Wortell, Microsoft en meer...

BPOS: Jurisdiction and Location of Data for EU

Many of our customers ask us the question in which country BPOS is hosted for the EU. Next to this we often get the question under which country legislation / jurisdiction is arranged for the Microsoft Online Services.

For the European Countries BPOS is hosted in Ireland. There is a backup environment in Holland.

Legislation / Jurisdiction would be the country where provisioning occurs. For European countries this would therefore be Ireland.

Why is this so important? The largest impact is the European privacy law. This law differs greatly from the American law. A good article about the main differences can be found here: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15221111/

BPOS SharePoint Online Table of Content Webpart

Last week we ran into a problem with the SharePoint Online Table of Content webpart. It appeared that the webpart didn't show all the results which it was supposed to. After we looked into this problem we found that it is normal behavior for SharePoint to show a maximum of 50 items. However in SharePoint it is possible to expand the number of results. In order to do this a change in the web.config site should be done. This is described in the following blog article: Table of Contents webpart 50 site limit (http://community.officesharepointpro.com/forums/thread/27307.aspx).

After finding this solution we contacted Microsoft support to have this issue resolved. We asked them to either change the webpart or the web.config. At this point Microsoft couldn't give us an approval on this change. Therefore we are stuck with the 50 item site limit.

Microsoft Online Services (BPOS) USA krijgt update

Over the next few days BPOS usa will get an update. This update will provide some extra functionality but does require some changes to SharePoint Online and the Directory Synchronization tooling. Next to this you’ll have to update the SSO tool.

The message send by the BPOS team is copied below:

Upgrade Timeline

3/26 The new version of the Sign In application is available for download 4/15 Optional upgrade notifications appear in the Sign In application 5/15 Mandatory upgrade notification appears in the Sign In application

We are writing to inform you of three changes to the service that may require updates to your environment.

1. Sign In Application

In mid-May, Microsoft Online Services will require an update to the Sign In application. The options for deploying this upgrade are:

Allow users to automatically upgrade the Sign In application when prompted (no administration required) Suppress the display of update notifications until you are ready to upgrade Deploy the Sign In application to your users’ computers

See Upgrade Your Sign In Application to assist you in planning for this change to your environment.

2. SharePoint Online Update

Have you customized your SharePoint Site Collections? If you have changed the SharePoint Online master page or uploaded a custom master page, you will need to take action before the April upgrade. See Update Your Microsoft SharePoint Online Site Collections for more information.

If you have not customized your site collections, no action is needed.

3. Directory Synchronization Update

Do you use the Microsoft Online Services Directory Synchronization tool? If so, you will be interested to learn that Windows Update recently released a high priority update that will stop your Directory Synchronization service. After installing this update, you will need to restart Directory Synchronization. For more information, see Directory Synchronization Update.

Artikel op WinMag

Zojuist kom ik een artikel op WinMag tegen waarin een presentatie over BPOS gehouden voor nederlandse Microsoft Partners beschreven wordt. Op deze partner bijenkomst heb ik een korte presentatie gehouden over de (on)mogelijkheden van BPOS.

Het volledige WinMag BPOS artikel is hier te lezen.

Increase SharePoint Online diskspace

The currently available disk space on SharePoint Online is rather limited. Online 250MB per user is provided. During trials you have no possibility to upgrade the amount of available data. However after the trial there is a possibility to buy extra data. This is offered in chuncks of 1 GB at a price level of about 2 euro's.

The trials in Europe right now don't have a possibility at all to upgrade to larger environments. That's because general availability will start from april. Paid subscriptions in western Europe are not possible at the moment.

BPOS Languages

Currently BPOS (Sharepoint, Exchange, Office Live Meeting and Office Communications Online) is available in several languages. Of course Dutch isn't one of them. As fa as I know now Dutch will not be supported in the near future. However, Exchange Webmail (OWA) is available in Dutch. Next to this there is always a possibility to create a Dutch SharePoint site (at least the content).

Most presumably Microsoft decided on this because the Dutch market isn't large enough and most Dutch people speak English.

Hotelketen Scandic gaat BPOS gebruiken

Scandic, een grote europese hotelketen met ondermeer een hotel in Nijmegen, gaat gebruik maken van Microsoft Online Services. De organisatie onderzoekt momenteel de mogelijkheden van BPOS (met name Sharepoint Online en Exchange Online). Op basis daarvan wil ze haar standaard server kosten naar beneden brengen.

SharePoint Online wish list

Below you'll find our SharePoint Online wish list:

• Support for custom webparts
• E-mail enabled Document Libraries
• Site Collection creation beneath Top Level Sites
• Enhance the 50MB fileupload limit
• Support for InfoPath webforms
• Support for Excel webservices

Want to add something? Post a comment!!

Handling files in SharePoint Online

While migration Procore (see Microsoft site for case study), one of our BPOS TAP clients, we ran into some interesting issues with SharePoint Online. Procore has phased out all their file servers. All data is moved to BPOS.

The first problem we ran into was the 50GB Site Collection limit within SharePoint online. The 50GB Site Collection limit is by design. The first time we tried to create a Site Collection which exceeded the 50GB limit we immediately ran into an error stating this was not possible. Please don't mix up Subsites with Site Collections. One Site Collection can contain as much Subsites as a company needs. However the 50GB site limit is cannot be superseded.

The second problem we ran into was that a Site Collection cannot contain any managed paths. While implementing SharePoint Online all sites are created as a root site without the possibility of creating either managed paths or using the Managed Paths which is generated by default in a SharePoint Server Standard implementation (the Sites Managed Path). If you need to create an environment which needs more than 50GB of data you should keep this in mind while architecting the solution. The only way the creation of a new site collection works is by creating a new Top level site within MOCP.

The third problem is the 50MB file size limit. People using SharePoint Online cannot upload documents of more than 50MB per file. Currently there is no solution or workaround. The SharePoint Online Product Managers today however told us that there might be a possibility that the 50MB size limit will be changed.

From a practical point of view of course there is a fourth problem. If a company is used to working with locally installed file servers, they are used to speed. Opening a file will only take a few seconds (this of course is dependent on file size). If the company stores all its data in a SharePoint Online environment their experience will change a lot. They'll need to transfer files between their computer and the online environment which inevitably will take a long time. In order to solve this problem we decided to use Colligo Reader (free), which allows them to have a copy of all SharePoint data offline. For power user we use Colligo Contributor which allows for synchronization of data.

Sharepoint Online en Sharepoint Designer

Indien je Sharepoint wil wijzigen is het curciaal dat je een Sharepoint site kunt wijzigingen met Sharepoint Deisgner. Zeker als je niet de mogelijkheid hebt eigen webparts e.d. te kunnen ontwikkelen en deployen op een omgeving wat niet mogelijk is bij een Sharepoint Online omgeving. Vandaga heb ik op verschillende manier geprobeerd toegang te krijgen tot Sharepoint Online middels SPD. Alle verschillende pogingen zijn echter mislukt. Ik zal een Service Request openen bij Microsoft en bekijken wat voor oplossingen zij aandragen.

*** UPDATE ***

Zoals besproken zou ik zodra er een oplossing voor dit probleem was met de oplossing komen. Het blijkt dat het bewerken van een Sharepoint Online site op dit moment alleen werkt indien je de Single Sign On Application hebt geinstalleerd en bent ingelogt. Indien dat niet het geval is kun je geen toegang nemen tot je Sharepoint Site.