BPOSitive : Tip

Exchange Online Monitoring Application

Brett Hill — Mon, 07 Dec 2009 18:19:00 GMT

MessageOps has posted an applicaiton for monitoring Exchange Online. This looks like a useful tool for identyfing latency issues.

Keep an eye on these guys!

http://www.messageops.com/ExmonDownload.html

Ping tool and useful info on BPOS networking and bandwidth

Brett Hill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 23:43:00 GMT

There is a document on microsoft.com/downloads called Guidance for Microsoft Online Services Multinational Customers is not what it seems. You don't have to be a multinational to be interested in the details such as latency stats between you and the BPOS data center. In addition, there is an online ping tool that will tell you your latency between the browser and any of our data centers and provides guiance for whats acceptable.

Add this to your list of BPOS technical reference materials

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c4ec4bbe-5979-4cf2-bac5-d86e1baada2c

CRM Online and BPOS integration

Brett Hill — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 18:33:00 GMT

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

Q&A on the new Powershell commands for BPOS Migration

Brett Hill — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 21:55:00 GMT

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.

Creating restricted distribution lists in BPOS with Dirsynch

Brett Hill — Wed, 23 Sep 2009 19:05:00 GMT

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.

Brett Hill — Wed, 02 Sep 2009 22:10:00 GMT

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

Integrating CRM with Business Productivity Online Suite

Brett Hill — Fri, 14 Aug 2009 18:50:00 GMT

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

Brett Hill — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 23:47:00 GMT

Below, you'll find links to some previously unavailable materails that will be very useful for Partners as they make plans to migrate a customer to BPOS. Be sure to check out the Discovery Checklist, as we well as the lecture in Migration by the engineering team. In addition, you'll find some documents from Support to help you figure error messages and their meaning when you use the migration tools.

Business Productivity Online Suite Migration Toolkit for Partners

Welcome to the Business Productivity Online Suite Migration Toolkit World Partner Conference Edition. Sign into www.quickstartonlineservices.com with your Windows Live ID then click on the below links to access the content.

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite Migration Planning and Discovery Checklist

A detailed listing of tasks and issues to consider when planning a migration to Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite. Includes guidance for Trials, Choosing Services, Network Considerations, Workstation Preparation, as well as the individual services and migration. Links to available online resources are provided for each task.

· Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite Onboarding and Discovery Checklist for Partners

· Customer acceptance testing and checklist sample

Migration Troubleshooting and Implementation Depth Guides

These papers, produced by the Business Productivity Online Suite onboarding and support teams, provide detailed guidance for migration troubleshooting as well as step-by-step guidance for migration from a POP3 environment

· Migration Troubleshooting and Implementation Depth Guides

Migration Summit Workshop Recording and Presentations

These are the decks and presentations from the Business Productivity Online Suite Partner Migration Summit held in Redmond in fall of ‘09. Presenters from engineering, support and the product teams created and delivered these lectures packed with highly useful information real world migration experience including migrations from Exchange, POP3, and 3rd party systems

· Migration Process Overview

· Migration from Exchange to Exchange Online

· Migrating from 3rd Party Platforms

· Migrating from POP3 and IMAP

· Site Planning and Preparation

Guides and Resources

A listing of valuable Migration and onboarding resources. Includes links to the SharePoint Online Infrastructure Planning Guide, Microsoft Assessment and Planning toolkit, and a Customer Acceptance Test Plan checklist

· Microsoft Online Planning (MAP) and Discovering Tool

· Exchange Online Infrastructure Planning Guide

· SharePoint Online Infrastructure Planning Guide

· Business Productivity Online Suite Migration Toolkit

· Migration Whitepaper

Online Services Release Notes

Brett Hill — Fri, 01 May 2009 03:41:00 GMT

With the recent update of the services, there was also a "release notes"document that I just found out about.

It has some useful tips and information, worth looking at for those of you deploying the services.

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/thankyou.aspx?familyId=f297f10c-de9b-4c3e-8aa4-60d7f1baef55&displayLang=en

How to upload a file (or set) larger than 50MB to SharePoint Online

Brett Hill — Fri, 06 Feb 2009 19:25:00 GMT

I've been exploring the SharePoint Online feature set a bit lately, and went to upload some files to a file collection. Surprsingly, I received a "network connection dropped" message immediately after selecting to upload some files in the SharePoint UI. I thought this was odd so I tried again, with few files, and it worked! So, I was suspiciouis of a one of the files that was the largest. Sending that file alone worked fine. Sending it with any other file failed. Send any other two files worked fine.

A phone call to my SharePoint Online comrades revealed that there is cap placed on the file size of a single or aggregate upload of 50 MB when using the SharePoint UI. However, after I switched to explorer view, I could upload all the files at the same time. This was all I wanted to acheive in the first place.

So for those of you looking to move file sets into a document repository in SharePoint Online, be sure to use the Explorer view to do your moves.

-brett

Reference for estimating email bandwidth

Brett Hill — Thu, 13 Nov 2008 22:11:00 GMT

Partners are asking "how can I estimate how email on Exchange Online will impact bandwidth".

Good question.

Good answers: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540453.aspx

Also see: http://www.microsoft.com/resources/Technet/en-us/MSOnline/bpos/index.html?page=html%2F3dea7174-a521-4442-a7c5-5d540e09b20d.htm

-brett

Updating PSTs after installing the Single Sign on Application

Brett Hill — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 03:57:00 GMT

Edit

When you install the single sign on tool, it will automatically create a new profile for you that is hooked up to the services. This is very cool, however, it can be surprising to see that your local inbox is no longer visible.

You can fix that easily enough by simply adding your local PST back into the new profile.

1. Open Outlook 2007, on the File menu, click Data File Management, and then click Add.

2. Your PST files will be located in the path that you identified before migration.

3. Click Add, select Office Outlook Personal Folders File (.pst), and then click OK.

4. Navigate to the folder containing your PST files, that you identified before migration, select one of your PST files, type a name for the selected file, and then click OK.

5. Repeat for each of your PST files.