Microsoft Office 365 Beta: First Look

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Managing user roles

The management functions of Office 365 are relatively straightforward. The Web-based front end allows IT staff to add users one at a time or in bulk through the upload of a CSV file containing details such as names, email addresses and phone numbers. Users can be defined as regular users, service administrators or user management administrators, depending on their roles in the organisation.

Users are assigned a licence based on the subscription plan. The licences will generally fall into one of two categories. The one I evaluated (dubbed “E3” in the beta) is meant for users who require a full-blown Office setup; the other plan (K2) is designed for users who might share equipment or log in from a kiosk, and offers access to SharePoint Online and Exchange Online.

The same front end is used for managing Exchange Online, Lync Online and SharePoint Online. The service management tools let the administrator focus on the task at hand. For example, it may be desirable to federate Lync’s presence information with another organisation, or in what may be a more common scenario, with users within one’s own organisation who use an on-premises installation of Lync. The domain federation can be exclusive – by blacklisting domains – or inclusive, by explicitly listing the domains with which to federate. All of this can be accomplished with a few clicks of the mouse, and of course, entering the name of the federated domain.

In a similar fashion, the SharePoint Online management functions are going to look awfully familiar to anyone with experience managing SharePoint instances. Site collections can be created and managed, InfoPath Forms Services can be configured, and user profile and team store management functions are all accessed from the administration page. Mobile users are also accommodated through automatic redirection to pages optimised for the bandwidth and memory constraints inherent in such devices.

Finally, Exchange Online’s management page controls distribution groups, contract lists and mobile device access. Device policies can be enforced through Exchange ActiveSync, just as they would be in an on-premises installation, or a third-party hosted Exchange service. Calendars can be shared through federation with other organisations using Exchange Online or Exchange Server 2010.

Of course, some administrators will want to perform functions that aren’t available through the Web-based management tools. Windows Remote PowerShell allows access to these “under the hood” operations.

Conclusion: a solid package

Because this is a beta, the customer experience isn’t flawless. The product team has a lot of work ahead of it in the area of documentation. But my first look at Office 365 leaves me rather impressed with what Microsoft has accomplished so far. It’s a solid package for businesses that want the convenience of cloud-based applications while preserving the look and feel of the tools for users and IT staff alike.