This was a question from a university in Nebraska moving to Office 365 for Education for faculty and staff.

Here are some links you can provide to your end users or you can download the recorded sessions and host them on an intranet site:

Office 365 Training materials

OWA URL

So you are deploying Office 365 in a hybrid configuration. Of course you want to configure the clients to go to the same URL. It would not be seamless and that is the goal of a migration. So if you have a URL that is https://mail.contoso.edu/owa on Friday you want the same thing on Monday. You have two options:

1. Tell users new URL for migrated users (probably not the options you want) it would be something like http://mail.office365.com/owa/contoso.edu

2. set the targetOWAURL in the organization relationship. Set-OrganizationRelationship – TargetOWAURL https://mail.office365.com/owa/contoso.edu

For the second option you should also create a CNAME to redirect the OWA request. Create the CNAME so that mail.contoso.edu redirects to mail.office365.com…. be sure to create internal and external records for split DNS scenarios.

CLIENT Authentication

The second question I’m getting often is about client authentication. For internal domain joined machines the SSO will work but requires you to tweak the IE configuration. Add the domain in question http://*.contoso.edu to the local intranet sites in IE.

For SSO to work with both Chrome and Firefox you need to make a change to your IIS configuration for your ADFS installation if you have indeed selected the federation approach. For these client to work you need to relax the settings in IIS for Windows authentication. This is because Chrome and Firefox don’t support Extended Protection. Doing this does provide you with a security risk and therefor isn’t recommended. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd639324(v=vs.90).aspx

• Start >Administrative Tools >IIS Manager
• Expand: <server-name>, Sites, Default Web Site, and adfs
• Select the lsapplication and double-clickAuthentication
• Select Windows Authenticationand selectAdvanced Settings....
• Set Extended ProtectiontoOff and clickOK

An alternative to this is use Forms Based Authentication instead of Windows. To do this you need to make the changes outlined in Steve Syfus’s blog here. Thanks Steve!

Reflecting on a great BETT, thanks to everyone who stopped by our stand, one of the most popular sessions within our Theatre Stand was the School in a Box presentation delivered by our Schools Business Managers, Sean O’Shea and Mark Reynolds.

Delivered in their unique and entertaining way, both Sean and Mark did an amazing job at presenting a new concept for ICT delivery within schools that supports the idea that there is an empowering alternative for school leaders in how they use IT, and the cloud in particular, to deliver next generation learning experiences.

If you missed their session, or want a copy of their slides to share with colleagues, the full deck can be viewed/downloaded below.

A copy of the eBook that stimulated the School in a Box movement can also be downloaded below.

If you would like to learn more about School in a Box, Nviron, in conjunction with Microsoft, are running an a free half day seminar in Cheshire (J11, M56) on 6^th February focusing on Cloud computing in Education. With a focus on Office 365, Live@edu and Microsoft Hyper-V^™ & System Center, this event offers a unique opportunity to build on the content shared via the presentation and eBook above and learn how School in a Box can help transform how you think about the delivery and consumption of ICT in your school.

Location and registration details are available via the Nviron website.

We just added a new ‘Service Update’ website to the Office 365 Wiki where you can see all the updates added to the service in chronological order. This is useful to learn what new features and capabilities are being added to Office 365 service and when they were added.

What are some of the new capabilities added to Office 365 in the last two months (Dec 2011/Jan 2012)?

• Updated Service health dashboard – more details on each Office 365 service along with drill down capabilities for more details and status:

• Lync Online web scheduler

For users who don’t have Outlook or Outlook for Mac (e.g. students), you can now schedule Lync conferences via the web:

• Exchange 2010 Sp2 Hybrid Wizard support

If you are deploying in a hybrid configuration with Exchange 2003+ on prem and Exchange Online, this Exchange 2010 Sp2 Hybrid wizard automates about 50 manual steps required to configure a hybrid scenario (calendar sharing, connectors, migration, etc):

• Lync Mobile clients support

Added Windows Phone 7, iPad, iPhone, Android and Nokia Lync Online mobile client support

• Migration enhancements – can bump up to 50 migration threads, batch and scheduled migration support
• Group naming policies

You can add group suffix and prefixes for everyone who creates groups to adhere to:

• E-discovery enhancements – faster discovery searches, new pop out window, etc.
• GUI Exchange retention policy and retention tags management

This was formerly only available via PowerShell. You can now use the web admin portal to manage these:

• Sender photos in OWA – photos in AD can be surfaced in OWA

Visit the Office 365 Service Update site directly here.

For schools, colleges and universities looking for a powerful tool for their students to help them better collaborate on group projects, SkyDrive and Office Web Apps is the ideal solution.

Those looking for a web based solution often think about Google Docs. While tools such as this may work well for simple tasks, they may not have the features you need to create professional documents. You can also have formatting issues when you move between these apps and Office.

You could also use a “file cloud” like Dropbox, but these tools aren’t really designed for collaboration, and they don’t let you work simultaneously with others on a document.

Faced with these choices, many people decide to work independently and email files back and forth. This makes it hard to know if you’re working on the latest version of a document, and sometimes you can run into attachment limits. It also can take a lot of time to piece together different Word documents or PowerPoint presentations from multiple email messages.

With SkyDrive, you have a better option. Students can store all their files in one place, so everyone can access the latest version. They can also use free Office Web Apps for basic editing from any browser.

More specifically, SkyDrive and Office Web Apps allow you to more easily manage the following:

• SkyDrive and the Word Web App let students work together on the same document from different computers
• Let everyone in the group work on the same presentation file – even at the same time – from any PC, Mac, or just a web browser with the PowerPoint Web App
• Easily share the presentation and let everyone see it the way it was intended to look by uploading the file to SkyDrive and viewing it with the PowerPoint Web App
• Access and collaborate on files in almost any web browser even if Office isn't installed on that computer
• Spend more time actually working on a spreadsheet or model and less time reformatting or organizing it
• With OneNote, keep notes synced across all of your computers and even your Windows Phone or iPhone
• Easily open and print your documents from the library or computer lab at school

SkyDrive and Office Web Apps make sharing easy. Learn more about how your students can start embracing these powerful tools, also offered as part of Live@edu, today.

By Tim Bush