Yammer & SharePoint to become best Friends

So it’s been announced on the Office365 Roadmap. Therefore it’s official. Soon, when you create a Yammer Group it will automatically create a SharePoint Site !

The goal is to turn the conversation into a reliable business class documented solution. You can continue to discuss projects in the very social sense, permitted by Yammer. However you will naturally gain the document library and process driven capabilities of a SharePoint Site.

Stay tuned for official Preview date.

Yammer Tip – Microsoft is rolling out External Sharing in Yammer as a new Office 365 feature that will allow users to create a external group and include external users probably from outside the company. You can create a Public External group or a Private External group in Yammer and then add external users to the entire group instead of the conversions or sending private messages.

Amazing “signature” tip for Mac Users

Received a document in need of your initials or signature? Just open the “Preview” app.

Received a document in need of your initials or signature? Just open the "Preview" app.

Preview is one of the most underrated Mac apps of all time. The app can add your signature to any document.

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed

Nicole Nguyen / BuzzFeed

Here’s how it’s done: Open Preview and click on Tools in the menu bar > Annotate >Manage signatures > Create signature. You’ll then be prompted to sign using your trackpad or by holding up your signature on a white paper to your laptop’s camera. When you’re finished, click Done.

Next, open your document in Preview. Then go to Tools > Annotate > select the signature you want to use. You can then drag and drop the signature to anywhere on the document.

The plus sign can turn your Gmail into multiple addresses

If you want to use the same Gmail address to sign up for two different accounts on a site, here’s a neat trick. At the end of your handle, append a plus sign and add a word — it’s recognised as a different address but goes to the same Gmail inbox. “For Gmail addresses, only the characters up until the first plus sign are used to determine where to send the email. For instance, emails sent to myemail@gmail.com and myemail+suffix@gmail.com will both go to myemail@gmail.com,”

I use it to sign up to new sites. When i joined trello for example, i used, pgilbride+trello@gmail.com, setup a rule to route all marketing jazz and things related to trello into a folder. My inbox loves me.

 

New Stuff for Office365

PRODUCT NEWS DISCUSSIONS

 

Yammer user profile update from Azure Active Directory

On April 15, 2016 Microsoft announced that Yammer user profile properties can be updated centrally in Azure Active Directory, and the changes will be automatically applied to Yammer. This includes properties such as First Name, Last Name, Title and Department.  A full list of properties can be found in this article on the Office Support site. 

Office 365 Video Optimizations & Fixes to Embedded Video Player

On April 15, 2016 Microsoft announced four fixes and optimizations to the embedded Office 365 Video player.

Office 365 Video New Feature – First Release – Custom Guidelines Links

On April 15, 2016 Microsoft announced a new Office 365 Video feature that gives the video portal Admin the ability to add links to guidelines, help documents, or other information directly on the video portal itself. This has been requested by many of you as a way to get your IT help documentation and guidelines directly into the video .

Yammer External Groups are here

On April 18, 2016 Microsoft announced a new feature that will allow users to create external groups in Yammer. External groups provide a seamless and secure way to collaborate across organizational boundaries, allowing members from outside your company access to all conversations and content in the group. Several key features were added to ensure security of network data is maintained.

 

New Office 365 Project Portfolio Dashboard apps are live
 On April 19, 2016, Microsoft announced that the Project Portfolio Dashboard apps announced last fall are now available in the Apple and Office app stores. These apps come pre-configured with powerful dashboards allowing business leaders, portfolio managers and project managers to gain insights into areas such as resource utilization, project portfolio performance, costs, active risks/issues and key milestones. 

Exchange Server 2007—end of support coming next year
On April 19, 2016 Microsoft announced Exchange Server 2017 end of support is coming next year. Last week marked one year until Exchange Server 2007 reaches the end of its support lifecycle. Customers who are using Exchange Server 2007 for any of their email and calendar services should begin planning to move the associated mailbox data and resources to Office 365 or update their infrastructure to a newer version of Exchange, such as Exchange Server 2016.

 

HANDY RESOURCES

OneDrive for Business release notes for NGST

Take a look at the latest features released for the OneDrive for Business Next Generation Sync Client. 

The Yaminade, Yammer Product Roadmap

In this episode of the Yaminade, Paul Woods spends an hour with Pavan Tapadia and Lindsay Matthews from the Yammer Product team. They discussed the Yammer Roadmap over the next 6-12 months and answered a number of questions from the Office 365 Network. 

Office 365 Connectors YamJam

On April 19, 2016 Microsoft hosted a Office 365 Connectors YamJam to discuss questions and feedback with the product team.

User Adoption YamJam

On April 21, 2016 Microsoft hosted a User Adoption YamJam to coincide with the announcement that new user adoption services were added to the evolving array of FastTrack services. The FastTrack team answered questions, provided resources and discussed best practices for user adoption. 

INTERESTING PERSPECTIVES

Enforcing name requirements on Yammer

Within Yammer, there is a strong desire of authenticity and transparency among users. But when users don’t put their real name and instead use an alias, we run into a roadblock. Luckily, there are several solutions at hand that can help companies enforce name requirement within their own networks. 

External group vs. External network on Yammer

In certain scenarios, it can be necessary to create a network or group easily accessible to those outside of your organization. There are two ways you can do this. With an external network or, with Yammer’s latest feature, external Groups. 

Bin that Server. It’s cheap and cheerful.

So last week, Microsoft announced that they are reducing the minimum amount of users required to purchase Azure RemoteApp. There are two types of people reading this post…the one’s that just went “that’s pretty  good for the SMB market” and then there are those (majority) who heard ” Ahooshi booshey, booshey rooshey”….I’ll explain for the latter.

Scenario. You have a server running SAGE. It needed a server back in the day because it was a heavy cpu user and needed to accept multiple connections…..remember !  Well SAGE like many other applications that need something to serve the people who need access to it doesn’t need to sit in your office or data-centre anymore on that server.

The ability to set-up SAGE (or whatever application you fancy) as a Remote App in Azure has been available for a while now but only when you had a minimum of 20 users. This was costly and if you only had 4 people who needed access to the app…well it wasn’t worth it. But now….now it’s gonna save you money…and be more resilient and be available remote and never need updates again….and and and…well you get the picture.

Its now cheap…and easy to move your application to the cloud and turn off that noisey server. Its the most cheerful thing your business will do. (well when it comes to IT …i do hope your company ain’t that dull…)

azure-remoteapp-hybrid-deployment

Don’t get caught on Facebook with your pants down.

We all use a lot of different devices to log into Facebook these days.

While we’re doing this, we should really think about managing the devices that have access to these accounts. Even if you only use a laptop and/or smartphone, it’s good to check and see where you’re signed in and remove it.

You don’t want a situation where you use a different PC,  but forget to log out of your Facebook account.

Here is a short video i have put together showing you how to find and end any unwanted login activity.

Click on this Link –> Facebook Logins

One Drive 4 Business Updates and Roadmap

One Drive for Business, my friend and my foe. Over the past year or so i have grown to love it’s functionality but find myself baffled by some of it’s errors. It’s pretty clear from speaking with my clients that the two things that need to change are the ability to sync more than just a document library (i.e. selective sync) and to fix the more common sync errors. (RED X is the devil.) So it’s nice to hear some news about the NEXT GEN SYNC client being available by year end. Also nice to hear they have introduced more control over what OD4B can share and to who. Here is a brief overview of recent updates.
Ability to block devices not domain joined.
You can now restrict domain access with OD4b. This means, you cannot sync offline unless your device is a member of the allowed domain. You can also block all MACS and Restrict Sync Personal PCs. This is great from a management perspective as a concern raised with me before was the fact that people can download company data to any device.
To limit to only certain domain joined PCs…
1. Identify Domain GUID
 $domain = (get-ADForest).domains; foreach($d in$domain) {get-ADDomain -identity $d | select objectGuid}
2. Run Following PS command
set-spotenanysyncclientrestriction -enable -domainguid “xxxxx”
  • User is told they can’t take library offline.
  • The request to sync is also held in compliance centre so admins can call the user to advise as to why they could not sync the library.
Ability to enrol devices into MDM via OneDrive for Business
This allows you to do a selective wipe of any device with your company OD4B connected.
You don’t need to have Email connected, so its more than just active-sync enrolment.
Q What if i have my personal One Drive account ?
Well it resets the application but keeps the personal data. So all good.
However you need to reset up your personal account, but it will connect up to local files so won’t re-download.
Limit amount of storage OD4B can use.
You can now change the amount of data a user can have in OD4B.
For example if you wanted to reduce from 1TB to 500GB, you can use the following command. (must use quota in MB)
Some other points to note…
  • Shared with Everyone folder will no longer be provisioned on new tenancies moving forward. It can be enabled however.
  • You can now turn off share with EVERYONE and ALL USERS.
  • Next Gen Sync Client is out Q4.
  • Adding Offline Support to Mobile Apps is coming in Q4.
  • Complete Web Client Refresh coming Q3.
  • Ability to restrict what external domains you can share with coming Q3.

Improving all the time…but hurry up with selective sync please !!!!

This post is not just about office 365.

So, in a weekend where i had about 750 social events to attend, it’s safe to say its surprising to me and anyone who knows me that i am actually writing a blog post tonight. I took today and tomorrow off work to actually chill out. But as the old saying goes, “Procrastination is great fun until you realise that you didn’t do a post last week and if you don’t do one this week you are one week away from doing it three weeks in a row”. Yeah….you know THAT saying… Everyone know’s THAT saying. Anyway….It’s actually something i have been looking forward to as there are a few cool things i want to share.

First Up…. What’s new this week in Office 365 ?

Preview office docs online in Yammer !!!! 

On June 26, 2015 Microsoft announced Office Online Previews to Yammer. That means all your Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and PDF files can be viewed using the power of Office Online. In addition to the compliance benefits, Office Online in Yammer provides a faster, richer experience than the old file previewer. 

Additions to mail flow for Exchange Online (no more SSL 3.0)

One June 29, 2015 Microsoft announced enhanced mail flow security for Exchange Online which included TLS 1.2 support added, new cipher suite order, SSL 3.0 support withdrawn and that RC4 cipher support is being withdrawn. 

Archive Non-Microsoft Data ! (MS are getting omnicompliant) 

On June 30, 2015 Microsoft announced that to accommodate customers who require archiving of non-Microsoft data in Office 365. 

Microsoft’s integration with Actiance and Globanet has meant that Office 365 will extend its rich and comprehensive archiving solution to cover a wide array of third-party data sources:

  • Social — Twitter, Facebook, Yammer, LinkedIn, etc.
  • Instant messaging — Yahoo Messenger, GoogleTalk, Cisco Jabber, etc.
  • Document collaboration — Box, DropBox, etc.
  • Verticals — SalesForce Chatter, Thomson Reuters, Bloomberg, etc.
  • SMS/text messaging — BlackBerry, MobileGuard, etc.

The entire compliance stack in Office 365—eDiscovery, Retention, Hold and Auditing—will have access to these new data sources. Both Microsoft as well as non-Microsoft data will be treated alike throughout the system.

Manage more of Office365 with a new PowerShell for Office365 Site. 

On June 30, 2015 Microsoft announced the launch of PowerShell for Office 365. This website is targeted at IT administrators with little to no experience with Windows PowerShell. The website is focused on simple scenarios that are focused entirely for Office 365 administration. 

http://powershell.office.com/ 

Finally, Customise the App Launcher ???? 

I like some others this week have noticed a new message posted to the message centre announcing the ability to add custom tiles to the Office 365 app launcher. Pretty Nifty !!! Read the support article here.

Ok, Office 365, is that like all you talk about ?

Microsoft EDGE

Previously know as Project Spartan. (by the way, i thought i was spartan, but there ya go). The new Windows Browser is a step up from its predecessors and is extremely intuitive and interactive. I like it I have to say. I have been messing around with it since Preview of Windows 10. Here’s the video….

Finally, What’s the craic with Greece ?

Let’s just talk about Greece…they had a monumental vote on Saturday. In case you missed it….the judges voted for the singing dog who could Juggle. Second was the opera singer who worked as a binman by day and third was a Monkey with two arms and 6 girlfriends (Serious Swinger). X factor is alive and well in the Greece. They also voted no to Austerity. I have no idea what they have against Australian Land.

Chat soon…

Paul.

A List of SMTP and IMAP Server

Default Ports:

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) Non-Encrypted AUTH 25 (or 587)
Secure (TLS) StartTLS 587
Secure (SSL) SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) Non-Encrypted AUTH 143
Secure (TLS) StartTLS 143
Secure (SSL) SSL 993

Googlemail – Gmail

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.gmail.com SSL 465
smtp.gmail.com StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.gmail.com SSL 993
Please make sure, that IMAP access is enabled in the account settings.
Login to your account and enable IMAP.
You also need to enable “less secure apps” (third party apps) in the Gmail settings:
https://support.google.com/accounts/answer/6010255?hl=en

Outlook.com

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp-mail.outlook.com StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap-mail.outlook.com SSL 993

Office365.com

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.office365.com StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) outlook.office365.com SSL 993
Note: If the above settings are not working for your account, then login into the outlook web app, go to the “Settings” > “Options” > “Account” > “My Account” > “Settings for POP and IMAP Access”.

Yahoo Mail

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.mail.yahoo.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.mail.yahoo.com SSL 993

Yahoo Mail Plus

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) plus.smtp.mail.yahoo.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) plus.imap.mail.yahoo.com SSL 993

Yahoo Mail UK

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.mail.yahoo.co.uk SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.mail.yahoo.co.uk SSL 993

Yahoo Mail Deutschland

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.mail.yahoo.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.mail.yahoo.com SSL 993

Yahoo Mail AU/NZ

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.mail.yahoo.au SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.mail.yahoo.au SSL 993

AT&T

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.att.yahoo.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.att.yahoo.com SSL 993

NTL @ntlworld.com

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.ntlworld.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.ntlworld.com SSL 993

BT Connect

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.btconnect.com 25
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap4.btconnect.com 143

O2 Deutschland

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) mail.o2online.de 25
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.o2online.de 143

T-Online Deutschland

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) securesmtp.t-online.de StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) secureimap.t-online.de SSL 993

1&1 (1and1)

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.1and1.com StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.1and1.com SSL 993

1&1 Deutschland

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.1und1.de StartTLS 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.1und1.de SSL 993

Verizon

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) outgoing.verizon.net 587
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) incoming.verizon.net 143

zoho Mail

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.zoho.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.zoho.com SSL 993

Mail.com

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.mail.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.mail.com SSL 993

GMX.com

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) smtp.gmx.com SSL 465
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages) imap.gmx.com SSL 993

+ Add Provider

 Server: Authentication: Port:
SMTP Server (Outgoing Messages) Contact us to add your provider
IMAP Server (Incoming Messages)

We have gone from GATEKEEPER to GROUNDSKEEPER !

Here we are folks, in a new world of IT. A world of “the cloud”. So what’s the over arching difference between Office365 and all other technologies produced by Microsoft in the past 30 years ? Well…. It’s changed who the IT guy is. It changed who the USER is. IT changed it’s clothes, grabbed a bath and forgot all about those pesky Techie guys saying … “ya can’t do that, jaysus, they’ll run riot”. It’s turned the IT guy from Gatekeeper into Groundskeeper. And I for one….am all in favour.

Office365 is your new epidemic….let’s catch up with what’s new this week.

Updates (not the windows ones as we ain’t got no time for that !)

Following on from last week regarding Windows 10 release, here is a link to the upgrade path to Windows 10 from your current OS. Outlined below. Guinness Storehouse (June 26th)…mark the date. Windows 10 Briefing.

Capture

Breaking News ! (like breaking bad and breaking wind, but more informative.)

Skype Goes Online

Skype for Business will begin to rollout through the online experience in the coming months, this means the ability to Skype via OWA, Calendar and OneDrive for Business. Nifty Nifty. My only concern is i wrote this nugget of info down (in Wunderlist) but never attached the URL. So i can’t back this up with a link….so this is blind trust that i am speaking the truth. And i am fully aware, not everyone can handle the truth. (just ask Tom Cruise or Oscar Pistorias!)

Office 365 is ring fencing “new things”

This week saw a change in the way the portal allows for admins to prevent or activate certain elements of the portal to users. This was always available via Azure but now is prevalent for all apps in O365. Check out the option for SWAY below.

Capture

Add to this the new ability to turn on new releases for your tenancy but NOT for all, you have a nice control over your apps. This is pretty neat. (I just turned into an american there), by neat i mean grooooovy. (I know….still american…but more Huggi Bear)

Capture

Delve is the new “LOOK AT ME” site.

Your so vain right ? Well…Delve is now going to be home for your profile and all you are about. Check it out here

And also …watch this video….it’s only simon bleeding carly. (or Carly Simon, never sure)

So Delve , also known as the MONSTER is improving week on week, announcing interactions with Yammer to beat the band. An interesting one was….if you post a link in yammer it will appear in Delve . Meaning, more and more people will start to consider Delve a starting point, a place to search quickly, a place to see what’s happening in your company etc… Delve is your new home, hang up your cap, pour a scotch and chill the beans. It ain’t no drop-in.

Not much else to add, apart from, please share this on your Twitter Feed or Yammer feed. I work for a company called Inspired SS and we’d love to hear from you if you are the fashizzle in Office365. Contact us via our website here.

Paolo.