This was a question from a university in northern California deploying Office 365 for Education for faculty, staff and students.

Step 1 – Ensure your workstations meet the minimum Office 365 requirements

The first thing you need to do is assess what current state your workstations are in relative to the minimum requirements for Office 365.  The minimum client requirements are listed here.  You can leverage System Center Configuration Manager to scan your workstations for gaps or you can use the MAP tool. 

As of June 2012, here are the current minimum requirements for Office 365:

Operating systems
Windows 7
Windows Vista with Service Pack 2
Windows XP with Service Pack 3
Windows XP Home Edition is supported, but it will not support federated identity
Windows XP Media Center Edition is supported, but it will not support federated identity
Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard, 10.6 Snow Leopard

System software
Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 (for Windows XP)
Java client 1.4.2 (for Macintosh OS X)

Office clients
Microsoft Office 2010 or Office 2007 Service Pack 2
Office 2008 for Mac 12.2.9 update or later and Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition
Office 2011 for Mac and Outlook 2011 for Mac Sp1
.NET Framework 2.0 or later
Microsoft Lync 2010

Client applications
Services Connector
Browser software—Microsoft Online Portal
Internet Explorer 7 or later
Mozilla Firefox 3.x
Apple Safari 3.x

Browser requirements—Microsoft Outlook Web App
Internet Explorer 7 or later
Firefox 3 or later
Safari 4 or later on Macintosh OS X 10.5
Chrome 3 and later versions
Outlook Web App also has a light version that supports a reduced set of features on almost any browser

For additional Mac browser specific requirements visit here.

You need to remediate any workstations that do not meet the minimum requirements of browser, Office, or Operating System using SCCM, group policy, or other client push mechanism.

Step 2 – Add Office 365 updates and Sign In Assistant to workstations

After you have remediated any workstations not meeting the minimum requirements, we provide a list of required updates on the desktop specifically for Office 365 which should be in this order:

1) If using Lync Online, deploy Lync 2010 client or Lync 2011 for Mac client

2) Deploy Office 365 Sign In Assistant (IDCRL7):

Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant (IDCRL7)

Windows XP SP3, Windows Vista SP2, Windows 7, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

User credentials are managed by Microsoft Online Services ID. To sign in to the services, users must install the Microsoft Online Services Sign-In Assistant.

Download

3) Deploy Office updates for Office 365 listed below:

Microsoft Office 2007 Security Update

(KB2289158)

Microsoft Office 2007 on all versions of Windows

Download

Microsoft Office 2010 Update

(KB2435954)

Microsoft Office 2010 on Windows XP with Internet Explorer 7

Allows users to access Microsoft SharePoint Online from Microsoft Word 2010, Microsoft Excel 2010, Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, and Microsoft OneNote 2010.

Important In addition to applying this update, you must add the following registry key for each user: [HKCU\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\Common\Internet\FormsBasedAuthSettings\AllowFBANoPatches – DWORD: 1]

Also, If you have Office 2010 SP1 Beta installed, you will first need to uninstall the SP1 Beta before installing this update.

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Microsoft Outlook 2007 Update

(KB2596993)

Office Outlook 2007 on all versions of Windows

Configures Outlook to connect with Microsoft Exchange Online.

Download

Microsoft Outlook 2010 Update

(KB2597011)

Microsoft Office 2010 on all versions of Windows

Configures Outlook to connect with Microsoft Exchange Online.

Important If you have Office 2010 SP1 Beta installed, you will first need to uninstall the SP1 Beta before installing this update

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Microsoft OneNote 2010 Update

(KB2523130)

Microsoft OneNote 2010 on all versions of Windows

Allows OneNote 2010 to sync with shared notebooks on Microsoft SharePoint Online.

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Microsoft Outlook Social Connector 2010 Update

(KB2583935)

Microsoft Outlook Social Connector 2010 on all versions of Windows

See KB2583935 for more details.

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Microsoft Outlook Social Connector 2010 Update

(KB2597051)

Microsoft Outlook Social Connector 2010 on all versions of Windows

See KB2597051 for more details.

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Microsoft Office 2010 Update

(KB2566458)

Microsoft Office 2010 on all versions of Windows

See KB2566458 for more details.

Download the 32 bit version

Download the 64 bit version

Office 2011 for Mac

Install all the latest Office 2011 updates

Office 2008 for Mac

Install 12.2.9 update or later

There is also a free Office 365 client updater tool from MessageOps that can be used to ensure workstations are up to date here if SCCM or other means are not available.

If you’re using non-federated identities with Office 365 for education you will find that by default password expiry is enabled, meaning every 90 days you’ll be required to pick a new password. While the duration of this is not configurable, it is possible to disable the feature for some or all of your users.

Remote PowerShell

To do this you’re going to need to connect to your Office 365 tenant using remote PowerShell. Make sure you’ve downloaded the necessary PowerShell cmdlets, and familiarised yourself with them.

For an individual user:

To disable password expiry for an individual user, run the following code:

   1: Set-MsolUser –UserPrincipalName <UPNName> -PasswordNeverExpires $True 

  For example, if your user’s UPN is aylakol@contoso.edu the code would look like:

   1: Set-MsolUser –UserPrincipalName aylakol@contoso.edu -PasswordNeverExpires $True 

For all users:

To disable password expiry for all of your users, run the following code:

   1: Get-MsolUser | Set-MsolUser –PasswordNeverExpires $True 

That’s it! Now your users won’t be prompted to reset their passwords after 90 days.

If you’re looking for a more advanced scenario where your passwords are managed by your local Active Directory then take a look at federated identity in Office 365 with Active Directory Federation Services 2.0 – a server role that enables you to authenticate against your AD for access to Office 365 for education.

In Office 365 for education, as it stands today, creating shared mailboxes involves using Windows PowerShell which, to the uninitiated, can be complex task. As an aside, it’s worth getting to grips with PowerShell as it’s a great way to aid managing the service!

Shared mailboxes are useful for generic aliases, for example “reception@myschool.sch.uk” or “itservices@myuniversity.ac.uk” as they provide a way to give multiple users access to a mailbox without having to be an alias of somebody’s own personal mailbox; this has the knock-on benefit that should your receptionist, or IT services team leave, the shared mailbox remains for their successors to pick up – no downtime or change of aliases for your end users.

Each shared mailbox has a 5GB limit, and does not require a licence. The great news is that there is a free tool that makes creating shared mailboxes in Office 365 for education much easier. Introducing the GUI-based Shared Mailbox Tool…

The free download provides a simple way to create shared mailboxes for your users, check out the Office 365 community Wiki for the step-by-step guide on how to use the tool:

Create Shared Mailboxes with GUI-based Tool

Once you’ve configured your shared mailboxes, why not take a look at how to use them in Office 365 via OWA.

It’s less than 48 hours since Office 365 for education launched around the world but already I’m building up a nice list of frequently asked questions, first of which is “what happens when my trial expires?”.

30-day Trial

Every Office 365 for education customer has to sign up for the 30-day trial before they get access to add extra licenses. This is so we can verify that you’re an eligible academic institution. To get you started we provide 50 trial A3 plan licenses; if you go to the licenses section in the Microsoft Online Services Admin Portal you’ll see something similar to this:

Once you’ve verified your eligibility you’ll get access to the purchasing section to be able to add in more licenses. There are several to choose from:

You need to purchase the licenses you want to use with your users from this portal as the trial licenses cannot be extended. At the end of trial period, if you’ve not purchased any additional plans, your trial licenses will expire and you may lose access to some of the services.

Unlike Live@edu, where there were no plans, Office 365 for education offers a number of different plans and prices to suit your requirements which is why you must choose which plans to purchase; we don’t make that decision for you.

Once you’ve purchased the licenses you need you’ll see in the billing and subscription management section that you have a number of subscriptions running, including the original trial licenses that will expire 30 days after signing up:

When you go to manage one of your users you’ll be able to assign the licenses you’ve purchased and can disregard the trial licenses:

If you’ve not already, you can sign up for the free 30-day trial of Office 365 for education at http://education.office365.com and get started with your deployment today!

Have you signed up for the trial?

Tell us what you’re planning to do with Office 365 for education in your institution in the comments!

Starting today, Microsoft Office 365 for education is available, providing the world’s best productivity, communications and collaboration experiences to schools at no cost.  

“The cloud and online learning are key trends transforming education today. Office 365 for education delivers a holistic collaboration platform that will change the game,” said Anthony Salcito, vice president of worldwide education, Microsoft. “As schools face ever-tightening budgets and the pressure to innovate, we are offering enterprise quality technology for free that will modernize teaching practices and help prepare students for the jobs of tomorrow.”

At BETT 2011 we announced that Office 365 would be coming to our education customers – an upgrade for the current Live@edu service used by over 22M users worldwide. Over the last few months some of our early adopter customers, including University of Dundee, Westminster University and The Schools Network (formerly SSAT) have been deploying this upgraded service and they’re really happy with the results.

“The university selected Office 365 over Google Apps because it gives us a robust enterprise-class platform for developing a radical new approach to collaboration and communication that goes far beyond email”

Tom Mortimer, Director, Information and Communication Services, University of Dundee

As of right now education institutions can sign up for the Office 365 for education 30-day trial for free via the Office 365 website.

Classrooms Without Boundaries

Office 365 allows schools to teach from virtually anywhere*, reach more students, teach software skills employers are looking for and provide enterprise-class tools that reduce IT costs.

Students can engage in ad-hoc instant messaging or video chats to collaborate on class projects in real time, regardless of where they are working or on what device. They can create documents with Office Web Apps that provide the same features as the desktop version of Microsoft Office, share class notes by synchronizing OneNote notebooks, and create digital portfolios.

Teachers can create curriculum, record lectures and publish them on online class sites in the cloud where students are able to view, open, produce, edit and share their homework. Office 365 provides new ways to extend classroom teaching time and distance learning, tutor students online, and whiteboard ideas.

Educational institutions and parents will get peace of mind knowing students’ content and personal data are protected and won’t be scanned for advertising purposes, thanks to a rich set of privacy, security and protection capabilities that adhere to federal laws.

School IT departments can save money and free up more critical time by counting on Microsoft to manage routine tasks such as applying server updates and software upgrades. With the influx of digital content, datacentre demands and lessened and with 25GB mailboxes, people won’t be forced to purge files.

*An appropriate device, Internet connection, supported browser and/or carrier network connectivity are required. Data charges may apply.

What should I do now?

http://education.office365.com

Education institutions currently using the Microsoft Live@edu platform will be upgraded to Office 365 beginning this summer.