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Category Archives: Office 365

Office 365 – E1 and K1 plans getting full Office Web Apps (view, edit, create), replacing E2 and K2 at lower cost

As part of the new Office 365 service, changes will be made to the Office 365 plans. In short this means that the E1 and K1 plans will get full Office Web Apps (view, edit, create) replacing E2 and K2:

  • Current E1/K1 will get E2/K2 functionality at the same low cost.
  • Current E2/K2 customers will keep the same features, but at a lower cost (E1/K1).
  • E2/K2 will be replaced by E1/K1 since they will then have the same functionality.

The new situation will become like this:

New Office 365 Enterprise Plans overview

New Office 365 Enterprise Plans overview

PS: Besides the lower prices I’m also 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. More about that soon.

 
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Posted by on February 3, 2013 in Cloud, ICT, Microsoft, Office 365, Public Cloud

 

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Office 365 – Exchange Online mailbox Default MRM Policy might result in unwanted loss of mail

While I was studying for the 74-324 exam, I was reminded that by default the “Default MRM Policy” will be applied to a new mailbox (when you enable archiving)..

Very simply put, some items will be deleted or archived after a specific period of time. By example, files in your deleted folder will be removed after 30 days. This is unexpected for most people who are used to be able to browse their “deleted items” indefinitely.

Personally, I don’t want this to be automated because I want to be completely in control of my mail items. Especially considering the very large mailbox sizes with Office 365 (and even unlimited size for some subscription plans) I have disabled this “Default MRM Policy”.

You can set/disable the retention policy either using PowerShell or using the web interface by going to the mailbox, details, retention policy and selecting no policy.

Also if you want to know more about archiving, take a look at a couple of blog posts created on Techdom.nl by my colleague Dominique Hermans.

PS:Also take a look at this great post discussing backups, recovering deleted items and why you might want to enable litigation hold: http://www.spaceage.co.za/blog/technical/office-365-backup-data/. Also take a look at this article covering single instance recovery: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/hh125820.aspx.

 

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Event – Free Microsoft IT Camps

On a regular basis Microsoft and its partners host Free IT Camps. In the past I’ve blogged about them because I really think they’re a good way to quickly get up-to-date on products and technologies. Besides that it’s also a good way to get to know other people.

On the Microsoft Events website you can see which future events are available and not just IT Camps events.

Also should you not be able to attend an IT Camp, for Server 2012 you can also use IT Camps On-Demand.

 

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Free exam – 74-324 Administering Office 365 for Small Businesses

Microsoft is offering free exam vouchers for 74-324 Administering Office 365 for Small Businesses:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/mssmallbiz/archive/2013/01/15/we-re-giving-away-2-000-free-administering-office-365-for-small-businesses-exam-74-324-vouchers-here-s-how-to-get-yours.aspx

The supply is limited, so don’t wait too long.

Also be sure to take a look at : Jump start videos for the new exam 74-324 Administering Office 365 for Small Businesses.

[edit 25-01]

Another code can be found here: http://www.digitalwpc.com/GetInvolved/MSPartnerPerspectives/TrainingSpotlight/Pages/Training-Spotlight-Small-Business-Competency-Announcements.aspx?mtag=mpntraining_tw_SBCompAnnouncements#fbid=gbfFqtdRaxn

[edit 25-01]

 
 

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Great overview of Microsoft certification paths

There are many Microsoft certification paths and in my opinion a good overview was missing to determine what exams you need to pass. That is until now, because the overview shown below is great:

For more information, read the original blog post at borntolearn : http://borntolearn.mslearn.net/microsoft_it_academy/b/weblog/archive/2012/11/20/infographic-microsoft-it-academy-certification-roadmap.aspx

Also if you’re planning to pursue a certification, please leave a comment what your plans are and why.

 

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Office 2013 including Exchange, Lync and Sharepoint has been released to manufacturing (RTM)

As I’ve mentioned in previous blog posts, Microsoft is working hard to get new and better versions of their software released as soon as possible.

Last week Microsoft announced that the Office 2013 suite reached released to manufacturing (RTM) including:

  • Office 2013 for workstations (Outlook, Word, Excel, Powerpoint, Access, OneNote, Project, Visio)
  • Server software (Exchange 2013, Sharepoint 2013, Project 2013, Lync 2013, Visio 2013)
  • Cloud versions of the above mentioned software (Office 365).

The availability is dependent on the platform and your licensing type. More information about this can be found here:
http://blogs.office.com/b/office-news/archive/2012/10/11/office-reaches-rtm.aspx

I have to admit I didn’t expect them to reach RTM status already. I also hope that beta exams won’t be released anytime soon, because then I won’t have enough time to properly prepare 😦

 

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My RSS feeds for keeping up with ICT news/developments (Microsoft, VMware, Cloud and gadgets)

Currently, there are many technological advancements taking place every day. To keep up with them is already very hard. To make it a bit easier I use RSS feeds to quickly filter what I think might be of importance to me.

A list of the RSS feeds I currently use can be found here , but you can also download an XML export of my RSS feeds here for easy import to your preferred RSS reader (assuming it supports XML import). I also advise you to check Microsoft’s RSS feed index so you can customize it to your own needs.

I personally use Google Reader for my RSS feeds because then my RSS feeds will be accessible from everywhere as long as I have a browser and an internet connection. When you are often on the road without an active internet connection, a dedicated client with cached articles from the RSS feed might also come in handy.

PS: The Microsoft blog rss feed had many articles added daily and can be hard to keep up with, but you can pretty quickly weed out duplicate articles and articles in foreign languages.

I hope this has been helpful to you.

 

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Office 365 / Sharepoint online – Workaround to add RSS feed web part to public website

When I tried to include a RSS feeds web part to my public sharepoint site just the way I had done many times on intenal sharepoint sites, I found out that the RSS viewer web part was not available.

After searching the internet I found out why this was the case and I also found a workaround using a custom solution/webpart.

Even though it is possible to use RSS feeds this way on my public sharepoint site, it is not what I expected. In my opinion an RSS feed web part is such a fundamental part of websites nowadays that it should be available by default in Office 365 / Sharepoint online.

I hope that this will be corrected in the upcoming release of sharepoint (2013) for Office 365, but the preview still doesn’t provide this capability unfortunately:

 

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Office 365 / Sharepoint online – Change public site to look like a sharepoint 2010 site

When you first create a public site collection in Office 365 / Sharepoint online you get a default website that looks like this:

I personally prefer the Sharepoint 2010 site look:

To change the layout, follow the instructions in this blog post:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/sharepoint__cloud/archive/2011/12/22/change-sharepoint-online-public-site-to-look-like-a-sharepoint-2010-site.aspx

Please check my website http://www.bjornhouben.com to see what it can look like after some minor customizations.

 

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