While you remain on an older P or M plan you are licensed for RDS no matter where you purchased that license from.

3. You can now mix and match new SMB plans with E plans so you can add a qualifying E SKU that allows RDS to an existing SMB plan if required, however every user that requires RDS needs a suitable E SKU.

It is therefore very important to understand the restrictions of the new SMB plans when it comes to things like RDS. It is likewise very important to match the clients needs to the right Office 365 plan. As I have always recommended, you should always consider the E plans above and beyond the SMB plans because of their flexibility. I understand that SMB plans have a pricing incentive but given their limitations and lack of features I still firmly believe the E plans represent much better value for any business, especially those with an RDS environment.

A rule of thumb that I would suggest you adopt is that if you need/want to use your own server in conjunction with Office 365 (whether on premise or hosted) then you should only consider E plans.

This to me makes things much clearer around Office 365 and RDS as well providing the flexibility if RDS is required. I am sure there will be folks out there who may not appreciate this but to me things are much clearer on this story than they used to be.

Sydney SharePoint Users Group

I have been invited along to the Sydney SharePoint Users Group on Tuesday the 21st of October to speak about OneDrive for Business. here is the session details:

This session will help you not only understand what OneDrive for Business from Office 365 is but the options that are available for IT Professionals to manage it inside their business. You’ll learn about how the product works and what limitations it has along with the best practices around usage and management. Importantly, you’ll learn how to implement OneDrive for Business as an effective collaboration component inside a business.

The meeting commences at 5.30pm and ends by 7.30 pm and is held at:

Sydney Mechanics School of Arts, Level 1, 280 Pitt Street, Sydney

For more information about the Sydney SharePoint Users Group visit the following links:

www.sharepointusers.org.au/sydney/

https://www.facebook.com/SharePoint.Sydney

If you are able to attend come along and say ‘hi’ and hopefully learn a bit about OneDrive for Business.