Office 365- Outlook Auto Account Setup

[Tallwood_6]

Is there any way of automating i.e. using a .prf file to prepopulate the Auto Account Setup Wizard settings in outlook for users so it sets up outlook for an office 365 account?

We currently use a .prf to auto setup outlook 2010 for users on exchange but i'm looking to migrate to office 365 and would like to automate user setup for outlook in a similar fashion but i cant see a means of doing this at the moment, any suggestions?

[Boredguy]

You don't really need a prf now for Office 365. To be honest it's easier to connect to it with Office 2013, as along as the autodiscover entry is in your DNS and the e-mail address is listed in the AD for the user all they need to enter for the first run wizard is their password. Everything else is automatically filled in.

 

If you want to use Office 2010 still, you need to ensure you have the additional Social Connector application installed so it can communicate happily with 365 (since sometimes it can throw it's toys out the pram)

[Edu-IT]

Quick question. For this to work, Do you have to make any changes to the UPN suffix as mine is putting in the internal username which is different to the domain in O365? Otherwise there's more to it than just entering password for the end user.

[Boredguy]

Yes, you should ensure that the UPN suffix in the users Active Directory (as well as the mail field) is set to be the same as the O365 domain name you are authenticating against otherwise it gets confused.

 

Setting the UPN name does not affect your network logon.

 

If you are using DirSync, it's worth ensuring you also update your Active Directory Schema to support Exchange 2010 so that you can alter the AD attributes if you wish to add additional e-mail addresses to an account (via the proxyaddress field), if you wish for an account to be hidden from the address book, or even if you want to make use of the custom fields.

[Tallwood_6]

Unfortunately moving to office 2013 isn’t an option at the moment, I’ve not had any issues with outlook 2010 and 365 mailboxes yet however I have installed a couple of updates recommended to fix a number of the bugs. I was hoping that there might be a solution similar to the one described at the end of this Generic server name to use in Outlook.prf - Email and calendar - Office 365 - Microsoft Office 365 Community that works for the current version of office 365.

Although outlook will auto configure using autodiscover with just an email address and password the fact we are swapping over primary email domain name to a .org and the technical inability of many staff and students will just create confusion if I can’t automate the setup at first run.

[glenharrison8]

Hi all,

 

Just wondering if there is an update to this thread please.

 

We are a mixed PC and TC environment. All users are now on Office 365 and we are testing Office 2016 Pro. The RDS servers delete all local profiles each night to save on disk space (we have hundreds of users). Outlooks settings unfortunately don't roam as they are stuck in the local part of appdata, not roaming :-(

This means that everyday users are having to click next through the outlook setup wizard before getting their emails. Autodiscover works, but it's still a pain our users are having to do that.

 

Just wondering since we are testing outlook 2016, what improvements there's been to automate this

 

Microsoft tell us PRF files can't be used to specify cloud servers as they change due to their cluster, so we have to stick with autodiscover. Which is fine, so long as we can automate outlook login.

 

Thanks

Edited November 4, 2015 by glenharrison8

[Arthur]

Outlooks settings unfortunately don't roam as they are stuck in the local part of appdata, not roaming

Have you tried enabling this GPO?

 

User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Microsoft Office 2016 \ Global Options \ Customize \ [url="http://gpsearch.azurewebsites.net/#11500"]Allow roaming of all user customizations[/url]

[glenharrison8]

Have you tried enabling this GPO?

 

User Configuration \ Administrative Templates \ Microsoft Office 2016 \ Global Options \ Customize \ [url="http://gpsearch.azurewebsites.net/#11500"]Allow roaming of all user customizations[/url]

 

No I haven't, but good idea!

 

:edit: Seems just to be quick access and ribbon customizations

Edited November 4, 2015 by glenharrison8

[IAMCloud_Niklas]

There are couple of different ways to automate licencing for Office 365. The most simple way is a federated authorisation network which you can setup via a cloyd sync with Office 365. In short, you get a Siingle Sign On solution where users never have to go login twice or go through the setup wizard again. Check out this page, might be useful www.iamcloud.com

[glenharrison8]

This is the screen we are trying to get rid of. We are already using iamcloud, but struggling to understand how they can help with this?

 

http://i67.tinypic.com/j9836a.jpg

[kenttober]

I agree with Boredguy that actually works

Yes, you should ensure that the UPN suffix in the users Active Directory (as well as the mail field) is set to be the same as the O365 domain name you are authenticating against otherwise it gets confused.

 

Setting the UPN name does not affect your network logon.

 

If you are using DirSync, it's worth ensuring you also update your Active Directory Schema to support Exchange 2010 so that you can alter the AD attributes if you wish to add additional e-mail addresses to an account (via the proxyaddress field), if you wish for an account to be hidden from the address book, or even if you want to make use of the custom fields.