Exchange Deployment in the Cloud

28th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

A little Introduction
Some organisations, would still prefer hosting their own Exchange server(s), rather than migrating to Office 365. And since the Cloud is the way to go for many organisations, deploying an Exchange server in the Cloud, be it Azure or AWS, could be challenging on so many levels. This includes latency, failovers, data disk corruption, replication and so forth.
If you’re unsure on how to start, unfortunately Azure does not provide a free test drive for Exchange server (as of this writing).… [Keep reading] “Exchange Deployment in the Cloud”

Auto-Acceleration for SharePoint Online

22nd of November, 2016 / / No Comments

Working with one of my colleagues recently, we were tasked with implementing Smart Links to speed up the login processes for a client’s SharePoint Online implementation.
The client was working towards replacing their on-premises implementation of SharePoint and OpenSpaces with SharePoint Online. The issue they faced was that when when a user tries to access a SharePoint Online site collection and is not already authenticated with Office 365, the user will be directed to the default Microsoft Online login page.… [Keep reading] “Auto-Acceleration for SharePoint Online”

AAD Connect – Using Directory Extensions to add attributes to Azure AD

14th of November, 2016 / / No Comments

I was recently asked to consult on a project that was looking at the integration of Workday with Azure AD for Single Sign On. One of the requirements for the project, is that staff number be used as the NameID value for authentication.
This got me thinking as the staff number wasn’t represented in Azure AD at all at this point, and in order to use it, we will need to get it to Azure AD.… [Keep reading] “AAD Connect – Using Directory Extensions to add attributes to Azure AD”

Skype for Business Mac Client – General Availability

28th of October, 2016 / / 6 Comments

I currently run a MacBook Pro for my daily driver, it’s the ‘spice of life’ I say! A MacBook Pro, a Google Pixel phone and the Microsoft Office 365 collaboration suite is what makes up my toolset. Now more then ever collaboration and data is becoming more accessible via a device flavour that you prefer. Running Mac OSX while working with the Microsoft stack presents two issues I’ve had to endure to this point as an end user and adminstrator:

  1. I want to leverage the full capability of Kloud’s Skype for Business platform while in OSX
  2. I want to execute PowerShell CLI natively in OSX

I’ve marked October 26th in my calendar as the day where I get to put a line through one of my wish list items.… [Keep reading] “Skype for Business Mac Client – General Availability”

Complex Mail Routing in Exchange Online Staged Migration Scenario

15th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

Notes From the Field:

I was recently asked to assist an ongoing project with understanding some complex mail routing and identity scenario’s which had been identified during planning for an upcoming mail migration from an external system into Exchange Online.
New User accounts were created in Active Directory for the external staff who are about to be migrated. If we were to assign the target state, production email attributes now, and create the exchange online mailboxes, we would have a problem nearing migration.… [Keep reading] “Complex Mail Routing in Exchange Online Staged Migration Scenario”

How to assign and remove user Office365 licenses using the AzureADPreview Powershell Module

12th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

A couple of months ago the AzureADPreview module was released. The first cmdlet that I experimented with was Set-AzureADUserLicense. And it didn’t work, there was no working examples and I gave up and used GraphAPI instead.
Since then the AzureADPreview has gone through a number of revisions and I’ve been messing around a little with each update. The Set-AzureADUserLicense cmdlet has been my litmus test. Now that I have both removing and assigning Office 365 licenses working I’ll save others the pain of working it out and give a couple of working examples.… [Keep reading] “How to assign and remove user Office365 licenses using the AzureADPreview Powershell Module”

Automated Call Distribution for Cloud PBX

7th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

Microsoft’s Cloud PBX is well on its way to provide Office 365 customers PSTN calling ability in Skype for Business, if you’ve missed out my colleague Joel Neff has written a great blog about the start of Cloud PBX and the features it will offer the end user with call functionality. To put it very simply, they will get the same experience as a traditional Skype for Business Enterprise Voice user. This will enable you to have PSTN numbers assigned to your end users and will be sufficient for 1-1 and conferencing calling scenarios, but what happens with my public number entry points?… [Keep reading] “Automated Call Distribution for Cloud PBX”

Exchange Online Protection Organizational Approach

4th of October, 2016 / / No Comments

I have been working for an organisation who had recently migrated to Exchange Online protection (EOP), and we had found that some of his important emails, from a legitimate email source, were getting blocked.
Upon investigation it turns out that a week before the customer’s organisation was hit by a Zero-Day virus which resulted in spoofed emails coming through and landing in the end user mailboxes. This resulted into a bit of chaos and a decision was taken to modify the Bulk email threshold (BCL) to a tighter level.… [Keep reading] “Exchange Online Protection Organizational Approach”

Azure AD Connect – Multi-valued Directory Extensions

16th of September, 2016 / / No Comments

I happened to be at a customer site working on an Azure project when I was asked to cast a quick eye over an issue they had been battling with. They had an Azure AD Connect server synchronising user and group objects between their corporate Active Directory and their Azure AD, used for Office 365 services and other Azure-based applications. Their intention was to synchronise some additional attributes from their Active Directory to Azure AD so that they could be used by some of their custom built Azure applications.… [Keep reading] “Azure AD Connect – Multi-valued Directory Extensions”

Test drive Microsoft Intune – Part 2 Application Deployment

15th of September, 2016 / / No Comments

Summary

This is a continuation of blog post Test drive Microsoft Intune – Part 1 Setup Trial Environment. The purpose of this blog article is for guide someone on how to deploy an application on a Window 10 PC using Microsoft Intune.

Deploying an application with file extension .exe

Since we are using a demo account of Intune it has been pre-configured by Microsoft. We can now do customization and application deployment.
Let’s begin by clicking on Apps the left hand navigation and then clicking on the Add Apps

You will be asked to save and run a file named setup.exe.… [Keep reading] “Test drive Microsoft Intune – Part 2 Application Deployment”