Update: Added Exchange 2016 and Skype for Business 2016 feed.
Note: This is an update of an article from January, 2010.
Like most people I still use RSS feeds to keep track of news and updates from various sources. But did you know you can also keep track of Microsoft’s knowledgebase articles per product using RSS feeds? Great for keeping track of updates in RSS readers like Outlook or sites like Feedly, or creating triggers on sites like IFTTT (If-This-Then-That) to automatically send e-mail notifications.
Here are some RSS feeds on knowledgebase articles that might be of interest to you:
Note: For those that attended Jaap and my workshop on Monday, Managing Exchange On-Premises and Exchange Online using PowerShell, the slidedeck is available here and the sample code is available here.
Last weekend, I returned from one of the largest, independent conferences on Microsoft technologies, IT/DEV Connections. The conference, which took place in the city of Las Vegas, is spread over a 3-day period on popular topics, like Exchange, Windows, SQL or SharePoint, and has a track for Infrastructure as well as Development (hence the ‘IT/DEV’). Apart from the many speakers, most of them experienced Microsoft Valuable Professionals, Microsoft celebrities like Tim McMichael were also presenting sessions.
Like many conferences nowadays, IT/DEV Connections took off with several pre-conference workshops on Monday. One of these workshops was done by fellow Exchange MVP and countryman Jaap Wesselius and myself. We talked a whole day about ‘Managing Exchange On-Premises and Exchange Online using PowerShell’. The turn-up was above expectation, which is always nice, and we had good interaction with, and feedback from the audience. This made our session, from a presenter’s viewpoint, very worthwhile.
Since I had no sessions after the workshop, I was free to attend sessions by fellow presenters. Tony Redmond kicked off with a keynote, analyzing the current landscape for Exchange and Office 365, and making references to sessions later that week, should people be interested in those topics. It’s also where you learn who is running what, and as it turned out most attendees are running Exchange 2010 or Exchange 2013 On-Premises, but with an increasing interest in Office 365.
During the week, apart from the excellent contents presented, I was very humbled to learn lots of presenters made references to several of my scripts, e.g.
This conference is also the place where Exchange MVP fellows Tony Redmond, Michael van Horenbeeck, Paul Cunningham and Jeff Guillet presented their 2nd edition of their book, ‘Office 365 for Exchange Professionals’. Congratulations to them reaching this milestone, looking at the non-stop amount of changes happening in the Office 365 environment. You can get your own copy of the updated book here.
It’s becoming a tradition that the last Exchange session of the conference is a ‘Ask the Experts’ panel session, where the audience can ask a panel of presenters questions, or where the current landscape for Exchange or Office 365 can be discussed. It’s a great way to close the conference, before everyone gets back to their corners of the world, back from the crazy city that is Las Vegas to reality.
If you didn’t consider IT/DEV Connections before, you should. The conference is a must-visit, especially with Microsoft having consolidated MEC, MMS etc. in a single, huge event which is Ignite now. Connections is not small, but the more intimate setting allows you to catch up with peers more easily, have discussions over a pint, great catering, and without the need to max out your step counter. The Aria resort is very nice place to host this event, great for business with a pleasant conference area without too much of the distractions like the other hotels. If you plan on visiting next year, save the date: September 19-22, 2016!
I also want to thank ENow for again hosting an epic Scheduled Maintenance party. Location this time was the Ghostbar at the 55th floor in Palms Resort, which gave an amazing view over the city of Las Vegas and the Strip. I wore my ENow-branded NFL jersey to the party, a gift from ENow last year. This lead to funny moments, as this is ENow’s event gear, and many people mistook me for an employee, thanking me when leaving the party.
Finally, here are some of the other Exchange Connections wrap-ups:
After Apple released iOS 9 to the public yesterday. From an Exchange or Office 365 perspective, iOS 9 supports the enhanced calendar features of Office 365 and Exchange 2016 when that is released. Unfortunately, incidents have been reported with the Outlook app and the Lync2013 App.
Regarding the Outlook App, iOS9 users might not be able to start the Outlook App or the Outlook app will just crash. The far from ideal workaround offered by the Outlook team, is to reinstall the Outlook app.
Of course, this also requires users to reconfigure accounts and Outlook App settings, so organizations can expect some calls to the service desk by users who upgraded. Organizations can report on the currently registered iOS8 devices that syned in the last 30 days, using:
This will product a list of users, the name of their device, the device model and OS and when it last synced with Exchange. This information can be useful when you want to proactively approach users with iOS8 devices.
For Lync 2013 users, there are sign-in issues when they have configured different region and language settings on their iOS device. Those users will be presented the following:
The issue has officially been confirmed through publication of KB3096704, which states:
“This problem is fixed in the Microsoft Skype for Business for iOS app that will replace Lync for iPhone and Lync for iPad when it’s released. No fix for this issue is scheduled for the current releases of Lync for iPhone and Lync for iPad”.
Since the Skype for Business app is not available yet, this is not good news. Mitigation is possible by matching the region with the language setting (or the other way around), after which you need to reinstall the Lync 2013 app from the store.
With all this in mind, should organizations wish to first test the new iOS against their Exchange environment for potential other issues, you can block iOS 9 from accessing your Exchange 2013 environment, or Office 365 tenant if you must, using the Access/Block/Quarantine feature. First you need to retrieve the reported DeviceOS string for iOS 9 for a device:
The reported DeviceOS strings then is used to create an ActiveSync device rule. For example, my iPhone 6 reports DeviceOS as “iOS 9.0 13A344”. To block these devices with iOS 9.0 and put them in quarantine, run the following:
I am in Las Vegas at the moment for the IT/DEV Connections conference which will take place in Las Vegas this week. Looking at the schedule and list of speakers, the conference is bound to be a success. If you’re not in Las Vegas, you can follow the conference on Twitter. The designated hashtag is #ITDEVCON.
Many thanks to Penton Media for giving me the opportunity to co-host the “Managing Exchange On-Premises and Exchange Online with PowerShell” workshop in the Enterprise Collaboration with Jaap Wesselius, on September 14th in Bluethorn 4. I will be present at the conference the whole week, so if you have questions or just want to say hi, look me up or ping me on Twitter or e-mail.
Almost 3 years ago, I wrote an article on how to enhance the PowerShell Integrated Scripting Environment, or ISE. That seemed adequate for the Exchange admin back then, who would mostly connect PowerShell sessions to their on-premises environment, and occasionally a bit of Exchange Online.
Fast forward to 2015, most modern Exchange administrators not only require a connection – if any – to their Exchange on-premises environment, but likely to one or more of the Office 365 services as well, including Exchange On-Premises, Azure Active Directory, Exchange Online Protection, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business Online, SharePoint Online, Azure Information Protection or Compliance Center.
All these services use a different PowerShell session, use a different endpoint FQDN, and in some cases require a locally installed PowerShell module. Likely common denominator is the credential used to access each of these services. So, tired of re-entering my credentials every time when switching from Exchange Online to Exchange Online Protection, I created a script with a set of functions to allow me connect to each individual Office 365 service or Exchange Online:
Connect-AzureActiveDirectory: Connects to Azure Active Directory
Connect-AIP: Connects to Azure Information Protection
Connect-ExchangeOnline: Connects to Exchange Online
Connect-SkypeOnline: Connects to Skype for Business Online
Connect-EOP: Connects to Exchange Online Protection
Connect-ComplianceCenter: Connects to Compliance Center
Connect-SharePointOnline: Connects to SharePoint Online
Report-Office365Modules: Report on known vs online module versions
Note that functions and credentials used in the script are global, and in principle only need to be entered once per shell or ISE session. If you need different credentials, call Get-Office365Credentials again. User interaction is a very basic (Read-Host), but it does the job. The script will also detect if any PowerShell module supporting Multi-Factor Authentication is installed. If so, you will be prompted if for using MFA when authenticating to workloads such as Exchange Online, Azure Active Directory, Microsoft Teams, Skype for Business Online or SharePoint Online.
Requirements During initialization, the script will detect the modules which are required for certain Office 365 services. When not installed, it will notify you, and provide a link where to obtain the PowerShell module. The related Connect function will not be made available. PowerShell is required to run this script, which is tested against version 5.1 (but should work with lower versions down to version 3).
Usage The functions are contained in a script called Connect-Office365Services.ps1. You can call this script manually from your PowerShell session to make the functions available. However, more convenient may be to have them always available in every PowerShell or ISE session. To achieve this, you need to edit your $profile, which is a script which always starts when you start a PowerShell or ISE session. By default this file does not exist and you need to create it, including the path. Also note that the files for PowerShell and ISE are different, Microsoft.PowerShell_profile.ps1 and Microsoft.PowerShellISE_profile.ps1 respectively.
Now, of course you can copy and paste the functions from the script file to your own $profile. Better is to call the script from your $profile, as this allows you to overwrite the Connect-Office365Services.ps1 with updates. To achieve this, assume you copied the Connect-Office365Services.ps1 in the same location as your $profile, for example C:\Users\Michel\Documents\WindowsPowerShell. You can then make PowerShell and ISE call this script by adding the following line to the $profile scripts:
& “$PSScriptRoot\Connect-Office365Services.ps1”
Now when you start a PowerShell session, you might see the following:
This shows the default environment is targeted (AzureCloud), the Exchange Modern Authentication PowerShell module as well as other modules mentioned in the example are installed. When online version checking is enabled (OnlineModuleVersionChecks variable), a check will be performed against the online repository, e.g. PSGallery, and outdated modules will be reported, like the Skype for Business Online module in the example. It’s also possible to automatically update modules setting the variable OnlineModuleAutoUpdate.
When you load the script from ISE, it will show something similar. However, it will also detect ISE and make connect functions available through the Add-On menu:
Notes Customize this script to your liking. Note that for updating modules, you need to have administrator permissions on the local system.
Revision History Revision information is embedded in the source.
Feedback Feedback is welcomed through the comments. If you got scripting suggestions, questions or want to report bugs, you can do this through GitHub or by using the contact form.
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Note: This is an update of an article from January, 2010.
After Apple released 
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I am in Las Vegas at the moment for the 
EighTwOne (821) 