I had a customer recently ask me about removing forwarding. There are two steps to do this the first is to remove the UI settings and the other to change the mailbox settings. The original article written for Live@edu was a little different as the rule set has changed in Office 365. I owe my efforts to the original article here.

Please use the following instructions to disable forwarding in Office 365:

1. Create new role which parent is “MyBaseOptions”

New-ManagementRole -Parent MyBaseOptions -Name NewMyBaseOptions

2. Remove some options related “forwarding” in “Set-Mailbox”

Set-ManagementRoleEntry NewMyBaseOptions\Set-Mailbox -Parameters DeliverToMailboxAndForward,ForwardingAddress,ForwardingSmtpAddress -RemoveParameter

3.Create new role assignment policy which contains “NewMyBaseOptions”

New-RoleAssignmentPolicy -Name DenyForwardingRoleAssignmentPolicy -Roles NewMyBaseOptions,MyContactInformation, MyRetentionPolicies,MyMailSubscriptions,MyTextMessaging,MyVoiceMail,MyDistributionGroupMembership,

MyDistributionGroups, MyProfileInformation

4. Assign the new policy to the appropriate mailbox.

Set-Mailbox –Identity XXX -RoleAssignmentPolicy DenyForwardingRoleAssignmentPolicy

Of course if you have multiple user sets then create different policies and assign. For example if you want some to forward and some not to create two policies.

We have released documentation for Shibboleth support, marking the public availability for Shibboleth integration into Office 365!  You can find the reference here.  This provides a customer with the ability to provide their Active Directory users with single sign-on experience by using Shibboleth Identity Provider as their preferred Security Token Service (STS).

The scenarios covered for support include:

1. Web-based clients such as Outlook Web Access for Exchange and SharePoint Online. 

2. Rich client support including IMAP, POP, EAS, MAP, Outlook 2007, Thunderbird 8 and 9, iPhone, and Windows Phone (These options need to support basic authentication to Exchange for access method and we also need Enhanced Client Protocol (ECP) to be deployed).

All other clients are not support in this SSO scenario with Shibboleth as an iDP.

To setup this configuration you’ll need to setup the following:

1. Configure Shibboleth for use with single sign-on.
2. Install Windows PowerShell for single sign-on with Shibboleth
3. Set up a trust between Shibboleth and Windows Azure AD
4. Follow the detailed instructions in Directory synchronization roadmap to prepare for, activate, install a tool, and verify directory synchronization.
5. Verify single sign-on with Shibboleth

Please contact your Microsoft account team on how to get a customer supported for Shibboleth.

As of June 27^th Microsoft introduced officially Office 365 for education, and while there is a wealth of information currently available you may still have questions as to what features are included and how to get started.  In this article we will try to address those questions for you.

What features are included in Office 365 for education’s free offering?

Office 365 for education like Office 365 for enterprise, is made of a combination of plans and suites. You have individual plans like Exchange Online Plan 1 or SharePoint Plan 2, as well as various other options.  Microsoft has built bundles or suites of these individual plans for our customers.  In education, there are three suites available – A2, A3 and A4.  In order to understand what these offers are at a high level you can take a look at the compare plans section for Office 365 for education, found here.  For some users, this may be enough information to decide, but what if you really want to get into the details.  Here is a simple breakdown of the plans–

Now that you have this information please review the Service Descriptions for Office 365 (yes they are the same for education as the enterprise), and you’ll understand all of the great features that Office 365 has to offer.  

How to order Office 365 through the web portal

 So you have read all through all of the service descriptions and you are ready to move forward with Office 365.  At this point you have a choice to make order through your volume license agreement of order through the web portal.  If you want to order through your volume license agreement (EES), please contact either your reseller or Microsoft representative.  If you want to order directly through the Microsoft Online services portal please keep reading.  A few things to note if you choose the online services portal –

1. All orders start as trials licenses, you will be provided 25 faculty and staff licenses as well as 25 student licenses, of Plan A3.
2. If you follow the instructions and links provided here you will be able to convert to a production environment, this is not an option if you choose the enterprise trial.
3. You must accept the Microsoft Online Services Agreement which is part of the sign-up process

You can start your trial environment for Office 365 for education here. You can see screen shots of the entire process in the embeded content below.

After two weeks you will be able to add production licenses through the administrator console, under the purchase section (even the free A2 SKUs).  

If you are still looking for more information on where to go from here, check out the Trial Guide - Learn more.

Step by step ADFS training video

The folks at TechNet have just released a new Office 365 Jumpstart video training series which can greatly assist you with your Office 365 for Education deployment in areas including ADFS, Dirsync, UM, Exchange Hybrid, archiving, and SharePoint Online. The sessions have excellent information and contain over 11 hours of video training and hands on server installation walkthroughs on all areas of an Office 365 deployment including ADFS, Dirsync, Lync Online, Exchange Hybrid server, and SharePoint Online.  This is a must watch if you want to get an end to end understanding of all the deployment components required to deploy Office 365 for Education.

Preparing your infrastructure for  Office 365 – watch it here

Deploying Federated ID – ADFS Part I – watch it here

Deploying Federated ID – ADFS Part II – watch it here

Deploying Dirsync Appliance – watch it here

Planning for Lync Online – watch it here

Planning for Exchange Online Unified Messaging – watch it here

Deploying Exchange online mail and routing – watch it here

Deploying Exchange Hybrid Server Part I – watch it here

Deploying Exchange Hybrid Server Part II – watch it here

Planning for Exchange Online Archiving – watch it here

Planning for SharePoint Online – watch it here

Using and deploying SharePoint Online – watch it here

After watching the training videos, now you are ready to put this learning into a lab.  If you don’t have Hyper-V lab for example, we have some incredible virtual labs for Office 365 where you can conduct hands on learning with our labs in the cloud (no local VMs required) – it also has step by step guidance in the virtual lab so it shows you exactly what to do. Very useful if you get stuck in your deployment:

Use our awesome Office 365 hands on virtual labs on ADFS, Dirsync, Exchange Hybrid (note: this lab hasn’t been updated with the Sp2 Hybrid Configuration Wizard – it is better to use this instead) and SharePoint Online are here.

More training links on ADFS and Dirsync here.

Making changes to the way you work, or more importantly the way your staff and students work, is a big deal in any institution. Being able to test, develop and trial changes is vital to rolling out any new services successfully. For this reason we’ve made getting your hands on Office 365 for education super simple! You can trial the whole service, including the Office Professional Plus subscription free for 30 days! All you have to do is sign up:

http://education.office365.com

The trial gives you access to 25 student and 25 faculty A3 plan licenses which include:

• Exchange Online with a 25GB mailbox
• Lync Online for voice, video, IM and screen sharing
• SharePoint Online with the Microsoft Office Web Apps (Word, Excel, PowerPoint and OneNote) for the easy creation, collaboration and curation of all sorts of files.
• Microsoft Office Professional Plus subscription to allow your users to install Office on up to 5 PCs!

The first thing you’re going to want to do once you’ve got your trial is create some users and the simplest way to do that is via the Microsoft Online Services Admin Portal. The video below shows the steps you need to go through in order to create your first users and assign them some services. Please note this video has no sound.

It’s as simple as that! Don’t forget that the trial does end and you should understand what happens so that you get the best experience.

Have you made any useful screencasts of using Office 365 for your institution? Share them with us in the comments and we’ll feature the best ones in a blog post!