Governance

As announced here D365 version 3.2 has support of security groups. This also includes management of “mail enabled security groups”. The differences between “mail enabled security group” and “distribution group” are explained in TechNet, here´s a quick definition: Mail-enabled security group: A mail-enabled security group is an Active Directory universal security group object that can be used to assign access permissions to resources in Active Directory and can also be used to distribute messages. ...

With D365 version 3.2 there comes full support of security groups with two new modules: security groups for managing these groups and memberships and the new administration / assign security groups module for assigning existing security groups to a particular OU. The security groups list works in the same way as all other lists in D365: new security groups can be created, deleted, members can be added and deleted and the OU assignment of a group can be changed. The search helps for getting access to the desired groups quickly. ...

Delegate365 provides a user self service password reset (SSPR) function since version 2.1. If an user forgot his Office 365 password – and the admins allowed that function – he can self reset his password easily with D365. The SSPR feature comes automatically with Delegate365 at no additional costs. In contrast there´s Azure Active Directory in three editions (Free, Basic and Premium) where SSPR starts with the premium and basic features, see Self-service password reset for users in Azure Active Directory Editions. ...

In Office 365 IT Admins can define Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for their users to secure access for all or special user accounts. The good news is that Delegate365 supports the usage of MFA for the login process by default. MFA works exactly in the same way as usual. MFA consists of usually two factors: Something you know (typically a password) Something you have (a trusted device that is not easily duplicated, like a phone) ...

Delegate365 version 3.1 brings improvements and new features. As already announced in Delegate365 version 3.1 outlook we have some new modules and an unified user interface. Here´s a list of the main changes. New: Unassign users in the administrator menu: With this new module users who are already assigned to an OU can be unassigned. This module is only available for portal admins and works exactly in the same way as the assign users module: Search the users, mark them and click the “Unassign” button. ...

Delegate365 is continuously improving. We were busy and implemented new features and optimized some code in the Delegate365 solution. So, in the next version we will have some improvements, here´s a first outlook: We have completely rewritten the logging operations and are now using a new event store for protocoling detailed actions of operations. This means with version 3.1 the event sourcing is made step by step and saves all changed fields with old and new values. Starting with v3.1 all operations in D365 are protocolled step by step. Additionally we are developing an additional protocol source which delivers an overview and is good readable for humans. ...

In large organizations it´s often useful to create an own Exchange administrator for performing tasks against the Exchange API´s, f.e. with PowerShell or with third party tools like our Delegate365 solution. Here´s how to create an Exchange Admin in Office 365. There are two ways to accomplish this task: The easy way is to simply create (or use) a gobal administrator in Office 365. This user gets all rights in all services of Office 365 (AAD, Exchange, SharePoint, Lync) automatically. The second way – if your want to have an own Exchange administrator - is described here. Login in as global admin First, open the Office 365 portal https://portal.office.com with a global admin account to get full rights in that Office 365 tenant. ...

Since Microsoft´s Azure Active Directory (AAD) is constantly evolving it´s interesting to see the current status of features. Right now we want to point out the functionality of Azure Active Directory Editions in MSDN by December 10, 2014. AAD comes in three flavors: Free, Basic and Premium (see also here). Companies are often interested in relieving their IT with features like “Self-service password reset for users” (SSPR). In that MSDN article we see the support for the SSPR-feature for users in the three Azure Active Directory Editions: ...

As announced in April we created a Whitepaper for our product Delegate 365. Delegate 365 adds functionality on top of Microsoft Office 365 and works as an Add-On which delivers delegation features for entitled admins (and much more) in medium to large organizations using Office 365. Since we made a lot of enhancements and updates in Delegate 365 this year we now released an updated version of the Delegate 365 WhitePaper. ...

With the new Delegate365 version 3.0 “notification center” feature there comes a new built-in support feature. In case of questions or issues in working with D365 it´s very easy to contact atwork for help. How to open a support case At the end of the left menu there´s a “support” link which opens the form. The support link is available for all admins, so for portal admins and standard admins. ...