Office 365 Usability Research Wants You!

Audience: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Office 365 for enterprises   Written by Brendan Reeves, User Researcher II at Microsoft Our user-centered engineering process needs your input to make sure Office 365 matches your needs. The Office 365 User Experience team would like to learn more about how your organization uses Office 365. We are seeking feedback and information on how Office 365 helps your company function. This is your opportunity to share feedback with the product team and help us improve and evolve the Office 365 service. Please go to https://illumeweb.smdisp.net/collector/Survey.ashx?Name=O365users to submit your name, phone number, email address, and company name. The information you provide will only be used to recruit participants for user research projects. Your level of participation in research projects is completely up to you. There will be projects that only ask for a very low-level of engagement (e.g. surveys) and those that require high level engagement (e.g. on-site visits). As a thank you for your participation, we will provide a gratuity ranging from software to gift cards depending on study type. Study types include: Complete a 5-15 minute online survey Attend online webinar Usability lab studies On-site visit to your organization by 3-4 members of the Office 365 team for approximately 3 hours We appreciate your time and understand that it is valuable. If you are unable to participate in any research projects in the near future, you are still encouraged to sign up. User experience research is an ongoing process throughout the product development cycle and you will have the opportunity to participate in lighter weight research projects like surveys, webinars, or conference calls down the road. You can participate in as many or as few research studies as you like and remove yourself from the list at any time. Sincerely, Brendan Reeves If you would like to be removed from the Microsoft User Research program email uccoord@microsoft.com with “Remove” in the subject line.  

Office 365 Expert Discussion Series #4: Exchange Online Q&A w/ Support Team

Updated 9/27: 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) Team Members from Exchange Online Escalation Team will be on hand to answer a few selected technical questions followed by open Q&A. Bring any technical questions you may have regarding Exchange Online such as tips for resolving directory sync issues, managing users, improving Outlook connectivity. Join us  on Thursday, September 27th at 8:00 AM Pacific Time  for this exciting webcast. 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. Be sure to view our past Expert Discussions here .  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 :  Jeremy Kelly , Principle Escalation Engineer from Microsoft Commercial Technical Support and other Microsoft Support Team members. Date/Time:  Thursday September 27th , at 8:00 AM Pacific Time . (1 Hour presentation) Online Meeting Information: ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. à Join Lync meeting            Join by phone +14257063500 (USA – Redmond Campus)                     English (United States) +18883203585 (USA – Redmond Campus)                     English (United States)   Find a local number   Conference ID: 35047018     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. 

SharePoint Online: PDF in-browser viewing & MP4 file streaming

We are very excited to announce two compelling updates for SharePoint Online. The service will support in-browser viewing of PDF files and improved streaming of MP4 video files . We received a lot of feedback noting PDF viewing was limited while a number of customers expressed that they did not want PDF files to be downloadable to user’s desktops. In addition, users found that some MP4 files were being downloaded in full before playback would begin. What will this update mean to the user? A PDF document stored in a SharePoint Online library it will simply launch within their Internet browser. This too applies to PDFs embedded as attachments within list items. Note: Users are required to have Adobe Reader on their machines to ensure the proper browser plug-in is available: https://get.adobe.com/reader . Note: In some isolated instances, you may encounter an error when trying to open a PDF document in your Internet browser. If this happens, please try disabling the Adobe ActiveX plugin by going to  Settings > Manage add-ons , highlight the Adobe PDF Link Helper add-on from the list of add-ons, and then click Disable . An MP4 video file stored in a SharePoint Online library will begin streaming much faster without downloading the full file first. We are at the tail end of rolling out the most recent SharePoint Online service update. The PDF adjustment will soon be a notable experience enhancement for all SharePoint Online customers across all Office 365 plans and offerings. The same applies to MP4 files stored in SharePoint Online – let the streaming begin! Microsoft expects to complete this service update rollout worldwide by the end of September 2012. We continue to improve the experience while maintaining the level of security you expect from Office 365. Thank you for your patience and actionable feedback. SharePoint Online progressively evolves each quarter. At its core, the service is driven by AND adapts to the preferences of how users use it every day. Please keep it coming. You can read about this and all of the latest features and innovation on the Office 365 Service Update wiki . Thanks, The SharePoint Online Team

Lync To Phone, Overview and Setup – Lync and Learn

Updated 9/21: Thank you for attending this fantastic Lync and Learn session. If you missed it, you can find the  Lync Recording here  and below. The Power Point presentation is also attached to the blog post below. 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 . (Please visit the site to view this video) Come learn what Lync to phone is all about in our upcoming Lync and Learn session.  Sean McNeill  will be leading this presentation and showing us Lync to phone and how to set up Office 365 with services to enable Lync to voice.   If you’re interested in getting a dedicated local phone number for calls with Lync Online, then his session will provide everything you need to get started.   Sean McNeill  was recently awarded Office 365 MVP and has been working in Microsoft technologies for over 15 years. Sean enjoys technology and Cloud Services. Sean is a Managing Consultant with Catapult Systems. You can read Sean’s blog at https://office365evangelist.com/  and follow him on twitter @s_mcneill . Be sure to view his community profile  here . Attend this session to learn more about Lync to phone and to participate in a Q&A session with Sean McNeill.  To sign up for this webcast please  download and save the calendar invite below  where you will find the Lync invite and all other Lync and Learn information.  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 :  Sean McNeill , Managing Consultant with Catapult Systems and  Office 365 Grid member . Date/Time:  Thursday September 20 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])!] Audience: Office 365 for professionals and small businesses Office 365 for enterprises

Office 365 – Newly Released Outlook Updates Provide Password Expiration Notifications

The Microsoft Outlook team has released updates for Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007 that provide Office 365 users with advance password expiration notifications. These notifications will be displayed in a pop-up message (near the system clock) within a certain time period before the password actually expires. The tenant administrator can configure the amount of time before password expiration that the notifications appear. For users whose passwords have already expired, Outlook will display an error message when users try to connect to their mailbox. In both scenarios, Outlook also provides a link (URL) to update passwords via the browser. When users click on those links, they are taken to the Microsoft Online Portal to change or update their passwords.   For more information about this issue, as well as links to the updates for Outlook 2010 and Outlook 2007, see the  Password Expiration Notifications in Outlook. This wiki article also contains videos to show the new user experience when the updates are applied.

New VBA classes and members in Project Professional 2013 Preview

The What’s new for developers in the new Project desktop (besides task pane apps) article is available in the Office Developer Blog . The VBA and VSTO object model includes includes classes that support new reports with charts, tables, and Office Art. Other new members in the Project object model support the new task paths feature, cache status, and working with tasks lists in SharePoint 2013.

Future EPM Content Publishing blog posts moving

In an effort to centralize blog content, we will be posting all future EPM Content Publishing blog entries on the main Project product team blog . If you are looking for EPM content, try these resources: TechNet – IT Pro content for Project Server Office.com – IW content for Project Web App and Project Online MSDN – Developer content for Project Server Thank you to our readers for taking the time to learn more about the content we have published over the years. We look forward to sharing more with you in the future!

Project 2013 Preview SDK and related resources

The Project 2013 Preview SDK download is published. The conceptual, how-to, and reference documentation in the download closely matches the Project 2013 developer documentation online content published on MSDN. In addition, the download also contains: Ten complete code solutions, including two task pane apps for Project, six client-side object model (CSOM) solutions, and two solutions for querying the ProjectData service for reporting. DLLs and a license for redistribution of the three Project Server CSOM assemblies, JavaScript files for the CSOM, and the Microsoft.Office.Project.Server.Library assembly. Note: Project CSOM solutions also require the redistributable DLLs for the SharePoint 2013 CSOM, which are at SharePoint Server 2013 Client Components SDK . Intellisense files for the PSI and CSOM, source code for creating a PSI proxy assembly, and instructions on how to update the PSI proxy files. XML schemas for the Project client, AppProvisioning, and the Statusing PSI. The top-level online landing page for the Project SDK is Project for developers ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/project ). For additional Project-related SDK content, see Office for developers ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/office ), SharePoint for developers ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint ), and Build apps for Office and SharePoint ( https://msdn.microsoft.com/office/apps/ ). The two articles on Task pane apps for Project are in the Apps for Office and SharePoint SDK , and the JavaScript API for Office reference includes information specific for Project, the ProjectDocument object with eleven methods and three events, and four enumerations for Project. The downloads for those SDKs will be published soon. Want to try it out? Sign up for the Project Online Preview with Project Pro for Office 365 Download Project Professional 2013 Preview & Project Server 2013 Preview

Reporting Solution Packages on the TechNet Gallery: "Project Burn and Forecast Report" and the "Project Spend Report"

Just wanted to make you aware to two recently release solution packages that are available on the Microsoft TechNet Gallery: I am pleased to announced the release of two Microsoft Project Server 2010 reporting solutions on TechNet Gallery: Project Burn and Forecast Report and Project Spend Report . Both solutions can be deployed and tested with the Microsoft Project Server 2010 v2 Demo Virtual Machine . These reporting solutions leverages Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 Reporting Services and were created by Emmanuel Fadullon, a Principal Consultant for Microsoft Consulting Services (MCS). The User Guide for the Contoso Project Burn and Forecast Report demonstrates how to use the Project Burn and Forecast Report to estimate the projected spend rate (“Average Monthly Burn Rate”) based on the current spend plan, and it also allows you to forecast a spend plan based on a what-if spend rate in a budget-reduction scenario. The Contoso Project Spend Report User Guide walks you through using the Project Spend Report particularly the use of a key concept — a unifying Expense Code, to track Project Total Actual Cost.  The Total Actual Cost is then categorized into its component costs by project work alongside sustainment and common services activities maintained in associated projects in lieu of Administrative Time and Timesheet entries in order to facilitate cost categorization by Expense Code.  Please note that these reporting solutions are not supported by Microsoft Premier Support and instead are meant to demonstrated the rich reporting capabilities of Project Server 2010. We recommend working with Project & Portfolio Management (PPM) Partners or MCS to modify these solutions to meet your specific reporting needs.

Now Available: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow

We recently released the new Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow on the Microsoft TechNet Gallery. The Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow is a special kind of help file that provides you with information that you need to upgrade to Microsoft Project Server 2010. It provides information that is common to each upgrade path – planning, preparation, and specific procedures for each supported upgrade method.  This guide also provides you with information about how to download and use the Microsoft Project Server 2010 virtual migration environment – the recommended method for upgrading your Microsoft Office Project Server 2003 data to Office Project Server 2007 (which you can then upgrade to Project Server 2010). The Microsoft Project Server 2010 Upgrade SuperFlow MSI file can be downloaded from the Microsoft TechNet Gallery and installed to your Windows computer.  .NET Framework 3.5 is required for installation. Feel free to install it, look through it, and give us any feedback you may have! Thanks!