SharePoint Online Threshold Changes

There were some SharePoint Online thresholds that are changing.  All of them are ones that customers have been asking for and happy to see them being done.

• SkyDrive Pro – Site size went from 7 GB to 25 GB per user. Plus you can expand a site to either 50 GB or 100 GB.
• File Upload Size – The max file upload size for SharePoint Online has increased from 250 MB to 2 GB.
• Recycle Bin Retention – The recycle bin retention period has been increased from 30 days to 90 days. This is great for recovering deleted items.
• Versioning – Apparently versioning is being enabled by default on SkyDrive Pro libraries. It has always been there, just it is being enabled by default.

Reference - http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/27/skydrive-pro-increases-storage-and-ease-of-sharing.aspx

Exchange Online Mailboxes and SkyDrive Pro Storage Increase

Announcement

There was been some really big news this week on Office 365 data storage for Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.

Exchange Online Mailbox Size Increase

First for Exchange Online, the mailbox sizes have doubled in size.

Both Exchange Online 1 & 2 mailboxes have gone from 25 GB to 50 GB!!! Plus for archive mailbox, Exchange Online Plan 1 when to 50 GB while Exchange Online Plan 2 is still unlimited.

Plus Shared and Resource mailboxes both increased from 5 GB to 10 GB.

Details here - http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/29/exchange-online-mailbox-sizes-are-doubling.aspx

SharePoint Online SkyDrive Pro Site Size Increase

Second, SharePoint Online SkyDrive Pro sites have had their sizes increased too.

There are now 25 GB available per SkyDrive Pro user in SharePoint! They were recently 7 GB, and remember they used to only be 2 GB before the new 2013 release. So basically SkyDrive Pro (legacy MySites) when from 2 GB to 25 GB in just few months. Remember this 25 GB does not count against your pooled storage.

Plus you have the ability to expand SkyDrive Pro Sites from 25 GB. They can be increased to 50 GB or 100 GB. This is done by using your SharePoint Online pooled storage and allocating that extra space to the individual SkyDrive Pro sites that need more space.

Details here - http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/27/skydrive-pro-increases-storage-and-ease-of-sharing.aspx

Closing

This is the value of the Office 365 cloud as an evergreen service; customers continue to get new features quickly that add value.

This is huge. Think of it this way:

• E1 / G1 Suite – you went from having a default of 57 GB space per user to 125 GB space per user! That includes your default mailbox, archive mailbox and SkyDrive Pro site. Plus you can still expand the SkyDrive Pro site.
• E3 / G3 Suite – is the same plus you have unlimited space in your email archive.

There are lots of different ways you can look at this but it is truly exciting.

Office 365 Service Continuity Uptime

There was a recent announcement that Microsoft would publishing their Quarterly Worldwide Uptime - http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/08/cloud-services-you-can-trust-office-365-availability.aspx

The uptime is published here - http://trustoffice365.com/

I went to the web site today and now see that is being published. For instance today is 8/30/2013 and it stating 99.97%, well better than 99.9% financially backed SLA - http://www.microsoftvolumelicensing.com/DocumentSearch.aspx?Mode=3&DocumentTypeId=37. If you click on the Learn More, it will show you the last four quarters.

Recommend that you read the announcement for more information about it.

Lync Online PowerShell

Lync Online PowerShell

There have been some recent updates to Lync Online PowerShell.

This is just really exciting and really provides administrators more granular control of policies that the organization must adhere to manage information that is being exchanged.

Utilizing PowerShell for management operations does help with doing granular changes to Lync Online across a broad set of users in an automated fashion. You have the ability to:

• Get information about your Lync Online tenant(s).
• Get information about your users
• Manage your audio conference provider
• Create policies to manage clients. This allow you to do such things as block file transferring, block federated contacts, block calendar information, disable emoticons, disable HTML, disable video - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg425949.aspx. Just a ton of stuff.
• Create policies to manage conferencing / web meetings. Tons of interesting policies such as controlling ability to record, controlling audio / video, meeting size, etc. - http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/gg413019.aspx.
• External access and communications policies
• Voice policies
• Manage policies for filters and presence
• Manage privacy policies. End users can set them on the Lync client, but you want to control those policies, centrally you can with Set-CsPrivacyConfiguration.
• Cmdlets to allow you to managed Unified Messaging with Exchange.
• Cmdlets to manage meeting rooms. Meeting rooms are self-contained computer appliances that are installed in conference rooms and supply advanced meeting capabilities.
• Cmlets to manage cell and mobile devices connected to Lync Online.

References

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn362831.aspx

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj994021.aspx

http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/19/remote-powershell-for-lync-online.aspx

New Office for Android Phones

Many people know that in July there was a huge announcement about Office being released for iPhone (http://www.astaticstate.com/2013/07/new-office-and-owa-apps-for-iphone-and.html).

Well there is another big announcement, Office is now available for Android phones with an Office 365 subscription!!! http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/07/31/office-mobile-for-android-phones.aspx

This is very exciting as now Office is available across major mobile providers Android, iPhone and Windows. This gives organizers real flexibility in allowing their end users to be productive. In this release users on Android devices access, view and then edit Word, Excel and PowerPoint on their phones.

Here is a landing screenshot that allows the user to decide where to access documents from. Once there you can quickly edit files while running between meetings, on the road, or when something just hits you and you just want to work right now!

There is a rich editing experience for Word files.

Rich capability to edit spreadsheets on the go.

With PowerPoint you can view and edit your slides. You can even have an impromptu meeting with a customer and not risk losing the deal. You can show them the information right then and there.

One other good fact is that his is only available for Android 4 or higher phones. If you have an Android tablet, the user can use Office Web Apps through the browser which provides a rich user experience.

There are some additionally good facts here - http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/07/31/office-mobile-for-android-phones.aspx.

New Office Message Center

There is a new feature that has been added to Office 365 called the Office Message Center. This is actually a nice new simple capability that helps with very important communications sent out by the Office 365 team. Important messages will still be communicated through existing channels however this just provides administrators of the service another place to go back and look at those communications. Typically these are the really important communications which organizations need to track like end of life of Windows XP, etc.

http://blogs.office.com/b/office365tech/archive/2013/08/01/admins-stay-informed-with-the-new-message-center.aspx

Lync Online July Updates

July Lync Updates

This July 2013, there have been some new releases leases to both the Lync Client and Lync Mobile Clients which are really exciting. These features will be made to Lync Online and Office 365.

These feature updates are truly awesome. They are just further enable to people to communicate better virtually and have more rich web meetings, regardless of the device. It is a true differentiator and shows Microsoft’s commitment to providing an evergreen service to its Office 365 customers.

Some of these features will knock your socks off if you really use Lync a lot.

Embedded Images

The updated Lync client is now supported embedded images. This is super cool. Why? I am a heavy user of Lync. All the time I am IMing with people and I want to show them something really really really quickly. Even those is it really easy for me to share my screen or an application, now I can share an image right into the IM conversation. So quick screenshot, drop it in, and keep on IMing. Love it.

Meetings View

Again something really cool, I do not need to be in outlook to see my web meetings. I can see all my Exchange Online calendar in Lync and then just join the meetings from there. This just shows me how the Office 365 user experience is continuing unifying the user experiences.

IM Mute

Yes. Very cool. I have actually been busted in meetings doing too much IM. Plus I have been leading meetings where people are IMing too much and IM is actually becoming a distraction to a formal web meeting. Now presenters can just block IMing during a meeting.

Question and Answer Manager

Again very awesome. I have run meetings so many times where I want to have formal way to allow people to ask questions and ensure that the person I am responding to knows it is for them. It is can be hard to answer IM questions from 20 people in a meeting. Using the Q&A manager provides a really good capability to run web meetings. This could even be used in concert with the IM Mute feature I discussed above.

Lync Mobile >> Transition to Lync Meeting

Now with Windows Phone, iPhone, or iPad it is really easy to bring others into your conversation and then just hit the call button and start talking. To me, that is a big deal for mobile because typically will not IM as long on a mobile device as I do on a laptop.

Lync Mobile >> Transition to Lync Meeting

Ability to see meeting content view when on Windows Phone and iPhone. That is AWESOME! I no longer have to say, I cannot see the slides, shared application or share desktop because I am mobile. My mobile device can allow me to participate in the meeting.

Lync Mobile >> Meeting Participation

Yes some of those other new capabilities will be consistent to the connecting mobile devices. For instance you have the ability to see your Exchange Online calendar from the Lync App to make it easy to join meetings. Additionally users attending meetings from their Lync mobile app can have their IM muted and participate in Question / Answer discussions.

References

Like I said, Microsoft is going full steam. The features and capabilities being released are aligned to what people want and it is continuing to improve how people communicate.

• http://blogs.technet.com/b/lync/archive/2013/07/16/july-2013-updates-for-the-lync-2013-desktop-client.aspx
• http://blogs.technet.com/b/lync/archive/2013/07/16/new-lync-features-available-to-make-meetings-even-better.aspx