This week Microsoft opened up for a customer preview of the next major update to Office 365 – called Office 365 Preview. You can try it out here.
The Public Folders page is a new feature for Exchange Online introduced with Office 365 Preview. It provides an easy and effective way to collect, organize, and share information with other people in your workgroup or organization. It is not designed for Archiving Data or Document sharing and Collaboration.
In Office 365 Preview every public folder must live in a Public Folder mailbox. You will need to create at least one Public Folder mailbox before you can create Public Folders.
To create a Public Folder Mailbox
Navigate to the Exchange Admin Center (EAC)
Click Public Folders > Public Folder Mailboxes
Click (+) New
Enter a Name and click Save
Check the list to ensure the new Public Folder Mailbox is available
To create a Public Folder
Click Public Folders > Public Folders
Enter a Name and click Save.
Verify that the folder has been created (note - its has no subfolders and has not been mail enabled yet)
To create a Subfolder
Click on the name of the initial folder
Verify that the subfolder has been created (note its location in the hierarchy)
To Mail Enable Public Folders
Select the public folder and click Enable under Mail Settings
Click Yes at the warning.
Once the setting is saved, you can click Edit to configure the Public Folder
In the Public Folder window, note that several new options will be available, e.g:
Working with Public Folders
Open Outlook 2013 and verify that the Public Folders are listed at the bottom of the Folder Explorer
Note
UPDATE MAY 2013: New TechNet Content: "Migrate Legacy Public Folders to Exchange Online" - link
See also
Fair Warning
Since the launch of the New Office 365 early 2013, this 2011 blog post has become outdated. SkyDrive Pro is now the way to sync files from SharePoint Online to your Windows 7 or 8 desktop. Read more here.
//Jesper Osgaard, July 2014
*********************
I often get asked if its possible to map a SharePoint Online Document Library in Windows Explorer e.g. for easy opening of files a.s.o directly from Windows Explorer.
It is certainly possible:
Create a Document Library - in this example called "DocRepository". Since the name of my Office 365 tenant in this example is "mso365wiz" the URL to the Document Library is "https://mso365wiz.sharepoint.com/DocRepository"
In order to map the files in this Document Library in Windows Explorer the trick is to:
In my example the URL is "https://mso365wiz.sharepoint.com/DocRepository" and should hence be "\\mso365wiz.sharepoint.com@ssl\DocRepository" after the above changes.
You should now be able to access the Document Library from your Windows Explorer.
See also this support article
Update #1 (February 2012):
SharePoint Online in Office 365 uses forms based authentication and the user is authenticated using a SAML token. This SAML token expires every 2 hours (some say longer though). After that the mapped drive for the SharePoint library cant access the library unless the user signs in to the SharePoint Online site again from the browser, even if the user tick off "Keep me signed in". As an alternative you can add the URL of the document library to Favorites in Windows Explorer. You'll need to do that via e.g. Word.
Update #2 (May 2013)
Since the launch of the new Office 365 in the beginning of 2013, the above has become obsolete. SkyDrive Pro is now the way to sync files from SharePoint Online to your Windows 7 or 8 desktop. Read more here.
The new Office 365 Service Descriptions can be easily accessed in your favorite browser; just type office365sd.com in the address box, and you'll get a full list of service descriptions.
Each service description will give you tables comparing features across plans, making it easier to pick the plan that suits your needs the best. To provide an easy, visual overview I've compiled the below table comparing Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Lync Online across the P, M, and E plans.
In the table I'm using these abbriviations for the plans
...and this Color coding visualizing whether a feature is included in the plan or not
Table: Comparing Exchange, SharePoint, and Lync Online across the P, M, and E (and K) plans
(click here to get the source Excel file if you need to do filtering or other tasks)
In the E-plan you can opt to subscibe to various available add-ons, e.g.
Many are asking if they can make use of centralized auto signatures in Exchange Online in Office 365. The answer is yes - and its done using Disclaimers.
To automatically apply disclaimers to e-mail messages, you use Transport Rules. You create Transport Rules in the Exchange Control Panel - just click Manage My Organization > Mail Control > Rules and start building the desired rule.
Clicking New will present you with a dialog in which you can specify that you want the new rule to fire on all messages and you want it to append a disclaimer to evey message.
Next up is specifying the appropriate text in the disclaimer. The disclaimer text can include HTML tags and you can add user attributes to disclaimers. For example, you can add DisplayName, FirstName, LastName, Department, and Company to create personalized signatures. Here is an example of a (very) basic disclaimer:
DisplayName
FirstName
LastName
Department
Company
When the disclaimer is added to the message, the attribute names are replaced by the corresponding values from the sender's user account.
Testing the disclamer
Compose a message (with no signature to begin with - will be inserted by the transport rule)
The recipient sees the message with the signature inserted by the Transport Rule:
Here is more on how to build your own centralized auto signatures - Link
Bonus info: Loryan Stant (Office 365 MVP) elaborates a bit on the variables and an exception you can apply - link
If you are considering moving you data and documents to Office 365, you might wonder how you can perform the reverse operation - move data from Microsoft Online Services to file shares or to a local computer (called off-boarding). In this version of Microsoft Online Services, this is a manual process using the “Connect & Export” section of the Ribbon in SharePoint Online. This section is contextual and will be slightly different depending if you are in a Document Library:
or in a List:
or in a Calendar, Contact list a.s.o
So - which commands to use when? Below you’ll find a table listing which commands you can use to save a SharePoint document library or list content from a SharePoint Online environment to file shares, or to a local computer.
SharePoint Online Element
Backup Using
Ribbon Command
Calendars
Outlook
Connect to Outlook
Contacts
Discussion Lists
Document Libraries
SharePoint Workspace
Sync to SharePoint Workspace
Windows Explorer
Open with Explorer
List Content
Access
Open with Access
Excel
Export to Spreadsheet
Tasks
You need to be owner of the content or administrator to perform the above actions. Furthermore you must be aware of a couple of known limitations when it comes to downloading documents and exporting lists.
SharePoint document libraries can contain many different types of files and SharePoint maintains information about each file that it stores. Most of this other information is not preserved when files are downloaded. For example, the following information is not preserved when a file is downloaded using Outlook or Explorer:
Lists
SharePoint list content must be exported to Office Excel or to an Access database. Simple lists can be exported to Excel. However, if the content of a single cell exceeds Excel’s maximum cell size limit (32,767 characters), the information that exceeds that maximum is lost. If your lists contain large cells, you should export to Access.
SharePoint lists are used to host complex data like Wikis and Blogs. These complex data forms consist of several tables. For example, Blog tables are: Categories, Posts, Comments, Links, and Other Blogs. For the best results, export Wikis and Blogs to Access. When exported to Access, each of these tables is exported correctly, but all properties, permissions, and relationships between tables and contents are lost.
Sites
You can save your SharePoint Online site (including lists, views, workflows, logos, and other elements) as a template. You can also choose to include the contents of the site in the template.
By using this method, the template you create will contain the same files (for instance, the same .PDFs, .docx, and .xlsx files) as were on the site from which the template was made, up to a limit of 50 MB.
Attempt to create a template of a site and include greater than 50 MB of content will result in an error message stating “Error creating solution. The maximum total file size limit (52428800 bytes) has been exceeded.”
See the article "Save a SharePoint Online site as a template" - link for details.
For reasons of their own, some users create Inbox rules to auto-forward their work mails to their private mail or other external domains. As an administrator thats not necessarily at desired scenario.
To prevent internal users from auto-forwaring mails to external recipients you can create a Transport Rule.
Log into the Microsoft Online Portal, and navigate to the Exchange Online Control Panel (ECP)
In the dialog "New Rule", clicking ”More Options” …
...will enable adding more conditions
After clicking ”Add Condition” twice you have a triple AND-condition
For the first condition, in the "If..." section pick ”the sender….” and then ”is external/internal”
In the ”Select Scope” dialog pick ”Inside the organisation”
For the second condition repeat the above with ”the recipient…” and then ”is external/internal” and then ”Outside the organisation”
For the third and final condition pick ”the message properties…” and then ”include the message type”
In the ”Select Message Type” dialog pick ”Auto-forward”
Finally set the Action to be taken if the above condition is met. Under the ”Do the following….” click ”Add Action”
Pick ”Block the message…” and then ”Reject the message and include an explanation”
If the conditions are met and the message is rejected, a non-delivery report (NDR) is returned to the sender. You can create customized text, which appears in the NDR, to explain why a message was rejected (e.g. Auto-forwarding from internal to external is blocked)
Optional – name the rule
Click Save to save the rule.
You probably heard by now. Office 2003 isn’t on the supported software list for Office 365. We suggest that all Office 2003 customers upgrade to Office Pro Plus a.k.a. OPP which is the subscription based version of Office 2010 (or purchase Office 2010 itself) for the best user client experience with Office 365.
Plenty of documents exists describing why OPP is the recommended client for the best client server/services experience, e.g. the whitepaper “Business Productivity at Its Best” (from 2009, when Lync was OCS).
Current owners of Office 2003 looking at OPP in Office 365 might ask – what differences would be worth a look in terms of building a business case for upgrading to OPP? With the newest servers (or rather services) available through Office 365 what will my client/Services experience be on my unsupported Office 2003 if I decide to remain on Office 2003 ?
Below you will find my personal notes on what productivity experience elements would be worth a look in terms of the Office 2003 client/Office365 service integration, service by service. The list is by no means exhaustive, but is merely an expression of my current understanding.
Updates
SharePoint
Topic
2003 experience
Access 2003 provides a limited ability to integrate Access databases with SharePoint sites. Individual tables can be exported to SharePoint sites (no link is maintained). Individual SharePoint lists can be linked into Access 2003 databases.
Access 2003 does not support the new data types introduced in SharePoint nor does it have the ability to take this data offline. Integration process is cumbersome and no ability to move entire database to SharePoint site in one step. As a result, Access databases remain isolated on the individual desktop where they create business risks because they are unmanaged.
Excel Services requires spreadsheets to be in Office Open XML formats (.XLSX). Users must save the spreadsheet they have created in the .XLSX format before uploading it to the Excel Services site. This process must be done “manually” and is somewhat cumbersome.
Excel 2003 does not support the ability to control which portions or components of the spreadsheet will display.
For example if a workbook has multiple spreadsheets, one of which might have confidential information, there is no way to prevent it from displaying on SharePoint site. (You need a newer Excel client to control component visibility when publishing the workbook)
Likewise, the Excel 2003 client does not enable specification of input (or parameter) cells
Groove
Integrating Groove 3.1 and SharePoint document libraries can be done in a limited fashion. Files residing in a SharePoint document library can be added to the Groove 3.1 workspace. No synchronization service is provided between the Groove workspace and the SharePoint document library and the files quickly can get out of sync.
(not sure about the SPO 2010 story – would expect no integration at all)
InfoPath
Once a form has been published to a SharePoint forms library a link to the library can be sent to individuals.
The challenge for these individuals is that they must learn the process of filling out a form in a forms library. (And they must have InfoPath installed on their PC).
To fill out the form they must click on the “new” button on the SharePoint site. This launches InfoPath 2003 in which the form can be completed. Saving the form populates the fields in the list on the SharePoint site. This unfamiliar process can be daunting for users and decrease the likelihood that the process will be used consistently.
With InfoPath 2003 forms cannot be published to SharePoint for browser based completion.
The major issues with Outlook 2003 integration with SharePoint calendars is that only read-only access is provided. The process of connecting a SharePoint calendar is straightforward but the side-by-side viewing mode is not as user-friendly as it could be. Any changes to the SharePoint calendars must be done on the SharePoint site. The inconvenience of this process (having to leave Outlook) reduces the attractiveness of SharePoint calendaring to users and reduces adoption
No ability to copy contents of SharePoint Server lists and libraries for offline access in Outlook folders. Basically the offline experience in Office 2003 is way below whats seen in Office Pro Plus.
PowerPoint
No ability to publish slides to server where they can be easily shared, access slides on Slide Library from within PowerPoint, receive notification if slide on server changes.
Exchange
Outlook 2003 was designed and built for an environment where servers are maintained locally within an organization and not part of a cloud service. Outlook 2003 does not support features and functionality that depend on the re-architected identity infrastructure and newer server architecture available in Office 365. Given these changes, Outlook 2003 cannot provide an acceptable end-user experience when connected to Office 365
Outlook 2003 access via POP/IMAP is technically possible but also not supported. If Outlook 2003 customers call for support, they will be advised to upgrade to a later version of Office. If they choose to remain on Outlook 2003 via POP/IMAP, they will not get calendar support, free/busy information, Global Address List, push e-mail, and many other features most people consider essential to the Outlook experience.
Update March 23, 2012: "Office 365 will now support POP and IMAP Connections to Outlook 2003" - link. Please be aware of the limitations compared to MAPI and OWA in Outlook 2007 and 2010 (see table below)
Note that the “Microsoft Exchange Online Connector for Office Outlook 2003” (enables free/busy lookups and offline address book downloads) only works with BPOS – NOT Office 365
Lync
In a spreadsheet with smart tags enabled you can see a persons availability and contact card
No ability to Share Now and Send by IM (exposed by Ribbon in 2010)
In the email From box you can see a persons Presence and Contact menu. Presence status in the Microsoft Outlook To and Cc fields appears on hover
No Reply with conference call from the availability menu
No Presence status in a meeting request on the Scheduling Assistant tab
No Reply with IM, or call from the toolbar or ribbon in a received email
Word
In a document with smart tags enabled you can see a persons availability and contact card
Of course all of the above has to be contrasted with the OPP experience. If you do not yet subscribe to Office 365 I encourage you to sign up for a trial and experience for yourself (e.g by following this Office 365 Trial Guide)
In case you missed it - four new draft courses now published to Microsoft Dynamics Readiness and Training (PartnerSource)
Start preparing for those CRM 2013 certifications now - your certifications is a very valuable asset to you and your company.
For updated links (since the original post above) please see this post:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2014/02/27/train-and-certify-for-crm-2013-moc.aspx
One of the most requested features in SharePoint Online in Office 365 is mail-enabled document libraries.
In the next major update to Office 365 - currently in Preview and called "Office 365 Preview" - we will bring you what is called Site Mailboxes.
A Site Mailbox is a shared inbox in Exchange Online that all the members of a SharePoint Online site can access. It is implemented in SharePoint Online Preview as what is known as an app. An app is best described as a solution that carries a light footprint and uses standards-based technologies such as HTML5, JavaScript, and OAuth.
The Site Mailbox is accessible from the site in which it is created. It allow access to users who are individually listed in the Owners and Members groups of the site - security groups or distribution lists are not supported by Site Mailboxes. The email address of the site mailbox will be generated automatically from the name of the site.
Site mailboxes are surfaced in Outlook 2013 and give you easy access to the emails and documents for the projects you care about. Site Mailboxes are listed in the Folder Explorer in Outlook 2013 (the rich client), letting you file emails or documents into the shared project space simply by dragging the email, document, or attachment into the site mailbox.
You will not see your site mailboxes when you sign into your mailbox with Outlook Web App. However, if you are in the default owners or members lists of the site you can use the Site Mailbox app to see an OWA web part that displays the messages in that site mailbox.
To set up a Site Mailbox for at site
1. Log into Office 365 Preview, click "Sites" in the top navigation bar and then click "new site"
2. Type the name of your new site, e.g TheMailHeavySite...
3. Click “Keep email in context” to install a brand new app called “Site Mailbox”...
4, Click the "Add" button to install the app...
5. Click the newly installed "Site Mailbox" app to create the shared mailbox and make it accessible on your site...
The mailbox is being setup...
6. Select your prefered language and time zone...
The mailbox is ready, complete with a mail listing the email address of the mailbox - in this example TheMailHeavySite@modernoffice.onmicrosoft.com since my trial domain is modernoffice.onmicrosoft.com. People can now send mail to the site using that email address.
Back on the site home page you and other site members can access the newly created mailbox using the link created under the header "Recent" or by clicking "Keep email in contect"
If you open Outlook 2013 you will see the Site Mailbox(es) you are a member of listed in the lower left corner of the Folder Explorer in Outlook. Under each Site Mailbox a subfolder called "Documents" exists. You can drag attachments from any email to these "Documents" subfolders and they are automatically uploaded to the corresponding document library "Documents" in the SharePoint Online site to which the Site Mailbox is related.
To learn much more about Site Mailboxes please see the newly published blog post by the Exchange Team "Site Mailboxes in the new Office".
The long awaited standalone SkyDrive Pro sync client has just been released!
The standalone SkyDrive Pro sync client allows users of SharePoint 2013 and SharePoint Online in Office 365 to sync their personal SkyDrive Pro and any SharePoint 2013 or Office 365 team site document libraries to their local machine for access to important content on and offline.
Until the release of the standalone version you would need an installed Office 365 Pro Plus, Office 365 Small Business Premium, or Office Professional Plus 2013 client on your PC in order to be able to sync SharePoint files to your desktop.
The SkyDrive Pro client can be installed side-by-side with previous versions of Office (Office 2010, Office 2007, etc)
Read more on the SharePoint Team blog here. You can download the standalone SkyDrive Pro sync client here
Updated March 27, 2012
One of the very popular features of Exchange Online in Office 365 is the ability to create Shared Mailboxes. In Exchange Online you are free to create as many Shared Mailboxes you like. A Shared Mailbox smaller than 5GB in size do not require a license.
Many customers will want to have one or more shared mailboxes for e.g. info@company.com, reception@hotel.com types of purposes etc.
From a user perspective it's easiest if the shared mailbox is accessible from the users own mailbox, and the ability to drag and drop mail items beetween folders is preserved. This is default behavior in Outlook 2010. But what if the user is using his/her Outlook Web App (OWA) for working with mails?
In OWA two methods exists for opening other users folders:
Each has its advantages and disadvantages.
Method 1: Explicit logon
It will open the Shared Mailbox in a new window and you cannot drag and drop mails between the two windows. But the subfolders of the Mailbox's Inbox are visible and you can drag mails from the Inbox to its subfolders.
To open a Mailbox using Explicit logon:
1. Click your name in the top right corner of Outlook Web App
2. Type the alias of the Shared Mailbox
3. The Shared Mailbox opens in a new window. No drag and drop capabilities between your Inbox and the Shared Mailbox
Method 2: Mailbox Delegate Access
It will open the Inbox in the same browser window and you can drag and drop mail items between your folders and the Inbox of the Mailbox. But the subfolders of the Inbox are not visible.
To open a Mailbox (Inbox) using Mailbox Delegate Access:
1. Right click your name in the Folder list (your mailbox) to the left and click Open Other User's Inbox...
3. The Shared Mailbox opens below your primary mailbox in the Folder list
4. AND you can drag and drop mail from your Inbox...
... to the Shared Mailbox (and vice versa)
Best of both
So what to do if you'd like to have the best of both methods? Being able to drag a mail from your inbox to a subfolder of a Shared Mailbox's Inbox. Well - for now you will need to do a litte tab juggling in you browser.
You now have a working environment - you can drag emails from your Inbox to the Shared Mailbox (Inbox) in the first tab...
... and you can drag mails from the Shared Mailbox (Inbox) to its subfolders in the second tab
I hope this will serve as an inspiration to you for using Shared Mailboxes even if you are not using Outlook 2010 - the browser experience is quite userfriendly too :-)
** Feel free to chime in (comment) if you have suggestions to the Product Group for future feature updates **
If you are looking for a comparison between the P1 plan and the E plans in Office 365 you might find this table of notes helpful.
Please note that the table is without responsibility. It is compiled by myself and might not be accurate at the time you read it (things change). It should only be used as an inspiration as to which features you might want to take into considerations when comparing the P plan to the E plans.
Change log
Feature
Plan P
Plan E
Service*
Notes
AD synchronization
No
Yes
365
P plan customers are limited to managing their users in the Cloud Admin Interface. Many small businesses have Active Directory due to the success of the Small Business Server product line. E Plan subscribers can use the directory synchronization tool to replicate users, contacts, distribution lists, and other objects into Office 365 - P1 Plan users cannot. If you want directory synchronization, you must purchase an E plan.
Fee When Cancelling Subscription
Yes (see note)
Cancellations within the first 30 days are allowed at no fee (P plan is based on monthly payments, E on a 12-month subscription term). Cancellations within the last 11 months of the subscription term are allowed. You will be responsible for paying 25% of the remaining value of your subscription - see the Purchase and Support Guide for more - link
Combine w/ K plan
A combination of E and K workers might be less of a cost than all users on P (a 25 user scenario all on P compared to a 5 user on E1 and 20 on K1 will actually save 14%)
Domain Management
DNS manager on the Office 365 Admin page
Domain registrar, or on premises
A few but important differences exists in how you work with domains, set up public facing websites etc, in a P compared to an E subscription - link
Max # Org Users
50
“No” limit
If you plan to grow beyond 50 people you should not opt for the P plan. You can not switch from P1 to E plan.
Phone support
P plan customers in need of support will have to search for answers on the Community section of their Office 365 portal (or call their partner if they have a support agreement)
Single Sign On
With single sign on the customer need only to provide the domain password
Administer AV/AS
EXO
Administer FOPE (white list, black list)
IRM/RMS
IRM provides online and offline protection of e-mail messages and supported attachments. IRM protection can be applied by users in Outlook or Outlook Web App, and it can be applied by administrators using transport protection rules and Outlook protection rules. IRM helps administrators and users control who can access, forward, print, or copy sensitive data within e-mail messages. Note that IRM requires that you have an Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS) server deployed in your on-premises organization
Direct Offboarding/deprovisioning
The ability to do direct offboarding to Exchange 2003 or 2007 or 2010 on-premises (requires Exchange 2010 CAS server)
Recipient Rate Limits
500
1500
The maximum number of recipients that can receive e-mail messages sent from a single cloud-based mailbox in a 24 hour period - see "Understanding Recipient Rate Limits"
1/6/12 - in December 2011 the P1 plan increased from 500 to 1500 - link
Rich coexistence (Hybrid)
If you already have an Exchange Server on prem and needs to maintain some of the users there
Transport Rules
Transport rules let you control the flow of and apply messaging policies to e-mail messages sent within your organization and sent in to and out of your organization. Using transport rules, administrators can define specific message attributes, or conditions, and the actions to apply to any message that contain those attributes. For example, you can use transport rules append a disclaimer to message sent outside your organization or prevent e-mail communication between specific groups of users. Transport protection rules let you use transport rules to IRM-protect messages by applying an AD RMS rights policy template.
Disclamers - see this article
Journaling
Journaling can help your organization respond to legal, regulatory, and organizational compliance requirements by recording inbound and outbound e-mail communications. Journal rules are used to record, or "journal", the e-mail messages sent to or from specific recipients. When a message matches the criteria defined by the journal rule, a journal report that contains the original message is generated and sent to a journaling mailbox
Litigation Hold
Yes (E3/4)
You can put a litigation hold, also known as legal hold, on a mailbox to preserve e-mail messages and other mail items for an extended period. Litigation hold also prevents items from being permanently deleted. When a user's mailbox is put on litigation hold, the user can purge items from their mailbox but the items are retained indefinitely on the servers in the Microsoft datacenter. Litigation hold also maintains the version history for items that are modified
Multi-Mailbox Search
Discovery harnesses Multi-Mailbox Search, a GUI-based tool that allows legal and human resource professionals and other discovery managers to search primary and archive mailboxes across your organization for messages that match specified criteria. Because discovery searches don’t require full administrative permissions, you can assign regular users the necessary permissions to search mailboxes and limit the scope of mailboxes that a person can search. The results of a multi-mailbox search can be printed or exported to a .PST file by using Microsoft Outlook.
Personal Archive
Yes Combined total size of 25 GB for primary and archive mailboxes
Yes Combined total size of 25 GB for primary and archive mailboxes for E1/2* 100 GB default quota for E3/4**
You can create an archive mailbox, called a personal archive, for a user's primary cloud-based mailbox. Users can use the archive mailbox to store historical messaging data by moving or copying messages from their primary mailbox to their archive mailbox. Administrators and users can use MRM (Messaging records management) features to automatically move messages that reach a certain age to the archive mailbox. Because items in a user’s archive mailbox are indexed, archive mailboxes are included in a multi-mailbox search
*E1/2 will be able to add compliance archive to the subscription as an add-on
**a default quota of 100 GB is set on the personal archive, which will generally accommodate reasonable use, including the import of one user’s historical email. In the unlikely event that a user reaches this quota, a call to Office 365 support is required. Administrators cannot adjust this quota upward or downward.
No option to add compliance archive to P plan
Unified Messaging
Voice Mail in the Inbox (no need to call up the voice mail service from your phone)
Lync Rich Client
E3/4 rich client via OPP
LYN
A limited time offer gives one licensed copy of Lync 2010 at no cost to every trial or paid E1, E2 and Lync Online standalone subscription license.
Online Meetings # participants
50250
250
Online meetings – e.g. product presentations/launches
2/24/12 updated to 250 for P also - link
Integration with Messenger
(Temporarily removed)
Temporarily removed to avoid users using vanity or custom domain (i.e. yourcompanyname.com) with both Office 365 and Messenger being unable to access their Messenger accounts.
Microsoft Support will post updates to this article
Office Web Apps
Yes – but no editing in E1
OfWA
The Office Web Apps in the E1 plan only allows for read only access to the documents
# Site Collections
1
300
SPO
If you have projects that need to be isolated from each other, you should create separate site collections for them. For example, it might make sense for the engineering department to have a site collection that’s separated from the legal department.
Each site within a site collection shares attributes inherited from the site collection such as templates that can be applied, permissions, and other settings that flow down from the site collection to the sites.
Having one site collection will probably not create a large impact for most small businesses of 25 users or less. Multiple site collections are useful when unique teams want their own workspace and separate security settings. You can still control security within sites, but there are considerations to manage, such as giving external users access to sites, which can give them access to the entire site collection.
Access Services
Yes*
P plan customers can publish Microsoft Access databases to SharePoint Online and share them with other users. Reduce database versioning problems, and simplify deployment of Access forms and reports, while reducing governance risks.
*E1 and E2 users are not allowed to access Enterprise Features of SPO, whereas E3 and E4 users can build and visit Access-based webpages
The missing InfoPath option in P can be mitigated by the Access Forms options
Buy Additional SPO storage
You may need more storage at some point in time. On the E plan you can purchase extra storage up to 5 TB 25 TB in total. P1 limited to 35GB.
3/8/12 updated to 25 TB
See also: Understanding storage allocation in SharePoint Online
Communities Capability (Tags, Ratings and more)
No*
The ability to tag content (metadata) and rate content for easy discovery
*most features unavailable, but blogs and wikis supported, see: Comparing features in SharePoint Online across Office 365 Service Plans for more
Dual Rights
E plan users are licensed to access information on on-premises SharePoint servers (important in hybrid scenarios).
Whitepaper: "Hybrid SharePoint Environments with Office 365" - link
Enterprise Features like Forms Services, Excel Services, and Visio Services as well as Business Connectivity Services (BCS)
Many business productivity scenarios opens up with the Enterprise capabilities (Electronic Forms for e.g. Timeregistration, simple BI like performance indicators, process support like Workflows and Workflow visualization)
*E1 and E2 users are not allowed to access Enterprise Features of SPO. E3 and E4 users can view and upload Visio diagram, build and view embedded Excel graphs and create/publish, fill in and submit InfoPath forms.
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint Online enables customers to connect to external data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints in both read and write modes (implemented in SPO Nov 2011) - link
See also: Comparing features in SharePoint Online across Office 365 Service Plans
Number of free Partner Access Licenses (PALs, "External Users")
no ability to increase cap
10,000
ability to increase cap
The "Extranet" capability is very attractive to many Office 365 customers.
The P plan does not include the ability to increase the cap beyond 500 PALs.
My Site
The My Site can be positioned as “your new C: drive – a central yet private location for your personal documents”.
SSL
SSL encrypts the traffic between your computer and the Microsoft data center hosting SharePoint Online. Since SSL is not available with SharePoint Online in the P1 plan, documents you transmit to and from the Microsoft data center are transmitted “in the clear”. This may be an important consideration in your choice of plans.
In addition, the unavailability of SSL affects several SharePoint Online features :
More information here under the heading “Plan for SSL considerations”
Built-in Workflows
5
The Three-state workflow is built into both plans
The following four workflows are built into the E plan, but are not supported in the P plan: Approval, Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures, Disposition Approval
See also: About the workflows included with SharePoint
Workflow Actions
Some Unsupported
You can create and customize workflows in SharePoint Designer. The following workflow actions are not supported in the P plan:Start Document Set Approval Process, Capture a Version of a Document Set, Send Document Set to Repository, Set Content Approval Status of the Document Set, Start Approval Process, Start Feedback Process, Start Custom Task Process, Declare Record, Undeclare Record, Lookup Manager of a User, End Task Process, Set Content Approval Status (as author), Wait for Change in Task Process Item, Set Task Field, Rescind Task, Append Task, Delegate Task, Escalate Task, Forward Task, Insert Task, Reassign Task, Request a Change, Send Task Email - link. No workaround is available.
To use these SharePoint workflow actions, you must have the E plan - link
Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 List Component for SharePoint
No support for Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2011 List Component for SharePoint in the P plan
In the E plans Sharepoint Online supports full integration as well allowing document management of your CRM created customers/contacts to be held within your Sharepoint online site
*service: SPO = SharePoint Online, EXO = Exchange Online, LYN = Lync Online, OfWA = Office Web Apps, 365 = Office 365
One of the great features available in the upcoming CRM for Tablets is the ability to execute a Quick Find query across multiple entities at once. Quick Find is a core feature of Microsoft Dynamics CRM that has been available since version 1 of CRM.
In the web application and Microsoft Dynamics CRM Client for Office Outlook, you are currently able to search against one entity at a time.
The ability to search across multiple entities at once is new with this release and is currently only available within CRM for Tablets. When you perform a multi-entity Quick Find, results are grouped by entity and sorted by the order specified in the Quick Find View for the entity.
It is important to understand that this feature uses the underlying Quick Find feature. The only thing that is different is the ability for the app to submit multiple Quick Find queries that are processed in parallel. The results returned for each entity would be the same as if you performed that same Quick Find search for the entity in the web application.
As with any Quick Find query the generated query uses a “starts with” condition. For example: If you search for “Vestas”, it would return any results where the searchable columns were found to match records that started with those characters.
Example 1: Multi-Entity Quick Find
In this example I have an Account ('Vestas Wind Systems') with one Contact ('Villy Vindfang') and one Opportunity ('Stormende CRM') associated to it
If I switch to my CRM for Tablets app, and hit the Search icon, I get the Seach page and can start typing what to seach for. In my example I'm looking for what I have on 'Vestas'
You see that I get results from three entities; Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities
If I start a search from the dashboard, the search will default to search across all entities enabled for multi-entity Quick Find. If I'm are viewing a form or grid for a certain entity (ex. Account) and then I start a search, the search will default to filter based on that entity type.
In the upper-right corner of the application I get a drop-down field to change the current entity filter. I can choose to search against a specific entity or choose 'None' to search against all entities enabled for multi-entity Quick Find.
In the "Filter With" drop down I can select to filter on single entities, eg. Opportunity
I get the Opportunity 'Stormende CRM'
Example 2: configuring Quick Find
Out of the Box I wouldn't have had a hit on Opportunities (when searching for 'Vestas') since the word 'Vestas' isnt found in the Opportunity Title ('Stormende CRM'). The reason why I *am* getting a hit is that I've configured the Quick Find Columns for the Opportunity entity to include the associated Account also.
To do that I go to Settings -> Entities -> Opportunity -> Views and double-click the view 'Quick Find Open Opportunities'
In the View I click Add Find Columns
In the Add Find Columns I check the checkbox next to 'Account', click OK and then Publish Customizations
With the above configurations I'm searching the Accounts also for Opportunities from now on.
Search Configuration
Seven entities are enabled for multi-entity Quick Find by default. The default list of entities include:
If you are a System Administrator or System Customizer, you can customize which entities are available in your organization. You can enable a maximum of 10 entities for multi-entity Quick Find.
Example 3: Adding Entities to the Search
In this example I will add the Note entity to the search
I navigate to Settings
I open System Settings under Administration
On the tab "General" I scroll down to the area "Set up Quick Find". I make sure that Yes is selected, and then click the Select button
In the "Set up Multi-Entity Quick Find for Default Search" dialog I select Note in the list of 'Available Entities', and the click the Add button
The Note entity is now added to the 'Selected Entities' list, ie the entitites that will appear in the multi-entity Quick Find results.
You can select entities from the Available Entities list and add them to the Selected Entities list by using the Add button. Similarly you can select entities from the Selected Entities list and use the Remove button to prevent an entity from appearing in multi-entity Quick Find results. You can select entities in the Selected Entities list and use the Move Up or Move Down buttons to change the order of the entities that appear in multi-entity Quick Find results.
This change to the number of entities searched (done in the web client) wont be applied to the CRM for Tablets app automatically. However, next time you open the app, you'll have the option to download the changes to the Server Configuration.
Click the Download button
Once the changes are downloaded to your app, you'll be able to search Notes
To test I create a new note
I'm giving the note a title of 'Vestas Vinder'
And sure enough, I now get at fourth column in my search results - I'm not only getting search results from the entites Accounts, Contacts and Opportunities - I'm also now getting results from the entity Note
I hope you will get bundles of joy from the new Multi-Entity Quick Find feature available for CRM for Tablets (Windows 8, Windows RT and iPad)
Disclaimer
"Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" is a pre-release product under development. The information in this blog post represents my personal understanding and expectations as of the date of this blog post. All pre-release product release dates and features specified are preliminary based on current expectations, and are subject to change without notice.
In Microsoft CRM you can define and enforce consistent business processes. Consistent processes helps you focus on your work and not on remembering to perform a set of manual steps.
Processes can be simple or complex and they should be expected to change over time. Microsoft CRM provides several options to define your processes. Its important to understand how you can use each type to get the results you need.
Processes are designed to be used by people who are not developers. The rules defined within processes contain similar logic that a developer may apply using code, but you don’t need to call in a developer each time you want to change the rules. However, you do need to have a clear understanding of the logic in the rules you want to apply and understand the capabilities of each type of process.
There are four categories of processes you can utilize in CRM 2013:
Workflows Automate business processes behind the scenes. Workflows are typically initiated by system events so the user does not need to be aware that they are running, but they can also be configured for people to manually initiate them. Workflows can operate in the background (asynchronously) or in real-time (synchronously). These are referred to separately as background workflows or real-time workflows.
Dialogs Create a user interface that will guide people through a script for customer interaction or a wizard to perform complex actions consistently.
Actions Expand the vocabulary available for developers to express business processes. With core verbs like Create, Update, Delete, and Assign provided by the system, an Action uses those core verbs to create more expressive verbs like Approve, Escalate, Route, or Schedule. If the definition of a business process changes, someone who is not a developer can edit the Action so the code does not need to be changed.
Business Process Flows Use Business process flows to define the steps in which people should enter data to achieve an outcome. Business process flows add a control to the top of a form that will show people what data they need to enter in order to move forward to the next stage and ultimately to completion of a business process. A business process flow can span multiple entities.
Comparing Workflows, Dialogs and Actions
Processes other than business process flows can check conditions, apply branching logic and perform actions. They perform these actions in a series of steps. Business Process Flows contain stages and control advancement to stages, but they do not provide any of the other capabilities. The following table compares the available steps in Workflow, Dialog, and Action processes (see details for each row below the table):
Orange = Background Workflow Only
Details:
Business Process Flows
In CRM 2013, a process-driven approach of solving problems is being advocated, where processes act as proactive elements in the system that guide users about the next steps and help navigate different flows to achieve a desired outcome.
At the top of updated forms you can see a process flow control that provides a guide for you to get your work done.
The process flow control provides a streamlined experience that ties data entry with stages in the lifecycle of the record.
Business process flows provide a streamlined user experience that leads you through the processes your organization has defined for interactions that need to be advanced to a conclusion of some kind. This user experience can be tailored so that people with different security roles can have an experience that best suits the work they do.
Business process flows can
The main principle behind business process flows is to guide you to achieve specific goals and help you understand the following:
Single or Multiple Entities
A business process flow in CRM 2013 can be used for a single entity or span multiple entities. For example, you may have a process that begins with an Opportunity, then continues to a Quote, an Order, and then an Invoice before finally returning to close the Opportunity.
Stages and Steps
With Business process flows you define a set of Stages and Steps which are then displayed in a control at the top of the form. Each Stage contains a group of steps. Each step represents a field where data can be entered. You can advance to the next stage using the Next Stage button. You can also make a step required so that users must enter data for the corresponding field before they can proceed to the next stage. This is commonly called ‘stage-gating’.
Security Roles and Switching Processes
You can associate business process flows with security roles so that only people with those security roles can see or use them. You can also order the business process flows so that you can control which business process flow will be set by default. This works in the same way that multiple forms for an entity are defined.
When someone creates a new entity record, the list of available activated business process flows is compared to the business processes flows that the person’s security role will show them. The first activated business process flow in that list is the one that will be applied by default. If more than one active business process flow is available you can chose Switch Process from the command bar to apply a different process. Whenever someone switches processes, the current process stage will be set to the first stage of the newly applied business process flow.
I hope you get a picture of the breadth and depth of the process support in CRM 2013, and how it can be applied to help you focus on your work.
In CRM 2013 you can do client side scripting without knowing anything about JavaScript!
We are introducing a simple declarative interface to help you implement and maintain your fast changing, commonly used business rules. The rules will be applied to Main and Quick Create forms for the web application, Outlook and CRM for Tablets.Thats why we call them Portable.
Business rules are designed to allow you - even if you have no programming experience - to create client side scripting to run on forms. You will use a business rule editor to create and modify these Business Rules through the UI (Solution Explorer: Settings -> Customizations -> Customize the system -> [ENTITY] -> Business Rules)The code behind the rules you create in the editor are bound by the client SDK and this will help reduce unsupported client customizations. Also, they are built on top of workflow infrastructure.
Conditions and Actions
Business rules consist of a collection of conditions and actions that can be used to enforce simple business logic of an organization.Conditions consist of a field, operator and operand (value, type or expression) that make up a logical statement that evaluates to true or false. If all the conditions of a rule evaluate to true, then the actions are executed.
What you can do with Actions
A subset of the capabilities provided by form scripts are available via the following Actions:
Validate data and show error message rules
Show or Hide a field rules
Enable or disable field rules
Set field value rules
Set field requirement rules
Configuring Conditions
To add a condition, click the "+" icon and a new condition row will appear with default values set. Type in the field name to set the Field and then choose the appropriate Operator (see later). Operator options will change depending on the data type of the field.
You can chose three different types of conditions:
When you are finished entering or editing the rule, click the check mark icon to save it or the (X) icon to remove it.
Expressions
To illustrate the above I've created an example. In this example I create an entity ("Showcase") with the sole purpose of helping me do automatic calculations if I so choose.
If I pick Yes in a custom two option field "DoTheMath" my Business Rule will add the value I write in a custom whole number field "FirstInteger" to the value I write a custom whole number field "SecondInteger" and place the result in a custom field "Result".
The defailt view for my new entity I call "Calculations"
Fig 1: Two records, note the last record in which my rule has done the math for me
Fig 2: I expose the new entity in the UI
How its set up
I create a custom entity, and I select where I want to access it from - which modules in CRM
Fig 3: The entity is available to me from several modules
I also want to expose the entity in CRM for Tablets as well (see later) so I check the "CRM for Tablets" checkbox under the "Outlook and Mobile" section
Fig 4: Important to check the "CRM for Tablets" to expose the entity there
I create four fields
Fig 5: Four custom fields to my entity
I create a view with four extra columns corresponding to the four custom fields
Fig 6: custom view
I modify the main form to accomodate the custom fields
Fig 7: modified form
I add a new Business Rule using the "Business Rules" entry in the sitemap and the "New" button
Fig 8: Business Rules for my entity
My business rule "Calc This" is setup according to the screenshot below - if I have a "Yes" in the "DoTheMath" field AND values in the "FirstInteger" and "SecondInteger" fields, the rule will do the calculation for me
Fig 9: conditions and action in the business rule
Note that when I pick the "DoTheMath" field in field chooser to the left in the editor, and "Value" in the "Type" chooser, the "Yes/No" values corresponding to the type for the "DoTheMath" field is automatically made available in the condition
Fig 10: building the first part of the condition
I also want the "FirstInteger" and "SecondInteger" fields to contain data before calculations are done
Fig 11: adding AND conditions
Moving on to the Actions.
My rule should set the value of the field "Result", using a Formula ("FirstInteger" PLUS "SecondInteger").
First I pick "Result" in the Field chooser. Then I pick Formula in the Type chooser, to reveal a formula building block right below the Field/Type choosers.
In the formula building block I pick the field "FirstInteger", then the operator "+" and the type Field, which lets me pick the "SecondInteger" field in the lower rightmost Field chooser
Fig 12: Formula building block
I activate the rule and I'm ready to test the rule (remember to Activate - otherwise it won't fire)
Testing the rule, I pick "Yes" in the "DoTheMath" field and input numbers in the "FirstInteger" and "SecondInteger" field.
Fig 13: Testing the rule
If all conditions are met, the moment I click in any field (change focus) the rule will perform its action
Fig 14: The rule have fired as expected
If I pick "No" in the "DoTheMath" field, the rule shall do nothing (note: at this point you probably want to do more, eg. hide/clear the "Result" field - see how in this additional example)
Fig 15: No means no calculation
So the rule works as expected in the web client.
Remember I ticked the "CRM for Tablets" checkbox when I created the "Showcase" entity? I did that because I really like my new CRM for Tablets app, and I'd like to leverage my new entity "Showcase", including the business rule, in that app as well.
The default view in the CRM for Tablet app is the "Sales Dasboard", displaying six components ("My Activities", "My Open Opportunities" a.s.o)
Fig 16: Sales Dashboard in CRM for Tablets
In order to see my "Showcase" entity in the dashboard I'm going to replace the Lead component with my "Showcase" component.
To edit the "Sales Dashboard" shown in the CRM for Tablets I must go to the web client and customize the system dashboard "Sales Dashboard".
Fig 17: editiing the Sales Dashboard
The "Sales Dashboard" has the same limitations as all other Dashboards, including a limit of 6 components. I cannot 'just' add another component for my entity, so I click the component I want to edit (the component currently displaying "My Open Leads")
Fig 18: the component to edit is selected
I point the component to my custom "Showcase" entity
Fig 19: pointing the component to my custom entity
I check to see the changes has been saved and Publish
Fig 20: changes are saved
Next time I open my CRM for Tablets the server side configurations are downloaded and I now have my entity "Showcase" available to me in CRM for Tablets as well
Fig 21: Sales Dashboard now displays my entity
I can now create new records of the "Showcase" type using the Commandbar button New Record (to display the commandbar on tablet I swipe up from the bottom of the screen - or rightclick if using a mouse)
Fig 22: the 'New Record' button in Commandbar displays list of available entities, including my new entity
And sure enough (thats why we call it portable business logic) my rule works as expected in CRM for Tablets too
Fig 23: creating record
Fig 24: input values
Fig 25: business rule fired
I hope you agree with me that the Business Rules is a powerful addition to CRM for non-programmers - and I encourage you to give it a try yourself. You can easily create a 30 day free trial and give it a go. The CRM for Tablets app is free for licensed CRM users, and ready for you as well in selected online stores.
You might also want to check out the addition to this example - "Using Multiple Business Rules" to implement If-Then-Else logic (and some simple housekeeping).
Notes:
See also:
People who need to see or work with your SharePoint Online site content but who don’t have user accounts for your SharePoint Online environment are considered “external users.” External users might be vendors or customers, for example. With SharePoint Online, after you activate the sharing feature, you can invite an external user to your site just by sending them an email with an invitation (the invitation expires after one use).
Just follow the simple three steps in the article "Share a site with external users" to enable the sharing feature and then follow the steps in this article "Grant permissions for a site" to grant and restrict access to your site and content. This is called managing permissions and you do it by using security groups, which control membership, or by using fine-grained permissions, which help you control content at the item or document level.
The Office 365 terminology for external users is Partner Access Licenses (PALs). A PAL
Bonus Info
Monday July 8th Microsoft announced that the upcoming CRM Online 2013 subcriptions will come in three flavors
Since you'll be able to mix and match these subscriptions between your users, the flexibility will enable you to consume just the right subscriptions for the right users, at the right price.
The high-level comparison of user capabilities per subscription would look like this
To help you decide which subscriptions will fit which user profiles I've laid out how I would assume the Use Rights for the CRM entities and features will be distributed between these three subscriptions in the table below. Please note that the table represents my personal assumptions. Nothing is certain untill the general release.
About the Use Rights color coding:
Green = Full
Orange = For actions performed only against records corresponding to entities included in the use rights
Red = No
See also (requires access to PartnerSource)
Part of Microsoft Dynamics Marketings (MDM) Digital Asset Management system includes the ability for you to work with files, file folders, and file libraries.
In this blog post I'll talk about
File and Folder Structure
MDM includes powerful functions to help manage all types of electronic Files, including
MDM organizes files in a recursive folder structure the same way Windows does. The recursive folder structures enable you to create an unlimited number of folders within folders to facilitate organizing files.
MDM has two types of Folders
At the top of the file structure there is a root folder called "Files". This root folder contains all files and folders and cannot be deleted. MDM automatically creates a folder for each entity which can be accessed from the "Files" section of the entities dashboard or from within the "File" window.
The "File" Window
MDM stores all the files that marketing and creative teams need to do their jobs in one place, the "File" window. This enables files to be easily linked to the projects that use them or the jobs that created them.
To view files and folders through the "File" window in the main navigation panel
The "File" window will open in the folder you last worked with
The top of the window shows the path to the file folder being viewed (1). You can click any of the folders in the path to display the contents of that folder, or click the sections in the file navigation tree to display the contents of the folder selected. Click the arrows to the left of the folder to expand or collapse the navigation tree (2)
Files and folders can be displayed in a grid view, or you can use the display slide tool (3) to change the display to small or large thumbnails.
When you upload files, the system will create a thumbnail of the file (4). The thumbnails are small graphical representations of the file that are stored in the MDM database.
MDM can thumbnail many types of files including
Using Search to Find Files Across Folders
You can search for files directly or apply filters to help with navigation to find files.
Type your search string, eg "Nokia" and click Go
You see resulting files across folders
The "File Maintain" Page
When you click on a file in the "File" window or from the "Files" dashboard of the entity it is on, MDM will bring up the "File Maintain" page.
The "File Maintain" page displays metadata and icons for a uploading version etc
In the upper right corner of the page you'll see four check boxes (1)
The Icons in the upper right corner of the page allow you to quickly
Important:
Clicking the "Details" button (1) will expand the "Details" section in which you find additional fields and descriptive attribute sections about the file
The "Created By" and "Create Date" fields (2) are populated automatically based on the contact record of the user who uploaded it and the date and time it was uploaded.
The "File Location" field (3) is hard coded as the MDM Database.
You can enter in additional descriptions and attributes about the file, they are not generated automatically.
If comments have been added to the file (during the Markup process - see later below), an additional "Comments" button will be displayed below the "Details" button to allow you to expand and see comments made on the file.
The lower part of the File Dashboard include options to:
Note:
Version Control
MDM provides version control features to help protect files. Site-wide version control settings enable the MDM administrative user to require version control for all files stored in MDM.
Under Settings -> File Options, check the "Version Control" checkbox, and click Save or Submit. When version control is on for a file, MDM displays all the versions together on the File profile, so you can open and work with each version if necessary.
Once a version has been stored in MDM, the version cannot be changed or deleted. By preventing users from overwriting versions, MDM can ensure that there is a clear trail of changes that were made to each file and that files are not overwritten or modified accidentally.
If version control is turned off, MDM replaces the current version of the file with the new one. The old version is permanently deleted.
Important
Adding Files to Favorites
You can flag files as either "My Favorites" (1) or "Site Favorites" (2) for quick access to files that you frequently use (click the down arrow to expand the vertical toolbar)
You can also right click the file and mark it as a favorite
The "My Favorites" folder can also be accessed from the "Files" section of your Contact Dashboard.
When you flag a file as a "My Favorite", the file will be added to your "My Favorites" folder which can be accessed from the "File" window by clicking on the "View My" (1) button.
When you flag a file as a "Site Favorite", the file is added to the "Site Favorite Files" which can be added as a Widget to your Home Page.
Dragging and Dropping Files into Folders
You can upload files directly from your desktop to MDM by simply dragging and dropping them into a MDM file folder. Files can be added from within the "File" window, or by navigating directly to the "Files" section of the entity dashboard you want to add the file to.
Click the "Upload" icon (1) to display the "Upload" dialog
Navigate to the file in your Windows file system (1), drag the file to the "Upload" dialog (2) and click Upload (3)
The uploaded file now in the MDM folder
You can
Adding and Moving Files
Files that are already uploaded to MDM can be added to multiple folders within the "File" window as well by dragging and dropping the file into the new location in the folder tree.
Working with Folders in the "File Maintain" page
You can copy, move, and delete files using the "Folders" section of the "File Maintain" page
The "Add" icon will bring up a search box.
Marking Files Up
Once a file has been uploaded into MDM, you can add comments, shapes, boxes, circles, arrows, post it notes, etc. using visual tools right on top of the file.
If you click the "Process File" icon to thumbnail the file image and the file has been Marked Up, you will receive a warning notifying you that reprocessing the file image will permanently delete all Markup notes. You have the option to click OK to Process the file or Cancel to not process the file.
Click the "Mark Up" icon (1) to access the "Mark Up" screen for the file you want to mark up.
Or right click and click "MarkUp" directly in the "File" window
If the file you are going to mark up has multiple pages, a thumbnail image for each page is displayed.
You can only use the markup tools in the maximize view. Click the upper right corner of the image (1) to maximize or minimize the image.
The file name and version are listed at the top along with the "Mark Up" toolbar options.
Click on the dropdown next to the arrow to access the "Mark Up" tools available; comments, arrows, highlights, post it notes, callouts etc.
To mark up a file
Mark Uup comments are displayed in the "Comments" panel on the right side of the "Mark Up" page (1) with the user contact information that made them and the page they are on if there is more than one page.
A pushpin is seen in the picture (2) to indicate what part of the file the comment is regarding
Comments are in bold for the current page being viewed, comments made on other pages are greyed out to distinguish them.
The comments added to the "Mark Up" image are linked to the version of the file so that you can quickly see any comments that have been made in the "Comments" section of the "File Maintain" page.
You can click on the mark up comment to edit or view the comment.
There are several options for displaying mark up comments that can be applied from the toolbar on the "Mark Up" page. You can choose to set the view to
In the "View All" mode you can click on the "All" dropdown and select to only show comments made by specific users (in my example I'm the only editor):
The toolbar in the markup page lets you do a lot of thing with the file
Here is how a marked up file would look as a PDF. Comments will be displayed with icons (1) and you can display the text by clicking the icon (2)
Comments are also listed in the Comments section to the right (1)
Mass Updating Files
Users who have adequate security privileges can update multiple files in a single operation.
The "Mass Update" window is displayed:
Specify the changes you want applied to the selected files and click OK to update the files with the changes.
x
Working with Folders
MDM’s recursive Folder structure enables you to create an unlimited number of folders within folders to facilitate organization.
MDM has two types of folders
System folders are created automatically for each entity and can be accessed from the Files section of the entity dashboard or from within the File Window.
User folders are created by users and are created from within the system file folders or other user created file folders.
To create a file folder, from within a system folder in the file window or the "Files" section of an entity dashboard click the "New Folder" icon (1) to display the "Add – Folder" dialog
The folder "Name" field (1) is a required field. You can also enter a "Description" for the folder, the "Created By" and "Create Date" (2) will populated automatically based on the logged in user’s contact record and date and time that it was created.
Click Save to create the folder - and the "Security" access panel is displayed. Depending upon the user privileges in "Files" you can grant or remove "Can Read" and "Can Update" rights to the folder.
Click Submit and the file folder you created is displayed where it was created.
You can click on the folder to open it, or click on the name of the folder in the file structure. Click the "Properties" icon (2) to edit the folder and access the security panel for the file folder.
Working with Libraries
Libraries are folders that are outside of the MDM file folder structure, but inside of the MDM database
Libraries are used to create folders that can be published to the Internet or your Intranet so files that need to be made available to non-MDM users can be accessed from a public URL.
Libraries can only be created in two ways, from within
Creating Libraries from the Files Window
When created from within the "Files" window, libraries can be created either from the root of the File navigation tree, or from within existing Library folders. This way they are outside of the file folder Structure, but within the MDM database.
To create a new Library from within the "Files" window
If you check the "Publish" checkbox, a public library URL is created specific to that library and displayed at the top of the page (I've hidden most of the URL behind a black bar in the screenshot above). If a Library is not public, no URL is generated and it can only be accessed by a logged in user with the corresponding security privileges.
Users with the corresponding privileges and permissions can add files to library folders through the "Files" window by drag and drop or browse and upload.
When accessed through the "Files" window, the files in libraries are able to be uploaded, downloaded, and edited by users with corresponding security access in the same way as non-library Files.
When you click on a file in a library folder that is accessed from within the "Files" window, MDM displays that file in the main browser.
MDM organizes Libraries in a recursive Folder structure in the same way as the files folder structure. This enables you to create an unlimited number of library folders within other library folders. To create a new Library folder from within an existing library, click into the existing library folder and click the "New Folder" icon.
Creating Libraries from within the File Libraries Window
To create a new library from within the "File Libraries" Window, from the main navigation panel
Existing libraries are displayed in the "File Libraries" window, but the MDM file folder structure navigation tree is not displayed.
To create a new library folder from within the "File Libraries" window, click the "New Folder" icon and give it a name, check the "Library" checkbox, and if you wish to make it public, select the "Publish" checkbox and click Save.
Users with the corresponding privileges and permissions can add files to library folders through the "File Libraries" window by drag and drop or browse and upload.
Files accessed from the "File Libraries" window can only be downloaded or uploaded depending on the user privileges. They cannot be edited and the "File Maintain" page cannot be accessed through the "File Libraries" window. If you want to change a file, you must access the file from the "File Maintain" page or from the "Files" window.
Public Libraries
Public libraries and the files in them can only be accessed from the public library URL that is provided by a MDM user with the corresponding privileges and permissions.
Each public library created at the root level of the file folder structure has a separate public URL (1), so that you can have separate branches of public library URLs.
There is no restriction on navigation and access within the specific public library URL branch, so any files or library folders or library sub folders (2) within that specific public library url branch can be accessed by a non-user who has the public library URL.
When accessed through the public url the files can only be downloaded, they cannot be edited or overwritten and no new files can be uploaded through the public URL.
If you want to change a published file, you must login to MDM and access the file from the File Maintain Page to modify the file.
Security
Access to Files, Folders, and Libraries is controlled by "Security" settings.
Security settings are determined by the user type and the user privileges. You can click the "Properties" icon while in a folder or library to display the security settings for that folder or library.
To check security for an individual file, click the security section from the file maintain page to display the security settings for that file.
User Privileges
You can control security settings for files, folders, and libraries using User "Privileges".
Options include
in "Files", "Libraries" and "Markup".
So this concludes my first post on Digital Asset Management in Dynamics Marketing. In my next post we'll take a look at managing Equipment.
Since my blog post from mid november last year "Prepare for your CRM 2013 certifications - New MOC material" many if not all the Iinks in the blog post have changed, and a lot of people have been asking for an update.
Basically when you wish to train for and certify in a CRM official curriculum exam you can train via an eLearning course or - if you Microsoft Agreement includes the rights - download the materials and study at your own offline convenience.
Below I'll show you how to go about in both scenarios, using the course 80542 (Exam MB2-703: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration) as an example
Train online with eLearning
1. Open the site for Microsoft partner learning paths on Microsoft Partner Network (MPN):
2. Expand the "Business Applications" section
3. Click the "Customer Releationship Management" link
4. Notice the four CRM 2013 exams
5. Expand the "MB2-703: Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration" section
6. Click the "Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" box to access the Digital Learning course
7. Click the "Start Course" button to open the course player
8. Click the arrow in the lower right corner to start the course
(when ready you can contact one of your local ProMetric centers and register for the exam)
Download Training Materials
1. Open Partner Source (North America):
2. Enter the search string "MB2-703" (the exam number for "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration") and hit enter
3. Click the top search result "Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013 Customization and Configuration Certification Exam (Prometric Exam #MB2-703) Preparation Guide"
4. Scroll down to - or click - the "Exam Preparation Tools" link
5. Click the "80542: Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" link under "Training Materials"
6. Click the "Download Customization and Configuration in Microsoft Dynamics CRM 2013" link to download the course materials
Note: Your use of the content on this site is governed by your Microsoft services agreement. Please contact your local Microsoft services account manager if you have any questions regarding your current Microsoft Services Agreement.
Many potential customers are asking about departmental mailboxes in Office 365. How can a department, a team etc share a mailbox, and does it involve a license?
Shared mailboxes in Office 365 Exchange Online allow a group of users to view and send e-mail from a common mailbox.
A shared mailbox:
In Office 365 Exchange Online, shared mailboxes are created only via Remote PowerShell. See the article "A couple of tips for setting up Shared Mailboxes" - link for more details. Update March 26th 2012 - new GUI based tool for creating Shared Mailboxes
Note 1 -- From an Exchange perspective a shared mailbox is just a 5GB mailbox provisioned to a disabled user account (and delegated to a bunch of SG/Users). So when reaching the quota, mailbox will start receiving warning messages (10% prior to the quota) and then will start blocking mail sent from it (if “send as” as been granted and ‘from” used) and finally it will refuse accepted new e-mail (with “mailbox is full” in the NDR).
In Dynamics Marketing you can generate Leads from visitors to a landing page. You can score the leads using lead scoring models, allowing you to prioritize which leads to target first.
In this blog post I'll explain a bit about Lead Scoring Models and Landing Pages, and then take you through an example of using those to generate and score leads.
Lead Scoring Models
A Lead Scoring Model (LSM) contains Lead Scoring Rules that are applied to Leads generated by one, several or all of your Marketing Campaigns or Programs. The Lead Scoring Rules are displayed in the "Rules" section of the Lead Scoring Model.
Rules are separated into two sections, "Condition" and "Action".
"Condition" section
In the "Condition" section of the rule you can choose from a variety of Fields, Operators, and Values.
The Field option that you select will determine the Operator and Values that are available as well as the corresponding Actions that can be applied.
Field options are eg "Name (Lead)" so you can act upon the name of the visitor, or "Landing Page" so you can act upon which Landing Page the visitor submitted info fromOperator options are determined by Field type
and will enable additional Condition qualifier values to suit the rule.
"Action" Section
In the "Action" section you define the score value that will be applied to the Lead that meets the Conditions defined.
Certain Condition Fields have corresponding Action Devaluation Fields that will allow for score deprecation to occur based on recency of the action.
Lead Grades and Sales Ready Grade
If you prefer to show lead quality using words, phrases or symbols, Dynamics Marketing can generate Grades in addition to scores.
To add Grades to a Lead Scoring Model, enter the Grade Name (such as a letter grade, or word such as hot or cold), enter the From and To score range for the Grade and continue through to the next line until you have a set of Grades to match your Lead Scoring Model range.
You can identify certain Grades as Sales Ready by selecting the grades and clicking the "Sales Ready" icon. You can also remove the Sales Ready grade by selecting the Remove Sales Ready Grade icon.
The Sales Ready Score will be identified on Leads that the scoring model applies to and Leads that are Sales Ready will be marked accordingly in the Scoring section on the Lead. The lead header will show a score indicator and the grade associated to the score is displayed at the end of the Lead name.
Landing Pages
Landing Pages are used to collect information from visitors to a web site.
They are commonly used to collect information about leads and prospects, to register for an event, or to get a visitor to join a distribution/mailing list.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing enables you to collect information without writing any HTML code or computer programs. The information can be gathered and added to Microsoft Dynamics Marketing’s marketing database.
Microsoft Dynamics Marketing Landing Pages work in conjunction with Lead Management to enable you to create forms that can be embedded into web pages that result in the automatic creation of Marketing Contacts, Companies and Leads in Microsoft Dynamics Marketing.
To help format the Landing Pages are organized into three sections
Landing Page "Behavioral Analysis" section
In the Behavioral Analysis you associate the Landing Page with the marketing entities that the Landing Page is being created to promote; an existing Program and/or Campaign, a Source Code, a Phone Number, and/or an Offer that will associated with the Landing Page. If the Landing Page is being used to generate Leads, depending upon Lead Creation Strategy of the Client or Site Company that the Landing Page is for, a Program or Campaign selection may be required.
Landing Page "Lead Management" section
In the "Lead Management" section you can enable the Landing Page to automatically generate leads. In order to generate geads from your landing page you need to check the "Generate Leads" checkbox.
The "Lead Management" section holds several prepopulated, required, and optional fields
Landing Page "Content" section
In the "Content" section of the Landing Page you define the content and design options of your Landing Page.
To help structure your Landing Page this section is organized into three additional sections:
"Form Details" sub section
In the "Form Details" sub section you define which fields you want to have available for visitors to fill out when submitting the Landing Page form.
"Requirements" are the fields that you select to comprise what will be displayed on the Landing Page form for the visitors to fill out, and have options for
The "Subscribe" field is a type ahead field that displays all lists for the Landing Page company that are specified as Subscription lists. Only one list can be specified, the list name is not shown to the visitor and is not displayed by default.
The Iframe URL is the string that needs to be placed on a web page using an Iframe tag. This allows you to embed the Landing Page where ever you want to place it on the page. ve entered all of the details of your Landing Page you can click Preview to see what it will look like.
Every Landing Page form will automatically have a security code generated on each visit that must be entered in order for the form details to be submitted to help prevent automated submissions.
Example of using a landing page to generate and score leads
In this example we will
pic 1: Click Home - Marketing Execution - scroll to "Lead Management" - click Landing Pages to open Landing Page grid
pic 2: Click "+" (New) to open the "New Landing Page" dialog
pic 3: Type a name for the landing page, set the Start/End Date and then click Submit to save and close the new landing page
We will return to the landing page later and do some further settings - but before that we'll create Lead Scoring Model for scoring future visitors to the landing page.
pic 4: Click Home - Settings - scroll to "Rules and Models" - click Lead Scoring Models to open the Lead Scoring Models grid
pic 5: Click "+" (New) to open the "New Lead Scoring Model" dialog
pic 6: Type a name for the model and then click Save (to display the lower dashboard)
pic 7: Click "+" (New) to display the "New Rule" dialog
pic 8: In the "New Rule" dialog
pic 9: Click "+" (New) to display the New Rule dialog
pic 10: In the "New Rule" dialog
pic 11: Having defined the rules we can now create entries for the Grades (Grades is a way to show the lead quality using words, phrases or symbols)
pic 12: Create three grades, eg "Cold", "Luke Warm", and "Warm" - and set their intervals to respectively 0-10, 11-49, and 50-100
pic 13: Check the checkbox to the left of "Warm" and then click the "Set Sales Ready Grade" icon
pic 14: The grade "Warm" is now displaying a "Yes" in the "Sales Ready Grade" column, indicating that leads with a score of 50 or higher is sales ready. Click Submit to save and close the Lead Scoring Model
pic 15: The new model now listed in the grid of Lead Scoring Models
Since our lead creating strategy is tied to campaings (by default) we'll now create a new (simple) Campaign to hook the lead scoring model up to, and after that connect the landing page and the campaign
pic 16: Click Home - Marketing Execution - Campaigns to show the Campaigns grid
pic 17: Click "+" (New) to display the "New Campaign" dialog
pic 18: leave Template blank and click Submit
pic 19: In the "New Campaign" page
pic 20: Select Landing Pages in the dashboard drop down
pic 21: Select your new Landing Page in the grid, and then click Submit to save and close the campaign
Now its time to return to the landing page, connect it to the campaign, and define the fields we want the landing page to display
pic 22: Click Home - Marketing Execution - scroll to "Lead Management" - click Landing Pages. Then open your new Landing Page and expand the "Behavioral Analysis" section
pic 23: Verify that your new landing page is now connected to your new campaign
pic 24: Expand the "Lead Management" section, and check the "Generate Lead" check box
pic 25: Type a name for the Lead Management model
pic 26: Expand the "Content" section, and note the Landing Page iFrame URL (The Iframe URL is the string that needs to be placed on a web page using an Iframe tag. This allows you to embed the Landing Page where ever you want to place it on the page - we'll not touch on that part in this example)
pic 27: In the "Content" section expand the sub section "Form Details", and scroll down a bit to see all the fields you can define for the Form (aka the Landing Page)
pic 28: Uncheck all fields but "First Name", "Last Name", and "Subscribe" (the "Subscribe" field is a special field allowing a visitor to the landing page to add him/her self to our subscribers list)
pic 29: In the "Subscribe" drop-down select a marketing list
pic 30: Scroll down to the bottom and click Save
pic 31: Now scroll up until you see the iFrame URL. Click the URL to test the Landing Page - does it show the fields you selected? does it create a Lead with the correct score? Does it add the visitor to the marketing list if the Subscribe field was checked by the visitor?
pic 32: The Landing Page iFrame is displayed. Note that all field are present, including the "Subscribe" checkbox
pic 33: Provide an email address, first name, last name, check the "Subscribe" check box, and then click Submit to save and close the submission
pic 34: MDM acknowledges your submission
pic 35: In the lower dashboard of your Landing Page, select Leads in the drop-down - and verify that there is now a new Lead submitted via the Landing Page. Click the Lead to open the Lead.
pic 36: Note the score in the upper left corner is 55 as expected (5 point from submitting via the landing page, 50 point for the last name), and note under Interactions that the Lead is related to the Lead Model
pic 37: Expand the "Scoring" section. Note the "Sales Ready" fields is set to "Yes", and note the (currently flat) timeline for the lead score (at 55 points). Since we did put a weekly devaluation rule in place, the timeline will show a lower lead score one week from creatíon (55-2=53)
pic 38: Lastly we want to check if the "Subscribe" field did its job; that is, added the visitor to the correct Marketing List. Click Marketing Execution - scroll to "Marketing Lists" - click Marketing Lists to open the Marketing Lists grid
pic 39: Click the Marketing List you selected when setting the "Subscribe" field to open the Marketing List
pic 40: Verify that the information the visitor submitted is added to the list of Contacts for the Marketing List
So with Landing Pages, Lead Scoring Models and Campaigns you have a perfect toolbox for generating Leads - Leads with a Lead Score, enabling you to prioritize and decide which Leads you should work with first.
Your MDM Leads can be synchronized with your Dynamics CRM (free connector) for your to work them through the Leads-to-Opportunity process there and (when done) return the Opportunity to MDM
Microsoft Lync Server 2010 offers a number of flexible deployment options. Amongst other things it can be deployed on premises and hosted directly by Microsoft:
Lync Server 2010 provides all the functionality that is available with Lync Online. In addition, Lync Server includes Voice and PBX capabilities that enable organizations to replace or enhance traditional telephony solutions with the Lync next generation communications platform.
Limitations
It is important to note that the Lync technology does not support coexistence between Lync Online and Lync Server using a single domain. Therefore, it is not possible to deploy a subset of users in Lync Online and other users on-premises using a single domain name. Lync federation can be used to enable users to communicate between Lync Online and Lync on-premises deployments, using different domain names. It is not possible to split Lync workloads (IM, online meetings and Voice/PBX) between the cloud and on-premises. For example, it is not possible to deploy IM and meetings in the cloud with voice on-premises for a single user. If you want voice you will need to run your own server (or have it hosted at a hoster).
Picture 1: Plan E3 and lower
Picture 2: Plan E4
Picture 3: Licensing and Deployment
Licensing comparison
So how does the on-premises licensing compare to the Microsoft hosted E4 subscription if you look at a Lync scenario with enterprise voice? In either case you must purchase and deploy a Lync Server on-premises. The difference lies in the way you purchase the client application and the needed CALs:
On-Premises licensing If you purchased the CALs, the licenses would amount to USD 245* up front per user (Standard CAL + Enterprise CAL + Plus CAL)
SubscriptionThe E4 subscription is USD 27 per user per month and includes SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Office Web Applications and Office Pro Plus. If you subscribe to Lync Online in a standalone scenario the USLs are as follows:
So the USLs amounts to USD 9.5 per user per month before service pack savings. Usually you'll save a little less than 40% if you subscribe to an Office 365 service plan (like E4) instead of subscribing to standalone plans. Taking into account the service plan savings we can set the total USL to appx USD 6 per user per month.
CAPEX to OPEXIn other words you have a choice between CAPEX and OPEX at a rate of appx 40:1. Thats more than three years.
*All prices in the blue column above reflect pricing for Open (No Level) retail purchases within the United States and are in US dollars as of December 1, 2010. The prices listed are license only estimated prices (not including SA); reseller pricing can vary by program and volume. Please note that prices are subject to change; contact a reseller or Microsoft account representative for specific pricing. See Microsoft Lync Licensing Guide for more.
In Office 365 your password will expire every 90 days (unless your admin has changed the policy). If you are using Outlook Web App (or other online apps), you'll receive directions to change your password when it is about to expire or has expired. But if you are solely using the rich apps (e.g. Outlook 2010) you won’t get a notification. You might end up in a situation where your rich app fail to authenticate without indicating the true cause and you call support. This has changed with the upgraded Microsoft Office 365 Sign-In Assistant application (MOS SIA) downloadable from here.The new version of MOS SIA will give you a password expiry notification bubble from the Windows tray every day within the last 2 weeks before your password will expire. Clicking the notification bubble redirects to you to the Office 365 portal so you can reset your password.
Updates for MOS SIA are provided through Microsoft Update. Updates can be obtained directly from the Microsoft Update service or in managed environments through Windows Software Update Services (WSUS).
Many SharePoint Online customers would like to be able to see Exchange Online data on their SharePoint Online pages (e.g their inbox or their calendar). First thought would be to use the built-in Outlook Web App Web Parts.
However – if you read the “Outlook Web App Web Parts” paragraph in the Exchange Online Service Description p. 46, you’ll learn that
“Exchange Online supports Outlook Web App Web Parts via the PageViewer control in Microsoft SharePoint Online and Microsoft SharePoint Server, or via manually configured URLs. Built-in SharePoint OWA Web Part controls will not work against Exchange Online”
Here is how you can display your Exchange Online data in SharePoint Online.
Step 1: Add the “Page Viewer” web part on a page
Step 2: View Outlook Web App segments in the web part
Understanding storage allocations in SharePoint Online can be a bit confusing. If we look at the storage allocations for the E and P plans....
E plan
P1 plan
Storage (pooled)
10 GB base customer storage plus 500 MB per enterprise user
10 GB base customer storage plus 500 MB per user
Storage per Kiosk Worker
0
N/A
Storage per external user
Additional storage
Available at a cost per gigabyte (GB) per month. See this blog post for more.
Site collection storage quotas
Up to 100 gigabytes (GB) per site collection
35 GB
My Site storage allocation(individual) (1)
500 MB of personal storage per My Site (once provisioned) (2)
Total storage per tenant
Up to 25 TB per tenant
(1) does not count against tenant‘s overall storage pool(2) the storage amount on individual’s My Site storage cannot be adjusted
...we see that there are two kinds of storage allocations - pooled and individual.
Pooled Storage - As seen in the above table each customer tenant in SPO receives a default amount of 10GB of storage. Users under K plans and external users do not contribute to the pooled storage. Currently, pooled storage has a 25TB limit in the E plan (35GB for the P1 plan)
Individual Storage - End users who get a My Site (E1-4 SKUs – P1 SKU doesn’t include My Site) receive 500MB of personal (individual) storage when they first self-provision their MySite (when they click the "Content" tab of their My Site). This storage is in addition to the pooled storage allocated to the customer tenant per USL, but is not aggregated.
Example Scenarios: