Microsoft Online Services Team Blog : SharePoint Online

Service Update: November 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 23:08:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for November 2009 is currently being deployed into production data centers and is scheduled to be available to all customers in early December. Updates to the deployment status will be posted to the comments section of this blog post.

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

Mailbox Access Permissions

PowerShell commandlets will be added to provide a range of mailbox permission setting, including granting Full Mailbox Access permissions plus Delegate Send As and Send on Behalf permissions. These mailbox permissions provide administrators a range of capabilities, such as setting up shared mailboxes, granting “send as” permissions for administrative assistants, and enabling full mailbox access for third party applications, such as archiving applications and fax servers.

Previously, granting these permissions required opening a ticket with Microsoft Online Services Technical Support.

Mailbox permission commandlets added in this Service Update are:

· Add-MSOnlineMailPermission

· Remove-MSOnlineMailPermission

The mailbox permission commandlets require an update to the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools (aka Microsoft Online Services Migration Tools), which will be made will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of this Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the updated Transporter Tools.

Bulk User Management

Adding and removing users is streamlined with the addition of another set of PowerShell commandlets. The bulk user management commandlets give administrators a new option for adding groups of users. Together with the bulk activation commandlets provided in the previous Service Update, administrators have a rich set of tools for automating user management.

Bulk user management commandlets added in this Service Update are:

· Add-MSOnlineUser

· Set-MSOnlineUser

· Remove-MSOnlineUser

· Get-MSOnlineUser

The bulk user management commandlets require an update to the Microsoft Online Services Transporter Tools, which will be made will be available for download at the Microsoft Download Center upon completion of the deployment of this Service Update into production data centers for all regions. Please watch this Team Blog for the availability of the updated Transporter Tools.

SharePoint Auditing

The SharePoint Auditing feature is being enabled for SharePoint Online. This feature gives administrators the ability to view data and report about activities occurring within a site collection, such as items added to a shared documents list, changes to permissions, and documents that have been viewed and read.

Partner Name on Microsoft Online Services Invoice

Customers that have a relationship with a Microsoft Online Services Partner and have designated that partner as their “partner of record” will now see the name of their partner on their subscription invoice. Partners are technical and business professionals who specialize in Microsoft products, and they are an important part of Microsoft’s delivery of your software services.

New countries for trials and commercial availability

As was announced earlier this week, customers in the following 14 countries can sign up for Microsoft Online Services trial accounts: Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Czech Republic, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, Israel, Malaysia, Mexico, Poland, Puerto Rico, Romania, Taiwan.

In addition, customers Singapore can purchase Microsoft Online Services subscriptions.

Should you be using SharePoint Designer?

JimGlynn — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 23:21:00 GMT

You probably already know that you can use Microsoft SharePoint Online to store, share, and manage files as well as build collaboration solutions for your organization. Have you ever wished that you could:

Customize the content and layout of SharePoint Online pages to look exactly the way you want?
Create views and forms that use the data view Web part to integrate with external data sources?
Use custom workflows to automate your business processes without writing code?

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer can help you with these and many other tasks, and the SharePoint Online Developer Guide is a good resource for instruction and tips for using the Designer to customize your SharePoint Online collections.

SharePoint Designer 2007 provides the powerful tools you need to deliver compelling and attractive sites, workflow-enabled applications, and reporting tools on the SharePoint Online platform. SharePoint Designer 2007 is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download Center.

For more information about SharePoint Designer 2007, see:

Microsoft Online Services at SharePoint Conference

paulenglis — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 01:58:00 GMT

More than 7,500 attendees descend upon Las Vegas this week for the Microsoft SharePoint Conference 2009. The conference, Oct 19-22 at the Mandalay Bay Convention Center, will feature numerous opportunities to learn about Microsoft Online Services, including these SharePoint Online breakout sessions:

· SPC 200: Overview of SharePoint 2010 Online

David Gorbet and Charles Ofori

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 10:30 AM; Room Islander G

· SPC 201: SharePoint 2010 Online Standard, Everything you Need to Know!

Jason Cahill and Troy Hopwood

Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2:45 PM; Room Mandalay Bay J

· The Sky’s the Limit, the Journey to the Cloud

Brett Kirkland, Collaboration Architect, Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE)

Wednesday, Oct. 21, 2:45 PM; Room Breakers E

· SPC 202: SharePoint 2010 Online Dedicated, Why Get Dedicated!

Scott St. Jean and Charles Ofori

Thursday, Oct. 22, 9:00 AM; Room Mandalay Bay J

In addition to SharePoint Online content in the conference curriculum, attendees can visit the SharePoint Online booth at the conference exhibit hall. The team will be providing demos of the current SharePoint Online service as well as the SharePoint Online Community Technical Preview (CTP), based on SharePoint Server 2010 code.

The SharePoint Conference Ask the Experts Night, 5:45 to 7:00 PM, Wednesday, Oct. 21, will include a SharePoint Online table, where attendees can interact one-on-one with the SharePoint Online team.

Microsoft Online Services Publishes Public Folder Data Migration White Paper

paulenglis — Thu, 16 Jul 2009 22:36:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services team has published a new white paper that provides guidance for migrating data from Exchange Public Folders to the Business Productivity Online Standard Suite.

Exchange Public Folders are widely used in on-premises Exchange environments. However, Exchange Online does not support Public Folders. As a workaround, SharePoint Online and some capabilities of Exchange Online can accommodate many of the processes and data for which organizations typically use Public Folders in their on-premises Exchange deployments.

This white paper addresses common usage scenarios for Public Folders and provides recommendations for accommodating and migrating the Public Folder processes and data to the Business Productivity Online Suite. Scenarios covered in this white paper include:

· Basic Sharing of Events, Tasks, and Contacts

· Archiving E-Mail Messages or Discussion Lists

· Document Sharing

· Manual Workflow

· Automated Workflow

· Custom Applications

· Free/Busy Lookups, OAB Distribution, and Outlook Security Settings

· E-Mail Delegates, Send As, and Shared Mailbox Scenarios

The white paper can be downloaded from the Microsoft Download Center.

Partner Migration Series: Metalogix

paulenglis — Wed, 08 Jul 2009 03:43:00 GMT

This post is part of a series profiling Microsoft Online Services migration partners. The series is from Brett Hill, Technical Evangelist with the Microsoft Online Services Partner Readiness team. This profile is cross-posted to Brett's blog BPOSitive.

Metalogix focuses on building and delivering migration, archiving and management tools for Microsoft technologies, and they are a migration partner for Microsoft Online Services. I recently interviewed Rasool Rayani, Co-Founder and Director of Metalogix, about their tools for migrating content to SharePoint Online.

Q: How did you get started in the migration tools business?

A: In 2001, Metalogix started focusing on migration tools to Microsoft. At first we were focusing on migrating existing web sites and content to an XML based “map” that allows the user to transform the content and migrate the resulting data set to the Microsoft content management platform. When SharePoint came along, we already had an engine created for content migration and the SharePoint environment provided a new opportunity.

Q: Do you still focus on web site migration to SharePoint?

A: We currently support migrating to SharePoint Online from NTFS shares; on-premises SharePoint installations, including Windows SharePoint Services version 2.0 and 3.0 and SharePoint Server 2003 and 2007; eRoom; Vignette; as well as Oracle content server. You can do some sophisticated manipulations using our SharePoint-to-SharePoint Content Management and migration solution such as copy permissions, split or merge lists, promote sub-sites and more. In the near future we will be offering migration from Exchange Public Folders and a SharePoint archiving solution.

Continue reading Partner Migration Series: Metalogix

Service Update: July 2009 Release Availability, Features Announced

paulenglis — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 01:09:00 GMT

The Microsoft Online Services Service Update for July 2009 will begin deployment into production data centers on July 7 and is scheduled to be available to all customers by mid-July; updates to the release deployment status will be posted to the comment section of this blog post.

No scheduled downtime is planned for the Microsoft Online Administration Center or the availability of the services in the Business Productivity Online Suite. Downtime is expected for the Microsoft Online Customer Portal, which will affect an organization's ability to set up trials, buy subscriptions, and modify their subscriptions. Watch this Team Blog for additional information on planned downtime.

The following features are included in this Service Update for July 2009:

Increase for SharePoint Online File Uploads. The maximum file size for documents uploaded to SharePoint Online increases from 50MB to 250MB.

More Live Meeting Attendees. Meetings hosted in Live Meeting Standard can accommodate up to 250 attendees, an increase from 15 attendees per meeting. This change applies to all users of Live Meeting Standard, including those that own Live Meeting licenses as part of their Business Productivity Online Suite. The upgrade will be available for new customers after July 13; existing Live Meeting customers will be upgraded by August 13.

Microsoft Online Services Trials for India. India becomes the newest market for Microsoft Online Services and the Business Productivity Online Suite. Trial accounts will be available to organizations in India with this service update. Commercial availability is targeted for Fall 2009.

Quick Trials. The process for getting a Microsoft Online Services trial is significantly streamlined. With updates to the Microsoft Online Customer Portal, user actions required to set up a trial account are reduced by 75 percent and better integration with Live ID authentication.

Worldwide User Provisioning. Administrators can assign user licenses to worldwide users, an important addition for multi-national organizations with users in numerous countries. Previously, administrators could only assign user licenses to users located in countries where Microsoft Online Services are marketed and sold. Users located in a country where use of Microsoft products is prohibited or restricted, however, still cannot be provisioned. Customers and Partners should consult with their Microsoft contact for additional information on these prohibitions and restrictions.

Using Silverlight with SharePoint Online

paulenglis — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 01:11:00 GMT

In this post, Troy Hopwood, Program Manager II on the Microsoft Online Services Engineering team, walks through creating a basic Silverlight control that integrates with SharePoint Online via Web Services that can then be deployed to SharePoint Online.

To develop and deploy this example, you need a SharePoint Online account with at least one site collection. You must have “full control” or higher permissions on the site collection used for this example.

You also need Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007 and Microsoft Visual Studio 2008. SharePoint Designer 2007 is free, and you can download a free trial of Visual Studio 2008:

Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer 2007

Microsoft Visual Studio 2008 Free Trial

Lastly, these instructions assume the Silverlight SDK and the Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008 are both installed on your machine. If not, installing the Tools for Visual Studio 2008 will also install the SDK and can be found here:

Microsoft Silverlight Tools for Visual Studio 2008

Scenario

Our scenario is an IT consulting company with several consultants, each of whom have a different skill set. We want to build a simple Silverlight-based web part that shows all the consultants, their managers, and their skill sets.

Click through to read the rest of Using Silverlight with SharePoint Online.

SharePoint Online IPD Guide Published

paulenglis — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 21:07:00 GMT

The Infrastructure Planning and Design (IPD) team has released a new guide to help with evaluating and planning for SharePoint Online deployment. The guide presents a comparison of SharePoint Server, SharePoint Online Standard, and SharePoint Online Dedicated.

The guide is designed to be used as a framework for evaluating the business and technical feasibility of moving to SharePoint Online. It identifies key SharePoint workloads and provides a customized assessment to help organizations determine which deployment scenario best meets the organization’s requirements.

The guide can be downloaded by visiting the Infrastructure Planning and Design TechCenter on TechNet.

Video Interview: Building Custom Applications Using Microsoft Online Services

paulenglis — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 23:29:00 GMT

In this video interview from TechEd 2009 in Los Angeles, Harold Wong, Microsoft IT Pro Evangelist, interviews Dattatreya Kulkarni and Sanjay Kumar Madhva from Sonata Software.

Sonata Software is a Microsoft Online Services partner. Datta and Sanjay helped build WorXpace an application built on top of the Business Productivity Online Suite using Exchange and SharePoint Web Services to leverage Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, cloud-based communication and collaboration services. Datta and Sanjay presented a breakout session at TechEd about building applications on top of Microsoft Online Services.

In this interview, Datta and Sanjay talk about using cloud-based services for custom application development and deployment.

The video is cross-posted to Harold Wong's TechNet Blog. You can also find the video on TechNet Edge.

Microsoft Online Services at TechEd

paulenglis — Fri, 08 May 2009 21:20:00 GMT

TechEd North America kicks off on Monday in Los Angeles, and the Microsoft Online Services team will be on site presenting technical education sessions, providing demonstrations of the Business Productivity Online Suite, meeting with IT Professionals from across the country and around the world, and tweeting regular updates via Twitter.

If you plan to be in Los Angeles at TechEd, make sure you stop by the Microsoft Online Services kiosk and talk with us. We will be located in the Unified Communications Technical Learning Center (TLC).

If you are not going to be at TechEd, you can follow Paul Englis on Twitter. Paul will be tweeting on the Microsoft Online Services Twitter feed: twitter.com/msonline. Look for Paul’s tweets with the ^PE identifier.

TechEd attendees can also take in a number of breakout sessions and interactive theatre sessions about the services. Following is a list of the Microsoft Online Services sessions at TechEd:

Breakout Sessions

• Microsoft Office Live Meeting Implementations from an IT and Business Perspective (UNC202, Mon. May 11 | 1:00 PM-2:15 PM | Room 511)

Diane Mayer and Sean Spradling, from Microsoft Online Services partner Corvent, focus on the technical and business requirements for executing a successful implementation of Office Live Meeting, including guidance for building the right team for a proof of concept, key technical and non-technical considerations for launch, and overcoming end user adoption challenges to drive immediate ROI.

• Tackle Compliance and Discovery Needs in the Cloud Using Microsoft Exchange Hosted Archive (WSV204, Wed. May 13 | 8:30 AM-9:45 AM | Room 408A)

Joel Soderberg and Ann Vu, from the Exchange Hosted Archive engineering and product management teams, examine requirements and challenges with organizational governance and e-Discovery that organizations face when dealing with e-mail. The session provides guidelines that can help IT professionals and business decision makers prepare for these requests and demonstrates how Exchange Hosted Archive can assist organizations in these endeavors.

• SharePoint Online Features, Functionality, and Customization (OFC314, Wed. May 13 | 4:30 PM-5:45 PM | Room 502A)

Kimmo Forss and Sharma Kunapalli, from the Microsoft Online Services deployment and product management teams, discuss the features and functionalities of SharePoint Online. The session explores the customization models and how they differ for SharePoint Online Standard and SharePoint Online Dedicated. The session also provides recommendations on how to address various customization needs.

• Protection: Targeting Spam with Microsoft Forefront (SIA319, Wed. May 13 | 4:30 PM-5:45 PM | Petree Hall D)

John Gargiulo and Terry Zink, from the Forefront engineering teams, look at the next generation of Microsoft Forefront Security for Exchange Server (FSE) including integration with Forefront Online Security for Exchange (FOSE), formerly known as Exchange Hosted Filtering.

• Migration to Microsoft Online Services from Exchange and Non-Microsoft Platforms (UNC310, Thu. May 14 | 4:30 PM-5:45 PM | Room 403B)

Keith Ridings, from Microsoft Online Services partner Quest Software, and Erik Ashby, from the Microsoft Online Services engineering team, focus on migration to Microsoft Online Services from Exchange and non-Microsoft systems such as Lotus Notes, GroupWise, and POP3/IMAP. The session demonstrates tools used to perform the migration and discuss best practices based on learnings from customer implementations. The session also discusses Microsoft Online Services synchronization with Active Directory.

• Realizing the Promise of Software-Plus-Services by Customizing Microsoft Online Services (UNC203, Fri. May 15 | 9:00 AM-10:15 AM | Room 408B)

Dattatreya Kulkarni and Sanjay Kumar Madhva, from Microsoft Online Services partner Sonata Software, focus on building applications on top of the Business Productivity Online Suite using Exchange Online and SharePoint Online Web services to leverage these cloud-based communication and collaboration services. The session uses WorXpace from Sonata Software as an example of an application that builds upon the Business Productivity Online Suite.

Interactive Sessions

• Managing Messaging and Collaboration in the Cloud with Microsoft Online Services (UNC01-INT, Tue. May 12 | 2:45 PM-4:00 PM | Yellow Theatre 1)

Paul Robichaux, Exchange MVP, walks through the process of setting up and administering the Business Productivity Online Suite. In addition to a tour through the Microsoft Online Administration Center (MOAC), this interactive session demonstrates the Single Sign In Client and Company Portal, which allow users to access the Microsoft Online Services capabilities delivered from the cloud.

• SharePoint: To Online or Not To Online? (OFC04-INT, Wed. May 13 | 1:00 PM-2:15 PM | Yellow Theatre 1)

Kimmo Forss and Richard Riley, from the Microsoft Online Services deployment and SharePoint product management teams, lead an interactive discussion on the differences between deploying SharePoint on premises as a server and in the cloud as a service.

• Next Generation Messaging and Collaboration Protection Drilldown (SIA01-INT, Thu. May 14 | 1:00 PM-2:15 PM | Orange Theatre 1)

Mike Chan, from the Forefront product management team, leads an interactive discussion about the advances in malware detection and filtering technologies that will help keep Microsoft Exchange and SharePoint environments free of malware, spam, and inappropriate content.

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guides for SharePoint Online

arvindsuthar — Fri, 08 May 2009 01:28:00 GMT

Considering an online solution for your organization’s collaboration services? The SharePoint Online—Evaluating Software-plus-Services guide provides a clear comparison of SharePoint collaboration technologies across on-premises, standard hosting, and dedicated hosting scenarios. Join the beta program today and give us your feedback. (Live ID login and registration required)

Download IPD Guide for SharePoint Online

Update Your Microsoft SharePoint Online Site Collections

arvindsuthar — Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:24:00 GMT

The April release of Microsoft SharePoint Online includes required changes to the SharePoint Online privacy link enforcement. If you have modified your SharePoint Online master page or if you have uploaded a custom master page, you must take action before this release to prevent loss of access to your SharePoint sites.

If You Customized Your Default Master Page

1. Use Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer to save a copy of your customized master page.

2. In Microsoft Office SharePoint Designer, right-click default.master, and then select Reset to Site Definition.

If You Uploaded a Custom Master Page

If you uploaded a custom master page and modified your site collections to use this master page, you will experience a brief service outage during the upgrade. Service will be automatically restored. However, if you do not add this link within 30 days of the release, you will not be able to use your SharePoint site collections.

If this link is not included, you will receive an error message when you attempt to display pages on your SharePoint site and the Microsoft Online Services Technical Support team will contact you to help you update your custom master page.

After this release, you will be able to customize your site collections, but you must include a reference to the SharePoint Online privacy policy on your master page. For information about adding this link, see Add the Privacy Statement to Your SharePoint Online Site.

This post will be deleted after all SharePoint Site Collections have been safely upgraded.

Frequently Asked Questions About Microsoft Online

arvindsuthar — Tue, 17 Mar 2009 12:08:00 GMT

Our Support and Documentation teams scoured the TechNet Forums for the attached set of frequently asked questions.

We expect to add to this list over time based on your questions. Let us know what you think through our feedback form or in the comments below.

Arvind Suthar

Director, Service

Microsoft Online

Customize your Microsoft SharePoint Online experience. Read the new Developer’s Guide

Lori - Microsoft — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 00:13:00 GMT

In the new Microsoft SharePoint Online Developer’s Guide find out how you can customize your company’s SharePoint experience so that it answers your specific business needs. Learn the key steps to installing and customizing SharePoint Online applications, ways to integrate live data; provide your team with custom no-code workflows, and learn how to extend SharePoint online with Microsoft Silverlight.

SharePoint Online Service Description

Lori - Microsoft — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 07:46:00 GMT

Microsoft Office SharePoint Online is a collection of Web-based tools and technologies built on Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 that help you store, share, and manage digital information within your company.This white paper describes the services and features that are included with the Standard offering of SharePoint Online.

Download and read the SharePoint Online Service Description