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. 

Following recent webcasts, sessions and articles during the past month about The new Microsoft Project please find key content I’ve noticed. If I’ve missed any please let me know and I will gladly add to this list. In the meantime happy reading and watching! TechEd Australia (video): Microsoft Project Online Overview MPUG (video): Overview of the new Microsoft Project, plus QA with Senior Microsoft Product Manager Projects At Work (article): Tool Shop: Microsoft Project 2013 TechRepublic (article): Microsoft Project Professional 2013 new features preview Project Blog: Tasks Integration with Exchange Timelines Everywhere: See and share your work with ease in SharePoint and PWA Get Started with Project Web App SharePoint Tasks List plus Project – Better Together Adding SharePoint task lists to PWA an a lot more to come so please subscribe to the RSS feed !!!! Office Next blog: Click-to-Run and Office on Demand (good read to understand the new Project Pro for Office 365 service) SharePoint blog: Keep Your Team in Sync with Site Mailboxes Other blogs from MVPs, experts, product fans: EPMSource (Alex Burton’s blog, Project MVP) SharePoint (and Project Server Shenanigans) Nenad Trajkovski (Project MVP)

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

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

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.

I’m looking forward to see many of you next month at Tech.Ed Australia #auteched, September 11-14 on the Gold Coast and at the next Project Ignite training in Sydney September 18-20. First Brad Purdy and I will be delivering my favorite topic these days: Microsoft Project Online Overview . Looking for reasons to attend Tech.Ed Australia? I’ve put a few here , don’t miss it! Secondly, we have put a very solid 3 day agenda and content you cannot miss to get a head start on The new Microsoft Project : Project Ignite Tour starts in September 2012! Register now! (registration link at the end of Jan’s post). There are so many things you need to learn and ramp up on (i.e. Project Online, new app marketplace, deeper SharePoint integration etc.), it would be a mistake to miss this face to face training opportunity! See you next month!  

Following a week of staged announcements (and in case you missed it), we have disclosed the next version of your beloved project portfolio management (PPM) solution during the past week, a must read: The new Microsoft Project . It’s exciting to finally be able to talk about what we have been working on in Redmond for the past little while. It’s hard to contain my excitement and put in words what I think about this upcoming release! I have worked with Project Server since the 2002 version (shortly after Project Central) and the next Project and in particular Project Online is a LANDMARK release that will change the course of history, it’s a magical moment for all of us… Project Portfolio Management will never be the same. Regardless of your industry, your location, your role or your PPM maturity, this upcoming release (it’s a Preview) brings massive innovation to your day to day PPM activities. Demand management, portfolio analysis, ALM, apps, social, anywhere access on any device, resource management, multi-tenant SaaS, agile to name a few random key innovations… The breath and scale at which we will deliver multi-tenant PPM capabilities into a secure and reliable SaaS (Software as a Service) in unmatched in the industry! The new Project Pro for Office 365 service will change the project management world! I’ll stop talking and will provide you a few key links to help you get started and learn about the Preview. The journey just started last week and expect a lot more content in the coming weeks/months! The Project Online train is leaving the station, please don’t miss it! Sites Videos Project Preview Product Site Project Blog (please note the new URL) Get started with Project Online (please read) Register to Project Ignite training ! (see you in Sydney, Reston or Warsaw) TechNet: Project Server 2013 for IT Pros MSDN: Project For Developers Questions? Check out the Project Forums Get Started with Project Online (Overview) Get Started with Project Online (Demo) What’s new in Project Server 2013 for IT pros (overview) What’s new in Project 2013 for IT Professionals What’s new in Project 2013 for developers (Overview) Project Professional 2013 training for developers Project Server 2013 training for developers  

Earlier this month our friends on the Office 365 team shared a link via Twitter to an article by technology writer Will Kelly . Entitled ” Microsoft Office 365 for Project Managers “, the article surfaced the project management potential in Office 365 and an interesting theme–the “democratization of project management data”. Read more about it here . Today, we’re excited to share a special series on how Office 365 adoption can transform your existing project management capabilities. Microsoft Office 365 provides an infrastructure for collaboration and information sharing. It offers a cloud solution for an organization of any size, whether that organization involves a small business or a small team with members spread across the globe. But best of all, it offers the ease and familiarity you’d expect from Microsoft and its Office products. Many enterprises have already had a great deal of success implementing a PPM solution via Project Server 2010. But how about options for smaller organizations or departments just getting started? Microsoft Project is perfect for helping project managers organize schedules and manage budget, resources and dependencies, but what about the rest of the team?  Effective project management begins with team collaboration.  It necessitates a secure and central location for all project documents and artifacts like a site provisioned in SharePoint Online, demands ease of mobile communication you’d find in Exchange Online and Lync Online,  and the great user experience provided by Microsoft Project and Office 2010 when working with project schedules and documents. By themselves, these tools are just tools, but together it opens the door to a unique collaboration experience that any organization can benefit from. And because we’ve built these products with the user in mind they just work, even across multiple platforms and devices.  We’ve called out a number of common pain points tied to project collaboration–document storage, effective communication, sharing a project schedule, and visual reporting for stakeholders just to name a few. But this represents a small sample of all the great possibilities Office 365 enables for project management and we’d love to hear more from users like you in the comments below or via Twitter and Facebook . Download the paper and accompanying video here. You can view the full video series on our YouTube channel as well. We’ll be featuring a great session  around this very topic this March at Project Conference 2012 in Phoenix, AZ. Don’t forget to register!

Quick note to flag two important reading material we have just released. The first one is a free ebook that provides an overview of Office 365 (you should really try it out!): Free eBook: Microsoft Office 365: Connect and Collaborate Virtually Anywhere, Anytime . The second reading is a recurring topic: how do I integrate Project Server with SAP (wrote this already: Microsoft Project Server 2010 Integration with SAP ) and it discusses using Biztalk to bridge SAP with another application: Unleash SAP using the Microsoft Platform: Using BizTalk Server to Bring Two Worlds Together This document describes how to integrate, automate, and simplify business processes using Microsoft BizTalk Server and SAP. Business scenarios are presented involving SAP interoperability and technical patterns for how their solutions can be implemented with an integration platform like Microsoft BizTalk Server. Happy reading!

There are a lot of questions regarding the upcoming transition from Business Productivity Online Suite to Microsoft Office 365, and we want you to know we’re listening. You can find answers to some of the most frequently asked questions by downloading the transition FAQ , but take a look below as we highlight some of the more pressing questions and concerns. From watching blog comments, forum discussions, and feedback from our customers, here are a few specific questions you’ve been asking: Q. Will I have to pay more for Office 365? No. Office 365 will not change anything related to your subscription pricing or renewal date, with three exceptions: The SharePoint Online Deskless Worker offering will be phased out. Microsoft will contact all customers who are subscribed to the SharePoint Online Deskless Worker and offer them Office 365 Kiosk—which includes both SharePoint and Exchange—for the same price. The Live Meeting Standalone service will be replaced with a Lync service including both conferencing and instant messaging. The Extra Storage offerings will be offered for free to all customers. Q. What has changed between the current BPOS system requirements and the new system requirements of Office 365? The key changes in system requirements are: Office 2003 is not supported Office Communicator 2007 R2 with Office Communications Online will no longer be supported Internet Explorer 6 will no longer be supported Q. How can I make sure Microsoft can communicate with me about my transition? For each subscription that a customer has, make sure that contact details for both the “Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” are up-to-date. “Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” can be checked at the Microsoft Online Customer Portal ( https://mocp.microsoftonline.com ) by clicking the “Subscriptions” tab and “View Subscription Details” in the “Actions” column Make sure that the email accounts specified for “Account Owner” and “Service Administrator” are monitored regularly. Make sure that the domain “@email.microsoftonline.com” is marked as safe, to prevent the possibility of communications from Microsoft Online Services being blocked or filtered.