Lync and Learn: Instant Collaboration with SharePoint Online

Audience: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Office 365 for enterprises   Lync and Learn is an online session led by Office 365 Product Managers and Community  Grid members .  Lync and Learn sessions address different Office 365 subjects and scenarios and is beneficial to anyone who wants to learn more and expand their knowledge of the Office 365 suite. View past Lync and Learn sessions  here .        Many users move to Office 365 for its convenience and reliability of email. But Office 365 comes packaged with other products that can help greatly increase anyone’s productivity and collaboration.  One of the most powerful Office 365 tools is SharePoint Online. Some users may not  be aware of the potential of SharePoint Online, or may want to brush up on some SharePoint best practices. If this sounds like you, then be sure to join our next  Lync and Learn Session . Join  John Ventry  for an informative session detailing what SharePoint Online is and how it can instantly improve productivity and collaboration for you and your organization.   John Ventry  is a 17 year technology professional, currently working as an Office 365 and SharePoint consultant for St. Charles Consulting Group. John works with clients on developing SharePoint solutions, creating mobility strategies around SharePoint and Office 365, SharePoint migration strategies and Office 365 administration.   To join this webcast please join us on  Thursday November 15 th , at 10:00 AM Pacific Time  and  see the Lync information below.  Download and save the calendar invite  on this blog post. We are excited to see you there!  Interested in being our next Lync and Learn presenter?  Learn how to join the Office 365 Grid  and become an Office 365 Lync and Learn presenter. ——————————————————————————————————————————————————— Presenter:  John Ventry , Office365/SharePoint Consultant for St. Charles Consulting Group, and  Office 365 Grid member . Date/Time: Thursday May 15 th , at 10:00 AM Pacific Time . (1 Hour presentation) Live Meeting Information: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Join online meeting https://join.microsoft.com/meet/v-joshto/F00T8BQY Join by Phone  +14257063500         +18883203585           Find a local number   Conference ID: 27579341     Forgot your dial-in PIN?   |    First online meeting?      [1033])!] ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….

Live@edu customers: Use the upgrade planning worksheet to upgrade your institution

Audience: Live@edu; Office 365 for education Editor’s Note: Please be sure that the contact information for your institution is up to date to be alerted to key Live@edu to Office 365 upgrade information. Sign in to the Service Management Portal (SMP)  and update the critical notification field with all updated contacts for your institution.  The upgrade to Office 365 for education is happening! By September 2013, all Live@edu customers will need to complete the upgrade to Office 365 for education. Microsoft will start scheduling more academic institutions for the upgrade soon, but you don’t have to wait. Sign in to SMP  and see if your institution is ready to upgrade, or contact Live@edu  support to initiate the upgrade.   Get started today. Download the upgrade planning worksheet and start planning. The Office 365 upgrade builds on your existing Live@edu deployment, and we provide the tools and guidance at each stage—including the new upgrade planning worksheet . You can use this tool to track the tasks required before, during, and after the upgrade.   To get started Download the upgrade planning worksheet and start by selecting the scenarios that apply to your Live@edu deployment. Prepare for the upgrade. Visit the upgrade center to better understand each step in the upgrade process. Start the upgrade to Office 365. Remember, after the upgrade your domain will be subscribed to Exchange Online Plan 1 automatically – which is free. You can then change your subscription to any of the Office 365 academic plans to give your students, faculty, and staff access to more services. Check out all the Office 365 academic plans .   Live@edu administrative changes coming December 2012 While Live@edu accounts are being prepared for the upgrade to Office 365, a few administrative features will not be available beginning December 3, 2012 until your institution’s upgrade to Office 365 for education is complete:  Add or remove accepted domains to your institution subscription. Change your institution mailing address and phone number within the SMP. Modify co-branding. Note Co-branding is not supported in Office 365 for Exchange Online. If you need to take any of these actions, consider doing so prior to December 3 . Once your institution completes the upgrade, you’ll be able to make these changes on Office 365.   Regards, The Live@edu to Office 365 team

Lync Online: OneNote Sharing Feature

Using Lync and OneNote, an Office 365 user can take notes during a Lync Meeting. In addition, other meeting participants can see and add to these notes during the meeting. Users can also take private notes and, if the user also has Outlook, he or she can include notes in the meeting request, allowing users to preview them, add their own notes, and prepare for the meeting accordingly.   Author : Alexandra Lise Publication date : November 6, 2012 Product version : Lync Online   Lync’s sharing feature gives Office 365 users with OneNote a way to share notes with colleagues in different locations during an ad hoc (IM, audio, and/or video) conversation or a scheduled Lync Meeting. Collaboration features allow others to contribute to the notes. And, with Outlook and OneNote, Lync Online users can send out notes in a meeting request for attendees to preview. Guidance First, help Lync Online users set up a sharing session , by pointing them to the following topics: Set up a Lync Meeting Explains how to schedule an online meeting by using Outlook or Lync Web Scheduler. Start an impromptu Lync Meeting Explains how to invite one person or a group of people into a Lync IM conversation and add audio and/or video. Next, teach users to add notes to a meeting request and/or Lync Meeting by following the steps at Use shared and private notes in a Lync Meeting . Finally, make sure users know how to let others edit the notes and also how to save notes from Lync. Edit notes together To give control to another person, on the sharing bar at the top of your meeting window, click Give Control , and then either click an individual attendee or click Give Control Automatically to grant control to anyone who requests it during the sharing session. Take back control at any time by clicking Give Control again, and then clicking the either the name of the person who has control or Give Control Automatically if it’s selected. Save notes To save notes during a Lync sharing session, pause on the presentation (monitor) icon, click the Manage Presentable Content button, click More , and then select the saving option. Lync’s sharing and collaboration tools combine with OneNote’s ability to keep track of information by giving Office 365 users with both programs a way to share notes during sharing sessions with large and small audiences, remote users, and in scheduled or impromptu settings and to work with colleagues to capture evolving ideas and to collect information from different experts. Additional Resources To learn more, check out the following articles: Download the Lync 2013 for Office 365 Sharing and Collaboration Quick Reference Introduction to the Lync Meeting Window Check the Lync 2013 for Office 365 Help at office.com for related training and videos, coming soon. Keywords: Lync Meeting, OneNote, notes, sharing

Lync Online: PowerPoint Sharing Feature

Using Lync and PowerPoint, an Office 365 user can give PowerPoint presentations, record them, and work collaboratively on PowerPoint slides during a Lync Meeting with as many as 249 other people. This article describes how to use this feature.   Author : Alexandra Lise Publication date : November 6, 2012 Product version : Lync Online   Lync’s sharing feature gives Office 365 users a way to share PowerPoint presentations with colleagues in different locations. Users can present information from slides or take advantage of Lync’s collaboration features and work together on a presentation to be delivered later. Collaboration features enable users to give control to other users while the annotation tools help groups focus on certain parts of a presentation. Sharing sessions can be done ad hoc or during a scheduled Lync Meeting. Getting Started To help Lync Online users set up a sharing session , point them to the following topics:   Set up a Lync Meeting — explains how to schedule an online meeting by using Outlook or Lync Web Scheduler . TIP: To be able to set up Lync Meetings users must be enabled for dial-in conferencing. For details, see Configure Dial-in Conferencing .   Start an impromptu Lync Meeting — explains how to invite one person or a group of people to join a Lync IM conversation and add audio and/or video. Presenting and Recording To give a presentation 1. In a meeting or conversation window, pause on the presentation (monitor) icon, and then click PowerPoint . Figure 1. Selecting PowerPoint in the meeting window. 2. Options: To move the slides, use either the arrows at the bottom of the meeting window or click Thumbnails , and then click the slide you want to show To see your presenter notes, click Notes . To use the laser pointer, highlights, shapes, the eraser, pen, text changer, and other annotation tools, on the upper-right side of the slide, click the Annotations button — then click the type of annotation you want to use. Note : annotating doesn’t change the actual file, although, if you want to, you can save an annotated copy. To prevent someone from skipping ahead or using annotations, in the meeting window, click More Options , click Lync Meeting Options , and then select the permissions level for the participant(s). To record a presentation 1. In the meeting or conversation window, click More Options , and then click Start Recording Figure 2. Figure 2. Starting recording. 2. (Optional) Use the controls at the bottom of the window to pause and resume recording. 3. When finished, click the Stop Recording button. Lync automatically saves the recording in a format that plays in Windows Media Player and Zune. Figure 3. Stopped recording notification. To manage a presentation To prevent people from downloading the presentation, during a sharing session, hover over presentation (monitor) icon, click the Manage Presentable Content button, and then click the Permissions menu and the appropriate option. To prevent people from annotating or skipping ahead, in the meeting window, click Meeting Options , click Lync Meeting options , and then select the appropriate permissions. To save someone else’s presentation or an annotated copy, during a sharing session, pause on the presentation (monitor) icon, click the Manage Presentable Content button, click More , and then select the saving option. To edit a presentation together To give control to another person, click Give Control on the sharing bar at the top of your meeting window. Then either click an individual attendee or click Give Control Automatically to grant control to anyone who requests it during the sharing session. To take back control at any time click the Give Control again, then click either the name of the person who has control or Give Control Automatically if it’s selected. Lync’s sharing and collaboration tools, combined with PowerPoint’s ability to organize and feature important information, give Office 365 users an effective way to present information to remote users in large and small audiences, It also enables users to work with colleagues— in scheduled or impromptu sessions— to develop, refine and style presentation content. Additional Resources To learn more, check out the following articles: Lync 2013 for Office 365 Sharing and Collaboration Quick Reference Record and Playback a Lync Meeting Introduction to the Lync Meeting Window   Keywords : Lync Meeting, PowerPoint, present, annotations

Lync Online: Users Cannot Sign-In to Lync Mobile on Apple iOS-Based Devices

Microsoft Support has release KB 2773530. This article provides troubleshooting guidance for Microsoft Office 365 and Microsoft Office 365 Preview users who receive error messages when attempting to sign in to Lync Mobile on an Apple iOS-based device when connected to a corporate Wi-Fi network using Active Directory Federation Services. To read the complete article, visit: Users cannot sign-In to Lync Mobile on Apple iOS-based devices because of certificate errors . Applies to Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise preview Microsoft Office 365 Small Business Premium preview Microsoft Lync Online preview Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises Microsoft Office 365 for small businesses Microsoft Office 365 for education

Lync Online: Lync Online Preview Client Displays a Blank Screen

Microsoft Support has released KB 3761977. This article provides troubleshooting guidance for Office 365 Preview when the Lync Online Preview client displays a blank screen, and no controls are available . Applies to Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise preview Microsoft Office 365 Small Business Premium preview Microsoft Lync Online preview

Microsoft Project Online on Xbox

Following Xbox’s announcement today: Introducing the New Entertainment Experience from Xbox and the fact that Internet Explorer is now an app on my favorite gaming console, and while waiting for Microsoft Surface to be ready , I went ahead and looked at a few sites but quickly decided to test my favorite site these days: Microsoft Project Online on Xbox… After entering my Office 365 Preview credentials I was able to navigate PWA and access the usual: Project Center, Portfolio Analysis, BI Center and Excel Services Center, Newsfeed & my tasks etc. as shown below (yes it’s hard to take high quality pics of my TV!). Almost 2 years ago I when Kinect came out I wrote this: Microsoft Project 2010 Kinect Edition: You Are the Controller! and guess what, it’s getting closer to reality thanks to Project Online… You are the controller! Don’t wait any longer and try Project Online on your favorite device!!!

New Office Web Apps Features Coming Your Way

One of the great things about a service is that when a feature is ready, we can ship it. So today Office 365 customers will start to see the latest Office Web Apps features. For those of you on the Office 365 Preview, you’ve already had a sneak peek at what’s new. For the rest of you, a refresher on what Office Web Apps are, and highlights of new capabilities beginning to roll out in this Office 365 service update, visible when working with your attachments and documents within Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. What are Office Web Apps? Using browser-based Office Web Apps you can view, collaborate on and share documents, presentations, spreadsheets and notes from anywhere, whether Office on the desktop is available or not. What’s New? For this latest round of updates, we’ve focused on adding editing and formatting controls, consistent co-authoring/collaboration support across the web apps and expanded device support, including touch-enabled editing from tablets . Across the apps, there’s also a clean new look and feel, informed by the updated design language you’re seeing from across Microsoft. In Word Web App , get new support for viewing and adding comments . You’ll also see graphics, images, and layout with excellent fidelity. Format and design documents right from a browser with commonly used features from Word on the desktop, including new page layout tools, picture tools and word count. In addition to comment support, new co-authoring in Word Web App makes it easier to work together on the web. With Excel Web App you get essential spreadsheet features, such as merge cells, context menus, auto-fit columns, formula assistance, fill handle and AutoSum. Manipulate and visualize data for deeper insights with support for high fidelity charts including 3D, improved Query Table and Data Validation support, Slicer functionality and Pivot Chart interactivity. When using PowerPoint Web App presentations look like they do on the desktop, with high-resolution slides, full transitions, and viewable comments. Audio and video playback is now supported, even from a tablet or phone. Drag and drop support makes for easier layouts. While the ability to insert images, apply transitions and animations, or add a pre-designed theme make polished presentations from a browser possible. And new co-authoring and comment support in PowerPoint Web App improves collaboration in the cloud. OneNote Web App updates . Users can find what they need more easily with the ability to search on a page or within a section. And new support for ink viewing makes more information accessible from the web. Just click to type anywhere on the page to add a note, picture or a tag. Notes can now be shared as a URL, viewable on a phone, PC or tablet through a browser. Not only are we delivering new features, but we’ve done some work on the backend to make it easier to update and deploy new Office Web Apps features and services. We’ve decoupled Office Web Apps from SharePoint Online. The two services will continue work well together. However, by deploying Office Web Apps as a standalone service, we can ship improvements when they’re ready, independent of the SharePoint Online ship cycle (and vice versa). Additionally, by serving all of our hosts out of one service center, customers will see more consistency between the Office Web Apps available as part of Office 365 and our consumer service, SkyDrive. In fact, over the weekend the Office Web Apps on SkyDrive hit general availability , bringing the latest updates to consumers within days of our rollout on Office 365. Browser Support Changes As we shared with you this spring, we’re no longer supporting IE7 across Office 365 services . If you are using IE7 with the updated Office Web Apps, they won’t render properly. Update to IE 8 or higher to take advantage of the new Office Web Apps features. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. Want to learn more about new Office Web App functionality? Take a look at  Office Web App Group Program Manager, Mike Morton’s, blog post for a deep dive into the latest features from in Office Web Apps. What? When? Customers may start to see these changes today. As we continue to roll out the service update worldwide, all Office 365 customers will experience all the new Office Web App goodness by the early part of next year.

Office 365 Expert Discussions Series: Advanced Techniques for Troubleshooting Issues with Sending and Receiving Email in Office 365

Updated 11/1: Thank you for attending this Office 365 Expert Discussions Series. If you missed it, don’t worry! You can view the  Lync Recording here  and below. Microsoft Support will be presenting a series of webcasts called the  Office 365 Expert Discussion Series ,  to showcase our tools and content that can be used to help make your Office 365 experience better and help solve common issues more quickly.  (Please visit the site to view this video) During our fifth Expert Discussion webcast, Microsoft Support will be covering the topic of using advanced techniques for troubleshooting issues with sending and receiving email in Office 365.  We will be highlighting the use of automated troubleshooting tools such as the MOSDAL and the Remote Connectivity Analyzer. Members of the Microsoft Support team will be presenting the first part of the meeting and then questions will be taken live afterward.  Join us  on Thursday, October 25th at 8:00 AM Pacific Time for this exciting discussion. The duration of the meeting is planned for 1 hour. After the meeting concludes a recording of the session will be published to this blog post and the  Office 365 YouTube channel . Microsoft Support will be monitoring the Office 365 Expert Discussion  Forum  and  Wiki  as well as the Community closely for this topic for a week after the event to answer any questions about the live session. To sign up for this webcast please  download and save the calendar invite below  where you will find the Lync invite and all other Office 365 Expert Discussion information.  We are excited to see you there!  —————————————————————————————————————————————————————————— Presenter :  Steve Justice ,  Principal Escalation Engineer from Microsoft Customer Service and Support Date/Time:  Thursday October 25 th , at 8:00 AM Pacific Time . (1 Hour presentation) Online Meeting Information: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Join Lync Meeting – https://join.microsoft.com/meet/sjustice/LCK3SFKL Or by phone +18883203585 (USA) Find a local number Conference ID: 2046439   Forgot your dial-in PIN?  | Help      [! ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. Audience: Office 365 MVP and  Grid Members  and open to anyone who is interested in Office 365 Expert Discussions. 

Announcing MOSDAL 4.6 – The Microsoft Online Services Diagnostic and Logging Support Toolkit

Audience: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Office 365 for enterprises   With the release of the Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging Support Toolkit 4.6 , we introduce a number of exciting new features and improve the user experience yet again so both users (information workers) and administrators can collect the right data, for the right problem.  In this release, we made an effort to make the tool and its output, more user friendly.  Not only did we make improvements to the UI to help guide users through the data collection process, we made many of the reports that MOSDAL generates more readable.  Please read below for additional details on all the improvements MOSDAL 4.6 has to offer: User Interface Changes – Added information to help users collect the right data, as well as understand what data MOSDAL is collecting. New Languages – MOSDAL is now offered in Russian and Korean languages. Smaller download – MOSDAL will only download .NET 4.0 and Windows Installer 3.0 if they are not present on the system.  This reduces the size of the installation package by more than half. Exchange ActiveSync diagnostics – In addition to testing the Exchange Autodiscover process, MOSDAL now also performs ActiveSync connectivity tests.  The tests are run sequentially, and the results are now viewable in a web format that is similar to https://www.testexchangeconnectivity.com. Compatibility with Microsoft Office 2013 and Microsoft Office Click-To-Run – MOSDAL is now aware of and will collect data for Outlook 2013 and Lync 2013.  In addition, if you installed Office 2013 through Click-To-Run, MOSDAL will collect additional data to help troubleshoot Click-to-Run installation and activation issues. Compatibility with Microsoft Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and .NET 4.5 – MOSDAL will now run without issues on Microsoft Windows 8, Windows Server 2012 and on systems with .NET 4.5 installed. WebDAV ETL component logging for SharePoint Online – Logs are collected by MOSDAL to help troubleshoot issues WebDAV connections to SharePoint Online. Directory Synchronization, Domains/DNS and Exchange Hybrid Configuration reports in XML – Many of the reports generated by MOSDAL are now in XML format to make them easier to read and easier to create automated diagnostics to help identify issues quicker. Windows Network Trace logging – Network tracing utilizes the Event Tracing for Windows (ETW) framework available in Windows. Network components (such as Winsock, TCP/IP, NDIS, packet-capture, and so on) register as ETW trace providers and emit events related to network activity. Any recordable activity of significance can be an event logged to ETW. Tracing for these network components and packet captures can be enabled using the netsh trace context which acts as an ETW controller.  For more information, see     https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/dd569137(v=vs.85).aspx . Resources Here are some resources to get started with MOSDAL 4.6: Download MOSDAL 4.6 and the available training MOSDAL Knowledge Base article Here are some additional resources where you can see the tool in action: Exchange Online: 2555008 How to troubleshoot free/busy issues when you use Exchange Federation in the Microsoft Office 365 for enterprises environment 2581088 How to troubleshoot issues that prevent you from viewing other clients’ free/busy information in Office Outlook 2007 and in Outlook 2010 in an Office 365 environment VIDEO :  Troubleshooting Issues with Free/Busy Information in Office Outlook Clients for Office 365 Lync Online: 2566790 Automatic sign-in, domain federation, and other features do not work as expected in Lync Online when you use a custom domain in Office 365Automatic sign-in, domain federation, and other features do not work as expected in Lync Online when you use a custom domain in Office 365 2541980  How to troubleshoot authentication and connectivity issues in Lync Online 2392146  Instant messages to federated Lync contacts fail VIDEO :  Troubleshooting Sign-In Issues in Lync Online for Office 365 VIDEO :  Troubleshooting Instant Message Failures to Federated Contcacts in Lync Online for Office 365 VIDEO :  Troubleshooting “Cannot Connect to the Server” error when using Lync Mobile for Office 365 Office 365 Suite: 2515404 Troubleshoot domain verification issues in Office 365 2621267 How to view and verify CNAME records, MX records, TXT records and SRV records in Office 365 VIDEO :  Troubleshooting Domain Verification Errors in Office 365 Identity federation/Single Sign On: 2598459 How to use the Microsoft Online Services Diagnostics and Logging (MOSDAL) Support Toolkit to diagnose identity federation issues in Office 365 2433327  How to use MOSDAL to enable tracing for the Microsoft Online Services Sign-in Assistant to troubleshoot rich client authentication issues VIDEO :  How to Use MOSDAL to Diagnose Identity Federation Issues in Office 365 Directory Synchronization (Co-Existence): 2643629 Individual Active Directory Domain Services objects do not synchronize to Office 365 2647098 Duplicate or invalid attributes prevent Office 365 directory synchronization VIDEO :  Troubleshooting Duplicate or Invalid User Attributes that Prevent Directory Synchronization in Office 365 SharePoint Online: 2629108  How to use the “Open with Explorer” command and how to troubleshoot issues with this option in SharePoint Online for Office 365 Visit the  MOSDAL wiki page for more information.