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BPOS Trial: Microsoft Exchange Online

Microsoft Business Productivity Online Standard Suite (BPOS) combines the power and reliability of our robust desktop-based applications with the flexibility of cloud computing. But what does this mean for you and your organization? For starters, it means that you can gain greater efficiency and save money. BPOS brings efficiency and savings to small business, mid-sized business, enterprise, universities and even cities. Take, for example, the city of Carlsbad, California. Carlsbad has over 1,000 city employees who rely on up-to-date technology to keep the city moving. In these tough economic times, Carlsbad is saving approximately 40 percent annually opting for our hosted solution that provides more productivity-enhancing tools for its workforce compared to an on-premises solution. If a city can save 40 percent annually by using BPOS, imagine what Microsoft Online services can do for you. The BPOS 30-day trial is now available. The trial allows you to experience the full power of BPOS prior to converting to a paid subscription. Once you have registered and set-up your trial, you will have the opportunity to explore BPOS programs like Microsoft Exchange Online. Exchange Online means access to enterprise-grade web/mobile email, calendar, contacts, and tasks – on nearly any device and in nearly any location. Exchange Online also offers efficiency, dependability and spam, phishing and virus protection across your organization. A recommended exercise for administrators is to add a custom domain name to the trial account. By following these steps, you can configure your users’ mailboxes to a company-specific domain name. Add a New Domain: 1. In the Microsoft Online Services Administration Center , click the Users tab, click Domains , and then click New . 2. In the Domain Name box, type the name of your company’s domain (for example, contoso30.com). 3. In the Type area, select the type of domain you want for your email service, and then click Create . Select Authoritative if you want all your email to come to Exchange Online (default). When set, Microsoft Online Services is the primary authority for your company’s email mailboxes. Select External Relay when you have other company email mailboxes that reside in another location. This is recommended for email coexistence. 4. On the Confirmation page, carefully check the domain name and type you provided. 5. To start the process of verifying your new domain, select the Start the Verification wizard when this window is closed check box, and then click Finish . We hope you enjoy your trial. In the next few weeks, we’ll follow up with additional emails and blog posts with tips and tricks on how to set up and use other aspects of this feature-rich suite.

BPOS-S: Troubleshooting Domain Decommissioning

This week’s BPOS Support series video is entitled BPOS-S: Troubleshooting Domain Decommissioning . Microsoft Online Services administrators can add registered internet domains, like your company’s e-mail domain, to Microsoft Online. Adding domains allows your users to use Exchange Online to send or receive e-mail from their company e-mail addresses. You can also remove added domains from Microsoft Online in case your company domain has changed or is moving to another subscription of BPOS. The video below will help you troubleshoot issues that may arise from decommissioning domains in Microsoft Online Services. Was this video helpful? Learn more about Microsoft Online Services with our other support and how to blog posts . What support videos would you like to see? We want to hear from you in the comments section below or send an email to our community mailbox . Follow us on Twitter and like our Facebook page.

This Week in BPOS News 3/11

This week in BPOS news is a recurring segment on the Microsoft Online Services Team Blog that covers news from all sectors of Cloud Computing and the Microsoft Online Services business suite known as the Business Productivity Online Suite (BPOS). You can read all past This Week in BPOS News segments here. For this week in BPOS news we take a look at the fastest Cloud service in the world, and how one company is saving $100,000 with Microsoft BPOS. 1. Microsoft Azure Named Fastest Cloud Service Microsoft’s Azure Cloud service was recently named the fastest cloud service when compared to the competition. In our first story for this week in BPOS news, we take a look at how CloudSleuth tested and compared 13 Cloud services from companies including Microsoft, Google and Amazon. The cloud services were tested over an 11 month period which resulted in Microsoft coming in first, followed by Google, GoGrid, Amazon, and then Rackspace. Microsoft was rated the fastest, but only by less than a second. The top five cloud services listed above were within 0.8 seconds of each other. The test was conducted by CloudSleuth which used the largest “legal” bot network in the world, with 150,000 user computers pinging the different cloud services. The response times measured with reflections of what end users would likely see. This article from InformationWeek features an interesting outline of the testing process and some more cloud service response time numbers. Be sure to check out this great study . What do you think of the CloudSleuth study? Does this study alter your perception of the competition in the Cloud? Leave your comments below. 2. Chelgrave saves $100,000 thanks to BPOS deployment Chelgrave Contracting is a labour hire company founded in Melbourne, Australia. Chelgrave recently integrated with Microsoft BPOS and has estimated the company will save $100,000. BPOS gives Chelgrave a fully functioning intranet system with tools like SharePoint Online and Microsoft Exchange that have replaced the existing manual paper-based system. Even without an IT team, Greg Scott, General Manager of Chelgrave, was able to implement Microsoft BPOS with the help of Microsoft and Microsoft partners. Greg Scott claims that the move “has had a great impact on savings for the business, with some 40% more revenue than at the same time last year being generated for the company.” Chelgrave is also saving money on transportation costs through the ability to access files from anywhere and host meetings via Communicator. Chelgrave is a shining example of how Microsoft BPOS is enabling companies and their employees a more productive and collaborate work place while saving money. Do you have any BPOS stories? Share them with us in the comments below or send an email to our community mailbox . What are your thoughts about the stories we shared with you this week? Did you see a story you want to share with us? Let us know what other topics you’d like to see. You can comment on this blog post or send an

Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack has released!

As announced today on the main Project blog: New Feature Pack from Visual Studio Improves Project Management and Software Development Team Collaboration its released! After working on this launch since last year I’m very very very excited to see this go-live. Customers and partners feedback has been extremely positive. I believe it puts Microsoft in a very unique position against others in terms of offering a very strong Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) solution. As mentioned on the other post, expect a lot more content on this topic in the coming months, in the meantime start your download !

New Feature Pack from Visual Studio Improves Project Management and Software Development Team Collaboration

We are excited to announce the release of the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack which further strengthens Microsoft’s Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) Solution. The integration between Project Server and Team Foundation Server is a considerable advancement for organizations that want to bridge the collaboration gap between the Project Management Office and software development teams. The Feature Pack will enable teams to work together more effectively by: Providing up to date insight into portfolio execution, alignment with strategic objectives, and resource utilization of software development projects by leveraging the quantitative data stored in different systems. Automating the exchange and sharing of project information across teams and improving coordination between teams using disparate methodologies, like waterfall and agile, via common data and agreed upon metrics. Enabling development and project management teams to collaborate and communicate project timeline and progress using familiar tools such as Microsoft Visual Studio, Project, and SharePoint. Our Microsoft IT team has been using the Feature Pack internally for a while. As in many organizations, the software development teams and the project management teams weren’t collaborating as effectively as they could. Tools, even methodologies, were different and didn’t talk to each other. Now after implementing the Feature Pack, developers don’t have to spend time getting status updates, there is much better schedule alignment between teams and there is better visibility and clarity overall! “By sharing data more efficiently, the team was able to reduce weekly time spent in status meetings to two hours from 20 hours. Now developers and project managers can focus on their work instead of spending hours each week in status report meetings, and managers can make better, data-driven decisions. In addition, managers and developers have streamlined access to information they need and have better insight into the entire ALM process.” – Michael Lucas, Senior Program Management Lead in Microsoft IT at Microsoft One of our partners in Brazil that has the Microsoft ALM competency, TechResult, has also deployed the Feature Pack with the following the results: “Team Foundation Server provides visibility and traceability all over my Project. Project Server provides governance across my organization. By integrating them I can extract the best from an ALM platform.” – Daniel Franco Abrahão de Oliveira, ALM Team Manager, at TechResult Now, you can download the Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack from MSDN download center . We will continue publishing additional resources in the coming weeks, such as a demo Virtual Machine with a presenter script, additional case studies, and more- so stay tuned and we’ll let you know via this blog when they are available! Below are some of the key resources available now: Solutions For Application Lifecycle Management: https://www.microsoft.com/visualstudio/en-us/solutions/management White papers: Reconciling the Agile Team with Enterprise Project Management PDF – XPS Project and Work Management with Project Server 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010: PDF – XPS MSDN Product documentation (scenarios, installation, configuration): https://msdn.microsoft.com/library/gg455680.aspx MSDN Public Forums: Team Foundation Server and Project Server Integration: https://social.msdn.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/tfsprojectsrvint I urge you to take a look at connecting your software development and project management teams with today’s release. Questions and Answers Q. Is there a demo virtual machine (VM) with this feature pack and sample data I can use? A. We are working on a demo VM that will include the RTM version of the feature pack (along with all the pre-requisites) that will showcase the integration between Project Server 2010 and Team Foundation Server 2010; this VM will includes detailed demo scripts. Expect a release around the April 2011 timeframe. Until then you can use the CTP demo VM released last July 2010. Q. How does this Feature Pack differ from the out-of-the-box Team Foundation Server and Microsoft Project add-in? A. The Microsoft Project add-in allows project managers to use Microsoft Project to connect to Team Foundation Server to collaborate and participate in the planning and execution of software development projects. The Feature Pack enables integration between Team Foundation Server and Project Server and allows planning and status information to be synchronized between the two systems. Please read this article Operational Differences in Managing Projects Using Team Foundation and Project for more information. Q. Are there any prerequisites or dependencies for this Feature Pack? A. Dependencies are: Team Foundation Server 2010 + Service Pack 1 (SP1) –> KB article: TFS 2010 SP1 Changes Visual Studio 2010 + SP1 –> KB article: VS 2010 SP1 Changes Project Server 2010 or 2007 For a detailed description of dependencies and prerequisites please check this MSDN article: System and Setup Requirements to Support Integration of Team Foundation Server and Project Server . Please check out Brian Harry’s post for additional information: VS/TFS 2010 SP1 and TFS-Project Server Integration Feature Pack have Released Q. What MSDN Subscription level is required to download the Feature Pack? A. This Feature Pack will only be available to Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN subscribers (go to your MSDN download center , you should find the Visual Studio Team Foundation Server 2010 and Project Server Integration Feature Pack as an available download). An organization must own at least one license of Visual Studio 2010 Ultimate with MSDN. Christophe Fiessinger Senior Technical Product Manager, Microsoft Project https://blogs.msdn.com/chrisfie