Office 365 – Scott Croucher

August 4, 2017

How to Create a Test Environment for Office 365

Everybody knows that test environments are a very good idea, providing a safe place to try new features or configuration changes to products, develop scripts and tools, or provide training for your staff. Office 365 is no different, but a lot of customers that I talk to don’t maintain a test environment at all. And many of the IT pros that I talk to also don’t have their own person tenant for testing and training.

For traditional on-premises infrastructure the reasons for not running test environments are usually cost-related. Sadly, it is very common for IT teams to not have the resources such as hardware or virtualization capacity to build a separate environment that is a meaningful representation of their production environment. Continue reading → How to Create a Test Environment for Office 365

August 2, 2017

New Office 365 Security Score Features

Since Microsoft announced the general availability of Office 365 Secure Score we the community have been giving them a lot of feedback on how it could be optimized for our needs. It seems that Microsoft have listened…two requests that came up regularly were that organizations wanted Secure Score to award points in situations where a control was being met by a third party product and the ability to ignore a control because it was not relevant to them. Based on this feedback these two options are now available.

Continue reading → New Office 365 Security Score Features

August 1, 2017

Microsoft drops Office 365 for biz. Now it’s just Microsoft 365

office-apps Microsoft is squishing its major biz products into a single solution called – wait for it – Microsoft 365, CEO Satya Nadella announced at Inspire, Redmond’s annual event for businesses that flog its wares.

Office 365, Windows 10, and enterprise mobility and security, will be peddled in two flavours: Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Microsoft 365 Business, Nadella said. The latter, which adds device and licence management from a single location, will be available for preview on August 2.
Continue reading → Microsoft drops Office 365 for biz. Now it’s just Microsoft 365

July 25, 2017

New business apps in Office 365 Business Premium help you run and grow your small business

To make Office 365 more valuable for your small business, we are announcing three new applications coming to Office 365 Business Premium:

Microsoft Connections—A simple-to-use email marketing service.
Microsoft Listings—An easy way to publish your business information on top sites.
Microsoft Invoicing—A new way to create professional invoices and get paid fast.

We’re also introducing the Office 365 Business center, a central place where you can manage these business apps and get an end-to-end view of your business. In addition, we’re adding MileIQ, the leading mileage tracking app, as an Office 365 Business Premium subscription benefit. These new services—along with the recently added Microsoft Bookings and Outlook Customer Manager—help you win customers and manage your business.

Continue reading → New business apps in Office 365 Business Premium help you run and grow your small business

January 24, 2017August 2, 2017

New Office 365 Admin Center Reaches General Availability

In a totally unsurprising move, Microsoft is retiring the old-style Office 365 Admin Center from January 31, 2017. The new-style Admin Center soon then be the only option for administrators to manage tenants.

Well, that’s not actually true. As we’ve explored in the past, PowerShell is often needed to solve administrative challenges and get work done. In any case, the new admin console is now the default. That is, until it’s replaced by a new design. Continue reading → New Office 365 Admin Center Reaches General Availability

January 18, 2017

Overview of importing PST files and SharePoint data to Office 365

You can use the Office 365 Import service to bulk-import PST files to Exchange Online mailboxes in your Office 365 organization. You can also use the Import service to bulk-import documents and other data from your on-premises organization to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites.

How to import data to Office 365

There are two ways that admins can import PST files and SharePoint data to Office 365.

Network upload

Upload the data files over the network to a temporary storage location in the Microsoft cloud. Then you use the Office 365 Import service to import the data to mailboxes or sites in your Office 365 organization.

Drive shipping

Copy the data files to a BitLocker-encrypted hard drive and then physically ship the drive to Microsoft. When Microsoft receives the hard drive, data center personnel upload the data to a temporary storage location in the Microsoft cloud. Then you use the Office 365 Import service to import the data to mailboxes or sites in your Office 365 organization. Drive shipping is a good way to import data to OneDrive for Business sites.

See one of the following topics for the step-by-step instructions for importing PST files or SharePoint data to Office 365.
Continue reading → Overview of importing PST files and SharePoint data to Office 365

January 18, 2017

Office 365 Ports

Below are the ports required for Office 365

Purpose	Credentials Used	Source	Source Port	Destination	Destination Port
Office 365 Portal and help content	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	Portal.office.com Home.office.com .office365.com .office.com *.office.net	TCP 80 & 443
Authentication and support services	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	.microsoftonline.com .microsoft.com .live.com .windows/net	TCP 80 & 443
CDNs used for portal authentication	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	.microsoftonline-p.com .microsoftonline-p.net .microsoftolineimages.com .msecnd.net	TCP 80 & 443
CDNs used for portal authentication	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	*.msocdn.com	TCP 80 & 443
Default tenant namespace (mail routing)	Logged on user	Client computer	TCP 80,25 & 443	*.onmicrosoft.com	TCP 80,25 & 443
Global DNS LBS	Logged on user	Client computer	TCP 80 & 443	*.glbdns.microsoft.com	TCP 80 & 443
Azure AD (MFA)	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	*.phonefactor.net	TCP 80 & 443
Certificate Revocation list	Logged on user	Client computer	TCP 80 & 443		TCP 80 & 443
Azure Rights Management	Logged on user	Client computer	Ephemeral Ports	.aadrm.com .azurerms.com *.cloudapp.net	TCP 80 & 443
DirSync	Machine^ &Service Account	DirSync Server	TCP 80 & 443	.microsoftonline.com .windows.net +Certificate Revocation List	TCP 80 & 443
Azure AD Connect	Service Account	Azure AD Connect Server	TCP 80 & 443	.microsoftonline.com .windows.net +Certificate Revocation List	TCP 80 & 443
STS ADFS Proxy Server	None	Client Computer	TCP 443 w/clientTLS	ADFS Proxy	TCP 443 w/clientTLS
ADFS Proxy	None	ADFS Proxy (WAP)	TCP 443	ADFS Proxy	TCP 443

January 18, 2017January 18, 2017

Introducing Conditional Access by Network Location for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business

As showcased at Ignite in September 2016, we are bringing network location-based conditional access policy to SharePoint and OneDrive for Business to First Release starting 20 January 2017.

Continue reading → Introducing Conditional Access by Network Location for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business