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.
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Tags: Exchange, Exchange online, experience, Lync, Lync online, Office, Office 365, service, service upgrade, service upgrade experience, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, upgrade, wave 15, wave 2013
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
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Tags: call us overprotective but we need to verify your account before opening this document, Cloud, Excel, Microsoft, Office, Office 2013, Office 365, OneNote, Powerpoint, Public Cloud, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, upgrade, Visio, Word
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:
- Old E1/K1 have gotten E2/K2 functionality at the same low cost.
- Old E2/K2 customers will keep the same features, but at a lower cost (E1/K1).
- Old E2/K2 will be replaced by E1/K1 since they will then have the same functionality.
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.
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Tags: Cloud, cloud computing, E1, E2, enterprise plan, K1, K2, Lync, Office, Office 2013, Office 365, Office Web Apps, Outlook, owa, Public Cloud, Sharepoint, SKU
Nowadays more and more work, communication and collaboration involves multiple external parties. This can involve by example employees, customers, partners, suppliers, cloud providers/platforms/applications.
This means it is becoming increasingly important to have proper authentication and authorization methods in place for single sign on (SSO) so users can be more productive. Besides the ease-of-use It can also lead to better security.
Microsoft’s Active Directory Federation Services (ADFS) will make this possible. For more information on ADFS, here are some resources. Keep in mind though that while some information may be outdated, it will give you a broad idea of the concept and the inner workings. The current version of ADFS in Windows Server 2012 is 2.1 , while Windows Server 2008 uses 2.0
PS: Microsoft is moving more and more towards claims based authentication. Examples include Windows Server 2012 Dynamic Access Control and also SharePoint 2013 that has switched to claims based authentication by default now.
If you have some other resources that might be useful, please let me know so I can add them as well.
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Tags: Access control, Active Directory, Active Directory Federation Services, ADFS, ADFS 2.0, ADFS 2.1, authentication, authorization, Azure, Cloud, configure, configuring, Deploy, deploying, Dynamic Access Control, federated identity, ForeFront UAG, IAAS, ICT, jump start, Microsoft, Microsoft Intune, Office 365, PKI, plan, security, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, singe-sign-on, Single Sign On, SSO, Technet, Threat Management Gateway, TMG, UAG, Universal Access Gateway, virtual lab, Windows Azure, Windows Server 2008, Windows Server 2012
In the past I’ve created a post to get my public site to become a SharePoint 2010 style team site. The only thing I’d been missing since was a way to allow public/anonymous users to use the search (when trying to perform a search you would have to logon).This also meant that filters in the lists I created weren’t working 😦
Because of the unsupported customizing I did on the SharePoint site, I thought this just wasn’t possible.
Thankfully however, a visitor of my blog (Denis) came across my post “Provide anonymous access to sharepoint lists on Office 365 (Sharepoint online)” and shared this blog post to enable search for an Office 365 / SharePoint Online public site which refers to https://dotnetmafia.sys-con.com/node/1918049/mobile
So now my website http://www.bjornhouben.com and all the content inside it, including the lists is completely searchable.
Thanks again Denis.
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Tags: design, layout, Microsoft, Office 365, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, sharepoint public, Sharepoint public site, site
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
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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Tags: Cloud, cloud computing, E1, E2, enterprise plan, K1, K2, Lync, Office, Office 2013, Office 365, Office Web Apps, Outlook, Public Cloud, Sharepoint, SKU
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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Tags: Access, Access 2013, Cloud, Excel, Excel 2013, Exchange, Exchange 2013, Exchange online, Lync, Lync 2013, Lync online, Lync Server 2013, Microsoft, Office, Office 2013, Office 365, OneNote, OneNote 2013, OneNote MX, online service, Outlook, Outlook 2013, Powerpoint, Powerpoint 2013, Project, Project 2013, Project Online, Project Server 2013, Public Cloud, RTM, Sharepoint, Sharepoint 2013, Sharepoint online, Software, Visio, Visio 2013, Visio Server 2013, Word, Word 2013
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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Tags: Cloud, ICT, Learning, Microsoft, Office 365, Public Cloud, rss, rss feed, RSS Feed Webpart, Sharepoint, Sharepoint online, Tutorial, Tutorials, web part, webpart
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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Tags: design, layout, Microsoft, Office 365, Sharepoint, sharepoint 2010, Sharepoint online, Sharepoint public site, Sharepoint site, site
When Microsoft creates new (versions of their) software, they also create new exams to become certified. Part of this process includes testing the exams, determining the passing score, getting feedback and improving the exams based on the feedback (deciding which questions to use, removing questions, re-phrasing, etc.). More information can be found here.
To get feedback, Microsoft offers access to these beta exams for free. They do this publicly using by example the born to learn blog or privately using mail to select subject matter experts (SME) based on their profiles on Microsoft Connect. So if you’re interested in taking beta exams, update the information on the Microsoft Connect site to get private invites to the latest beta exams that are relevant to you. More information about the invite procedure can be found on the Born To Learn blog. Also keep in mind that public invites might be limited using a first-come, first served principle so check on a regular basis.
Advantages and disadvantages of taking beta exams:
+ It is free if you received an invite. Nowadays you can also take beta exams if you haven’t had an invite, but then you need to pay for the exam.
+ You have a chance to become one of the first people to become certified for the new software.
+ If you pass a beta exam, you passed it legitimately because there are no answers to download online.
+ Even if you fail the beta exam, you’ve still learned a lot about the new (version of the) software.
– In general there are no books available yet and you have to get all your information from hands-on experience, blogs, technet, websites, etc.
– The time frame you have to prepare for the exams can be (very) limited. For example with the last invites for the Server 2012 beta exams I had only 2 weeks to prepare for multiple exams.
– After you’ve taken a beta exam, it might take 2-3 months before you get the result.
Beta exams I’ve taken recently include those for Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, System Center 2012 and Office 365. I expect the next beta exams to cover mainly Office 15/Office 2013 related products like by example Sharepoint, Exchange, Lync. So if you’re interested in these beta exams be sure to keep a close eye on the beta exams and start working with and learning about the products already.
I hope this was informative and that it well help you and/or your company gain a competitive advantage.
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Tags: Beta, certification, certified, certify, Exam, Exchange, Learning, Lync, Microsoft, microsoft learning, Office, Office 365, Sharepoint, sme, subject matter expert, System Center, Windows, Windows 2012, Windows 2012 Server, Windows 8, Windows Server 2012
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