Microsoft Online M2.5 Usage – Q & A

  • Article
  • Question:   We currently host our exchange at an outside provider.  I want to move it to online services.  Ideally I want to turn on a couple of mail boxes in the MS online and see how they work with real mail.  I realize those people wouldn't show up in the unified directory until everyone moved.  Reading the migration info on the site let me believe I had some ability to do that, however as I read into the migration guide, I have to have admin privileges to do that  - so am I correct to assume that won't work at all if your already hosted offsite.  Is there some guidance for how we should migrate that I missed?  Do we treat it as an IMAP possibly?
  • Answer:   MS Online can Migrate mail from any Exchange 2000 or higher Service (providing MAPI, POP3/IMAP4 Connectivity methods).  We can also migrate On-Premise or Hosted POP3/IMAP4 mail as well; however it's just a little different procedure using the Mail Migration Application.  If you click help in the Mail Migration Application, it discusses the different ways in which you can do POP3/IMAP, which involves using a .csv file which points to the source and destination mailboxes with credentials information: 

 

  • Question:   How do I get more than 5 users if we need more?
  • Answer:   During the Beta Program only a 5 user license is granted, due to the influx of company requests.  At this time there is no way to increase this capacity in the Beta Program.
  1. You could request another Online company, which would give you another 5 user license, however those users would not be in the same GAL or be able to communicate/participate with each other at this time due to the separate company boundaries.  This is something we are working on and will be available in a future version (i.e. Divestitures, Mergers & Acquisitions, etc.)

 

  • Question:   Trying to add a exchange domain set to external I get the following:

  • Answer:   SMTP Domain Management has several different moving parts to this (i.e. Exchange Hosted Services) and as such there are remote calls made to display the Domains and Settings for each.  Typically when we see this error, we can simply refresh or click out and back into the Page and it displays properly (it is something we are tracking).  Be advised that you cannot change the default SMTP Domain (i.e. contoso1.microsoftonline.com) from Authoritative, as this is the default SMTP domain and will always be Authoritative for the Online environment.
  1. Newly created SMTP domains can be set/changed between Authoritative/External Relay, however they cannot be used in the Authoritative state UNTIL you prove you own the Domain by creating a CNAME record using the unique GUID assigned to your online company, at which point it is verified and available for use (i.e.  Create users under this domain, add additional SMTP email address to existing users.)

 

  • Question:   Just a suggestion but on the verify page, it should really tell you that the most likely reason it didn't verify was due to latency for the add of the cname to take effect, I would think you want to advise people to wait 5-30 minutes or something or if it was really smart it would query the domain TTL and give them an estimate.

  • Answer:   Agreed and we have updated the M3 Page to help guide Admins through this process, explaining better what is going on and when problems occur, offer recommendations on how to resolve (i.e. Wait ~24 for DNS replication to occur.  I believe we have also broken up the Creation and Verification process, because people are creating and clicking Verify, which is on the same page and causing problems).

 

  • Question:   Trying to delete a site collection I get the following error:

     

  • Answer:   We have a known issue whereby if you delete a SharePoint Site Collection via SharePoint, that operation is not communicated back to the Admin Center.  Because of this, MOAC thinks the site is still there and when you try any operation against it, the procedure will fail.  The practical problem is that if you delete a site through SharePoint, you don't get that SharePoint space allocation back and you are not allowed to delete the site because the site doesn't exist. 

 

  • Question:   Is there a way to grant an external user access to a sharepoint site - e.g if we were collaborating on a project and  I wanted to give you access to one for example
  • Answer:   ONLY Online user's can access SharePoint Online at this time, as Anonymous access is not available.  If you want to grant others outside of your company access, you would need to create an account for them via MOAC (Microsoft Online Admin Center), either a generic or individual account, and grant that account access into the SharePoint site collection.

 

  • Question:   Directory sync - The doc doesn't really say is there any impact to the local directory another words any risk in enabling this? (I would suggested adding something about that if possible)
  • Answer:   The only thing DirSync does to a Company AD environment is to create a Service Account by way or running DirSync setup by an AD Enterprise Admin and once creates, that Service Account is used to perform one-way Synch operations from the Source AD into the Online environment.
  1. DirSync Synchronizes all users/groups in an AD Forest (Single/Multiple Domain environments) with the exception of Service Accounts;  DirSync also synchs Mail Enabled Contacts.
  2. All items DirSynch'd into the Cloud are replicated into the Online Global Address List (GAL), so it is important to review your AD Groups/Contacts/Users and make sure they all appropriate SMTP addresses.

Note:   Just an FYI that if you have an email address of coloradotc.com as your Primary SMTP in your Source AD, then you will want to create that SMTP Domain in your Online Company and BEFORE doing DirSync.  Otherwise when user's are DirSynch'd into the Cloud, if that SMTP domain isn't in the company, those users UPN and Email Address are set to user@coloradotc1.microsoft.com, which is most likely what you don't want to have happen.

 

  • Question:   Icouldn't find info on support for Windows Mobile or Blackberry's did I just miss it?
  • Answer:   For Mobility we currently support Windows Mobile 6 only.  This is because WM5 or lower (not sure if there is lower still out there), don't support Wildcard Certificates or the ability to enter a login User Principal Name (UPN), both of which are required when connecting via WM6.
  1. Blackberry Services are being evaluated and once thouroughly tested will hopefully be implemented into Production for purchase and usage by MS Online Users.