Sharepoint Online (Cloud)

Download the SharePoint Online—Evaluating Software-plus-Services guide and get a clear comparison of SharePoint collaboration technologies across on-premises, standard hosting, and dedicated hosting scenarios.

Deploying the Business Productivity Online Suite

Questions

BackupRestore

Page Content

Q: What is the process for restoring a site collection with your service? How long does it take to complete a restore request generally? Is back-up/restore defined at the site collection level, or at a more granular our coarse level?
A: We do not support back/restore via SharePoint designer. If you are asking for restoring files, you can use the recycle bin (See below). We do not currently offer recovery of a site collection if deleted by the customer. If items are corrupted, we will restore from backups.

Q. How often is data backed up?

A: Data backed up once a day. Backup retention for two weeks. Backup replication into secondary datacenter.

Recycle Bin
Items in the recycle bin are automatically deleted in 30 days.
If a user deletes an item from their recycle bin, it goes to the second stage recycle bin.
Only a site collection administrator can restore things from the second stage recycle bin.
Items in the second stage recycle bin are automatically deleted after 30 days.
Items in the recycle bin count against the user’s quota while items in the second stage recycle bin do not.
Recycle bin’s are PER USER except for the second stage recycle bin, which is per site collection.

Authentication Scheme

Page Content

Q: Do we use ISA for authentication?
No. We use certificate based authentication in SharePoint Online Standard.

Customers' Asks around Procurement and Ownership of SSL Certificates

At times, customers ask us if they can procure and own SSL certificates. In order for MSO to consistently and reliably manage and troubleshoot issues with certificates in an efficient and scalable way, MSO procures the SSL certificates for all customers. We do not allow customers to procure and own SSL certificates.

Entrust is the vendor of choice for SSL certifications within Microsoft SharePoint Online.

“We need to find out if additional templates can be uploaded to the MOSS 2007 admin portal. For example; some PMO and expenses templates have been developed which we would like to develop on top of. CIBER have also developed some IP for some specific insurance business processes (Cover Holder Auditing) which we would like to take to market. “ Is this option available now or will it be when we deploy SharePoint 2010?

A: This is not an option in the current product. I cannot say about 2010. If these templates require server side custom code, then they are not supported today. Depending on the level of trust the code would require, they may or may not be supported in 2010 either. (2010 would support partially trusted code). If these templates do not require server side custom code, they are supported today.

Difference between SharePoint Online and On-premises

Often times when we describe SharePoint Online vs. SharePoint on-premises, we focus on the features and capabilities and often forget about the requirements when partners and customers look to design custom solutions and applications and think across various business scenarios. In regards to migration, SharePoint Online is dependent on 3rd party consultants and tools to help customers plan and assess their move to the Microsoft Cloud. In regards to customizing the look and feel, It is possible to customize the look and feel of a SharePoint Online sites by using the standard out-of-box capabilities (use of OOTB web parts, master pages, templates, theming, lists, libraries, page icons, etc.) that can be configured via the browser. And in W14 Microsoft will support the Sandboxed Solutions feature in the Cloud. Customers will want to develop SharePoint Online as a front-end entry point to a variety of backend data systems, similar to how SharePoint on-premises is leveraged today. It is important to note that over time SharePoint Online will focus on enabling common integration scenarios. However, for today, and at initial update to the 2010 platform, SharePoint Online will not be able to connect to backend systems for read/write operations. It is possible to configure out-of-box web part (ex: data view web part) to provide a read-only view of backend data. This, too, requires a company to build and expose a web service from their on-premises system, consumed by SharePoint Online. This scenario would be similar in terms of distributed workloads, with light integration. Overall it is a short-term and a long-term goal to deliver the value customer expect in Cloud deployment scenarios and nearing parity across many aspects of business collaboration is a core focus for the evolution of the SharePoint Online service.?

Extranet Access

Q: Extranet capability where we can have a third party access our SharePoint site?
A: Today, we simulate extranet access by creating a user in SPO for every external user. This is not ideal but that’s what we got.

Email Notification

Q: Email Notification - Is SharePoint Online able to send notification via email to external users and users of the company?

Yes, will work. However there is currently a caveat to this answer. Any sites that have greater than 255 characters (extremelyverylargecompany1com.microsoftonline.com-sharepoint1.microsoftonline.com – for example) will have issues with Site Alerts. We are taking a fix to resolve this issue, but not sure when it will be deployed. To resolve this issue, if you have a shorter domain (i.e. company.com), set that as the default domain and any NEW SharePoint sites will use this shorter site URL (i.e. companycom.-sharepoint2.microsoftonline.com).

Features Supported in SharePoint Online

Q: Does the offer supports all the features found in the Office SharePoint Server 2007?

A: Shown below are the “service” specific features that are currently supported by the standard service. (By service specific, we mean that these features do not apply to the SharePoint server). We will achieve parity with the server features in future service releases. The dedicated version will have more features align with the Standard and Enterprise version of the Office SharePoint Server.

Green – currently supported

Blue – not supported

· Multiple Site Collections per customer

· Manage Site Collection Features and quota

· Microsoftonline.com domain

· Separate host-header per site collection

· Authenticated access only

· Customers can't span farms

· Off-boarding of customer data

· Security-trimmed site list on company home page

· Anonymous Access

· Partner Access

· Vanity domains

· managed path information architecture

· tenant admin across site collections

The table below shows the features currently supported/not supported in SharePoint Online.

Green – currently supported

Blue – not supported

Portal

Collaboration

Content Management

Search

Business Process Forms

Business Intelligence

RSS Content Syndication
Privacy & security
Audience Targeting (by group only)
Site and document aggregation
Site Manager
ActiveSync based Mobile Device Support
SharePoint sites and Documents Roll up web parts
Client integration
Integration with SharePoint designer (except site backup and restore)

Standard Site templates (Wikis, Blogs, Team Site, Document Workspace, Blank)
Basic meeting workspace
People and groups lists
Calendars
Email Integration
Task Coordination
Surveys
Document Collaboration
Issue Tracking20 Site Admin Templates (of the 40 fantastic forty)

Document Management Site Templates
Document Information Panel
Document Action Bar Document Information Panel
Retention and Auditing policies
Navigation controls
Content authoring and publishing
Page Layouts
Site variations
Slide Libraries

Search in a site collection

Forms libraries
Three state workflow
Custom non-code workflows

Portal Site Templates
Audient Targeting
Distribution Group
Create Audiences
My Site Personal Site
Site Directory
Colleagues and memberships web parts
User Profiles import
Profile synchronization
Directory import
Windows Mobile Device Support
Extranet Access
Anonymous Access

Social Networking Web part
Real time presence and communication
Standard Meeting Site Templates
Blank, Decision
Social, Multipage Meeting Workspace
Mail enabled lists
20 Server Admin Templates (of the fantastic 40)

Content staging and deployment
Standard Enterprise and Publishing Site templates
Policies, auditing and compliance
Records Repository
Email content as records
legal holds
Integration with Microsoft information rights management (IRM)
WYSIWIG WebContent Editor

People search
Business Data Search
Enterprise content sources
Cross site-collection search
Admin & Management
Indexing Controls

Business Document Workflow Support (Approval, Collect Feedback, Collect Signatures, Disposition Approval, Group Approval, Translation Management Workflow)
Custom code workflows
Browser based forms
Centralized forms management and control
Design once development model
Form import wizard
Integrated deployment model for no-code forms
Compatibility Checker

Integrated business intelligence dashboards
Key performance indicators
Filter web parts
Integrated flexible spreadsheet publishing
Share manage and control spreadsheets
Web-based business intelligence using excel services
Data connection libraries
Business Data Catalog
Business data web parts
Business data actions
Report center

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Sharepoint Online (Cloud)

Technical requirements

Infrastructure Planning and Design Guide

Deploying the Business Productivity Online Suite

Additional resources