Even though the website http://office.microsoft.com provides a comparison of the different Office 365 plans, it is not always entirely clear which features are available or what the restrictions are.
Luckily, Jasper Osgaard created a great blog post comparing the different plans in more detail without having to go through tons of documentation:
http://blogs.technet.com/b/lystavlen/archive/2013/03/30/office-365-comparing-p-m-and-e-plans.aspx
About 3 weeks before the upgrade took place, I received e-mails informing me about the upcoming update. It included the plan date and also mentioned I could postpone the update. As the date of the upgrade approached I also received mails with information of new features and what had to be done.
The upgrade itself took place on the date that was communicated to me and when it was done I got a mail informing me that the upgrade had been completed. When I logged on to the Office 365 admin center (https://portal.microsoftonline.com/) I immediately found this to be a big improvement. It also showed me some alerts containing links to information about changes and tasks that still needed to be performed like upgrading SharePoint sites.
I didn’t expect any big issues, but I was a bit worried if my SharePoint customizations would keep working correctly:
It is possible to leave the SharePoint site the way it is (at least with this upgrade), but you can also upgrade it and take advantage of the new options. If you are considering upgrading the SharePoint site, you can perform a health check and you can also request an upgrade evaluation copy of the site collection before you actually upgrade.
Probably because of my customizations, the Site Collection Health Check found some problems related to Customized Files that could result in unexpected visuals or behavior.
For now, everything seems to be working fine though on my upgrade evaluation copy of the site collection, so I’ll probably upgrade my site collection soon. If you want to, you can take a look at both the pre-upgrade SharePoint site and the post-upgrade SharePoint site. The evaluation post-upgrade version will only be available until the 23rd of June.
What I did notice, is that the interface of the services have improved and have also been changed to better suit for touch devices. By example the white space between navigation items seems to have increased and everything is a bit bigger.
After the upgrade, I also had to restart some Office 2013 apps once.
Of course the upgrade to Wave 15 provides many more advantages, but in this post I only wanted to share my service upgrade experience without really changing anything. All in all, I think the upgrade experience went very well.
The recordings for “Using Microsoft VDI to Enable New Workstyles Jump Start” are available now on Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA).
These Jump Starts are a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights. So be sure to check out the Q&A log as well.
Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA) is hosting the “Windows Azure for IT Professionals Jump Start” at May 16th. Information and registration is available on the website: https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/liveevents/Windows-Azure-for-IT-Professionals?CR_CC=200206715
I’ve attended a couple of Jump Starts and I think it’s a great way to quickly get up-to-date about a subject. Also there’s a great team of people working behind the scenes to answer questions and provide more detailed resources. Other attendees often also share their experiences and provide valuable insights.
Also it’s only been a couple of weeks since Windows Azure IaaS is live in production backed by an enterprise SLA, supported by Microsoft Support, and ready for your production applications. Therefore it is a great time to start learning more about it.
I hope to see you there.
In yesterday’s blog post I mentioned that I was looking forward to being upgraded to the new Office 365 in the next 4 weeks.
I did encounter an issue however that I was not able to open files on SharePoint using the desktop version of Office 2013. I kept on getting the message: “call us overprotective, but we need to verify your account before opening this document”. This never succeeded and I couldn’t modify my file using Office 2013. The Office Web App version was working fine though.
After googling around a bit, I found out that this was a common issue for people that are planned to be migrated (pre-upgrade). The solution/workaround for this issue is described here:
Office 365 pre-upgrade users cannot open or synchronize SharePoint files after the Office 2013: March 12, 2013 update is installed
Back in February I posted that as part of the new Office 365 service, changes would be made to the Office 365 plans.
These changes are in effect right now. In short this means that the E1 and K1 plans that previously were only able to read with the Web Apps have gotten the full Office Web Apps (view, edit, create). This replaces the old E2 and K2. So basically:
The new situation has become like this:
New Office 365 Enterprise Plans overview
PS: I love the Office 365 service and I’m looking forward to the new Office 365 features that will be added when Office 365 will start using the Office 2013 (Wave 15) versions of SharePoint, Outlook, Lync, Office Web Apps. I’ve gotten a mail that I’m planned to be upgraded within the next 4 weeks, so more about that soon. I’m especially curious if my SharePoint customizations will continue to work.
The videos and Q&A transcript of the “Windows Intune for IT Professionals Jump Start” are available on Microsoft Virtual Academt (MVA):
https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/windows-intune-for-it-professionals-jump-start
Windows Intune is a cloud-based solution to manage desktops and mobile devices (including tablets and phones). It’s not limited to just Windows based products. For more information, take a look at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/windowsintune/pc-management.aspx
The videos of the “Virtualization for VMware Professionals Jump Start” have been posted to the Microsoft Virtual Academy (MVA):
https://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/tracks/microsoft-virtualization-for-vmware-professionals
Unfortunately I wasn’t able to attend this session live, but thanks to MVA I can still view the recordings when it is convenient for me.
The System Center Universe videos and presentations are available at http://www.systemcenteruniverse.com. I’ve only been able to browse through them a bit, but it seems very promising.
Also if you’ve missed it in the past, you might also want to take a look at the NIC 2013 (Nordic Infrastructure Conference) session at http://nicconf.com/
blog.bjornhouben.com 