SMUCUG

Exchange and Lync positions

joshmaher — Tue, 22 May 2012 04:05:16 +0000

A few of the members of the community have asked me recently if I know of any great Exchange and Lync resources. Of course I know a bunch of great resources – I know there are a lot of great resources here in the SMUCUG community – so who out there is interested in changing roles or looking for freelance work? It would be great to put you in touch with the right people hiring!!

Bulk Email with Office 365

joshmaher — Wed, 16 May 2012 04:03:36 +0000

In response to feedback from Office 365 customers, the recipient rate limit for Office 365 P1 plan has been increased to allow users to send email to up to 1,500 recipients per day. Previously, the recipient rate limit for users of Plan P1 had been set at a maximum of 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 the online service from becoming a source of spam and, as a result of these protections, keep O365 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. For more information, see Strategies to Support Bulk Email. Exchange Online 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.

Open Other Domains Using ADUC

joshmaher — Mon, 09 Apr 2012 08:24:46 +0000

As most of you know, my day job entails a lot of Office365 work. I guess a lot of the content I have been posting reflects that. One trick I came across that I wanted to share with everyone is how to access different domains using ADUC.

The scenario is that you are logged into a computer as a domain user and you find that you have a need to look at a different active directory. There isn’t really a way in ADUC to point at different domains outside of the forest that you are logged into. This is where the trick comes in, it is pretty easy…

From a command prompt open an instance of the MMC by using runas such as:

Runas /netonly /u: mmc

Add ADUC to the MMC

That’s it, super simple!!

Understanding Dial-In Conferencing with Office 365

joshmaher — Tue, 27 Mar 2012 13:55:30 +0000

I just published my first technet wiki…

Understanding Dial-In Conferencing with Office 365

I would say as a MSFT employee but I never posted one prior to joining Microsoft (although I encourage you to participate in the wiki). The topic is on dial-in conferencing in Office 365. For those of you that are not familiar with what the Dial-In Conferencing feature entails, it allows Lync Online tenants to integrate with third party dial-in conferencing providers. This enables meetings that are scheduled inside of Lync Online to have a dial-in number that people on a PSTN line can dial into. It also allows the meeting organizer or authenticated user to dial-out from the meeting to a PSTN line. This is an important aspect of using Lync Online as a primary means for meeting organization and participation as so many meetings require people to dial in from PSTN lines instead of use only Lync or SIP devices.

Don’t forget… The User Group Meeting is tomorrow!

Windows 8 and iPad Comparison

joshmaher — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 08:49:28 +0000

Loads of buzz around Windows 8 and iPad lately, I promise not to post too much about it here as SMUCUG is UC focused (and there is a lot of cool UC stuff to post about). I thought this was a good visual of the comparison though so wanted to share…

Upcoming SharePoint Events

joshmaher — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 17:44:12 +0000

I just came across a local SharePoint user group… if your UC activities cross into the SharePoint realm, this may be something that you are interested in. There is a meeting tomorrow night. It is late notice, but the event should be good. More info is on their site.

Another SharePoint related event hit my inbox this week as well, this one put on by Imperva and is all about How to Secure Your SharePoint Environment – What You Need to Know.

If you come across anything else great to add, please share with the community!

The History of MIME

joshmaher — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 08:22:20 +0000

Very cool infographic by the people over at MIMECAST…

Next Meeting @Polycom w/Acme Packet

joshmaher — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 16:08:09 +0000

It’s that time again for a UC Geek get together! Polycom has once again offered their swanky space and Acme Packet is coming out to talk about Session Management and Lync. I’m personally super excited to see the value they are adding here and I know that a lot people aren’t super fluent in session management.

We are looking to have the event in Bellevue and conference in a UC user group in the Bay Area using Polycom’s facilities which would be great! Of course if you attend in person there will be some awesome give aways, food, and the usual interaction with smart peers in the area.

Some of the things we’ll cover are:

Market drivers for SIP trunking & Session Management with Lync
Deployment challenges
Enterprise voice migration & how legacy PBX vendors fight to stay relevant
Use cases (on-premises & Office 365-D Lync)
Acme Packet solutions for SIP trunking & Session Management with MS Lync
Working with Acme Packet

The details…

Mar 28, 2012
4:30 PM – 7:00 PM

Polycom
411 108th Ave. NE
21st Floor
Bellevue, WA 98004

Please register so that we can get the food, prizes, and room size right…

http://smucugpolycom.eventbrite.com/

Hope to see you there!!

Calendar Sharing Matrix

joshmaher — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 21:33:47 +0000

With Exchange Online and Exchange On-Prem both penetrating the marketplace more equally, I see more requests for information about how to make the two integrate or work together between companies and in M&A situations. Luckily the Exchange team is on top of it as usual and have put together a nice matrix that covers all of the scenarios… Here is a sample screen shot, the full document goes into more detail – Download the EHLO Exchange Calendar Sharing Matrix!

Thanks to Jesper Osgaard for passing the link along.

More FREE o365 Tools and Features

joshmaher — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 13:33:11 +0000

Loads of awesome free stuff fo o365 lateley coming from Microsoft. (Granted a lot of this stuff applies to on-premise as well)… Regardless this is all good stuff that you should go check out!

First up – in the Exchange Online category

PST Capture - This is the long awaited centralized PST capture and upload tool. More details can be found on the Exchange Team Blog or on Loryan Strant’s blog

Second up – Lync Online Category

Lync Online Web Scheduler – Of course that link assumes you are a Lync Online subscriber, if you aren’t go check out the details on the Office Blog
Lync Conversation Analyzer - definitely a must have for those interested in how effective their communications are.
Lync Information Dashboard - international team? Another must have!
Lync Conversation Translator - not to be confused with the analyzer above, this is a translator
Lync Adoption and Training Kit - the neverending need to train people to use the new tools.
Lync How-To Training - Yes more training!!

Don’t fret regarding those last two, training people to use new modes of communication is the norm. In fact, when the telephone was introduced ATT had to undertake a HUGE training excercise as evidenced by this video…

AT&T Archive Video

Also good to note, RIM is finally supporting o365!!