The book titled Microsoft Office 365 Administration Inside Out provides hundreds of timesaving solutions, troubleshooting tips, and workarounds.  Within the books 800 pages the following topics are covered:

• Implement Office 365 in the enterprise, including Directory Synchronization and Single Sign-On
• Monitor and manage Office 365 with System Center
• Understand Office 365 PowerShell automation
• Learn to implement hybrid Exchange models
• Manage and protect Exchange Online
• Administer SharePoint Online
• Deploy and administer Lync Online
• Learn about Office Professional Plus subscription

If you or your organization is planning to deploy Office 365, this is the book for you!  Learn how to manage Office 365 directly from the experts.

The authors:

Julian Soh is a Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise Architect. He works with enterprise customers to evaluate, understand, plan, and design their Office 365 adoption. Julian has held several positions in Microsoft that cover the breadth of Microsoft technologies such as Active Directory, System Center, SharePoint, and Exchange. Prior to joining Microsoft, Julian worked in IT and operations, holding technical and management positions.

Anthony Puca, MVP, Datacenter Monitoring with Microsoft’s System Center Operations Manager, is a Microsoft Datacenter Specialist, He consults with US state and local government accounts on Microsoft Windows Server, System Center, Private, Public and Hybrid Cloud Technologies.

Marshall Copeland has dedicated the last 10 of his 20-year IT career working with Microsoft customers in the support of Microsoft Windows Server and System Management technologies.

How to preorder the book:

Currently Amazon has the release date for this Microsoft Press book at October 22, 2013.  You can pre-order it now from Amazon here.

The Office 365 blog has a good related post titled “Office is a team player” that can be viewed here.

Modern SharePoint apps are built in a way that allows the organization to choose how and where to host the apps. This model also makes it much easier for an organization to move between SharePoint on-premises and SharePoint Online.

To help explain the different development options I have created a SharePoint 2013 development overview slide deck.  The intent of this deck is not to teach a person how to do development, but instead to outline the different development models available.  With this information an organization can make a well informed decision on how to approach custom development with SharePoint.

The US CIO Summit focuses on the role of the CIO as business leader, innovator, and contributor to creating new revenue streams. You will learn about global trends, innovations, and solutions that help you reduce costs, drive revenue and profit growth, and ultimately thrive in a changing economic landscape.

In this hybrid event, you’ll see live session presentations, including bonus material not available to the in-person audience. Watch live, backstage and behind-the-scenes interviews with leading solution experts and special guests. Virtual attendees will also have the chance to download related session materials, share ideas and ask questions to Microsoft Experts and Executives through live chat rooms, Twitter and Q&A sessions.

If you wish to attend this event, click here to register.

Once installed you will find two new project templates in Visual Studio;  App for Office 2013 and App for SharePoint 2013.  These two templates provide the necessary plumbing to help you get started building new apps quickly.

Building custom solutions using SharePoint 2010 required a local installation of the server software.  The new app model for SharePoint 2013 has changed the way developers will build out their environment.  Instead of using a local installation of SharePoint 2013, app developers can use a remote SharePoint 2013 server or SharePoint Online tenant.  This new capability reduces the complexity of the developer workstation and reduces the amount of memory and software that needs to be installed.  MSDN has a great article explaining how to setup a development environment for building apps for SharePoint on Office 365.  I would recommend that developers build solutions using the new SharePoint app model instead of the traditional server-side object model based farm or sandboxed solutions.

Server-side object model based farm or sandboxed solutions can still be created if necessary. If you plan to build solutions using the server-side object model then you will still require a local installation of SharePoint 2013.   Because of this requirement, the developer workstation will need at least 16GB of RAM;  24GB is recommended.  Steps to setup a local instance of SharePoint 2013 for development can be found on MSDN here. 

Organizations that are using SharePoint 2013 on-premises can use their SharePoint instance for development.  Steps for configuring your development environment and your on-premises SharePoint environment for creating SharePoint apps can be found on MSDN here.

Microsoft has provided very good documentation and samples for developers to learn how to build apps using SharePoint 2013.  I would recommend starting with the article titled Build apps for SharePoint.  Additional documentation and samples can be found at http://msdn.microsoft.com/sharepoint

Don’t forget that apps you create for SharePoint 2013 can be published to the SharePoint store where you can make money!   You can learn more about publishing your apps by reading the MSDN article titled Publish apps for SharePoint.

Leave me a message below or using the Contact Me! link above if you have published a SharePoint app in the store.  I am very interested to see what solutions are created.

The FREE Office 365 for Education package includes:

Email and calendars
Use business-class, browser-based Outlook, including a 25 GB mailbox per user, shared calendars, and task-management tools. Use your own domain name.

Web conferencing
Host online meetings with audio and video using one-click screen sharing, HD video conferencing, and virtual whiteboard. Excellent for distance learning.

Instant messaging
Connect with others via instant message and let people know your availability with your online status.

File storage and sharing
SkyDrive Pro gives users 7 GB of personal storage that syncs with their PC for offline access. Easily share documents with others through Office or SharePoint.

Team sites
Work together on projects, in study groups, or in clubs with team sites that help keep related documents, notes, tasks, and conversations organized together. Up to 300 subsites.

Office Web Apps
Create and edit Word, OneNote, PowerPoint, and Excel documents from any modern browser.

Mobility
Sync email, calendar, and contacts; access SharePoint sites; view and edit Office documents with Office Web Apps using a browser on Windows Phone, iOS, and Android devices.

Apps for Office and SharePoint
New third-party and customer-developed apps work with Office and SharePoint to bring web services right into your documents and sites.

Administration
The admin portal provides IT detailed configuration options for your services, either from an online portal or through automated management with PowerShell commands.

Reliability
Get peace of mind knowing your services are available available with a guaranteed 99.9% uptime, financially backed service level agreement (SLA).

Security
Cutting-edge security practices with five layers of security and proactive monitoring help keep your data safe.

Privacy
Your data belongs to you. Microsoft does not scan emails or documents for advertising purposes.

Up to date
No need to pay for version upgrades; updates are included in your subscription. New features are rolled out to Office 365 customers in an IT-configurable experience.

Support
24/7 phone support for all IT issues. For less urgent issues, you can make service requests directly through the admin portal.

For more information on Office 365 for Education you can visit the Microsoft Office 365 for Education site or attend one of many Office 365 overview presentations.  You can also speak with a Microsoft representative about Office 365 for Education by clicking on the Chat Now link located on the Microsoft Office 365 for Education web site.

This stencil contains more than 300 icons to help you create visual representations of Microsoft Office or Microsoft Office 365 deployments including Microsoft Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft Lync Server 2013, and Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013.  Download here.

This stencil contains Exchange 2013 specific icons to help you create visual representations of Microsoft Exchange 2013 deployments, including on-premises, hybrid, and Office 365. Download here.

“It’s the closest thing we have to a superpower”

Share this video and ask your local schools if they offer a coding class for their students.

Register Here

A structured approach to identify, select, and deliver project portfolios that align with strategy and maximize ROI using Microsoft Project 2013

Project 2013 (Online or On-Premises) enables organizations to get started quickly, prioritize project portfolio investments, and deliver with the intended business value. It”s the flexible solution for project portfolio management (PPM) and everyday work.

What you’ll learn:

• Provide accurate time and status reporting
• Provide visibility and control delivered through a powerful and flexible reporting platform
• Allow your teams to effectively collaborate throughout the lifecycle
• Capture all requests in a central repository, and the collection of associated meta-data is standardized and simplified
• Allow your executive team to effectively model constraints and select project portfolios that align with their business strategy
• Allow managers to proactively and reactively manage and control resources
• Allow managers to build powerful schedules in the browser or in Project Professional
• Governance

Who should attend?

• PMO
• Project Managers
• Program Managers
• Strategic Planning
• CIO
• IT Application Directors and Managers
• SharePoint Administrators

Presenters:

Alex Wong – Productivity Solutions at Microsoft
David Samoranski- Director at RG Performance Group
Nate Auchter- Project and SharePoint Consultant at RG Performance Group