In an not unexpected move Microsoft has just release the SkyDrive Pro client as a free download. You can find it here:
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=39050
Previously, as I have detailed in this blog, the only way that you could obtain the client app was by installing Office 2013 Pro Plus.
This is GREAT news as it makes SharePoint SkyDrive so much easier and available for all users! The SkyDrive Pro client app although now free is still only available for current Windows PC’s but I would expect you’ll see versions for other platforms available very, very soon. So stay tuned to this blog for updates!
Thank you Microsoft.
Tag: SharePoint
Copying files to SharePoint using Explorer
The most thing that people want to do with SharePoint is to copy files. This video shows you how to achieve that by using Windows Explorer. Simply and easy
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
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.
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
So at the prompt type:
import-module microsoft.online.sharepoint.powershell
that should result in the above warning.
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.
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
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:
Does the same process work on Wave 14 tenants that haven’t yet been upgraded to Wave 15 and SharePoint 2013?
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 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.
Additional SharePoint space for M and P plans not available yet
One of the really great additions to Wave 15 Office 365 SharePoint for all plans was the ability to add more SharePoint space beyond what you receive allocated per user. Where did I get that from? Here:
Having just revisited that page after speaking with another reseller who had issues attempting to add space I note the above page says the following for P plans:
Additional storage for Small Business plans is not yet available.
and M plans:
Additional storage for Midsize Business plans is not yet available.
Problem for the reseller is that their customer needed greater space than the default and being told that it could be added went down the M plan route for the customer because of the cost savings over an E3 plan. Trouble is now that they need the additional SharePoint space and it can’t be added ‘yet’. That didn’t sit well with the customer or the reseller as the only option available with the space is an E3 plan and migrating from an M plan is not a simple upgrade of plans.
I am seeing a lot of confusion around what each plan does and doesn’t include. My recommendation is always E plans due to their flexibility. I would also recommend that if you go with either P or M plans check VERY carefully as to whether it exactly fits your needs now and into the future. Don’t rely on someone else, check it for yourself to avoid situation like the above.
Office 365 SharePoint Administration requires a license
One of the misconceptions I see is that people believe you need to assign every Office 365 user a license. It has been best practice to create an Office 365 global administrator assign them no license and then use that user to configure and manage Office 365. You can create as many of these ‘admin’ users as you want generally as they don’t consume a license.
I just tried that with the latest version of Office 365.
So I created a user called Tech Support and made them a global admin as shown above.
I then didn’t assign any licenses as shown above.
If I then login as the admin user I can go to Exchange Online administration as shown above.
I can also go to Lync Online administration, again as shown above.
But when I go to SharePoint Online administration I see the above error. I tried to add that Tech Support user as a site collection owner and that didn’t work either.
As soon as a assign a SharePoint Online license to that user as shown above,
I can access SharePoint administration.
So it would seem that to administer SharePoint Online I need to assign the user a SharePoint license but I don’t have to do the same for either Exchange or Lync Online?
That’s a little strange to my mind. I hope I’ve overlooked something obvious in all this.
SkyDrive Pro desktop sync is part of Office 2013 Pro Plus
*** 22 May 2013 Update ***
SkyDrive Pro Windows client app is now available for free. See post:
https://blog.ciaops.com/2013/05/skydrive-pro-client-now-available-for.html
For details
***************
As more people start to use the new features of SharePoint Online from Office 365 I am seeing greater confusion around how to synchronize files from SkyDrive Pro to the desktop. If you haven’t already I suggest you have a look at my previous posts about SkyDrive Pro:
There is also a SkyDrive Pro video I did:
SkyDrive Pro Webinar – Preview
and of course there is a eBook I recent released:
Getting started with SkyDrive Pro
The synchronization of files from SharePoint Online 2013 to a Windows desktop can be achieved by what I call a SkyDrive Pro App. This is a small program that once installed, monitors for changes between the local Windows machine and SharePoint 2013. When it finds changes it does a sync.
What seems to be confusing many people is where you get this SkyDrive Pro app. At the moment this app is only part of Office 2013 Professional Plus as you can see from below:
So if you don’t have Office 2013 Professional Plus you won’t get the SkyDrive Pro app and you won’t be able to perform synchronization to your local desktop.
As you can appreciate this is a major limitation for people using the new SharePoint Online. Much like the consumer version of SkyDrive they should have made this SkyDrive Pro app available for free so that you didn’t need Office 2013 Professional Plus to get it. There are however rumours that the SkyDrive Pro app will soon be available for free and I certainly hope this is the case for otherwise it is going to stymie the uptake of SharePoint Online, especially for those not currently having Office 2013 Professional Plus.
