The trial creation experience around CRM Online has changed. In the previous UI you could pick your Country (ie. your location, determining what datacenter your trial will be created in) and your base language. The  base language is a language used when installing Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online for your company that determines which language you use for Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online by default. It determines default settings for regional and language options in Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. After the base language is set, it cannot be changed

In the new trial UI you can not pick your base language

The base language is now taken over from the first language used by Internet Explorer (which you set up in Windows).

This raises a potential issue. If a customer creates a CRM Online trial organisation, activates it into a paid subscription and then realize that he has the wrong base language (picked by his IE settings) it can't be changed. The customer has to quit the tenant and looses the subdomain name which he selected in the first place.

So what to do if you want to ensure that your trial has the right base language from the start? 

1. In the below URL replace the [COUNTRY] and [CULTURE] placeholders with the appropriate letters (eg. GB and en-gb). The [CULTURE] placeholder will set the base language.
   x
   http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=252780&Country=[COUNTRY]&culture=[CULTURE]
   x
2. Copy the URL from above to the Clipboard
   x
3. Start an InPrivate instance of Internet Explorer (Open IE and press Ctrl-Shift-P)
   x
4. Paste the URL into the Address field and sign up for your trial

See also

• Culture Names - link
• Country/Region - link
• Trial Guide - link

As a subscriber trusting your business critical application with an Online Services provider, you are of course demanding assurance and accountability in the form of Service Level Agreements (SLAs).

The "Service Level Agreement for Microsoft Online Services" covers the following services: 

• Bing Maps Enterprise Platform
• Bing Maps Mobile Asset Management
• Duet Enterprise Online
• Dynamics CRM Online
• Exchange Online Archiving
• Exchange Online
• Exchange Online Protection
• Lync Online
• Office Web Applications
• Project Online
• SharePoint Online
• Translator API
• Windows Azure Active Directory Rights Management
• Windows Intune
• Yammer Enterprise

Financial backing

We provide financial backing to our commitment to achieve and maintain the Service Levels for our Services.  If we do not achieve and maintain the Service Levels for each Service as described in our SLA, then you may be eligible for a credit towards a portion of your monthly service fees.

We calculate the “Monthly Uptime Percentage” for a Service by the following formula:

100 * (x-y) / x

where x = "Total number of minutes in a month" and y = "Downtime"

If the Monthly Uptime Percentage falls below 99.9% for any given month, you may be eligible for the following Service Credit:

Some of our friends in the market take a different view of downtime, and others offers no standard service level agreement.

See also

• Download the "Service Level Agreement for Microsoft Online Services" - link
• The Promise and Pitfalls of CRM Service Level Agreements - link
• Google Apps Service Level Agreement - link

Synchronizing SharePoint Online document libraries with Windows Explorer has always been a hot topic. My post on the topic from October 2011 has been viewed more than 10,000 times.

In previous versions of Office 365 its been possible, yet a little frustrating to setup and use on a daily basis. Especially the authentication part (a saml token timing out) has caused lots of discussions.

In the current version of Office 365 the synchronization is taken care of by a component known as the "SkyDrive Pro Windows Sync client". It installs with Office 2013 (soon available as a standalone download if you do not have/need Office 2013)

The SkyDrive Pro Windows Sync client

• enables you to take your documents offline from document libraries in SharePoint Online. When you connect again your offline files are synchronized
• establishes a synchronization relationship with the current document library when you clicks the Sync button in SharePoint Online. When a synchronization relationship is set up, files and folders can be synchronized between your device and SharePoint Online.
  
• creates shortcuts displayed in Windows Explorer to Windows folders to store files from the synchronized document library.
  

See also

• Overview of SkyDrive Pro in SharePoint Server 2013 - link
• What is SkyDrive Pro? - link
• Restrictions and limitations related to syncing SharePoint libraries to your computer with SkyDrive Pro - link
• Sync a library to your computer - link
• Video: Sync your SkyDrive Pro library to your computer - link
• Out and about: New SharePoint mobile offerings -  link

Click here to download "CRM for Dummies" from download.microsoft.com

See also

• CRM Online videos - link

The ability to share your SharePoint sites and documents with people outside your organization is a very compelling capability in SharePoint Online. You are allowed up to 500 unique external users per month on the P-plans, and 10,000 for the M and E plans at no cost.

The people outside your organization are called External Users. External Users means users that are not either your or your affiliates’ employees, or your or your affiliates’ onsite contractors or onsite agents.

Over the years I've had so many questions as to what an external user can or can not do in SharePoint Online.

Here is a couple of the things they can do (have the rights to)

• External users can use Office Web Apps for viewing and editing documents. If your plan includes Office Pro Plus, they will not have the licenses to install the desktop version of Office on their own computers.
• External users inherit the use rights of the Office 365 customer who is inviting them to collaborate on a site. That is, if an organization purchases an E3 Enterprise plan, and builds a site that uses enterprise features, the external user is granted rights to use and/or view the enterprise features within the site collection they are invited to.
• An external user can perform tasks on a site consistent with the permission level that they are assigned. For example, if you add an external user to the Members group, they will have Edit permissions and they will be able to add, edit and delete lists; they will also be able to view, add, update and delete list items and documents.
• External users will be able to see other types of content on sites. For example, they can navigate to different subsites within the site collection to which they were invited. They will also be able to do things like view site feeds.

And here is a couple of the thing they cannot do (do not have the rights to)

• External users cannot create their own personal sites (what used to be referred to as My Sites). This means that they do not have their own SkyDrive Pro document library.
• External users cannot see the company-wide newsfeed. They also cannot edit their own profile, change their photo, or see aggregated tasks.
• External users do not add quota to the overall tenant storage pool (this is determined by licensed users only).
• External users cannot be an administrator for a site collection. However, you can designate an external user as a designer for your Public Website. This restriction also does not apply to scenarios where you have hired a partner to help you manage Office 365.
• By default, external users cannot access the Search Center and will not be able to execute searches against “everything” (cross site collection search)

Read more here.

Note - the Online Services Use Rights and the Product Use Rights is the authoritative documents in use rights.

See also

• SharePoint Online: software boundaries and limits - link