Governance

With Delegate365 version 4.4 we changed the auditing format in the portal. Auditing works in the same way as before and logs all operations, but the way how data is stored and handled has been changed. Read the details here. Why did we change the storage format? Well, we have customers with many users and objects in Office365. Since Delegates executes automatic sync operation multiple times a day Delegate can gather a lot of (changed) data each time. So we had instances of D365 running where the auditing log was some million lines long. With the logging the D365 SQL database grew immeasurably and the auditing log took a long time to open (or download) the list in the D365 portal. In some cases the auditing log could not be opened since the data fetching from the database took too long. So we needed to change that. The new logging saves data to an CSV file instead to the SQL database on a monthly basis. By outsourcing logging the D365 database stays small and performant while D365 can make use of simply appending lines to the logfiles. ...

Today we released Delegate365 version 4.3. Now the user types are shown in the users list to see these information at a glance. Custom views got new filters by user type and text search was generalized in the D365 portal. Also custom email addresses can be added now. See the details here…. New type information in users list: The users list now got a new column “type” showing the type of the user object in Office 365. Since all “mailboxes” have a user object this column helps admins to see of what type the user is at a glance. The type column works in the same way as the other user properties and can be searched, sorted and filtered (see below). ...

Delegate365 version 4.2 is out. The users list now can be filtered in a better way. The text search has been improved and the list offers system and customizable views for quick and easy filtering. For synced users now there is no Password reset function and Global Admins can restrict if admins are able to create new users. OU Overview delivers all managed objects at a glance. See the details here. ...

Shortly we released Delegate365 version 4.1 with many new features. Users can now be converted to shared mailboxes or resources, “rooms” have been renamed to “resources”, Shared Mailboxes now support all possible permission sets, there’s a new sync switch and a new sync history with more details and additional sync options. Also the assign licenses have been improved and D365 now uses the same friendly license plan names as in the Office 365 portal. See the details here. ...

When using Azure services or products running on Azure like our Delegate365 it is important to place them in a datacenter near you to get a low latency. Currently Microsoft Azure is available in 17 regions worldwide, see Azure Regions. There are some websites performing speed tests and providing the necessary information for the decision where to locate Azure services for your location. The first speed test is https://azurespeedtest.azurewebsites.net (which is also available on github.com). ...

The licensing of Delegate365 is at user base for the number of users that are to be managed with Delegate365. So if f.e. there are 10,000 users in AAD and you want to manage 2,000 in D365, then a license for 2,000 users would be sufficient. Users are all active user in Office 365. This includes users, shared mailboxes and resources (rooms or equipment mailboxes). In order to make prices transparent also for larger packages up to 500,000 users we replaced the former static price information with an interactive price selector on the Delegate365 website. ...

Delegate365 version 4.0.5 is out. The last automatic sync operations are now shown in the sync page and the lists show if objects are cloud or synced items. See the details here. Automatic Sync infos: For admins it’s essential to see when the last sync process was executed and if it the operations were successful. So we integrated a short history in the sync page showing the last 5 sync operations. Admins see when the automatic sync started and when it ended and if it finished successfully. As you can see the sync tries to use differential queries if possible to update only the changed objects quickly. As before Admins can run the manual Sync process anytime. ...

In Delegate365 version 4.0 we have made further improvements and some minor fixes. We introduced a new member picker with Auto-Suggest instead of the old dialog picker which now is accessible in the new Task Pane. The sync was updated to get the synced or cloud-information and some fixes for setting alias addresses and mailbox delegation. See the details here. New Member Picker: In all groups a new member picker came in. Members are managed by selecting the group and clicking “Manage Members” in the Task Pane like in this sample with a security group here. The usernames can be partly typed – one char is sufficient – and the Auto Suggest opens an shows all user names starting with that characters. The navigation can be done by mouse or with the cursor keys. Once the selection is made the admin still can remove items by clicking the “x” icon and the end of the users name or Apply the settings by clicking “Add”. The selected users are then added as members to that specific group. This concept was introduced in the administration / manage administrators page with version 3.9.5 (see here) and works now for all member pickers in D365: distribution groups, security groups, shared mailboxes and manage administrators (as before). ...

Delegate365 version 3.9.5 is out. We made some minor changes since the last version 3.9 (see here). See the changes here: Bulk create admins: When using D365 with many admins it can be some effort to create them. In former versions it was necessary to type (or copy) the UPNs of each admin in the create admin field. The creation of new admins works – as before – on the administration / manage administrators list. Now there follows a new form. Global Admins can type a username and an Auto-Complete function shows all corresponding starting with that name (starts with). Also there can be multiple admins picked and created in one step! To remove a selected admin, delete the user with Backspace key or by clicking the x-icon. The Auto-Complete works very quick even for many users (like in the screenshot above). Further improvements are that now all settings can be defined directly below in one step – for all selected admins like shown here. Below there are two more new sections: “Add admin to domain” and “Add admin to OU”. In here Global Admins can define which domains the admins can manage and in which D365 OU’s the admins will be members. This one-step-creation of admins simplifies the process of defining admins. The result can be checked anytime, like in this sample see the OU-assignment of user2. F.e. checking the OU… So best practise is to create multiple admins with common properties and assignments and then change specific permissions or assignments for special admins. ...

The next version of Delegate365 is here! In Delegate365 version 3.9 we have even more cool features and improvements. The sync processes now offers a bunch of innovations for automatic assignments to Delegate365 OU’s and was unified with the automatic sync function. Another switch was implemented to prohibit Admins access to the user’s mailbox settings as well as the new options for branding Delegate365 with your company logo and themes and some more features. See the details here: ...