Birmingham Schools - Office 365

[peterfarrell]

Hi again Michael,

 

I had to shelve this due other things but need to get my skates on now but I'm a bit puzzled by exactly what information I need to send in my RFC form for a migration to external email. I did an Mx lookup of the current school domain name worldsend.bham.sch.uk using the MX toolbox site and got lots of information, but what what do I need to put on the form? Thanks.

[Michael]

In summary, once you've confirmed ownership of your O365 domain, you'll be able to create e-mail accounts to mirror that of your existing Zimbra setup. This is really important, otherwise when you've switched your MX record (and others), and e-mail accounts and aliases aren't configured correctly, then mail delivery will fail.

 

If you look within the O365 Admin Console, under Domains it'll tell you what records you need to register, or in this case e-mail/fax to Service Birmingham, including a date/time when you want these changes to happen. Best advice I can offer is do it on a weekend or the Easter break when traffic will be lower.

 

The form you submit will read something like (for example):

 

Type: MX
Priority: 0
Hostname: worldsend
Address: worldsend-bham-sch-uk.mail.protection.outlook.com 
TTL: 1 Hour

Type: CNAME
Hostname: autodiscover.worldsend
Address: autodiscover.outlook.com
TTL: 1 Hour

Type: TXT
TXT Name: worldsend
TXT Value: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all
TTL: 1 Hour

Type: CNAME
Hostname: msoid.worldsend
Address: clientconfig.microsoftonline-p.net
TTL: 1 Hour

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks again for your help, The current email schoolname.bham.sch.uk (it's been since before I started) which was set up by Edit/link2ICT/BGFL? nobody has any details of purchase/ownership of the domain at the school. Presumably quite a few schools have been in this position so how do register as the owner? (sorry if I'm sounding like a plank).

[Michael]

Schools are the legal owner, however Service Birmingham are your technical contact. You could of course take full domain ownership (with your own registrar), but I don't see the point, let them manage it for you.

 

When I say ownership, I mean to demonstrate to Microsoft you/your school are the legal owners and not me for example.

 

Again from the O365 Admin console under Domains, there's a wizard which you can follow to confirm ownership.

 

It'll then provide you the information you require which you can send to Service Birmingham, for example:

 

Type: TXT
Alias: worldsend.bham.sch.uk
Address: MS=ms12345678
TTL: 1 Hour

 

You then re-run the wizard from the O365 Admin console 24/48 hours later, once Service Birmingham have created the record. You'll then be able to start creating accounts/groups to mirror your Zimbra configuration. From here (when ready), you can then send the above example details (my previous post). This will mean all new e-mails will go to O365, allowing you to merge all old/existing e-mails from Zimbra (using Outlook).

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael,

 

Sorry for the slow replies but I'm really busy at the moment. do the records below look correct?

See step-by-step instructions for performing this step with:

 

Create a verification record at your DNS hosting provider

Not familiar with DNS? Instead of creating the verification record yourself, you can contact the company that hosts your DNS records and ask them to create the record for you. Here's a sample message you can use when you contact them.

After you receive confirmation that the record has been created, come back to Office 365 and click done, verify now below.

 

Greetings,

I'm using Microsoft Office 365 and would like to use my domain with it, but first Office 365 must verify that I own the domain name. To do this, I need to create a TXT or an MX record for my domain. Because you are my DNS hosting provider, could you please create the record for me? The record needs to include the information shown in the table below.

 

Note: You only have to create one of the records and you can choose which one to create.

 

Record type (choose one) Alias or hostname Destination or points to address TTL

TXT @ or worldsend.bham.sch.uk MS=ms51966068 1 hour

MX @ or worldsend.bham.sch.uk ms51966068.msv1.invalid.outlook.com 1 hour

[Michael]

Yes, use the TXT record, don't use the MX one.

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael,

 

Got that signed and sent off, once that's done I'm going to arrange to transfer during Easter hols as I can get everyone's email accounts backed up to Outlook on their workstations it's only about 50 staff so shouldn't be take too long to do. Cheers Michael, can't thank you enough for your help!

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael

 

Got the domain verified and would like to migrate during the holiday, does this RFC look correct?

 

Worlds End Junior school would like to start using using Microsoft Office 365 from the 31st of March 2016, below is the required information for changing the MX records.

 

Type: MX

Priority: 0

Hostname: worldsend

Address: worldsend-bham-sch-uk.mail.protection.outlook.com

TTL: 1 Hour

 

Type: CNAME

Hostname: autodiscover.worldsend

Address: autodiscover.outlook.com

TTL: 1 Hour

 

Type: TXT

TXT Name: worldsend

TXT Value: v=spf1 include:spf.protection.outlook.com -all

TTL: 1 Hour

 

Type: CNAME

Hostname: msoid.worldsend

Address: clientconfig.microsoftonline-p.net

[Michael]

It looks fine to me, but your O365 console will confirm if the above is 100% accurate. You just need to specify on the form of the change date, but I'd also follow it up with a phone call to verify they've received it say 30 mins later.

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael,

 

Thanks for that, couldn't get it signed for until this morning the head's been on a course. Sent off and had confirmation of receipt so i'll wait until it's been passed on to around 5 different people before it's actually dealt with.

[peterfarrell]

Hi again Michael,

 

Sorry for being a nuisance, just making sure, are all the components of those listed below free or are some pay for?

 

Office 365 Education for faculty

Sway

Mobile Device Management for Office 365

These licenses do not need to be individually assigned

Yammer for Academic

Office Online for Education

Skype for Business Online (Plan 2)

SharePoint Plan 1 for EDU

Exchange Online (Plan 1)

 

 

Office 365 Education for students

Sway

Mobile Device Management for Office 365

These licenses do not need to be individually assigned

Yammer for Academic

Office Online for Education

Skype for Business Online (Plan 2)

SharePoint Plan 1 for EDU

Exchange Online (Plan 1)

 

Thanks.

[Michael]

Office 365 Education for faculty and Office 365 Education for students are 100% free, but Microsoft will still bill you for £0.00.

 

All other packages - such as E3 are all chargeable, but in the majority 99% of cases the free packages will cover all your requirements.

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael, thanks for clearing that up for me.

[peterfarrell]

Hi Michael,

 

Just to let you know the migration went as smoothly as I could have hoped, a massive thank you for all your help and advice.