Here’s a very common scenario in Office 365.

There is an existing user, Gordon Jackson in this case, happily using Outlook and Exchange Online via Office 365. In their Outlook the mailbox has their email address (gordon.jackson@ciaops365e1.onmicrosoft.com).

Now let’s say that user leaves the business. The existing account is renamed to the new user so the Office 365 license can be re-used. To do this we login to the Office 365 portal as an administrator and select the existing user.

Then simply enter in the details of the new user. Here we have renamed Gordon Jackson to James Hill and we have changed the email address to james.hill@ciaops365e1.onmicrosoft.com.

When complete we press the Save button at the bottom to update the details.

Back on the users workstation if we close and reopen Outlook we are prompted to enter the new credentials. Unless you elected to change the users password in the portal it will remain the same. Thus, you simply need to enter the new users login name.

With the new users logged in they can receive emails at their new address as you can see above, however the name of the mailbox is still the old user! Thus, the mailbox still reads gordon.jackson@ not james.hill@.

If you want to change that, close Outlook on the users desktop and go into Control Panel.

In Control Panel select Mail.

Now select E-mail Accounts.

You should see the Microsoft Exchange account listed but with the old users details.

Select this account and then press the Change button.

All the information here is normally set up by the Exchange autodiscover DNS records. You will again see the old users account in the User Name field.

Select the old user account name and delete it. In its place put the new users account details. in this, we change gordon.jackson@ to james.hill@.

Once you have done that press the Check Name button.

It may take a few moments for the verification process to complete but when it does successfully you should see the new users name underlined as shown above.

Press the Next button to continue.

Now press the Finish button to complete the process.

You should now find the account correctly displayed with the new user name in the Accounts Settings dialog as shown above.

and now when you launch Outlook the name of the mailbox should also show the new users details.

One of the things you can now do with the version of Outlook via a browser (Outlook Web App) is actually take it offline in a browser. All the details can be found here:

http://office.microsoft.com/en-au/support/using-outlook-web-app-offline-HA102828007.aspx

However to enable all you basically need to do is open your Outlook Web Access

In top right of the window select the cog icon.

From the menu that appears select Offline Settings.

Then simply select Turn on offline access.

What else do I need to know (from article)?

Offline access may not make all of your email and calendar information available offline. Some of the available features and limitations are:

• The last few days of messages. Supported folders include Inbox, Drafts, and any folders viewed within the last few days, up to 20 folders. If you’ve viewed more than 20 folders in the last few days, the most recent 18 plus Inbox and Drafts will be available.
• In each folder that’s available offline, you will see three days of content, or 150 items, whichever is larger.
• Attachments aren’t available when offline.
• The previous month and future year of your calendar.
• A limited set of upcoming calendar reminders. If you’re offline for a long period of time, calendar reminders will stop working until you go online and Outlook Web App can download current information.
• Only your primary Calendar will be available offline.
• All the items in your Contacts folder, plus any people that you email often and any that you’ve emailed recently.
• Offline access doesn’t include archived folders, Team folders, tasks, or Favorites.
• You can’t search for or sort items in your mailbox when offline, and the built-in filters won’t work when you’re offline.

You have to enable offline access on each computer that you want to be able to use Outlook Web App on when not connected to a network.

Offline access for Outlook Web App is designed for portable computers such as laptops and notebooks. It can’t be enabled in browsers on smaller devices, such as tablets and smartphones.

Your web browser determines where on your computer the offline information is stored and how much space it can use. If your offline information won’t fit in the space that’s been set aside, you may be prompted to increase it. If the space can’t be increased, less of your information will be available when you’re offline.

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

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.