Sign up for Office 365
Learn more about Office 365
Welcome to the Service Updates wiki for Office 365 for enterprises, mid-size businesses, and education. Here you will find information about the latest features and improvements to Office 365.
Rights Management Service as a new Office 365 add-on is now available for SKUs such as E1, A2, K1 for information protection. Rights Management protects data via encryption, prevents the accidental disclosure of data via usage polices, and is simple to integrate with customer applications. Previously RMS was only available in E3 and above or A3 and above.
Lync Online reporting is now accessible through the integrated O365 admin portal. For tenants created today and in the future, Lync reporting will be live. Existing tenants may not see the reports until the tenant is upgraded at the end of the month. There are four Lync Online reports available now are:
The reports are available to all SKUs except for P. In addition, to view the reports, you must have an Exchange license as well.
Exchange Online Archiving (EOA) can now be purchased as an add-on to any Exchange Online plan, including Kiosk and Plan 1. Exchange Online Archiving, which includes legal hold and unlimited storage, was previously only available as an add-on to on-premises Exchange Server 2010 mailboxes.
Additional information To learn more about EOA, read the TechNet article Archiving Exchange Online-based mailboxes or visit Exchange Online Archiving on Office.com.
Office Web Apps was added to E1 and K1 in order to simplify the SKU lineup for commercial and Government. The change is now available for all customers who have signed up as of 2/27 and most existing customers. The remaining customers will have the update completed through the end of May, independent of the upgrade to the New Office. Admins should note that Office Web Apps will not appear on the licensing page for E1 or K1 customers.
As part of our ongoing commitment to security we are making a change to our SSL certificate chain that will require our customers and partners to take action before June 1st, 2013. Lync Online Servers currently use the GTE CyberTrust Global Root and beginning on June 1st, 2013 will migrate to the Baltimore CyberTrust Root. The new root certificate uses a stronger key length and hashing algorithm which ensures we remain consistent with industry-wide security best practices for trusted root certificates. If your services does not accept certificates chained to both the GTE CyberTrust Global Root and the Baltimore CyberTrust Root, please take action prior to June 1st, 2013 to avoid certificate validation errors. While we seek to minimize the need for customers to take specific action based on changes we make to Lync Server, we believe this is an important security improvement. Here you can download the Baltimore CyberTrust Root.
Here is how you can verify your service will not be affected by this change:
If you perform Windows Updates regularly: Validate that the new Baltimore Root cert is already present in the “(LocalComputer) Trusted Root Certification Authorities” cert store on each Server.
If you do not perform Windows Updates regularly and/or new Baltimore Root cert is not appearing in cert trusted root store: Perform Windows Update for this requirement or import the Baltimore Root to each Microsoft facing Server.
Here you can download the Baltimore CyberTrust Root.
The Office 365 public preview was a program we ran from July 2012 to February 2013 to give customers an early look at the Office 365 service upgrade.
The public preview program was designed such that when it ended customers would lose the data in those tenants, and it included warnings to indicate this before customers signed up. Due to customer feedback we have done work to enable public preview tenants to continue if needed. The public preview subscriptions on those tenants will expire, and for customers who are still using those tenants we are providing a way to transition to a paid subscription on the same tenant. The transition enables customers to keep their tenant name and to keep their data. Please note that public preview tenants are not supported and questions should be directed to the Office 365 Community Forums. The transition involves deleting the public preview subscription and once this is done the Office 365 service will be interrupted. The tenant owner then has 10 days to purchase a new subscription from within the tenant admin portal. Instructions are provided for this process here: Instructions.
For the “disable subscription” button to appear the tenant must meet certain criteria:
It’s now much simpler to set up a POP or IMAP connection to an Office 365 account. If a phone, tablet, or desktop email program can’t take advantage of Exchange Online’s auto discover capabilities, the new Exchange Online now provides the ability to connect using unified server namespaces. Instead of being asked to locate unique POP/IMAP/SMTP server settings through Outlook Web App (which looked like “podxxxxx.outlook.com”), the following standard server names can now be used:
o POP & IMAP: outlook.office365.com o SMTP: smtp.office365.com
Additional information Customers who have already set up connections do not need to take any action to maintain connectivity. Their current settings will continue to work. For specific steps for connecting your phone or tablet to your Office 365 email, see Phone and Tablet setup reference. For specific steps for connecting your desktop email program to your Office 365 email, see Email program setup reference.
On April 11, 2013 the Public Preview of project codename “GeoFlow” became available for download with sample datasets. As a new 3D data visualization add-in for Excel 2013, GeoFlow provides a powerful method for people to look at information in new ways enabling discoveries in data that might never be seen in traditional 2D tables and charts. “GeoFlow” lets you plot geographic and temporal data visually, analyze that data in 3D, and create interactive tours to share with others. With “GeoFlow” you can:
It is a free download on the Microsoft Download Center and then enabled as a COM add-in for Excel 2013 like Power View, PowerPivot, and Inquire. Learn more by reading the these Excel Blogs: Public preview of project codename “GeoFlow” for Excel and Dallas Utilities GeoFlow use case.
On March 1, 2013, Yammer became available to Microsoft Enterprise Agreement customers. Enterprise Agreement customers will be able to purchase Yammer Enterprise via Microsoft volume licensing. Microsoft has also created a set of combo SKUs for SharePoint Online (Plan 1 and Plan 2) + Yammer Enterprise. SharePoint Online + Yammer provides customers with a world-class collaboration platform and enterprise social capabilities. Yammer Enterprise also ships with Office 365 for enterprises (Office 365 E Plans 1–4). Office 365 customers will have rights to run Office 365 for access to email, calendars, Office Web Apps, instant messaging, and file sharing and will have Yammer Enterprise for social. Along with shipping Yammer with some of our most popular services, we will also be lowering the price for Yammer Enterprise standalone. Visit the public Yammer pricing page to learn more. Stay tuned for more information in the coming months as we add more buying plans!
On March 19th 2013, we announced the updated roadmap for the Yammer and Office 365 integration. For more information on Yammer and Office 365 integration see this SharePoint blog post.
Microsoft is bringing Windows Live Messenger and Skype together. Starting April 8th, Messenger users will gradually be migrated to Skype upon sign-in. It will take several weeks to complete this transition across the Messenger customer base. Lync customers that rely on federation with Messenger will continue to be able to communicate with their Messenger contacts, even after those contacts update to Skype. There is nothing that Lync administrators or Lync end users need to do to maintain continuity of service, and management of this capability within Lync remains the same as it has been for communications with Messenger.
When Messenger users sign into Skype using their Microsoft accounts (i.e., the same credentials used for Messenger) all of their Messenger contacts—including federated Lync contacts—follow them into Skype. Presence sharing and instant messaging between Skype and Lync for these contacts is available immediately. Adding new Lync contacts into Skype and audio calling between Skype and Lync are not yet available but are coming soon.
Full Lync-Skype Connectivity—contact adding, presence sharing, instant messaging, and audio calling between Lync and Skype users—will be available to all Lync customers by June.
The Lync 2013 mobile client for the Android phone was released to Google Play. The new app adds additional functionality to the Lync mobile client such as voice/video over IP and one click to join meetings from Android.
Additional information For more information read Tony Bates’ Technical Blog post Re-humanizing communications from the living room to the board room
For customers on the new Office 365: When a mailbox that has been placed under In-Place Hold is deleted (because the user has departed the organization), that mailbox will be converted to an inactive mailbox. In this state, email cannot be sent or received from the mailbox, and it will be removed from user-facing views. However, the mailbox will still be available for eDiscovery.
Additional information For more information see Managing Inactive Mailboxes in Exchange Online
Lync 2013 mobile clients for Windows Phone 8, iPad, and iPhone were released to their respective app stores. These new apps add additional functionality to the Lync mobile client such as voice/video over IP and one click to join meetings.
Rights Management Service is a new Office 365 offering for information protection. Rights Management protects data via encryption, prevents the accidental disclosure of data via usage polices, and is simple to integrate with your applications. RMS is built-in to Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and Office. You can get more information via TechNet here. RMS for Office 365 will be available broadly for customers at General Availability (GA). RMS is available in Microsoft Office 365 Plans E3, E4, A3 and A4 SKUs.
Office 365 Service Descriptions are now being published on TechNet to help customers understand the technical differences between the different Office 365 offers (SKUs) and limits or boundaries of the service. The service descriptions also provide short feature descriptions to help customers understand the breadth of capabilities in the service and link to more detailed how-to content. The old service descriptions on the download center will not be updated going forward and will eventually be removed.
Address Book Policies provide different views of the Global Address List (GAL) to subsets of users within the same Exchange Organization. This segmentation allows administrators to optimize address lists in large organizations, creating smaller 'virtual' organizations with users only able to see the users they need to see. Previously only available in Exchange Server, this capability will now be available for Exchange Online.
Additional Information: For more information on Address Book Policies for Exchange Online read this TechNet article.
No updates.
In response to feedback from our customers, we have increased the recipient rate limit within Office 365 Enterprise (E1, E2, E3, E4, K1, and K2) and Government plans (G1, G2, G3, and G4) to allow users to send email to up to 10,000 recipients per day. These new limits also apply to standalone Exchange Online plans (Kiosk, Plan 1, and Plan 2). Previously, the recipient rate limit for users of these plans had been set at a maximum of 1,500 recipients per day.
Recipient rate limits exist to discourage users from sending large volumes of unsolicited commercial email, commonly referred to as spam. These limits protect our online service from becoming a source of spam and, as a result of these protections, keep our customers’ email messages flowing. Datacenter enhancements have allowed us to increase this limit while maintaining the same level of protection.
These limits apply both to email messages sent within an organization and those delivered to external organizations. The best way to avoid exceeding the recipient rate limit is to use distribution groups when sending messages to large numbers of recipients. Distribution groups stored in the shared address book are counted as a single recipient toward the recipient rate limit.
Additional Information: For more information, see Strategies to Support Bulk Email. Office 365 customers who need to send legitimate bulk commercial email — such as customer newsletters – should continue to use third-party providers that specialize in these services. If you would like more information on recipient rate limits, see Bulk Email and Daily Recipient Rate Limits. We made this change because of your feedback. Thank you for sharing your thoughts with us, and please keep it up!
With the latest SharePoint Online update, you’ll get new Office Web Apps features: more editing and formatting controls, co-authoring support across the web apps and expanded device support, including editing from tablets.
Using web-based versions of Word, PowerPoint, Excel and OneNote you can view, edit, and work together on Office documents from nearly anywhere. Here is a highlight of the new features across each Office Web App:
Word Web App Update: See graphics, images, and layout with excellent fidelity, including new support for viewing and adding comments. Format and design documents right from a browser with commonly used features from Word on the desktop, including new page layout tools, picture tools and word count. New co-authoring and comment support in Word Web App makes it easier to work together on the web.
Excel Web App updates: Get essential spreadsheet features, such as merge cells, context menus, auto-fit columns, formula assistance, fill handle and AutoSum. Manipulate and visualize data for deeper insights with support for high fidelity charts including 3D, improved Query Table and Data Validation support, Slicer functionality and Pivot Chart interactivity.
PowerPoint Web App updates: Presentations look like they do on the desktop, with high-resolution slides, full transitions, and viewable comments. Audio and video playback is now supported, even from a tablet or phone. Drag and drop support makes for easier layouts. While the ability to insert images, apply transitions and animations, or add a pre-designed theme make polished presentations from a browser possible. And new co-authoring and comment support in PowerPoint Web App improves collaboration in the cloud.
OneNote Web App updates: Users can find what they need more easily with the ability to search on a page or within a section. And new support for ink viewing makes more information accessible from the web. Just click-to-type anywhere on the page to add a note, picture or a tag. And notes can now be shared as a URL, viewable on a phone, PC or tablet through a browser.
If you would like to learn more, we recommend the following blog post by Mike Morton, Group Program Manager of the Office Web Applications, which describes the coming Office Web App enhancements.
Note: Office 365 will be ending support for Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) on October 1st, 2012. The upcoming Office Web Apps update does not support IE7. Please review the Office 365 system requirements page here.
Additional Information: To read more on Web Apps go to this Technical Blog article.
This feature gives the ability for customers to scope what objects are synchronized from the activity directory to Office 365. The filtering options available are Organization-unit-based, domain-based, and user-attribute-based.
Microsoft has a structured program in place to enable customers using qualified 3rd party identity solutions (STSs) in their IT infrastructure to adopt Office 365 and set up federation. Through this program we have tested federation with Office 365 using STSs such as Ping, Optimal IDM etc. The protocol used for federation is WS* (WS-Federation and WS-Trust). The scenarios that are tested (such as active, passive etc.) and found to be working are documented in TechNet. These partner solutions are also available in Office 365 Marketplace.
Admins in our E and A offers are being provided the ability to set password expiration and notification policies for their users. Notifications can be set anywhere between 0 and 30 days before a password actually expires. These changes can be performed in the admin user interface.
We are pleased to announce that you can now view PDF files directly in your browser - you no longer have to download PDF files to your desktop to view them. Adobe Reader is required to install the proper browser plug-in. Once the plug-in is installed, you can open any PDF file that is stored in a SharePoint Online document library or PDFs embedded as attachments within list items directly in your browser.
Additional Information: For more information read the Office 365 SharePoint blog post
We are pleased to announce that MP4 video files stored in a SharePoint Online library will begin streaming much faster without downloading the full file first. Full download of the file would at times cause delay and/or unwanted buffering. This new feature enhancement will greatly improve the playback of MP4 files.
Outlook 2007 and 2010 now provides users with password expiration notifications. These advance notifications will be shown in a pop-up message within a certain period of time as configurable by the administrator. They will also include links (URLs) to the Microsoft Online Portal where users can change/update their passwords. Outlook will quit if the user clicks on ‘No’. The user will still be able to access his inbox, but Outlook will show a “need password” notification and no new mail will be synced. For users whose passwords have already expired, Outlook will flash an error message.
To use a custom domain with Office 365, administrators must edit DNS records to verify ownership of the domain. The Office 365 portal walks administrators through this verification process, explaining the specific steps to perform at popular domain registrars. These steps now include screenshots that illustrate the exact place in the registrar’s web site to perform each task.
Step-by-step guides are now available to help Office 365 administrators create DNS records at popular domain registrars. Previously, registrar-specific instructions were available for the first step of DNS configuration (verifying domain ownership). Now the instructions include the complete end-to-end process of configuring MX, SRV, TXT, and CNAME records.
Additional Information: Administrators can access the new guides at the Help article Create DNS records for Office 365
Shibboleth (an implementation of SAML 2.0) integration with Office 365 is now supported. This provides IT admins with the ability to provide single sign-on experience to their Active Directory users by using Shibboleth Identity Provider as their Security Token Service (STS).
Additional Information: For more details on this, please read this TechNet documentation
Office 365 administrators now have the ability to recover deleted users from a simple list within 30 days after deletion. This is significant, because it means that scenarios such as the accidental deletion of a user or the re-hiring of an employee can be easily handled by your Office 365 administrator.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the community blog For details on how to delete or restore users with a Microsoft Office 365 for Enterprises account, please read the article Delete or Restore Users
You may have seen extra characters showing before your name where it appears on various SharePoint Online sites (My Site, Team Sites, company portal, etc.); it often looks like this: i:0#f|membership. This user name sync improvement increases the likelihood of when a user's name will appear without extra characters.
*This update rolled out to customers over time. All customers received the update by the end of September 2012
Lync-to-phone users can make and receive phone calls to any number from their laptop or smart phone via a calling service which is purchased separately from a qualified partner. Jajah, a subsidiary of Telefonica, is the first available partner. More than just phone calls, Lync-to-phone provides a ‘single work number’ experience across the laptop, smartphone and tablet (via Lync clients on these devices). With Lync-to-phone, calls become an integrated component of a unified communication experience alongside instant message, presence, video calling and web conferencing. *This update will initially be available to our US and UK customers only.
Additional Information: To learn more, read the Help article Connect Lync Online to the telephone network See here for a list of fully supported Lync-optimized PC peripherals like speakerphones or headsets
The Lync 2010 for iPad mobile client has been updated to provide collaboration capabilities within Lync Meetings. This update enables Lync 2010 for iPad users to view uploaded Microsoft PowerPoint presentations within a scheduled Lync Meeting, view the meeting participants list, and receive notifications about other content types being shared within the meeting. This update is now available in the iTunes app store.
Additional Information: For more information and to download Lync 2010 for iPad, please visit the iTunes Preview page Microsoft Lync 2010 for iPad To learn more, please read the blog Lync for iPad - Version 1.5 is here!
Office 365 is now commercially available in 46 new countries: Algeria, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Belarus, Bulgaria, Croatia, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Estonia, Guatemala, Iceland, Indonesia, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia, Malta, Montenegro, Morocco, Nigeria, Oman, Pakistan, Panama, Paraguay, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Taiwan, Thailand, Tunisia, Turkey, UAE, Ukraine, Uruguay, and Venezuela.
We have added language support for Bulgarian, Croatian, Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Serbian (Latin), Slovak, Slovenian, Thai, Turkish, and Ukrainian.
We have increased the maximum mailbox search limit from 50 mailboxes to 5,000 mailboxes for both the multi-mailbox search user interface and the ”new-mailbox search” in PowerShell. The “search-mailbox” capability will continue without an upper limit for mailbox searches in Exchange Online.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the Help article Create a New Multi-Mailbox Search To learn how to search a mailbox, please read the tutorial Using ‘search-mailbox’ in PowerShell
Office 365 has now been granted the Authority to Operate (ATO) under the Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) by the Broadcasting Board of Governors, creating a process for federal agencies to certify and accredit the security of their information management systems.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the blog FISMA becomes latest security certification for Office 365
No updates
Shared mailboxes can now be created and configured using a new GUI-based Office 365 Shared Mailbox Tool by downloading the Office 365 Mailbox Tool, creating a security group and adding members, and running the tool to create and configure a shared mailbox. PowerShell was previously required to create and configure shared mailboxes.
Additional Information: To learn more and download the tool, please read the article Create Shared Mailboxes with GUI-based Tool
The Exchange Server Deployment Assistant (ExDeploy) has been updated to include support for configuring hybrid deployments with the Exchange 2010 SP2 Hybrid Configuration Wizard. This first scenario addition focuses on Exchange 2003 organizations deploying hybrid and includes new documentation, diagrams, checklists, and around 50 fewer manual steps.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the blog Exchange Server Deployment Assistant Update for Exchange 2010 SP2 and Office 365 Hybrid Deployments
Customers can now download free multi-language packs for their Office Subscription, making it easier for users to switch to their preferred languages for Office Subscription. They also reduce network overhead and user installation time. Look for the “Download Language Packs” link under Resources section on the Downloads page.
Office 365 now supports POP and IMAP connections to Outlook 2003. However, please note that customers connecting to Outlook 2003 via POP or IMAP will experience the following limitations: no calendar support, no free/busy information, no Global Address List, no push email and when connecting via POP, all messages will be downloaded to the client, and there will be no synchronization between multiple computers or devices (such as between a laptop and a phone).
Additional Information: For more information, please read the blog Office 365 will now support POP and IMAP Connections to Outlook 2003
Exchange Online Kiosk users can now use any smartphone that supports Exchange ActiveSync, including Windows Phone, iPhone, Android phones, and Nokia phones (Symbian). However, users who want Exchange ActiveSync support on tablet devices, such as iPad or Android tablets, will need to upgrade to a SKU that includes Exchange Plan 1 or Exchange Plan 2. The price for Exchange Online Kiosk will remain unchanged.
Additional Information: For more information, please read the blog Office 365: New Capabilities for Kiosk Workers Compare Exchange ActiveSync clients here
Due to lower storage costs, we have increased the mailbox limit for Exchange Online Kiosk plan users from 500 MB to 1 GB. The price for Exchange Online Kiosk will remain unchanged. *This update will roll out to customers over the next several months. We expect that all customers will receive the update by June 2012.
Additional Information: For more information, please read the blog Office 365: New Capabilities for Kiosk Workers
Customers with more than 10,500 seats are now able to consume up to 25 TBs of data as opposed to the previous 5TB cap. This increase is equivalent to a tenancy with 55,000 seats.
Enterprise customers now have the ability to restore full site collections with just a few clicks. This improvement to the SharePoint Online Administration Center is significant because it means accidental deletions can be easily restored.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the SharePoint blog SharePoint Online: Service Update For details on how to restore site collections, please read the article Restore a deleted site collection
Microsoft has raised the directory synchronization limit in Office 365 to accommodate customers of any size, which means that large customers with many users can now provision the SharePoint Online service.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the SharePoint blog SharePoint Online: Service Update
PDF files can now be opened directly into Adobe Reader without first being downloaded to your PC. The PDF file remains connected and stored in your SharePoint Online document library as you view and edit the file.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the SharePoint blog SharePoint Online: Service Update Reader version (10.1.2) is required for SharePoint Online PDF support. To download, please go to the Adobe Reader download page
External users can now use their business email address to authenticate when invited into a site collection. The Windows LiveID allows external users to associate their business email address (ex: user@contoso.com) to the LiveID system. Office 365 customers can invite their partners and clients to external sharing sites using their primary email account. If this email has been associated to the LiveID system, then the external user can sign in with their primary user name and password.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read the SharePoint blog SharePoint Online: Service Update To learn more about how to use external sharing, go here for Office 365 for enterprises or here for Office 365 for professionals and small businesses To associate a business email user name to the Live ID system, start at https://idsignup.live.com/, select "Use existing email address" and fill in the easy creation steps
Configuring rolling legal hold is now a self-service feature that can be configured through PowerShell. Previously, IT admins needed to submit a service ticket.
Additional Information: To learn more about litigation hold, please read Put a Mailbox on Litigation Hold
back to top
Tenant admins can now enable or disable client recording. When enabled, users can record Microsoft Lync 2010 conversations or meetings, and capture the audio, video, instant messaging (IM), application sharing, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations, whiteboard, and polling portions of Lync 2010 sessions. Recordings can be saved in Windows Media Format, and played back just as they were experienced during the Lync conversation or meeting.
The Lync Online Control Panel now provides administrators with additional control over their Lync Online environment, including presence privacy mode, mobile phone notifications, and dial-in conferencing settings.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the Help article Lync Online administration - what's new in this release For more information, please read the blog Update to Lync Online Control Panel
AICPA (American Institute of Certified Public Accountants) has replaced SAS70 with SSAE16.
Additional Information: Visit the Trust Center now to learn more Sign up for Compliance Notifications and receive email updates to help you to meet changing requirements
PST Capture now helps users discover Outlook Personal Folder (.pst) File Format files and then import them into Exchange Server and Exchange Online. PST Capture helps an organization gain more control over their email data repositories by placing them into Exchange. With the option to install PST Capture Agents on target machines, administrators can now determine where .pst files are located and who their file owner is via the PST Capture Console. Then, they can be directly imported into the primary mailbox or associated archive mailbox.
Additional Information: To learn more, read the blog post .PST, Time to Walk the Plank To download Microsoft Exchange PST Capture, visit the Microsoft Download Center For implementation details, read the TechNet article
Research In Motion (RIM) is now hosting BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365, which extends Microsoft Exchange Online to BlackBerry smartphones and allows self-managed BlackBerry deployments in the cloud. RIM BBCS offers powerful and flexible self-service administrative features to support an organization’s BlackBerry management strategy. It’s available at no additional charge to current medium-sized or enterprise subscribers of the Office 365 suite or standalone Exchange Online and works with BlackBerry smartphones on business or consumer data plans.
Additional Information: To learn more, please visit RIM’s site Blackberry Business Cloud Services To learn more, please read the RIM press release RIM Launches BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 To learn more, read the blog post Update on BlackBerry Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 For RIM BBCS-related questions, use the RIM Customer and Partner alias cloudservices@rim.com
The new Service Health Dashboard RSS feed provides Office 365 administrators real-time access to information about service incidents and planned maintenance events. The RSS feed is updated anytime a new event is added or an existing event is updated. To subscribe to the RSS feed, go to the Admin page. Then in the left pane under Support, click Service Health. Next, click the RSS subscription link on the Service Health Dashboard.
Additional Information: For information on how to access and use the Service Health Dashboard, please read the blog Keep an eye on everything with Service Health
The accuracy of the data provided through the Service Health Dashboard has been improved. Information about Lync Online and Exchange Online published to the Service Health Dashboard now targets specific customers directly impacted by service incidents or events.
Additional Information: To learn more, read the blog post The Office 365 Service Health Dashboard Now Supports Per-Tenant Service Status For information on how to access and use the Service Health Dashboard, please read the blog Keep an eye on everything with Service Health
Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online service is now live on the OSDP platform in current Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online markets. As a result, customers and partners can now manage their Cloud users and Cloud billing within a single platform.
Additional Information: To learn more, read the blog post CRM Integration with Office 365, Benefits and Installation To learn more, watch the video CRM Online & Office 365 Hear from a joint customer on the value they received by using both solutions here To purchase Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, please go here for new customers or here for existing customers
Microsoft has added Lync support for some mobile clients that deliver instant messaging, presence, single-touch audio conferencing and calling features across Windows Phone, iOS, Android and Nokia Symbian. Lync 2010 for Windows Phone is now available in the Windows Phone Marketplace, and Lync 2010 for Android is available now in the Android Market. Lync mobile clients for other platforms have been submitted to their respective mobile application marketplaces and should be available soon.
Additional Information: Administrators can learn more about setup by reading the article Set up Lync mobile devices (for administrators) Read the blog announcement Introducing Lync Mobile Clients View the video announcement Lync 2010 Mobile Clients To learn more about availability on your device please visit Mobile Clients for Microsoft Lync Visit the Windows Phone Marketplace Visit the Android Market
A new browser-based tool for scheduling online meetings with proper access rights and roles is now available.
Additional Information: Users can access the Lync Online Web Scheduler at https://sched.lync.com/ To learn more about using web scheduler please read the article Lync Online Web Scheduler
Based on customer feedback, we have simplified the language of the Trust Center to make it easier to find in-depth information about our privacy and security practices and understand our practices for handling and securing data on Microsoft Online Services.
Additional Information: To learn more please read the blog Trust but Verify Visit the Trust Center
Office 365 is the first and only major cloud-based productivity service to contractually commit to the EU Model Clauses, a set of stringent data protection requirements for the European Union. We are also including additional requirements from individual EU member states in the Office 365 data processing agreement.
Additional Information: Visit the Microsoft Online Services portal to get this agreement added to your Office 365 contract
Office 365 meets the business associate security requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), a U.S. law that requires healthcare organizations to protect individually-identifiable health information. In addition, Microsoft will sign business associate agreements with customers with Enterprise Agreements.
Additional Information: Visit the Trust Center
This new wizard helps streamline the hybrid deployment process by simplifying the configuration of Exchange Online features and services, including calendar and free/busy information sharing, mailbox moves, secure mail flow, and Exchange Online Archiving.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Released: Exchange Server 2010 SP2 For more detail on the Exchange Hybrid Configuration Wizard, refer to the TechNet article What’s New in Exchange 2010 SP2
Two new enhancements to migration features will bring greater efficiency to email migrations.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update For more detail on email migrations, refer to the Help article E-Mail Migration Overview
Users can now launch a separate window to preview message hits and statistics for each query. Search performance has also been improved with reduced impact of retried query failures, as well as enhancements to scalability and availability.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update For more detail on multi-mailbox search, refer to the Help article Multi-Mailbox Searches
We have improved the mailbox retention settings so it is easier to manage user mailboxes in an organization. Users can now use the mail control settings in Exchange Control Panel to create and manage retention tags and policies.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update For more detail on retention policies, refer to the Help article Set Up and Manage Retention Policies in Exchange Online
Administrators can now standardize and manage the names of distribution groups—also known as public groups—created by users in their organization. They can require that a specific prefix and suffix be added to names for distribution groups when created, and block specific words from being used. This feature helps to minimize the use of inappropriate words in group names.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update For more detail on setting up a group naming policy, refer to the Help article Create a Naming Policy for Distribution Groups
We have extended the high availability architecture for Exchange Online across additional sites to provide greater resilience in the event of network failures. Administrators and end users may notice changes to server names in URLs and in protocol settings, although bookmarks for Outlook Web App should not be affected. The connection for client applications and devices, including those configured to connect directly to server addresses, will automatically redirect when the mailbox is migrated to the latest software. A very small percentage of mobile devices are not 100 percent compliant and may need to be reconfigured to connect to a changed pod address.
Additional Information: Refer to the Help article Mobile Phone Setup Wizard for connection procedures To learn more, refer to the post Exchange ActiveSync changes may affect a small number of users To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update
Outlook Web App can now be pinned to the task bar using Internet Explorer 9 App Mode. This feature gives users the ability to launch Outlook Web App with one click and run it with fewer distractions because it is separated from other browsing sessions. It also keeps users informed of incoming email and IM when minimized or hidden, and offers quick access to common Outlook Web App commands from the taskbar.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update
Users can now match faces to names in their organization with photos displayed next to sender information in emails. The display of photos is enabled by default, but administrators can modify the settings of Outlook Web App mailbox policy to disable this feature.
Additional Information: To learn more, refer to the EHLO Blog Exchange Online December 2011 Service Update Administrators can refer to the Help article Control Sender Photo Settings in Outlook Web App Users can refer the Help article Add or Change your Picture
Admin users now have the ability to update their own alias after adding a domain. Previously, Admins required another Admin user to make this change or they needed to create one in the case of a single-user account. To complete this task, sign in to Office 365 and go to the user management experience. Select your username and click edit. In the edit experience, you can change your username from yourname@yourcompany.onmicrosoft.com to yourname@yourcompany.com. After you have clicked save, you will need to sign out and sign back in to complete the change.
We have changed text in the product and in the sign-up pages from "Microsoft Online Services ID" (MOS ID) to "user ID" to reduce confusion around what the MOS ID is.
Office 365 trials are available in 22 new countries: Argentina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Egypt, Estonia, Iceland, Indonesia, Kuwait, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Malta, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, South Africa, Taiwan, Turkey, Ukraine and UAE.
Previously only available through enterprise agreements or our syndication partners, Office 365 trials and commerce are now available directly from Microsoft in both Russia and Korea.
Administrators now have the ability to reset their own password through text (SMS) message and an alternate email address. For the administrator password reset to work, you must have already provided a phone number on which you can receive a text (SMS) message and an alternate email address. The email address must be different than your Office 365 email address. (If you can’t sign in to your Office 365 account, you can’t retrieve email sent to that address.) If you haven’t entered this information already, navigate to the user management area by clicking Admin, and then under Management, clicking Users. On the Settings tab, enter the email address in the Alternate email address box. On the Properties tab, enter the mobile phone number in the Mobile phone box.
Additional Information: Learn more about this feature by reading the blog post What was that password? For enterprises, see Reset your administrator password For professionals and small businesses, see Reset your administrator password
This update allows Office 365 administrators to deactivate and reactivate dirsync to switch between managing their users’ master source of information on-premises or in the cloud. Previously, when customers used the Office 365 migration wizard to activate dirsync to synchronize user data with the cloud, they could not revert to managing user data with on-premises Active Directory without calling support.
Additional Information: Learn more about changing the source of authority by reading the article Directory synchronization and source of authority
Customers who own Office for Mac 2011 Standard and have usage rights for Lync for Mac 2011 can now have the ability to download Lync for Mac from the download section of Office 365. Lync for Mac 2011 enables Mac users to see their colleagues’ online presence while working in Outlook or collaborating on Office documents. It also enables them to quickly send an instant message, start a video chat, or schedule an Online Meeting from within Outlook for Mac 2011.
Additional Information: Learn more about Lync for Mac licensing here See the blog post Mac Users: Download Lync for Mac 2011 Today
A unified downloads page is now available to give Mac users a single location to download Office for Mac desktop setup configuration software and Lync for Mac 2011. To get these downloads, log into your Office 365 account and visit the download section.
Additional Information: To learn more about how to set up your Mac for Office 365, see Set up your Mac for Office 365 for professionals and small businesses or Set up your Mac for Office 365 for enterprises
We have added to Office 365 official support for the OS X Lion operating system.
We have improved the Add a Domain user experience by clarifying the domain re-delegation process and providing in-context links to relevant Help articles.
Additional Information: To learn more about adding your domain to Office 365, see Add your domain to Office 365—Office 365 for enterprises or Add your domain to Office 365—Office 365 for professionals and small businesses
We have improved client access controls so that Office 365 administrators can block external access to Office 365 based on the IP address of the external client. This action blocks all external access to Office 365 except Exchange Active Sync; all other clients such as Outlook are blocked. It also blocks all external access to Office 365 except for passive browser based applications, such as Outlook Web Access or SharePoint Online.
Additional Information: Read the Microsoft TechNet article here Read the support help article here For more information about AD FS 2.0 RTW, see: General information about AD FS 2.0 RTW
The 64-bit version of the directory synchronization tool is now available for our enterprise customers. In addition, the 64-bit version now uses Forefront Identity Manager (FIM) 2010 as the underlying synchronization engine, which is installed silently when you run Setup. The 64-bit version of the directory synchronization tool shares the same functionality with the existing 32-bit software, the only exception being that Multi-forest Active Directory is not supported. Refer to the existing directory synchronization documentation for all other deployment and configuration information.
Additional Information: More details, including the upgrade path from the 32-bit version, can be found in the article Directory Synchronization tool 64-bit support View additional directory synchronization information here
The new Do-It-Yourself (DIY) Troubleshooting support tool is a comprehensive, self-help solution that helps customers solve questions or issues they may have with the Office 365 suite of services. The Troubleshooter pinpoints key technical support issues and provides immediate solutions so customers do not have to post questions to the community or submit a support request ticket. It features hundreds of possible help and support Office 365 assets (i.e., help topics, articles, videos, wikis, blog posts, etc.). As you move through a list of troubleshooting options, the tool dynamically displays funneled-down content to lead you towards the answers you need. This free tool is available in the "Troubleshooting" section of http://community.office365.com/.
Additional Information: Read the blog announcement Support Made Simple Use the DIY Troubleshooting Tool now
Microsoft is helping to support the many scenarios in which you work with others, particularly those who are not part of your company, such as vendors, trusted business partners, customers, and clients. Windows LiveID now adds external sharing capabilities in SharePoint Online so companies can invite external users in to view, share, and collaborate on their sites. The feature is turned off by default, but a company’s SharePoint Online Administrator can enable external sharing for the whole company. Then each individual site collection owners can decide if they wish to share externally. Every Office 365 SharePoint Online customer at the tenant level, (not per subscription) includes 50 Partner Access Licenses (PALs) that can be used for external sharing. Customers are not currently required to obtain additional PALs for external sharing beyond 50 users and can have up to a maximum of 1,000 PALs until the next major update of the Office 365 service at which time Microsoft may choose to make it available as a paid add-on. Note: Microsoft supports invited external users signing in to the service using a Microsoft Online Services ID and/or a Windows Live ID, which includes @Live.com, @Hotmail.com and @MSN.com user names, plus regional derivations of LiveID user names.
Additional Information: To learn more, please read Share a Site with External Users for midsize businesses and enterprises or Share the Team Site with External Users for professionals and small businesses To learn more about all the November SharePoint Online updates, read the blog post What’s New in SharePoint Online: November 2011 Update
Business Connectivity Services (BCS) in SharePoint Online enables customers to connect to external data sources via Windows Communication Foundation (WCF) Web Services endpoints in both read and write modes. These datasources are often line-of-business (LoB) applications that sit behind customer firewalls, or are being transitioned to the cloud, like SQL Azure. SharePoint now supports external lists and data columns, the Business Data Catalogue (BDC) service for WCF connectors and the Secure Store Service partitioned at the customer SharePoint Online Administration Center (at the tenant level). Currently, there are some components of BCS that are not supported, including external data search, rich client integration, profile pages, and direct connectivity to SQL Azure without a WCF endpoint.
Additional Information: To learn more, read Introduction to Business Connectivity Services in SharePoint Online or What's New for BCS in SharePoint Online For all the new rich documentation on BCS within SharePoint Online, please visit the SharePoint Online Developer Resource Center To learn more about all the November SharePoint Online updates, read the blog post What’s New in SharePoint Online: November 2011 Update
Enterprise customers can now restore entire sub sites. As a result, they no longer need to contact Office 365 support to request restoration.
Additional Information: To learn more about all the November SharePoint Online updates, read the blog post What’s New in SharePoint Online: November 2011 Update
In addition to earlier versions of Internet Explorer and Firefox, SharePoint Online now officially supports Internet Explorer 9 and Chrome. Just launch your favorite browser and then visit your favorite SharePoint Online team site or intranet company site, use work with the Office Web Apps, and more.
Office 365 trials and commerce are available in Brazil as of November 8, 2011.
We have added new language support for Portuguese-Portuguese.
RIM has recently announced an open beta of
BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365. Available at no additional charge to Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Plan subscribers, this secure service is hosted by Research In Motion® (RIM), and directly links Microsoft® Exchange® Online with BlackBerry smartphones to offer reliable, mobile access to synchronized email, calendar, contacts, tasks, and memo pads. The intuitive, web-based interface provides the tools administrators need to perform common tasks, reset passwords, or to find, lock, or wipe lost or misplaced devices. In addition, an integrated single sign-on between Office 365 and BlackBerry Business Cloud Services gives end users online self-service options that help make managing devices more efficient than ever.
Additional Information: Read the announcement RIM announced an open beta of BlackBerry® Business Cloud Services for Microsoft Office 365 Further information can be found in the BlackBerry Business Cloud Services–Feature and Technical Overview Learn more about the open beta program requirements and logistical details by visiting the RIM BlackBerry Beta Zone at https://www.blackberry.com/beta/businesscloud More information is available at www.blackberry.com/cloudservices Read Documentation for Administrators
Users with Connected Accounts can currently synchronize their mailboxes in Outlook Web App (OWA) by simply clicking the refresh button. During an active OWA session, the frequency with which a mailbox syncs has been increased. Additionally, user mailboxes will automatically sync when they log into OWA.
Additional Information: To learn more please read the blog announcement New Sync Capabilities for Connected Accounts
We are pleased to share with you many improvements to Microsoft’s popular Office Web Apps, including:
Additional Information: To learn more, read the post Setting the pace in cloud productivity
Outlook Web App now integrates Office Web Apps into the attachment previewing experience for Microsoft Word documents, Microsoft Excel® spreadsheets, and Microsoft PowerPoint® presentations. When Office Web App attachment preview is enabled, users see an Open in Browser link next to the Office Web App document type in Outlook Web App. By clicking on the link, the user can open the attached document using the Office Web Apps to get a high-fidelity preview of the Office document in a browser window.
Additional Information: Read the blog posting Office Web Apps Read more about this feature on EHLO (The Exchange Team Blog)
Windows Phone 7.5, codenamed “Mango,” now enables both small business and enterprise Office 365 customers to access SharePoint Online lists and document libraries from their Windows Phone.
Additional Information: View this video to see how easy it is to connect your WP7.5 to your Office 365 services
Office 365 trials and commerce are available in Chile as of September, 7 2011.
Office 365 is initially available in 38 countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Costa Rica, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Hong Kong, Hungary, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, Luxembourg, Malaysia, Mexico, Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Puerto Rico, Romania, Singapore, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Trinidad & Tobago, United States, and UK.
8 out of 8 people found this post helpful.
please add the Year after the month heading. It is difficult to know when something was actually implemented when I have scrolled far down the page. Thanks
Regarding the Lync Online certificate update today (May 2013) - if we're using Lync Online, what servers are you wanting us to update certs on?
I think someone needs to reread that update and make sure that it makes sense to end users and IT pros. We don't have Lync servers... that's the whole reason to go to Lync Online.