BPOSitive

Mac Sign-In application has been released

Migration Webinar Series

Wanted to let you know that there will be a new webinar series starting up.

You will definitly want to attend these to get the latest information on migrating to BPOS.

See http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/2009/11/13/announcing-the-migration-webinar-series.aspx for details.

-brett

BPOS Portals released in new languages and locations.

On Sunday morning (11/08), we published 15 additional sites – serving 14 more countries, in 9 more languages. This brings our total to 40 localized sites (including our first RTL language: Hebrew). In additional to publishing new sites, we also enabled “Buy” functionality on the existing sites for India and Singapore, corresponding to the commercial availability for customers in those countries 

Customers globally who visit the microsoft.com/online home page are being “geo-detected,” where possible, by their browser language setting and IP address – then are redirected automatically to the appropriate corresponding subsidiary site. At all times on all of our Web pages, customers have the opportunity to change the locale they wish to view.

This is the list of localized sites that were published previously:

CRM Online and BPOS integration

Ran across this blog post on integrating BPOS with BPOS. Useful info.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dynamicscrmonline/archive/2009/05/19/crm-online-and-bpos-business-productivity-online-suite.aspx

Also, you might be interested to know that the SMTP gateway in CRM has been updated to work with Exchange Online

.ADM template for Sign On tool

There are some settings in the sing on tool such as "save password" on the options tab that are stored in the registry. As such, they can set using group policy. There is a .ADM file to assist in this process located at http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/2009/02/09/microsoft-online-sign-in-client-adm-group-policy-object.aspx . While unsupported, this file could be quite helpful when configuring sign on client settings using group policy.

-brett

Q&A on the new Powershell commands for BPOS Migration

In the just announced service release, you'll find a mention of the following powershell commands.

•  Enable-MSOnlineUser
• Get-MSOnlineSubscription
• Set-MSOnlineUserPassword

Q: What do these do?

These can be used together or sepearlty to help manage a migration or adminster your accounts.

Typically, you would run Get-MSOnlineSubcrtption to return a a GUID associated with the type of liscneses available. This determines what kinds of services can be activated for users, then you use that GUID do Enable-MSOnlineUser. If you assign  an Exchange Online lisence the user will have a mailbox assigned. At the same time, one of the parameters allows you to set the password for the user. In addition, you can set the password later for any user with the Set-MSOnlineUserPassword script.

 Q: Why are these needed?

When you use directory synch to create users, users need to be activated before they can use mail or other services. This script provides an automated way of activating users and is faster than usin the admin console. Since it's a script, you can add code to intelligently scope the activation.

 In addition, when activating uses, you can set the password to a known or generated value and add code to have the user emailed about the activation.

Finally, the set password script allows a BPOS admin to change a users password from powershell rather than having to login to the admin center. Very handy.

Q: When can I use them?

The scripts willl be implemented in a new version of the Migration Tool which is scheduled to be shipped when the deoplyments are completed. This should be by the end of October at the latest.

 Q: Where can I get details on the syntax and use

When the migration tool is released, the scripts will have built in help that shows the syntax. We are planning on some demos and the like to be released soon. As a tip, you might want to check the Microsoft Online documentation as that could be udpated any time with details on the scripts.http://www.microsoft.com/resources/Technet/en-us/MSOnline/bpos/html/1843e98e-1c13-409d-8d56-c67f0cb87f5e.htm

Also, I might add that you can expect more powershell fun in the future.

Serivce update: new features and capabilites

Upgrades and Enhancements    
The following features and capabilities are included in the October Service Update:

• Enable-MSOnlineUser
• Get-MSOnlineSubscription
• Set-MSOnlineUserPassword

A new version of the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tool supporting these commandlets will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers for all regions.

POP Mail Clients
Supported e-mail clients for Exchange Online are being expanded to include POP-based clients. Previously, Exchange Online supported only Microsoft Office Outlook 2003 and 2007.

To enable POP e-mail client support for your organization, have your administrator contact Microsoft Online Services Technical Support to open a Service Request.

Please note: Service Requests for POP enablement will be accepted upon completion of the deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please reference the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog for deployment updates.

Support for 30,000 Users

The Microsoft Online Services Administration Center will support as many as 30,000 users, improving management and administration for larger organizations. Previously, Microsoft Online Services supported up to 10,000 users.

Please note that SharePoint Online will retain previously established limits (e.g., 20 sites per site collection, 50 gigabytes (GB) per site, and 1 terabyte (TB) per company).

Enhanced Support for Mac OS
The October Service Update includes several enhancements that will provide a more efficient communication and collaboration experience for organizations with Mac users.

A new Sign-In Client for the Mac OS provides a single sign-in experience and auto-configuration of Office for Mac applications and the Safari browser for use with Microsoft Online Services.

Other Mac features in this Service Update include:

• Support for Entourage 2008 Exchange Web Services (EWS), including Global Address List (GAL), Calendar Free/Busy Lookup, and Out-of-Office notifications
• Global Address List support for Entourage 2004 and 2008 when using the Sign-In Client for Mac
• SharePoint Online support for Document Connection for Mac to improve the collaboration experience for users
• Improved Firefox and Safari support for My Company Portal

Timeline
Deployment of the October Service Update into production data centers has started, with deployment to all regions anticipated to be complete by mid-October.

The deployment schedule is subject to change. Updates to the deployment schedule will be announced via the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog as well as the RSS Feed from the Microsoft Online Services Administration Center.

Additional Information
All service upgrades in the October Service Update will be performed on your behalf. These changes are a mandatory upgrade for all users, so it is important that you are aware of them and understand how they may impact you.

If you have additional questions, there are several resources at your disposal. Click here for information about how to contact Microsoft Online Services Support. You can also read the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog for the latest news about the October Service Update, or participate in technical discussions on the Microsoft Online Services TechNet Forums.
    

Thank you!
Thank you for choosing Microsoft Online Services to host your business productivity applications. We look forward to delivering additional enhancements and capabilities that improve your service experience and help you focus on your core business initiatives.

Sincerely,
Microsoft Online Services

Outlook 2003 Free/Busy Connector for BPOS

One of the most interesting aspects of working with services as opposed to a bits on disk product group, is that we update capabilities all the time. That's really different than releasing service packs for features updates. One of the updates we released was adding Outlook 2003 as a client for Exchnage Online. Since Outlook 2003 was released before autodiscover was created, it is missing free/busy capability and GAL lookup when used in the online environment. Well, that just won't do.

There is currently a beta of the Outlook 2003 free/busy connector that you can sign up for. See the link below for details.

http://blogs.technet.com/msonline/archive/2009/09/24/do-you-want-to-use-outlook-2003-with-exchange-online.aspx

Creating restricted distribution lists in BPOS with Dirsynch

Discovered today that the directory synchronization tool copies permissions with distribution lists.

DirSync syncs the following AD attributes that control who can and cannot send to a DL:

·         AuthOrig (Authorized Originators: Only these Users can send to the DL)

·         UnauthOrig (Unauthorized Originators: Anyone BUT these users can send to the DL)

·         dLMemRejectPerms (Unauthorized DLs: Anyone but members of these DLs can send to this DL)

·         dLMemSubmitPerms (Authorized DLs: No one but members of these DLs can send to this DL)

·         msExchRequireAuthToSendTo (Only Authenticated Senders can send to the DL, blocks External senders, doesn’t work for other CCS customers)

You can control this in the Exchange 2007 Message delivery system UI or in AD.

Thanks to Tarkek Dawoud in BPOS engineering for this detail.

-brett

Could be a First for Microsoft! Intneral Technical Wiki now Pushed to Quickstartonlineservices.com.

Internally, the Technical Product Management team had a Wiki they were using to keep track of all kind of issues. FAQs that were being asked all the time about things like public folders, mail enabled lists, how to work with proxy servers, when is feature "X" coming , blah blah blah.

The cool thing about this particular wiki is that it is a living resource that is actively updated, and used to drive meeting agendas, workflows, feature priorities, and other details. In other words, it's an important tool that we use here. 

Well, we had that thought that most of this information would be really useful to Partners as well. It's current. It often has details that are difficult to find, and is relatively comprehensive. What if we could find a way to push the internal Wiki into Quickstartservicesonline and flag items we wanted copied so that partners would have access to the same agile resources we have?! So that's what we did. We made this even more useful by adding all the checklist items from the Migration and Discover whitepaper I recently wrote as line items in the wiki making it a great place to go for the latest questions you should ask before tackling a migration plan.

You can of course search for any topic or click on one of the topic of interest. Say you're interested SSO Auth Proxy (Single Sign On Authentication with a Proxy), click on the link and you'll see :

BPOS-S Single Sign-In Client (SIC as some refer to it) currently does NOT support Outbound Internet Authenticating Proxy Server configurations.  Users will receive SIC messages stating …”unable to establish a secure connection..”.  This is typically due to a Connectivity Issues with the BPOS-S Single Sign-On Services (SSO Web Services), which has been seen when connecting over the Internet from an On-Premise Authenticating Proxy Server.   These servers can be of any flavor, such as Blue Coat, ISA, Threat Management Gateway (v.Next of ISA), etc., as long as they are configured for Outbound Internet Authentication.

 

Resolution/Workaround

1.       Outbound Authenticating Proxy Servers MUST be using the NTLM Authentication method for the below to work!!!!

2.       When the below snippet is placed into the SignIn.exe.config file, this allows the SSO client to pass the logged in users Domain credentials to the Authenticating Proxy Server, allowing Outbound Internet Connectivity:

a.       Caveat:  The user must be logged into the machine as a Domain User Account and that account must be granted Outbound Internet Connectivity for the below to work.

 

 

1.       Browse to the following location to modify the SignIn.exe.config file:  x:\Program Files\Microsoft Online Services\Sign In

2.       Modify the SignIn.exe.config file, using Notepad.exe or other Application of choice:

3.       Save the File

a.       Logout and Exit SIC

4.       Restart SIC

 

  <system.net>

    <defaultProxy useDefaultCredentials="true">

      <proxy  usesystemdefault="True" />

    </defaultProxy>

          </system.net>

 

This gives the ability to get information out to partners faster and easier than ever before.  This is all good news for partners who need ready information without having to wait for formal editing, vetting, and signoff. However, the downside is of course  you'll find the content is bit rougher and there will be some inconsistencies. That's the trade off, but we think it's a good one. Hopefully you'll find this useful.

This is only available to Microsoft Partners.

Thanks,

brett

SMTP enabled for BPOS worldwide

SMTP clients can connect to Microsoft Online SMTP servers and authenticate using a Microsoft Online Services user credentials to send mail. The connection requires Transport Layer Security (TLS). This allows you to use Exchange Online as an SMTP service for mail originating outside of the Exchange Online environment, but routed by Exchange Online.

To connect to the Microsoft Online Services SMTP server, open your SMTP client application and provide the information below.

o    The fully qualified domain name (FQDN) of the Microsoft Online Services SMTP server. The FQDN will be slightly different depending on which Microsoft Online Services datacenter your company is connected to. The server FQDNs are:

o    North America Datacenter:  Smtp.mail.microsoftonline.com

o    Europe Datacenter:  Smtp.mail.emea.microsoftonline.com

o    Asia Pacific Datacenter:  Smtp.mail.apac.microsoftonline.com

o    The user name and password of a Microsoft Online Services user account with an Exchange Online license.

• On most client applications, this is under “My outgoing mail server (SMTP) requires authentication” – this should be configured “Yes”, and the corresponding Microsoft Online username and password supplied.

o    The SMTP port to use: 587.

• On most client applications, this is under “Server Port Numbers for Outgoing Server (SMTP)” – this should be configured to use port 587

o    Make sure that Transport Layer Security (TLS) is enabled in your SMTP client.

• On most client applications, this is under “My outgoing mail server (SMTP) requires an encrypted connection (SSL)” – this should be configured “Yes”

NOTE:  The FROM address must use a SMTP domain of type “Authoritative” – this can be

confirmed in Microsoft Online Administration Console, under the Users - Domains tab.

Important: Remember to update the user Microsoft Online Account password regularly, before it expires or your service will be unable to connect.

Integrating CRM with Business Productivity Online Suite

A good blog post on how CRM and BPOS can work together using Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Office Communicator Online, and Office Live Meeting Online.

http://blogs.msdn.com/dynamicscrmonline/archive/2009/05/19/crm-online-and-bpos-business-productivity-online-suite.aspx

Migration Toolkit for Partners

BPOS Discovery and Planning Checklist for Partners - Prelimary Version

I've been workng on this document for Partners to provide guidance on issues you should consider when evaluting a customer's business for a potential move to BPOS. It's pretty comprehensive, but not exhaustive. For those of you attending the WPC coming up, you can get this document https://www.quickstartonlineservices.com/Documents/Business%20Productivity%20Online%20Suite%20Discovery%20Checklist.docx and a few more never seen before jewels as part of a Partner Migratin Tookit we built. There are only 400 of these to be distributed on CD at the conference, but have no fear, it will be on the quickstart site soon. I wanted to pre-post this document for partners to get feedback.

Please note: This particular document is made specfiically for Partners so you have to be a Microsoft Certified Parnter to get to it.

Thanks,

brett

Outlook 2003 support is enabled worldwide

The June update for services has been finished!

This means that you can now use Outlook 2003 with BPOS. There are a couple of considerations relating the oflline address book and free/busy. See the BPOS team blog for details.

Also, attachment size has been bumped to 30MB.

Sweet!

Brett