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”

SharePoint content migration using Sharegate and Powershell

4th of October, 2016 / / 3 Comments

Content Migration

When it comes to content migration we have the option to write code (script) or use a migration toolset or a combination of both, thus it is important to identify the appropriate toolset based on “ease of use” and what we need to achieve.
I have evaluated several migration toolsets however, in this blog I am going with Sharegate as I have extensively used this product recently.

Sharegate is a toolset used to  “Manage, Migrate and Secure SharePoint & Office 365”. 

… [Keep reading] “SharePoint content migration using Sharegate and Powershell”

[Updated] Yammer group and user export via Yammer API to JSON, then converted to CSV

22nd of September, 2016 / / 3 Comments

 
Update: awesome pro-tip
Big shout out to Scott Hoag (@ciphertxt on Twitter) with this pro-tip which will save you having to read this blog post. Yes, you don’t know what you don’t know.
Part of a Yammer network merge (which I am writing a blog post about.. WIP), you would lose data, posts, files etc as that can’t come across. You can however do an export of all that data to, depending on how much there is to export, usually a large .zip file. This is where Scott showed me the light. In that export, there are also two .csv files that contain all the user info in the first, and in the second all the group info. Knowing this, run that export process and you probably don’t need to read the rest of this blog post. #FacePalm.
HOWEVER, and that is a big however for a reason. The network export process does not export what members there are in groups in that groups.csv file. So if you want to to export Yammer groups and all their members, the below blog post is one way of doing that process, just a longer way… 

Yammer network merges are not pretty. I’m not taking a stab at you (Yammer developers and Microsoft Office 365 developers), but, I’m taking a stab.
There should be an option to allow at least group and group member data to be brought across when there is a network merge. Fair enough not bringing any data across as that can certainly be a headache with the vast amount of posts, photos, files and various content that consumes a Yammer network.
However, it would be considerably much less painful for customers if at least the groups and all their members could be merged. It would also make my life a little easier not having to do it.
Let me set the stage her and paint you a word picture. I’m no developer. Putting that out there from the start. I am good at problem solving though and I’m a black belt at finding information online (surfing the interwebs). So, after some deliberation, I found the following that might help with gathering group and user data, to be used for Yammer network merges.
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