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Galapagos Photo Experiences

Posted on February 13, 2018 by Tony Redmond

My wife and I recently had the privilege of travelling to the Galapagos islands to spend seven days looking around. The Galapagos is a very special place where the vast majority of the land area is preserved by Ecuador as a national park. Humans are confined to small settlements near the coasts. Because so little territory is available to tourists (more is available to scientists and researchers), many people who go to the Galapagos follow a well-worn track between the different places that they are allowed to visit. This doesn’t take away from the joy of the trip; it’s just something you have to accept must exist for good reasons.

In any case, this blog post is my attempt to capture some of the interesting animals and sights that visitors can experience in the Galapagos. I hope you enjoy it.

The Big 15

Anyone going to the Galapagos will probably want to see the wildlife. After all, the islands are a protected ecosystem full of plants, animals, and birds that have remained pretty undisturbed by human activity, so it’s a special place. Some of the touring companies talk about seeing the “Big 15,” which include iguanas, tortoises, boobies, sea lions, and penguins. Because some of the species are only present on certain islands, your ability to see all of the Big 15 is dictated by your tour itinerary. Being an avid photographer, I wanted to photograph as many species as I could during our week in the Galapagos. We didn’t get to see them all(my count is 8 of 15), but we enjoyed what we saw. Here’s some shots to show what I mean.

Marine Iguanas

Marine iguanas are very common. Whether it’s strolling around beaches like Tortuga Bay (Figure 1), just hanging out on rocks (Figure 2), or baby iguanas relaxing on rocks as they shed their old skins (Figure 3), you’ll meet iguanas everywhere.

Figure 1: Marine Iguanas strolling at Tortuga Bay

Figure 2: Marine iguanas chilling on rocks

Figure 3: Baby marine iguanas close to Puerto Villamil (Isabella)

Best of all, the iguanas care very little about human presence, meaning that it is possible to get very close. The authorities would like you to stay at least three feet away from the animals, but sometimes they come nearer. Or you can stay away and use a telephoto lens to capture the colors and texture of the iguanas (Figure 4). In whatever case, the excitement of seeing your first iguana soon reduces to a blasé nod when someone says “oh look, there’s an iguana…” They are really that common.

Figure 4: Close-up of marine iguana

Land Iguanas

Land iguanas are rarer than marine iguanas, but you’ll still see plenty of them in places like South Plaza island, which is commonly used for tours. Land iguanas are more colorful than their marine cousins and are often found sitting under cactii, waiting for flowers to drop to eat (Figure 5).

Figure 5: Land iguanas under a cactus on South Plaza island

Sometimes you see hybrid iguanas, the product of mating between marine and land iguanas. In Figure 6, a regular land iguana is to the left and a hybrid iguana to the right. You recognize the hybrid by its coloring and lack of the dorsal fin seen on marine iguanas.

Figure 6: Land iguana (left) and a hybrid cousin (right)

Giant Tortoises

The giant tortoises are another “must-see” Galapagos species. We visited a tortoise reserve near Puerto Villamil, where a breeding program is in place to help repopulate areas where tortoises have been wiped out due to human-introduced pests like rats, donkeys, and cattle. There are plenty of tortoises to be seen (Figure 7), including tons of young tortoises at different stages of development, but you always know that the animals are in captivity.

Figure 7: Giant tortoise at the breeding center

Obviously, it is much better to see an animal in its natural habit. Our first glimpse came on a walk to the “Wall of Tears” (Muro de las Lágrimas) on Isabella. The walk is about a 10 km round-trip trek and it’s not something to do without having good shoes, sun cream, and lots of water. Our guide said that we might see one or two tortoises en route, but we were lucky to see twelve, including some deep in the undergrowth. The easiest to see where those on the roadway (Figure 8).

Figure 8: Giant tortoise on the road to Muro de las Lágrimas

Some of the tortoises were under impressed at meeting walkers and others were nonplussed and got on with the job of finding the next meal (Figure 9). According to our guide, after a careful examination of tortoise poop, the tortoises in this location liked eating cactii.

Figure 9: Galapagos traffic

Even better was a visit to the Rancho Manzanillo Tortoise Preserve on Santa Cruz. Apart from having a pretty good restaurant on site, the Ranch has lots of tortoises roaming free across fields and ponds. This is a great place to stroll (avoiding all the poop and other mucky places) and have a tortoise encounter (Figure 10), including the chance to see how tortoises use pond water to cool down and remove parasites (Figure 11).

Figure 10: Giant tortoise at Rancho El Manzanillo

Figure 11: Giant tortoises around a pond

Sea Lions

The Galapagos sea lions are related to the Californian sea lions, only smaller. Again, after a while you stop noticing sea lions because they are everywhere, including on park benches (Figure 12).

Figure 12: Sea lion takes a nap on a part bench

A trip to South Plaza island provided a more natural encounter with sea lions, including the chance to watch a shark patrol offshore waiting for one of the sea lions to make a mistake (none did while we watched). Many of the animals we saw were pups, as their mothers were off fishing for food (Figure 13), while the bulls that were present patrolled their territories to warn off any potential invaders.

Figure 13: Sea lion pup on South Plaza island

Being young, the pups were playful and the local crabs served as available toys. It was interesting to watch the pups pick up the crabs and toss them between each other (Figure 14). Things weren’t so good for the crabs because invariably the sharp teeth of the sea lions cracked their shells.

Figure 14: Sea lion pups playing with red crabs

But mostly the sea lion pups wanted to rest and did so without taking much notice of nearby humans. Figure 15 shows a typical pose and also shows the kind of lava rocks that are so common in the Galapagos.

Figure 15: Sea lion pup relaxing on South Plaza

Dolphins

Many of the activities in the Galapagos involve transits from one island to another. If the trip is short, it will probably be in a “panga” (dinghy). If long, you’ll probably end up in a motor yacht, which turned out to be a nice place to spend the two hours or so needed to get from the Ibabaca Channel (between the islands of Baltra and Santa Cruz) to Bartolemé, an islet off Santiago island. En route, a pod of dolphins turned up to play at the bow of the boat. The pod put on quite a show (Figure 16) and were a highlight of the visit, even if dolphins aren’t in the Big 15.

Figure 16: Dolphins playing off the bow of a boat

Blue Footed Boobies

Blue footed boobies are definitely part of the Big 15 and also feature extensively on souvenir t-shirts sold throughout the islands (you can probably guess some of the slogans). We saw boobies on South Plaza and Bartolemé, but never saw a Nazca or red-footed boobie. Apparently, the bluer the feet, the more food the bird has consumed. If this is true, the boobie in Figure 17 has fed pretty well.

Figure 17: Blue Footed Boobie

On Bartolemé, the boobies were at the famous Pinnacle rock, which we approached in a panga, so it wasn’t quite so easy to see (Figure 18).

Figure 18: Blue footed boobie at Pinnacle Rock, Bartolemé island

Galapagos Penguin

The Galapagos penguin is a small breed that is the only species of penguin found north of the equator. We saw individual penguins on Isabella and Bartolemé. In most cases, the birds were sitting peacefully on rocks (Figure 19), but some were swimming (Figure 20).

Figure 19: Galapagos Penguin surveys the world going by

Figure 20: Galapagos Penguin swimming

Frigate Birds

Frigate Birds are part of the Big 15 because of the large red pouch displayed by male birds during the mating season. It wasn’t the right time or the birds were too busy flying to display pouches, but they were certainly present everywhere in the islands. Apparently, frigate birds like to cruise on air currents (Figure 21) looking for other birds who have food, in which case they swoop down to steal whatever’s going.

Figure 21: Frigate Bird rides the air currents

American Flamingo

Near the tortoise reserve on Isabella, there are a series of briny lagoons where you see American Flamingos (and the compulsory iguanas). The deep pink color of the flamingos (Figure 22) is determined by their diet of carotene-rich shrimps, which they sieve through their large beaks. The pinker the bird, the older it is… or so we were told.

Figure 22: American Flamingo

Finches and Other Birds

Finches were the sources of many of Darwin’s observations about the origin of the species. There are many different types of finches, some of which are still evolving. Figure 23 shows a cactus finch photographed in a cactus forest close to Tortuga Bay, while Figure 24 shows a sharp-beaked ground finch found in a scalesia forest near the Los Gamelos sink holes on Santa Cruz.

Figure 23: Cactus finch

Figure 24: Sharp-beaked ground finch

As you’d expect, there are many other species of birds to be seen. Not being a bird-watcher, I wasn’t very professional at recognizing and capturing the various types, but I liked the plumage of the Yellow Warber, photographed at the tortoise reserve at Santa Cruz (Figure 25) and the stance of the Mocking Bird, photographed on the edge of the caldera of the Sierra Negra volcano (Figure 26).

Figure 24: Yellow Warbler

Figure 26: Mocking Bird

Moving closer to the sea, there were lots of brown pelicans to see. I like this shot (Figure 27) of a pelican sitting on top of a mangrove tree.

Figure 27: Pelican resting in a mangrove tree

Crabs

Crabs seemed to be much more obvious and brightly colored than they are in Ireland. Young crabs are dark to camouflage themselves against the black lava rocks, but the mature “Sally Lightfoot” crabs are bright red, which is thought to serve as a warning to would-be predators to avoid them. Not that it did much good when sea lion pups were around. The crabs are very agile and move across lava rocks with speed. They are also capable of jumping from rock to rock to find food to eat or escape from predators.

Figure 28: Red crab

The Galapagos has lots of hermit crabs too. This one (Figure 29) was scurrying along the sand at Tortuga Bay looking for a new shell to call home.

Figure 29: Hermit Crab

Flora and Fauna

The animals attracted most of our attention, but some walks through different areas of the Galapagos generated some nice shots of mosses (Figure 30 and 31) growing on trees. I don’t normally pay much attention to this kind of stuff, but I was attracted to the shapes and profusion of growth covering the trees.

Figure 30: Different mosses growing on a tree

Figure 31: Mosses

Landscapes

The Galapagos landscape changes from place to place and depends on whether you’re in the highlands (for example, on the side of a volcano), down by the shore, on a lava field, or elsewhere. One of the nicest landscapes we saw was looking down from the climb to the viewing platform on Bartolemé island towards Pinnacle Rock and the beaches that we later snorkeled around (Figure 32). The red appearance of the land is due to the relatively recent (in millions of years) age of the lava that created the island and the erosion and rust (of the iron in the lava) that generated the sand-like soil.

Figure 32: Looking towards Pinnacle Rock from a high point on Bartolemé

You can’t avoid lava in the Galapagos because that’s how all the islands came into being. The last major flow on Isabella was in 2005 and the lava is now settling down in the caldera of the Sierra Negra volcano (Figure 33). Getting to the caldera involves a reasonable walk and the view is often disappointing because of cloud and mist. As you can see, the cloud cleared briefly to give a view. Recent volcanic activity has made the park authorities close off part of the walk, so this is about as close as you can get to the caldera.

Figure 33: Caldera of Sierra Negra volcano

Another recent outflow (in lava terms) is on Santiago island, where the lava forms some amazing shapes (Figure 34).

Figure 34: Lava on Santiago Island

Yet another type of lava is on the small islet of Tintoreras, just off Puerto Villamil (Figure 35). This lava is jagged rather than smooth and has razor-sharp edges that make it very unpleasant to fall against. The iguanas don’t seem to mind.

Figure 35: Lava fields

The Wall of Tears on Isabella (Figure 36) offers another type of landscape. Built by political prisoners from lava rocks in the years after World War II, the wall sits in the middle of the countryside with nothing else around it.

Figure 36: Wall of Tears

On the way back to Puerto Villamil from the Wall of Tears, you can climb a viewing platform (Cerro Orchilla) to get a nice view of the town, its beach, and Tintoreras (Figure 37).

Figure 37: Looking back to Puerto Villamil from close to the Wall of Tears

Technical Details

For those interested, I used a Nikon D5 with a Nikkor 28-300mm zoom to take all the photographs. No flash was used because this is forbidden when photographing animals in the Galapagos. Interestingly, some of the shots taken on my iPhone 8S were nearly as good, even if they never approached the quality of the optical zoom.

Figure 38: Galapagos map showing locations that we visited

Things I Wish We Had Brought

Many of the activities were water-based. I wish I had brought a waterproof camera suitable for snorkeling (waterproof to 10 feet or so) so that I could have taken photos of the sea turtles, reef sharks, and various forms of rays that we were able to swim with. I also wish I had brought a swim vest. The sea is a lot warmer than it is in Europe, but cold currents have a nasty habit of coming along to spoil the party. A swim vest would also help with sun protection. The Galapagos are close to the equator and it’s all too easy to get sun burned, even with factor 50. The rear of the knees are particularly sensitive if you snorkel. If I had been intelligent, I would have brought along a mask with a lens adjusted for my sight. The tour people give out masks with normal lens, which are fine if a fish comes up close, but rapidly become useless when the fish are more than a few feet away.

Like a fool, we left our excellent Tilley hats behind in Ireland. You need hats in the Galapagos, so if you make the same mistake, buy a hat (they are available in stores in Quito and Baltra airports).

If you do go to the Galapagos, enjoy the experience and go with the flow. The animals will do the rest.

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Travel, Writing | Tagged Blue-footed boobie, Frigate bird, Galpagos, Giant tortoise, iguana, Penguin, Travel | 5 Comments

Office 365 Exposed, Episode 11

Posted on January 23, 2018 by Tony Redmond

Last week, I chatted with MVPs Paul Robichaux, Alan Byrne, and Vasil Michev in the palatial surroundings of the Continental Hotel in Budapest, and Paul taped the conversation as episode #11 in our “Office 365 Exposed” series. You can listen to the recording on Paul’s website or iTunes (sometimes it takes a day or so before iTunes picks up new episodes).

Paul and I do the podcast when we manage to carve out time in our diaries – or when we are in close geographic proximity. In this case, we were very happy to have Alan and Vasil join us to add their views to the mix.

Episode 11 covers some interesting topics (at least in my mind), including the impact of the Meltdown/Spectre vulnerability on on-premises Windows servers running Exchange and SharePoint (see Paul Cunningham’s excellent write-up on this topic), the nature of SharePoint Online and why Microsoft’s newly released free migration tool might be all you need, given the much simpler form SharePoint takes in the cloud, and the experiences in Quadrotech as the company moved from Slack to Microsoft Teams. And yes, Teams didn’t replace email.

Enjoy!

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Want to know more about how to manage Office 365? Find what you need to know in “Office 365 for IT Pros”, the most comprehensive eBook covering all aspects of Office 365. Available in PDF and EPUB formats (suitable for iBooks) or for Amazon Kindle.

Posted in Cloud, Exchange, Office 365 | Tagged Meltdown, Office 365 Exposed podcast, Spectre | Leave a comment

Tracking Change in Office 365 Book Content

Posted on January 6, 2018 by Tony Redmond

The Dead Fish Syndrome

I am amused with the notion that technical information presented in a blog, book, article, or any other form can remain relatively current long past its publication date. This certainly was the case when I started writing books in the early 1990s, but cloud services have changed things utterly. In particular, the text of many technical blog posts (especially about Office 365) are now like dead fish or visitors: they begin to age and smell after three days.

Reactivating an Old Blog Post

Take a blog post I published on the ITUnity.com web site in August 2016 (ITUnity is currently undergoing a transformation, hence no link). The topic was how to use PowerShell to find obsolete Office 365 Groups by looking for evidence of little or no activity in the groups. Basically, the code checks the group mailbox to find the date of the last conversation item, the group document library to see if it exists (i..e. someone has caused SharePoint Online to create the library), and if the library exists, to look for evidence of recent activity. I combined the checks together into a script which generates a nice HTML report and published the script in the TechNet gallery. All was well.

Then someone asked about the Office 365 Group expiration policy in the Microsoft technical community. The expiration policy works on the basis that a group expires after a certain period and then needs to be renewed by its owner (see this write-up for details). Various notification messages are generated for this purpose, and the feeling expressed was that these messages look like spam and should be customizable by tenants. I agree. It would be much better if tenants could apply their own look-and-feel to any notification going to users.

In any case, my bright idea was to use the script I had written in August 2016 as the basis for a solution. It would be easy to add some code to generate email to the owners of the groups found to be obsolete, so that’s what I suggested. But then I found that ITUnity.com is currently offline.

The Growing Realization of How Much Work is Neeed

No problem, because I have copies of all articles in a SharePoint document library. Then I realized that the text written some sixteen months ago had aged horribly and needed to be refreshed – and the script needed some updates too. The availability of the group expiration policy is one factor (warning, the policy is a premium feature that creates the need for Azure Active Directory premium licenses), but the general availability of Microsoft Teams from March 2017 was the biggest influence. Every team has an Office 365 Group, but the activity of the team might be entirely based on personal and channel-based chats, and the checks for obsolescence that I created did not handle Teams.

So I am rewriting the article and script to take account of the relevant changes that have happened inside Office 365. Expect to see the new text appear on Petri.com soon. That is, after I finish up some other articles that are occupying my attention at present.

Change Inside Office 365 Drives Book Updates

All of which brings me to the amount of change that we continue to see inside Office 365 (according to Microsoft speakers at the Ignite conference, they make between 300 and 400 changes in a calendar year). This rate of change is a challenge for tenant administrators, who need to understand what is changing and how it affects their users. It’s also a huge challenge for anyone who writes about Office 365. Take the Office 365 for IT Pros (4th edition) eBook. We published this edition on 1 June 2017. Since then, we have released 28 updates on a roughly weekly basis (see our change log for details). Even so, we barely keep pace with change.

Table 1 is helpful because it shows where a lot of change has happened. Some of our updates are corrections, some occur because we learn more about a topic or gain an insight from various sources, but most are because Microsoft has changed something.

Chapter Number (bold) and number of changes
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
11	9	14	4	9	4	4	8	1	2
11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20
3	3	2	17	19	24		13	8	9
21	22	23	24	25	26
5	5	3	6	1

Table 1: Distribution of chapter updates

From the table, we see lots of changes in Chapter 1 (introduction), dealing with things like new Office 365 datacenters, multi-geo support, new numbers for active users, new apps available to Office 365 plans, and so on. We also see lots of changes in Chapter 3 reflecting the transformation that is ongoing for SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. But the really big areas of change are around Office 365 Groups (Chapters 14 and 15), Teams (16), and compliance (18 and 19).

Teams changes weekly (or so it seems). We constantly refresh text and graphics to reflect changes in the UI that are pushed out to users through automatic updates. Ignite 2017 was the first time that Microsoft spoke about Teams at a major conference, so lots of information was gathered there, digested, and then incorporated. We have added over 50% more material about Teams since the 4th edition appeared.

Microsoft is also changing the Office 365 data governance framework with classification labels, event-driven retention, manual disposition, and so on. We see lots of changes in the Security and Compliance center that drives book updates.

More Change Coming

Change won’t stop and we won’t stop updating the book. The transition from Skype for Business Online to Teams is an example of change that is happening now that we need to document as it happens. More will happen inside Exchange, SharePoint, OneDrive for Business, Groups, Yammer, Planner, etc. etc. Some changes will be deep and detailed; some will be minor and involve just a few words. In all cases, we need to track, understand, and deal with the changes. Doing so keeps the writing team busy. But hey, what else would we do?

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Office 365 Groups, SharePoint, Technology | Tagged Exchange Online, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Office 365 eBook, Office 365 for IT Pros, Office 365 Groups, SharePoint Online | Leave a comment

New Office 365 book from Microsoft Press

Posted on December 6, 2017 by Tony Redmond

Despite what people might think, I welcome the release of the new edition of “Microsoft Office 365 Administration Inside Out.” There is nothing like competition to drive an increase in standards, and even though I think the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook (also available from Amazon Kindle) is pretty decent already, we can always do better.

The Need for Updates

The Microsoft Press current book service aims to provide content that stays current with rapidly changing software. Given the number of changes appearing in all its applications, Office 365 is certainly in the “rapidly changing” category. Microsoft Press issues updates for 12 to 18 months after publication in web editions of their books, which is the only feasible way to handle the problem.

What’s not clear is how often updates appear. Microsoft Press says updates will be available “depending on the frequency of significant updates to the software.” I guess it all depends on your definition of significant updates. If you look at the Office 365 for IT Pros change log, you get some idea of the kind of changes we have tracked in the 4^th edition of the book since its publication on June 1, 2017. So far, we have generated 25 updates (almost once a week) for the book. Given my experience as a Microsoft Press author, I suspect that’s more than Microsoft Press will do. We shall see.

Tracking Change

One of the problems we have with Office 365 is tracking the number of changes. A flood of blogs appears from Microsoft to announce changes in applications. Even more appear to cover updates in related technologies like Azure Active Directory or Azure Information Protection. Many changes slip into Office 365 without an announcement. Teams, for instance, makes many updates to client user interfaces. The Teams release notes are an excellent resource for tracking changes, even if some small updates don’t show up there.

The Office 365 Roadmap is helpful for giving a heads-up as to what should show up in Office 365 in the future, especially now that Microsoft has updated the roadmap with dates for when a feature is added, last modified, and when it is scheduled to appear. However, the problem for roadmap items is that they cover all Office 365 plans and are not specific to a tenant – or more precisely, to the mix of licenses bought and used by a tenant.

The fact that Microsoft is gradually introducing new features for the high-end Office 365 E5 plan is also a complication. Although features are often available as an add-on (MyAnalytics and Advanced Threat Protection are examples), sometimes they are not (like Alert Policies in the Security and Compliance Center). This creates the problem of what to describe in a book. It’s a quandary, and not one that we solve as well as we might because invariably our interest is attracted to new and interesting technology of the type often included in E5.

Grist to the Mill

For all our complaints about the difficulty of tracking change inside Office 365, it’s still an enjoyable and worthwhile activity. We hope that the Microsoft Press team has as much fun updating their book as we have had with ours.

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Cloud, Email, Office 365 | Tagged Microsoft Press, Office 365 book | 2 Comments

Podcasts and Flights at Ignite 2017

Posted on September 30, 2017 by Tony Redmond

Ignite Wind-down

After a busy week in Orlando, I am in full wind-down mode and recovering from the Ignite 2017 conference. The event itself was excellent, but there were many complaints about how far attendees had to walk between the West and South halls of the Orange County Conference Center. Some reported Fitbit step counts of over 40,000 for a day, which is a lot. Moving from the West hall, where many of the Office 365 sessions were located, to the expo area in the South hall, was a humid and hot trek, especially when the moving walkways and escalators broke (regretfully, a common occurrence).

The expo area was what you’d expect. Lots of ISV stands (Figure 1) and a massive Microsoft area, which was a good place to catch up with program managers and engineers.

Figure 1: Quadrotech booth at Ignite 2017

My Ignite Sessions

In any case, my week was busy as I spoke at one breakout session (75 minutes – a recording is available online), two theater sessions in the expo hall (20 minutes each), and moderated a panel of Exchange MVPs for a question and answer session (here’s the recording). Moderate is possibly a bad word. Control might be better. In any case, it was fun.

Microsoft posts recordings of many sessions online to allow attendees who miss sessions and those who don’t attend Ignite to catch up with events (hint: use Michel de Rooij’s Ignite download PowerShell script to copy the sessions you want to review).

Making Connections

As always with conferences like Ignite, the best part of the event was the opportunity to meet people, including many of my MVP colleagues. Microsoft erected a wall listing the names of all the current MVPs and obviously this was a natural photo opportunity (Figure 1). Alan Byrne looks happier here than he did when interviewed by Brad Sams for the “Petri Dish.”

Figure 1: Standing in front of the MVP wall with Vasil Michev and Alan Byrne

News from Ignite

However good a conference agenda is, there is no substitution for real-life conversations with industry contacts to get the pulse of what’s happening and what might happen. For those who are interested, I published 7 articles based on what I learned at Ignite on Petri.com.

From a news perspective, the most interesting are possibly the ones about Microsoft dropping plans to charge for inactive mailboxes and the transition of Skype for Business Online to Microsoft Teams. However, the news about how hybrid deployments of Exchange will soon be easier and the release of multi-geo support are strategic steps forward in the move to the cloud. And for those who want to stay on-premises, the news that Exchange 2019, SharePoint 2019, and Skype for Business 2019 are coming is welcome.

Podcasting at Ignite

Moving to the main topic of this post, Ignite features a really nicely-kitted out podcast center, overseen by Ally Reckerman with Julius Evans leading the production team. Paul Robichaux and I managed to book a slot for our “Office 365 Exposed” podcast and recorded the episode on Wednesday evening.

Christophe Fiessinger, a program manager for Office 365 Groups, came along to join the debate (Figure 2). He was a good sport, even if some of his answers marked him as having high potential for political office. I think the information that we shared was valuable and the in-studio audience seemed to appreciate it. The highlight for me was Paul’s analogy comparing mailboxes to children. You’ll have to listen to the recording to understand what I mean.

Figure 2: A heated debate during the podcast (image credit: Nicolas Blank)

Video and audio recordings of the podcast are now available for your viewing and listening pleasure. The video is here and the audio is available through Paul’s “Down Home Page” or from iTunes, where you can find previous episodes. You’ll notice that the quality of this episode is much better , which is what happens when recording is in the hands of experts.

Flying with Paul

After finishing the “Ask the Exchange MVPs” session late on Thursday afternoon, I headed to Kissimmee Airport to fly with Paul Robichaux. We have wanted to fly together ever since Paul bought his plane and never quite managed to be together in the same place at the same time with the plane in easy reach. Paul took a number of other guests for a quick flight in the Orlando area before I got there.

Unfortunately, I arrived close to sunset (Figure 3). This wasn’t a problem for flying because Paul’s license allows him to fly for an hour past sunset, but it meant that photos from the plane were impossible, even with a Nikon D5 (think of 1/40 second exposure at f3.5 at ASA 8000 from a moving object). Despite flying over Walt Disney World, all I have are some memories and blurred photos.

Figure 3: Standing in front of Paul’s plane at KISM

Ignite 2018

Ignite 2018 will be in Orlando from September 24-28, 2018. If you are interested in attending the event, you might want to book hotel rooms or Airbnb now. You can also pre-register for the event now. There were 23,000 attendees at this year’s event and probably more will be in Orlando next September.

Home to Ireland

After the hectic week, it’s a pleasure to anticipate a leisurely return home to Ireland on the direct Aer Lingus flight to Dublin tonight. Next week will be hectic too because the Office 365 for IT Pros team will be working hard to generate an updated book including the news from Ignite.

Like after every conference, we have to be careful to separate information about features that will (or might) appear in a few months from the practical tips about what you can do today with Exchange Online, Teams, Groups, SharePoint Online, and the rest of the Office 365 ecosystem. The joy of working on an always-evolving eBook is that we can deal with change in a way that printed publications cannot. It’s a good place to be in.

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Cloud, Travel, Writing | Tagged Flying, Ignite, Office 365, Office 365 Exposed podcast, Orlando, Paul Robichaux | Leave a comment

Better Testing and Communication Needed for Office 365

Posted on August 16, 2017 by Tony Redmond

Odd Things Happening Inside Office 365

Despite the recent success of Office 365 (in terms of revenue earned for Microsoft), I cannot lose the feeling that some quality control, communications, and testing issues lurk inside the service. A troubling number of small but telling incidents have happened over the last few weeks to raise my awareness and consider what is going on.

Data Breach

First, the small matter of a data breach on August 3 where administrators who accessed the Usage Reports section of the Office 365 Admin Center could see user names and email addresses from people belonging to other tenants. According to Microsoft, the root cause was a code update (incident MO112471).

As it happens, the breach was minor because it happened at a time when relatively few people access the reports. Microsoft found the problem quickly and took the reports service offline to fix the issue before restoring normal service after a few hours.

The problem is that a flaw that exposes personal data should not have made it into production, which then begs the question as to the effectiveness of the testing performed on the code change before it reached tenants.

The New Sign-In Experience

Next on the list is the Azure AD sign-in fiasco. There must something about early August that makes things go bad because this issued started to unfold on August 1 when Office 365 tenants noticed that the sign-in screen offered a “new sign-in experience” (Figure 1).

Figure 1: A user is offered the new sign-in experience

There is nothing wrong in seeking to improve the way things work, but in this case the problem is communication. Or rather, the lack of it. Issuing a fundamental (but good) change to the way users connect to Office 365 without warning is bad. Microsoft published a blog on August 2. By that time, people were already rightly fuming at the lack of a heads-up.

In addition to poor communications, the new sign-in experience broke the ability of Office 2010 desktop applications like Word and PowerPoint to connect to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites. I accept that this is old software, but it is what people use in the real world and it is something that Microsoft apparently forgot to test.

The Beta Test Button

On Friday. August 11, OWA began to display a “Try the beta” button (Figure 2). This is part of an Outlook.com program to allow users to experiment with new functionality. It’s a worthy cause but programs running in the consumer email service should not leak into the business service, even if Outlook.com and Exchange Online share the same infrastructure.

Figure 2: Just press that “Try the beta” button…

Switching the beta button to on revealed some new features and made OWA look a little nicer. It also hid all the Office 365 functionality that is not available to the consumer service, like Office 365 Groups. Surely someone noticed this issue when Microsoft tested the feature internally?

Poor Advice in the Message Center

I am sure that you, like me, pay close attention to what Microsoft posts in the Message Center in the Office 365 Admin Center. After all, anything that appears in the Message Center should be directly relevant to my tenant.

On August 14, I noticed a message (MC113732 – Figure 3) telling me that Microsoft is splitting the controls that apply to the creation of groups in the tenant to allow administrators to separate the creation of security groups from Office 365 Groups. Again, a very logical and welcome change.

Figure 3: MC113732 informs tenant owners about Group Creation Settings

The problem is in the “How does this affect me” section. Here I learned that my tenant had no AAD policy configured to control the creation of Office 365 Groups or that the policy was not set to block the creation of groups. Both statements are false.

I then see that Microsoft took action to ensure the blocking of group creation. But here’s the thing. I have a perfectly good policy defined and in place to control group creation (something that I recommend to every tenant administrator). The thought that Microsoft could create a new policy or update an existing policy without asking is infuriating. This is an example of poor communication and poor testing as clearly the information relayed to me is inaccurate and misleading. It could be that the text is poorly written and does not communicate what Microsoft intended, but in any case, this message should not have been sent to tenants without better preparation and warning.

More Cookie Woes

Recently, the Office 365 Admin Center started to have problems with cookies again, leading to the infamous problem with “HTTP Error 400. The size of the request headers is too long.” I thought that Microsoft had squashed this problem earlier this year when they switched out the old Admin Center for the new. Clearly, I was wrong.

Figure 4: A bad request for the Office 365 Admin Center

What is more frustrating is the helpful advice that sometimes appears when you try to refresh the page. Being told to file a support request is a sensible course of action (Figure 5), but you need to be able to access the Admin Center to create a support request.

Office 365 Admin Center File Support Request

Figure 5: Good advice from the Office 365 Admin Center

The solution remains the same. You must clear the cookies for office.com from your browser cache before you can access the Admin Center again. But I wonder whether those who develop the Office 365 Admin Center ever use it in anger to perform the kind of day-to-day tasks that someone does to manage a tenant.

Because others have contacted me with their experiences, I know that I am not the only person to experience the cookie problem. It gets wearisome to apply the same fix time after time. Surely Microsoft can eliminate this issue once and for all?

Keeping Up to Date with Office 365

All the above proves the point once again that it is very difficult to keep abreast of everything that happens inside Office 365. Which is why you should buy a copy of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook and have our team do the heavy lifting for you.

We generate an updated version of the book weekly with updates, corrections (sometimes we get things wrong), and the latest information. It is the only book of its type about Office 365 that you will find. We do not expect you to read the half-a-million words from end to end, but we do expect that you will find value in the text.

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Cloud, Office 365, Office 365 Groups | Tagged Azure AD, cookies, data breach, Groups, Office 365, sign-in | Leave a comment

Announcing Office 365 for IT Pros Fourth Edition

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Tony Redmond

The writing team is thrilled to announce that the fourth edition of the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook is now available. We have been working on this book for the last three months and it is great to see everything come together.

You can’t simply announce a new edition without a reason to create it. We set out with four goals:

Restructure, rationalize, and improve flow. When we started out on this project, the focus was on Exchange Online. Now we cover all of Office 365. We took a hard look at the structure and flow of the book and made changes that we think produce a better book.
Introduce new material. Office 365 keeps on changing, so we have much better coverage in this edition of topics such as InTune, Skype for Business, and the new Office 365 Data Governance framework. We are very happy that Ståle Hansen joined the team to write the chapter on Skype for Business.
Expand coverage of key areas. We think that the third edition offers good coverage of many parts of Office 365, but we wanted to do better. We have worked over the coverage of Office 365 Groups, Teams, and many other points to make the text clearer and more content-rich.
Remove obsolete content. After two years of writing about Office 365, we could lose some pages that were not as relevant as they once were. We removed coverage of Exchange Online and SharePoint Online eDiscovery as all the focus is now on Office 365 eDiscovery.

The fourth edition of Office 365 for IT Pros breaks the 1,000-page barrier. We added roughly 120 pages of new material and removed about 70 of old. It’s a big book, just like Office 365 is a big cloud suite.

The fourth edition is not complete. This is a living book and the June 1 release is the starting point for updates that we will apply over the next year. We already know of some important features that are coming soon and the Ignite conference next September will bring a flush of announcements that deserve coverage, once the related code appears.

You can expect to see us release weekly updates for the fourth edition of Office 365 for IT Pros over the next few weeks, although we might take a break for a couple of weeks in summer.

At the same time as we have been working on the fourth edition of Office 365 for IT Pros, we have been pushing out weekly updates for the third edition. The last update for the third edition appeared on May 25. You can check all the updates issued for the third edition on the change log.

We strongly believe that the issuing of updated books is only way to document an ever-changing cloud service like Office 365 is through frequent updates, which is why we release these updates. During its time, the third edition grew from 800 to 950 pages, so although we corrected errors, typos, and the like, we also added a lot of new material over the year.

Upgrades

If you subscribed to the third edition through Practical365.com (previously ExchangeServerPro.com), you will receive an email with details of how to upgrade to the fourth edition for $12.50. This entitles you to receive all future updates for the fourth edition until it is replaced.

New Purchases

New purchasers can buy the EPUB/PDF version of the eBook from Practical365.com. Again, once you buy a copy, you have access to all future updates for the fourth edition until it is replaced.

Kindle

The Kindle version of the fourth edition is in the process of publishing on Amazon.com and its global network of country-level sites. Unfortunately, Amazon does not allow us to offer upgrade rights to readers. If you want a copy of the fourth edition, you must buy it.

The third edition of the book will stay available on Amazon until the end of June to allow people who bought a copy to refresh with the last update. After that, we will retire the Kindle version of the third edition.

Our Sponsor

We could not afford to dedicate the number of hours put into Office 365 for IT Pros without the support of QUADROtech, our sponsor. QUADROtech makes some great software for PST, archive, and mailbox migrations. Check them out if you’re considering moving any data to Office 365.

Posted in Cloud, Office 365, Writing | Tagged ; Office 365 ebook, Best Office 365 book ever, Office 365 for IT Pros | 2 Comments

Office 365 for IT Pros 4th Edition – Change Log

Posted on June 1, 2017 by Tony Redmond

Office 365 for IT Pros, 4th Edition, was published on 1 June 2017. Copies of the book are available in EPUB/PDF format at practical365.com or Kindle at Amazon.com and local subsidiaries.

This document describes the changes made to the book since its original release. The document is up-to-date as of the version released on June 16, 2018. We try and release an updated version weekly, usually on a Friday unless we are disrupted by something like a major conference. For example, we did not produce an update during the Microsoft Ignite conference.

We have released 50 updates for the 4^th edition since its publication: 9 June, 16 June, 23 June, 30 June, 7 July, 14 July, 21 July, 28 July, 4 August, 11 August, 18 August, 25 August, 1 September, 8 September, 15 September, 22 September, 6 October, 13 October, 20 October, 27 October, 3 November, 10 November, 17 November, 24 November, 1 December, 8 December, 15 December, January 5. January 12, January 22, January 26, February 10, February 17, February 24, March 3, March 10, March 17, March 24, March 31, April 7, April 14, April 21, April 28, May 5, May 12, May 19, May 26, June 2, June 9, Jun 16.

Amazon notified purchasers that an updated file for the Kindle version exists after the 9^th update – 4 August, the 14^th update – 15 September; 19^th update – 27 October; 28^th update – 5 January; and 34rd update – 24 February. We can only ask Amazon to update monthly and even so, sometimes they do not agree that we make enough changes to justify them sending a notification to customers that they can download the updated file.

Updates for Office 365 for IT Pros, 4^th ed.

*Date*	*Chapter*	*Change*
16 June	3	Updated note on Stream and transition from Office 365 Video.
16 June	18	Corrections to minor errors. Also, some clarifications for event-based retention.
16 June	20	Office 365 Advanced Security Management is now Office 365 Cloud App Security.
16 June	22	You can now force the decryption of attachments sent with messages protected with the Encrypt template.
9 June	5	The Office 365 Admin Center is renamed Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Some changes in the Security and Compliance Center too.
9 June	14	Microsoft Forms can now share forms using Office 365 Groups.
9 June	15	Fixed some minor typos.
9 June	16	Teams captures compliance records for hybrid and guest users. Group-enabled SharePoint team sites can now create plans and use the Planner web part to embed plans into site pages.
9 June	20	Microsoft clarification about licensing for activity policies. Fixed some minor typos.
2 June	5	Various minor updates and corrections.
2 June	8	Note about calendar events created from email.
2 June	16	You can create a team using an existing team as a template.
2 June	20	Notre that you can export audit events to Power BI with CSV generated from script.
2 June	22	Various updates to clarify and amplify points about rights management templates.
26 May	14	Removed duplicate text (caused by bad figure reference).
26 May	16	Added section covering guest access for Planner. Also, corrected a few typos that had crept into text over time.
26 May	18	GDPR is now effective. Also, consolidated references to audit records generated for classifications to match description in Chapter 20.
26 May	20	Added section showing how to use PowerShell to report how users assign classification labels to documents.
19 May	3	SPO and OD4B sites will soon support a minimum of 100 versions.
19 May	5	Added link to GDPR Dashboard in overview of Security and Compliance Center
19 May	8	Minor corrections (including the removal of a duplicated paragraph).
19 May	12	Details about new hybrid permissions available for Exchange Online.
19 May	13	Details about new hybrid permissions available for Exchange Online.
19 May	15	Section about migrating from site mailboxes rewritten. Refreshed section covering connectors for Groups and Teams. Added information about the ability of users to unsubscribe guest accounts from tenants they’ve been added to. Added information about how to include guest accounts in address lists.
19 May	18	You need to specify the DistributionDetail parameter when running the Get-RetentionCompliancePolicy cmdlet to return workload locations.
19 May	19	Added more detail about GDPR Data Subject Requests.
19 May	23	Minor updates.
12 May	8	Updates to section on inactive mailboxes and blocking user sign-ins.
12 May	15	Minor corrections and clarifications (like a bad reference to Table 15-5 that should be Table 15-3).
12 May	16	Inserted discussion about Planner integration with Outlook.
12 May	19	Updated screen shots for Advanced eDiscovery to match new UI.
12 May	22	Don’t use the DNF or Encrypt templates to send to shared mailboxes. Also, rewrote section explaining how AIP labels and protection templates interact.
5 May	1	Data for Office 365 from Microsoft FY18 Q3 results included.
5 May	3	Storage allocation for SharePoint Online per licensed user increases from 0.5 GB to 10 GB.
5 May	5	Several small errors corrected.
5 May	18	Added reference to GDPR data subject requests.
5 May	19	Inserted section about GDPR data subject requests in eDiscovery (preview).
5 May	20	Inserted an example of using PowerShell to look for audit records relating to guest users opening documents.
5 May	22	Outlook desktop (click to run 1804 onwards) supports the Encrypt (only) protection option. Other changes made in how Azure Information Protection publishes labels.
28 April	5	Emphasize that guest accounts don’t need Office 365 licenses.
28 April	9	Public folders now support up to 500,000 folders in the hierarchy.
28 April	14	Updated Table 14-4 comparing Yammer, Groups, and Teams.
28 April	15	Rewritten section on securing confidential material in groups (and teams) when guests join.
28 April	16	Group expiration policy is now visible to teams that come within scope of the policy. The Windows Phone client or Teams will be retired on May 20, 2018. Updated text on creating new team from previously-existing groups. Planner can now display charts and the schedule view when working inside Teams. Planner does not display the New Plan option to tenant administrators if they are not in the group specifying users allowed to create new groups.
21 April	1	Multi-geo tenants are now generally available.
21 April	2	New Microsoft web service for Office 365 endpoint information. SLA data for Q1 CY18.
21 April	3	Added script to update regional settings for existing sites created by Office 365 Groups and Teams.
21 April	5	Office 365 Secure Score is now “Microsoft Secure Score.”
21 April	15	Azure AD Policy for B2B Collaboration is now generally available. Azure AD Reviews for Group membership is now generally available.
21 April	16	More detail about Teams retention policies.
21 April	19	Mistake in PowerShell example for compliance search filter corrected.
21 April	20	More examples of using Office 365 audit events.
14 April	3	Explained how to set default regional settings for new sites.
14 April	8	Updated text for auto-expanding archives.
14 April	14	Rewrote section on “Controlling group email traffic.”
14 April	15	Refreshed script to find guest users in group membership. Added text about how to find the groups that someone owns.
14 April	16	Added text to explain what a link to a Teams message contains. Updated text about Who bot. Also, Microsoft made a last-minute change to replace the HideFromExchangeClients parameter for the Set-UnifiedGroup cmdlet to HiddenFromExchangeClientsEnabled.
14 April	18	Added details about how Teams support Office 365 retention policies. (MAJOR UPDATE)
14 April	19	Clarification about why you cannot use a Chrome browser to download results for a content search.
7 April	3	Incorporated section about document sharing from Chapter 15 into 3.
7 April	6	Outlook for iOS and Android are now FEDramp-approved for use in the Office 365 Government Community Cloud (GCC).
7 April	15	Removed section about document sharing and transferred to 3. Updated some PowerShell code examples.
7 April	16	Teams now supports Office 365 retention policies. (MAJOR UPDATE) Also, new Office 365 Groups created by Teams are hidden from Exchange clients. Finally, the new Teams and Skype for Business Online Admin Center is available.
7 April	18	Office 365 retention policies support Teams personal and channel chats.
7 April	19	Rewrite of sections covering content searches and eDiscovery cases to reflect new “modern” user interface introduced on April 3. (MAJOR UPDATE)
31 Mar	3	Rewritten section about SharePoint sharing.
31 Mar	5	Note about use of the FormatEnumerationLimit variable in PowerShell.
31 Mar	15	Emphasize that a guest account is tied to an email address. Also, adjust text about guest access for Planner.
31 Mar	16	32-bit and 64-bit MSI packages are available for Teams desktop deployments. Planner support for guest access has started to roll out.
31 Mar	22	Clarify what happens when encrypted email goes to Groups or Teams.
24 Mar	4	Added note about Microsoft Research paper on passwords.
24 Mar	9	Added more information about how to configure access to a shared mailbox with Outlook for iOS.
24 Mar	10	Clarified point about OAB generation.
24 Mar	16	Added detail about the effect of turning off private chats. Updates to the section covering Teams compliance records.
24 Mar	17	Added script for reporting Outlook mobile apps. Some corrections too.
24 Mar	19	Refresh for Compliance Security Filters.
24 Mar	20	Added extra example of how to interpret audit log data.
24 Mar	22	Expanded details about encryption-only policy.
17 Mar	1	Office 365 datacenters are now operational in France (14^th region).
17 Mar	14	Revise example of how to check for soft-deleted groups.
17 Mar	15	Added expanded information about the group expiration policy, which is now generally available (14 March).
17 Mar	16	Teams is now used by 200,000 organizations. The mobile clients now support tenant switching. Teams now supports 200 channels per team.
17 Mar	20	Rewrote examples of interpreting the JSON payload of Office 365 audit records with PowerShell.
17 Mar	22	The Encrypt template is now generally available to OWA clients.
10 Mar	2	Added links to compliance audit reports about Office 365.
10 Mar	3	You can suppress the social numbers for SharePoint modern pages with PowerShell (feature starts to roll out on April 1).
10 Mar	5	Admins can choose to have the text of Office 365 updates shown in the Message Center translated to a selected language.
10 Mar	6	Microsoft has deprecated the OWA for Devices apps. You will no longer be able to connect these clients from May 15. 2018.
10 Mar	8	Insert text covering ability to assign delegate access to a calendar using the Add-MailboxFolderPermission cmdlet.
10 Mar	14	The Teams mobile client can create Office 365 Groups. Also, the default access type for Groups is changing from public to private.
10 Mar	15	Minor corrections and updates.
10 Mar	16	The Teams mobile client can create and manage Office 365 Groups. Also, some reasons why BCC is the only way you should ever send email to a Teams channel.
10 Mar	22	From March 1, 2018 Microsoft sets AzureRMSLicensingEnabled to $True in tenant IRM configurations.
3 Mar	3	Updated guidance on the migration from Office 365 Video to Stream.
3 Mar	8	Rewrote section about creating new mailboxes. Added section about tracking the last access time for a mailbox.
3 Mar	15	Update about Teams support for external users.
3 Mar	16	Teams now supports external access from non-Office 365 domains. Teams will include private teams in teams suggested to users to join from March 23 (MAJOR UPDATE).
3 Mar	20	Added some detail to the section about Exchange mailbox auditing.
3 Mar	21	Unified DLP policies now support some email-based conditions and exceptions.
3 Mar	22	The new Encrypt option to protect messages will begin rolling out later this month.
24 Feb	3	Added notes about migration from network shares to SharePoint document libraries.
24 Feb	5	You can now share update notices via email from the Office 365 Admin Center.
24 Feb	8	Matched changes made in Chapter 18.
24 Feb	16	The Planner integration with Teams has some useful new options, such as the ability to remove a plan without affecting the team and the ability to see all plans available to a user across all teams.
24 Feb	18	Added script to reveal holds in place on a mailbox. Fixed bad xRef to Figure 18-21. Added text about using cmdlets to recover items from the Recoverable Items folder. Also, Compliance Manager is now GA (22 Feb).
24 Feb	19	You can now export results from content searches to ZIP files.
24 Feb	20	New UpdateFolderPermissions audit action added for mailboxes.
22 Feb	22	Microsoft has announced the preview of the unified classification model, which brings AIP and Office 365 classification labels together.
17 Feb	1	The Organization Profile of the Office 365 Admin Center now shows the location of data for some services.
17 Feb	2	TLS 1.2 becomes mandatory on October 31, 2018 (change from March).
17 Feb	3	Updated Files on Demand.
17 Feb	11	Added section about ATP anti-phishing policy.
17 Feb	13	Corrected error in PowerShell script.
17 Feb	14	The Groups mobile app will cease working on 1 May 2018. Refresh of content for recovering soft-deleted groups.
17 Feb	15	Minor updates to section about OWA mailbox policy.
17 Feb	16	You can now restore deleted channels in a team. Corrected error in PowerShell script. Rewrote section on Meetings.
17 Feb	22	AIP Scanner is now generally available.
10 Feb	1	Include information about Office 365 financial results from Microsoft Q2 FY18 results.
10 Feb	3	Refresh of OneDrive content.
10 Feb	9	Rewrote the section on shared mailboxes.
10 Feb	15	Emphasize that the group naming policy does not apply to Yammer groups.
10 Feb	16	Include new functionality released for both Planner and Teams (MAJOR UPDATE)
26 Jan	1	Revised section on Office 365 datacenter regions.
26 Jan	2	Added Office 365 SLA for Q4 2017.
26 Jan	5	Updates to the sections covering custom tiles and Azure AD PowerShell.
26 Jan	8	Added section about link between EXODS and AAD for mail-enabled objects.
26 Jan	15	Code improvements for the PowerShell to check users against group membership. Also note that some group policy settings are stored in the Exchange organization configuration.
26 Jan	16	Clarified that the email address for a team channel is not reused if removed and then recreated.
26 Jan	18	Emphasize that Office 365 retention policies can clash with EXO mailbox retention policies.
22 Jan	3	Small changes in SharePoint sharing section.
22 Jan	5	Switched terminology from “First Release” to “Targeted Release.” Added note that the Service administrator role can access license information. Added note about the potential vulnerability of user data if accessed through Integrated Apps. Fixed a bad x-ref to Figure 5-2.
22 Jan	14	Updated PowerShell examples for distribution group membership.
22 Jan	15	Fix bug in PowerShell example of searching Office 365 Groups to find groups someone belongs to. Revised section on sharing files from group document libraries.
22 Jan	16	Rewrote some of the section about using the Files tab.
22 Jan	22	OneDrive sync client now supports protected SPO libraries. IRM usage reports no longer available in the new Azure portal.
12 Jan	8	Information about why the Files folder exists in user mailboxes.
12 Jan	11	Updates to message tracing and to limits for Mac clients.
12Jan	14	Why welcome messages are generated for some groups and not others.
12 Jan	15	Slight change to code to detect the last time a team was used based on chat compliance records. New code to check a user against group membership.
12 Jan	16	Added section on maintaining team membership (by admins). Also, some new PowerShell examples. Finally, new user-specific notification settings in Planner now generate reminders when tasks are due.
12 Jan	19	More information about using PowerShell with content searches.
12 Jan	20	Refresh of section dealing with PowerShell queries against Office 365 audit data.
5 Jan	2	Microsoft requires TLS 1.2 for all connections to Office 365 services from March 2018. Also rewrote the section covering the economic case of moving to Office 365.
5 Jan	10	Updated section about assigning email addresses to Office 365 Groups.
5 Jan	14	You can now drag and drop items from personal mailboxes into group mailboxes (with OWA). Also clarified how transport rules are involved in the processing of messages sent to groups.
5 Jan	15	Added PowerShell example of adding a mail contact as a guest user to the membership of a group.
5 Jan	16	Added note about Teams and the Office 365 Phone System. Rewrote the section on Teams and compliance. Added lots of detail about the Teams PowerShell cmdlets (based on the 0.9.1. module). (MAJOR UPDATE)
5 Jan	18	Emphasize that classification labels and auto-label policies should be created in priority order. Small update about event-based retention.
5 Jan	19	Added note that accounts need a valid EXO mailbox to use content searches. Fixed error in syntax of example shown in Table 19-1.
5 Jan	20	Graph reporting API is now generally available.
5 Jan	21	You can now exclude or include specific Exchange mailboxes in an Office 365 DLP policy.
5 Jan	24	Added detail about MyAnalytics Outlook add-in.
15 Dec	1	Update figures 1-2 and 1-3.
15 Dec	3	Included information about Advanced Threat Protection for SharePoint.
15 Dec	8	Microsoft will withdraw Clutter from Office 365 in January 2020.
15-Dec	15	Rewrote section about the Groups policy and included more information about the licensing requirements for premium features. (MAJOR UPDATE)
15 Dec	16	Corrected error in section about Activity Feed. Various other clarifications.
8 Dec	1	Roadmap items now have date information (when added, when expected, last modified).
8 Dec	14	Microsoft is planning to change the read/unread behavior for conversations stored in Groups.
8 Dec	15	Clarify that all groups covered by the expiration policy have the same expiration period.
8 Dec	16	To-do is now enabled by default for all users with eligible Office 365 subscriptions.
8 Dec	18	Emphasize that a classification label is a SharePoint managed property that is usable in document searches.
8 Dec	20	Office 365 Activity Report is now Audit log search (references also updated in chapters 5, 18, and 19)
8 Dec	22	Microsoft has deprecated OME V1 for new deployments and only supports protection applied through transport rules. (MAJOR UPDATE)
1 Dec	2	Update to the section about network upgrades.
1 Dec	14	Soft-deleted groups can be restored through EAC using a new cmdlet in the Exchange cmdlet set. Many updates made to the sections about using groups with Outlook. Correction of some old and now obsolete text. (MAJOR UPDATE)
1 Dec	16	Various clarifications and expanded explanations about different aspects of Teams. Added section about migration to Teams. (MAJOR UPDATE)
1 Dec	24	New Time Investments view for MyAnalytics (replaces previous method of looking at work relationships).
24 Nov	2	Office 365 SLA data for Q3 CY17 now available.
24 Nov	3	Added note to caution against removing site collections that are connected to Office 365 applications.
24 Nov	14	Minor modifications to general discussion about Office 365 Groups.
24 Nov	15	Changes to the description of tenant control over external access for Office 365 Groups.
24 Nov	16	New section to call out the dependencies Teams has on other Office 365 services. Modifications and clarifications for sections such as Teams management and debugging.
24 Nov	18	More about Compliance Manager. Added a new section describing event-based retention (in preview).
24 Nov	23	Delve UWP app is still available online, but it has been removed from the Windows app store.
17 Nov	2	Rewritten section on “potential network upgrades.”
17 Nov	3	SharePoint document libraries are better at dealing with large numbers of documents than before (used to be a 5,000 limit).
17 Nov	5	New section covering the PowerShell module (beta) for Teams. Also, some minor clarifications (and fixing a bad spelling).
17 Nov	16	For Teams, you cannot remove people from a personal chat (clarification). Also, updated Teams etiquette section. In Planner, you can now create a new task by copying an existing task.
17 Nov	18	Classification labels now have two descriptions – one for admins and one for users. Also mention the release of the Microsoft Compliance Manager – more information on this tool will come in future updates.
10 Nov	4	Added note on fetching synchronized directory objects with Get-AzureADUser.
10 Nov	5	Add note about how to retrieve the identifier (GUID) for a tenant.
10 Nov	11	Updates section on ATP safe links. Updated screenshot showing how quarantined emails work.
10 Nov	15	Added sample PowerShell code showing how to check for groups that do not comply with a naming policy. Added note about using Azure AD Access Reviews to check group membership periodically.
10 Nov	16	Beta version of Teams PowerShell module now available. Rewritten section on team meetings.
3 Nov	1	Office 365 is now available in 246 markets.
3 Nov	5	ENow has launched their Cloudscape product for monitoring Office 365, so we updated the graphic.
3 Nov	16	Link to information about the integration between Project Online and Planner. The Azure data services to support Teams are now available in the U.K. Also updates from Microsoft’s roadmap to transition Skype for Business Online to Teams.
3 Nov	22	Conditional access policies support Azure Information Protection classifications.
3 Nov	24	MyAnalytics now includes personal insights in a user’s dashboard.
27 Oct	1	Includes Q1 FY18 results for Microsoft commercial cloud products, including a new number for monthly active Office 365 users.
27 Oct	3	Updates to Office 365 Video section.
27 Oct	4	Added link to Azure Active Directory release notes.
27 Oct	14	Clarification of member limit for Office 365 Groups.
27 Oct	16	General refresh of some sections about how to use Teams, notably personal chats. Also, Microsoft To-Do is now generally available.
20 Oct	14	Notes about Power BI and Stream use of Groups moved here.
20 Oct	16	Removed text about StaffHub (of little interest to enterprise Office 365 tenants). Moved Power BI and Stream to 14. Added more text about recent updates to Teams.
20 Oct	6	Add note about RPC over HTTP support ceasing on Oct 31, 2017.
20 Oct	8	New information about user role assignment policies. In addition, some comments about RPC over HTTP. Also, add coverage about the OWA mailbox cleanup feature.
20 Oct	10	Rewritten section about user thumbnail photos.
20 Oct	14	Latest version of Outlook for iOS (Android soon) can create new Office 365 Groups.
20 Oct	16	Guest users cannot update their user photos. Many other changes in the text about how to use Teams. Also, you can now have 2,500 members in a team.
20 Oct	22	Completed the rewrite of the chapter to describe using the new Azure portal to add and use IRM templates, etc. (MAJOR UPDATE)
20 Oct	23	Section on Delve Search refreshed.
13 Oct	15	Added detail about group naming policy.
13 Oct	16	Various updates about guest access to Teams. Also, a new way is available to view channel activity.
13 Oct	1	Microsoft prediction that 70% of Exchange users will be in the cloud by FY19. Also, Microsoft is renaming First Release to “Targeted Release.”
13 Oct	3	Connect existing team sites to Office 365 Groups.
13 Oct	15	Updated comments about when to use a dynamic Office 365 group.
13 Oct	16	Minor clarifications about emailing to team channels. Also, clarifications and expansion of content covering the deletion of a team.
13 Oct	22	Exchange Online now supports BYOK. Because of the underlying architectural changes, Microsoft updated Office 365 Message Encryption and the way that it uses IRM protection. (MAJOR UPDATE). This update focuses on OME and is part of a major refresh for Chapter 22. We will update the sections covering creating IRM templates via the Azure portal before the old portal is deprecated on 30 November.
6 Oct	1	Include Microsoft 365 as a way of licensing Office 365. Include coverage of Office 365 multi-geo capabilities.
6 Oct	4	Pass Through Authentication is now out of preview. Also, add note about low use of MFA to protect Office 365 admin accounts.
6 Oct	5	New Reports Reader admin role.
6 Oct	6	Added section on Client Access Rules for Exchange Online.
6 Oct	8	Added information about the Set-CASMailboxPlan cmdlet and how it can be used to control protocol settings for mailbox plans.
6 Oct	12	News from Ignite about some changes that might be coming for hybrid environments.
6 Oct	14	Rewrote the section covering creation of a new Office 365 Group. Clarification about the licensing requirements for premium features of Office 365 Groups. (MAJOR UPDATE)
6 Oct	15	Rewrote sections covering settings in the AAD policy for groups. Added some more detail about using Add-UnifiedGroupLinks and the group naming policy. Rewrote some parts of section on dynamic Office 365 Groups (MAJOR UPDATE).
6 Oct	16	Lots of new information about Teams architecture (MAJOR UPDATE).
6 Oct	19	Minor clarification that content searches always search archive mailboxes if enabled.
6 Oct	20	Minor clarification about how audit searches work. Add emphasis on enabling new mailboxes for auditing. Mention new Report Reader role and that the Power BI content pack is now “Office 365 Usage Analytics.”
6 Oct	21	Minor corrections from Ignite 2017.
22 Sept	3	Some updated comments about controlling external sharing for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business.
22 Sept	14	DL naming policy no longer applies to Office 365 Groups.
22 Sept	15	Rewritten section about the Groups AD policy. New content about the groups naming policy. New information about how to scan for and remove guest user accounts for domains you don’t want to host. Expanded the information in section on Azure B2B Collaboration. The Organization-wide block for connector creation now works for Teams. (MAJOR UPDATE)
22 Sept	16	Added many new details and insights about external access, channel deletion and creation, audit records, and so on. (MAJOR UPDATE)
22 Sept	19	Extra information about content search filters.
15 Sept	3	Added information about how to control the sync client options available for SharePoint and OneDrive libraries. Also, added link to page comparing functionality available in Office 365 Video and Stream.
15 Sept	5	External access for Microsoft Teams is configured in the Office 365 Admin Center
15 Sept	6	Add note about the new “my workspace” program for Mac Office.
15 Sept	7	Current limit for migration of public folders to Exchange Online is 100K.
15 Sept	11	Fix annoying figure numbering issue.
15 Sept	13	Added detail about limitations that exist when a mailbox is on-premises and its archive is in the cloud.
15 Sept	14	Teams external access caused some text updates.
15 Sept	15	Add section on Azure B2B collaboration to cover some of the technical details about external access to Groups and Teams. Fix missing curly bracket in example PowerShell command. (MAJOR UPDATE)
15 Sept	16	Major rewrite and lots of new content due to the advent of external access for Teams. (MAJOR UPDATE)
15 Sept	18	Auto-label policies based on DLP sensitive data types now support Exchange Online.
8 Sept	1	Fixed an annoying problem that sometimes happens when Word inserts a complete paragraph instead of a simple cross-reference to a figure (1-2 in this case).
8 Sept	2	Added factors to consider when choosing a partner to help with an Office 365 deployment.
8 Sept	6	Insert note about the Office 365 plans that have licenses for the Outlook mobile clients. Also fixed a bad reference (chapter ref to 17 instead of 16 for information about Teams).
8 Sept	7	Section on public folder migration rewritten because Microsoft will soon make tools available to move PFs to Office 365 Groups.
8 Sept	9	Rewrite section to clarify several points about shared mailboxes and to add a note about using mailbox and Office 365 audit records to figure out who sent email from a shared mailbox.
8 Sept	16	Included information about how to generate diagnostic logs for Teams.
1 Sept	2	Included Office 365 SLA for Q2 2017.
1 Sep	5	Secure Score is now available from the Security and Compliance Center.
1 Sep	8	Rewrite for “Securing the data of ex-employees” section.
1 Sept	16	Various clarifications about small points in the content covering Teams, including one error in a PowerShell example. Also, added coverage for some of the formatting options that exist in Teams conversations.
25 Aug	2	Note that application changes on user workstations can increase demand for network bandwidth (Office AutoSave is an example).
25 Aug	3	Update text about the sharing of SharePoint site collections to reflect the change described in Chapter 15. Updated graphics and text for the OneDrive for Business Admin Center.
25 Aug	8	Updated text to clarify some points about removing mailboxes.
25 Aug	14	Rewritten description and figures covering the creation of distribution groups. Also, clarify that the sites used by Groups cannot have sub-sites.
25 Aug	15	Changes to the default sharing setting for the SharePoint site collections used by Office 365 Groups. Also, while Office 365 Groups check that the alias assigned to a new group is unique, Groups do not check for other mail recipients with the same alias, which could cause a problem with directory synchronization.
18 Aug	1	Added section on Azure Active Directory licensing and fixed bad chapter reference in Table 1-5.
18 Aug	2	New definition for when Microsoft generates a post incident report (PIR) following an outage.
18 Aug	3	Amended text in introduction about SharePoint Online.
18 Aug	15	Change in relationship between Azure AD settings for the tenant and the policy controlling Office 365 Group creation.
18 Aug	20	Emphasize that not all Azure AD audit events end up in the Office 365 audit data mart.
11 Aug	5	Include PowerShell example to report on accounts holding Office 365 administrative roles. In addition, Microsoft has refreshed the way that they handle support requests, so we have rewritten that section.
11 Aug	7	PST Capture tool is now the PST Collection tool
11 Aug	15	The Groups expiration policy is now available in preview. Classifications now appear more generally in Groups clients.
11 Aug	16	New app controls for Microsoft Teams.
11 Aug	17	Refreshed text about Intune.
11 Aug	18	How to block the Managed Folder Assistant from processing a mailbox.
4 Aug	1	Added information about “sovereign clouds.”
4 Aug	15	Add PowerShell example showing how to find groups owned by a certain user. Also, Microsoft released the ability to set a policy to block or allow external access from certain domains.
4 Aug	16	Microsoft released an Outlook add-in to schedule Teams meetings. Also, the latest versions of the Teams app for IOS and Android support video and voice meetings. Finally, Planner has a new UI so some screen shots and text are refreshed.
4 Aug	20	Updated information and a new PowerShell example about auditing of group creation.
4 Aug	24	MyAnalytics Outlook add-in generates reminders about commitments made by users using machine leaning.
28 July	8	Updated “Finding mailboxes” section.
28 July	12	Clarification about correct value for a registry setting for the HCW. Also, error fixed in cmdlet name.
28 July	14	Windows desktop app now available for Yammer.
28 July	16	Information added about controlling the ability of Team members to edit or remove messages in conversations. Several other minor updates.
28 July	18	Manual disposition now captures items that have their retention date extended in an ExtendedRetention audit record.
28 July	19	You cannot exclude public folders from contents searches with a filter.
28 July	21	Minor updates and added information about the audit records captured when users override a DLP policy tip in SharePoint or OneDrive.
21 July	1	Microsoft has changed Office 365 kiosk plans to “first-line worker” (F1). Also, included update for Microsoft Q4 FY17 results for commercial cloud products.
21 July	5	Rewritten section about programming Office 365.
21 July	14	Office 365 Groups can now have up to 100 owners.
21 July	15	Distribution groups with more than 10 owners are now eligible for conversion.
21 July	18	Some added detail inserted covering how manual dispositions work.
21 July	20	Revised text for Office 365 auditing.
21 July	21	Office 365 DLP policies now support and/or checking against groups of sensitive data types or classification labels.
21 July	22	Some added detail about AIP.
21 July	25	Reference to K1 plan replaced by F1.
14 July	1	Office 365 E3 and E5 plans are in Microsoft 365 enterprise plans.
14 July	14	Clarification about how Groups functions as a membership service.
14 July	16	Added tip about starting Teams conversations with subject.
14 July	18	New manual disposition action available for classification labels. Added clarification about what GDPR might mean for Office 365 tenants.
14 July	19	Microsoft has postponed the block on creating new eDiscovery cases in Exchange.
14 July	24	Rewrite description of MyAnalytics to reflect updated UI and the introduction of Workplace Analytics on July 5.
7 July	3	Use the Set-SPOTenant cmdlet to increase the number of days a OneDrive personal site is kept after its owner’s account is deleted.
7 July	5	Emphasize that it might take up to 24 hours before switching an account from First Release to Standard Release is effective.
7 July	14	Moved information about the Power BI integration with Office 365 Groups to chapter 16.
7 July	15	Inserted note about lack of granular control in group creation policy.
7 July	16	Inserted text about how Stream creates Groups. Also, inserted the Power BI text previously in 14.
7 July	23	Delve only supports adding an item to a board if its card displays a board icon.
30 June	3	Default sharing setting for site collections connected to Office 365 Groups is changing to allow sharing with authenticated external users.
30 June	5	Updated list of features available in the Security and Compliance Center. Also, note that the Secure Score service can recommend actions that need you to buy E5 licenses.
30 June	8	The Remove-CalendarEvents allows administrators to cancel meetings organized by someone who leaves the company. Also, note added about hidden items that exist inside user mailboxes.
30 June	13	Removed text about synchronizing mail contacts to Office 365 Groups.
30 June	14	Minor rewording to be more specific about some of the details and limits of the SharePoint site used by an Office 365 Group.
30 June	15	EAC now supports the bulk conversion of distribution lists to Office 365 Groups.
30 June	16	Some corrections about Planner, including missing the fact that an Android client is available! Teams now supports Cloud Storage (access to Dropbox, Box, Google Drive, etc.)
30 June	18	You cannot assign a label that is a formal record as the default for a SharePoint site.
30 June	19	Text covering supervision policies moved to Chapter 20 as it is more appropriately covered under auditing.
30 June	20	Note about the reports available in the Security and Compliance Center. Also, OneDrive sync clients can generate many activity alerts and how to scope ASM policies to specific groups to ease licensing requirements.
30 June	22	AIP now has a “Do not track” document feature in preview.
30 June	24	MyAnalytics now sends a weekly summary email to users. Also, a new version of the Outlook add-in delivers a range of personalized insights instead of focusing on the progress of sent emails.
23 June	2	Updated text to emphasize the need for good internal networks when moving to Office 365.
23 June	3	Microsoft Stream is now GA.
23 June	12	Inclusion of content on SharePoint Hybrid and changes in the Hybrid Configuration Wizard.
23 June	13	Updated coverage of AAD Connect features and functionality.
23 June	14	People can use the Follow in Inbox slider in the group card to decide whether to become a subscriber to a group. Microsoft Stream can create new groups to control access to video content.
23 June	15	If the same address exists for Office 365 and Microsoft consumer services, you cannot use it for a guest user.
23 June	16	Mention that you can drag and drop teams to rearrange their order within the list shown in the client.
23 June	18	Applying labels in SPO and OD4B sites logs the ComplianceSettingChanged audit record. Also, clarification about using labels with SPO.
23 June	19	How to speed up downloads of exported data found in content searches.
23 June	20	The search for user option in the Security and Compliance Center shows their compliance status and recent audit records.
16 June	3	Discussion about using the Request-SPOPersonalSite cmdlet to force creation of OneDrive sites for users.
16 June	4	Updated AD FS information for Windows server 2016 and information on Conditional Access,
16 June	7	Clarification that Office 365 E5 licenses are needed to filter PST data ingested by the Import Service.
16 June	11	Updated section on DBEB due to recent Azure AD Connect changes. Added information about advanced mail flow scenarios.
16 June	14	Recommendation not to create Office 365 Groups through the Azure Portal (and explanation why). Clarification if what happens when an item is deleted in a group subject to a retention hold.
16 June	18	Introduction of LAPFID allows OWA to recover deleted items to the original folder.
16 June	19	Several minor additions and updates about content searches. Added note that eDiscovery activities are recorded in the Office 365 audit log.
9 June	1	Availability of Microsoft guides to help customers move from G Suite to Office 365.
9 June	3	Reminder to select the setting to force usage of the new sync client for OneDrive in the SharePoint Admin Center.
9 June	15	Clarification about blocking the creation of connectors for Office 365 Groups (a knock-on change also made in Chapter 16).
9 June	16	Updated coverage on Teams and compliance.
9 June	18	Clarification about the retention action applied by Office 365 retention policies to Exchange mailboxes.
9 June	19	Added description of how to perform a content search against a specific mailbox folder or site folder (targeted collection).
9 June	20	Expanded section on Alert Policies (require E5 licenses). Addition of note on reporting cmdlets that Microsoft will deprecate in October 2017. Also, included note about how to integrate third-party SIEM servers with Office 365 Advanced Security Management.
9 June	21	Clarify the time expected for DLP policies to be published and effective within workloads.

Posted in Office 365 | Tagged Fourth Edition, Office 365 eBook, Office 365 for IT Pros | 17 Comments

Why You Should Come to Office 365 Engage…

Posted on May 9, 2017 by Tony Redmond

As some of you know, I am the conference chair for Office 365 Engage, a new conference that emphasizes the need to treat Office 365 as a whole rather than a loose collection of mildy-cloudified on-premises applications. The event takes place in Haarlem, a rather nice town in the Netherlands, on June 19-22 2017.

Apart from the many attractions of Haarlem (good restaurants and nice places to visit), we have a serious intent behind the conference. Instead of viewing Office 365 through the prism of Exchange or SharePoint, which is often the approach taken by conferences that purport to cover Office 365, we have asked our speakers to take a more all-encompassing view and emphasize the value that tenants can gain from Office 365 as a whole, rather than just thinking about moving email or documents or whatever to the cloud.

The conference speakers include 31 MVPs, all skilled in their field and good speakers to boot. They have been selected not because they appear at this conference or that conference, but because they have a really important perspective to communicate. I admire and respect all of our speakers, but I have challenged them to help conference attendees understand and appreciate how to take advantage of the true breadth of Office 365. I think they will rise to the occasion.

I’ll be speaking too. I plan to discuss how Office 365 has changed since its release six years ago in June 2011 and look at some of the challenges that face Office 365 in the future. Thinking about the complexity of this topic makes my mind squirm, but I have a definite perspective that I want to share with attendees.

I also have the great fortune and challenge to quiz industry watchers Mary-Jo Foley and Paul Thurrott about their views on Office 365 and where Microsoft is heading with cloud services. All I can promise you is honesty and insight on Wednesday morning as I struggle to keep up with two of the most important commentators on Microsoft in general. It should be good fun. Here’s an interview that I did with Mary-Jo Foley to talk about the conference…

Interview with Mary-Jo Foley

We cannot promise that we will answer every question that attendees have. No conference can do that. What we can do is promise that we will make experts available to describe their passion, insight, and knowledge about what makes Office 365 tick. Isn’t that enough for you to consider coming to Haarlem in June?

Oh, and by the way, if you use code SPRTR486, you’ll get a nice discount on the normal price. Don’t tell anyone that I said that…

Follow Tony on Twitter @12Knocksinna.

Posted in Cloud, Office 365 | Tagged Office 365 Engage | 1 Comment

Progress Report: Fourth Edition of Office 365 for IT Pros

Posted on April 19, 2017 by Tony Redmond

June 1 is the New Date

The writing team for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook is working hard to complete the fourth edition. We originally planned for a May 1 launch, but realistically I do not think we are going to be done until the middle of the month. With that in mind, we are now heading for a June 1 date. Slippages happen in the software business!

Given that we published the third edition on June 1, 2016, releasing the fourth edition on June 1, 2017 seems appropriate. A year is a good interval for an edition of a constantly-refreshed book. It is an eon in Internet time, especially given the development cadence of cloud services like Office 365. This is the only book of its type available on the market today. Others have tried to do something similar, but we have seen nothing appear.

Why a New Edition

I have received some questions from readers to ask why we feel the need to replace the third edition. After all, it is popular in the market and has received great reviews on Amazon (Figure 1), all of which makes us happy.

Figure 1: The Kindle page for the Third Edition

Although we have been updating the third edition on a weekly basis since its release in June 2016 (see the change log for details), there is a limit to what you can do to keep a book refreshed within the structure laid down by the chapters. Given the number of changes we have made to incorporate new information, including the release of major new applications in Teams and StaffHub, we think we have explored the limits of what we can do in the current structure.

Fourth Edition Changes

Our plans are to:

Remove a pile of obsolete material, chiefly around the compliance and search area where Microsoft will no longer allow tenants to create workload-specific searches from July 1, 2017. There is obsolete material elsewhere too and we will remove it as we go through the content.
Include new content covering the Office 365 data governance framework, Skype for Business, and other topics.
Expand coverage of existing topics. We have always offered extremely good coverage of Exchange Online and we know that we need to do better in SharePoint, OneDrive, and other apps.
Lay the foundation for other changes. For instance, we know that we have to move from V1 of the Azure Active Directory PowerShell module (the Msol cmdlets) to V2 (the AzureAD cmdlets). This is not a straightforward process. We have over 200 example commands in various chapters of the book and the V2 module does not yet offer full feature equivalence with the V1 module. In other words, you cannot simply swap out a V1 command for a V2 command.
Restructure the chapters to create a more natural flow for the content. We are also taking the chance to split up some of the mega-chapters (like Office 365 Groups) and to bring material together where topics are spread across multiple chapters today.

Remember that we are dealing with a 950-page, 450,000-word book and that all the material must be edited and reviewed after it is written (or moved). In short, it is a big task, but we will deliver, even if we delay the release a little.

In the interim, we will continue to update the third edition. Some of the updates are not as detailed as we want, but we will tell you in the text where we are holding content for the fourth edition. We hope that you find the updates keep the usefulness of the book. Once we publish the fourth edition, we will cease updating the third and begin the process of applying weekly updates to the fourth.

Competition

Competition is good because it usually drives an increase in quality. We look forward to seeing what Microsoft Press delivers in its much-delayed second edition of the Inside Out title, now apparently relaunched with a new writing team and a publication goal of September 25, 2017 (according to Amazon.com). Microsoft Press aims to deliver a “current book service.” According to their FAQ, this means that:

“Microsoft Press will update the content periodically, depending on the frequency of significant updates to the software. Changes will be made for 12 to 18 months following first publication date.”

However, the updates are online only and cannot be downloaded to eReaders. In comparison, our approach is to:

Offer frequent updates for the duration of the book. With the change to a June 1 publication, we are now on an annual release cycle. Normally, we update weekly.
Always publish fully-built books. We want people to use our content, so we integrate new material and changes to build complete PDF, EPUB, and Kindle versions that we make available to subscribers. We do not offer online (web-only) copies.
Offer updates to new editions. We appreciate the support of our subscribers. To acknowledge their support, we allow subscribers of the EPUB/PDF versions to upgrade to new editions at a very low cost. We cannot offer the same facility to Kindle readers because Amazon does not support this kind of offer.

Let’s hope that the Office 365 developers do not make the book instantly obsolete through the announcements they will make at the Ignite conference in Orlando that same week. It will be interesting to observe how they cope with the number of changes that happen inside Office 365, especially when Microsoft makes announcements about new apps, features, and developments thick and fast, which is what usually happens at Ignite.

Updates

Those who want to continue with us on this journey of documenting Office 365 will soon receive the chance to upgrade to the fourth edition and so continue to receive updates. We quite understand if others wish to stay with the third edition, but we hope that you will consider our offer to upgrade is reasonable for the value you get from the book.

Now back to work to complete the book…

Tony, Paul, Michael, and Ståle (and Vasil, our TE)

Posted in Cloud, Office 365, Writing | Tagged eBook, Fourth Edition, Office 365 for IT Pros | 1 Comment

The Big 15

Marine Iguanas

Land Iguanas

Giant Tortoises

Sea Lions

Dolphins

Blue Footed Boobies

Galapagos Penguin

Frigate Birds

American Flamingo

Finches and Other Birds

Crabs

Flora and Fauna

Landscapes

Technical Details

Things I Wish We Had Brought

The Dead Fish Syndrome

Reactivating an Old Blog Post

The Growing Realization of How Much Work is Neeed

Change Inside Office 365 Drives Book Updates

More Change Coming

The Need for Updates

Tracking Change

Grist to the Mill

Ignite Wind-down

My Ignite Sessions

Making Connections

News from Ignite

Podcasting at Ignite

Flying with Paul

Ignite 2018

Home to Ireland

Odd Things Happening Inside Office 365

Data Breach

The New Sign-In Experience

The Beta Test Button

Poor Advice in the Message Center

More Cookie Woes

Keeping Up to Date with Office 365

Upgrades

New Purchases

Kindle

Our Sponsor

Updates for Office 365 for IT Pros, 4th ed.

June 1 is the New Date

More Skype for Business Content

Why a New Edition

Fourth Edition Changes

Competition

Updates

Now available: Office 365 for IT Pros 2023 Edition (for Kindle)

Office 365 for IT Pros 2023 edition (EPUB/PDF edition)

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