live@edu

[RabbieBurns]

Anyone using this yet?We're going to be setting this up soon, just looking about how to get started. Gonna get some external support for it eventually but just looking for pointers/tips etc.

 

Our staff email is hosted internally on exchange, the live@edu wiil just be for the students..

 

We have multiple IPs, so planning on using one, and setting up a mymail.school.au subdomain specifically for it. Do we just set the MX for the live@edu on that subdomain ?

 

Also is there anything I need to know about Active Directory.. How will we bulk upload all existing students to create an account (their login is their student number so would want to use that as their email)

 

Also, how does it work when we create new accounts in AD. Is there a way of automatically creating the live@edu account?

 

Cheers for any info..

[RabbieBurns]

No-one using this?

 

Just set it up and it looks pretty decent. Going to be a struggle to get all the users out of AD I reckon.

 

Also I cant seem to receive any maill on the new accounts, keeps bouncing back saying "Your message wasn't delivered because of security policies."

[p858snake]

Didn't they have a tool for transferring/copying users over from AD?

[RabbieBurns]

Aye seems theres a poweshell script to do a csv upload. Still need to figure out how Im gonna go about populating the email address field in all the accounts in AD with the email addresses I want them to be.

 

The issue at hand just now is why i cant send any emails to the addresses.

[Ric_]

Aye seems theres a poweshell script to do a csv upload. Still need to figure out how Im gonna go about populating the email address field in all the accounts in AD with the email addresses I want them to be.

 

The issue at hand just now is why i cant send any emails to the addresses.

 

To populate the email field, can't you bulk select the users, righ-click, select properties and in the email field use %username%@somewhere.here.now ?

 

For the receiving problem, are the Live@edu servers configured as regular Exchange servers where by they don't accept SMTP from servers that aren't trusted/allowed?

[cookie_monster]

Does this help?

 

http://www.microsoft.com/liveatedu/single-sign-on.aspx?locale=en-US&country=US

 

 

http://liveedusso.codeplex.com/

[witch]

We just got it set up yesterday on a new sub-domain. We needed it as we cannot afford to pay our email provider (easymail) for any more addresses and half the school dont have them. I am not looking forward to sorting them all out now!

[RabbieBurns]

Does this help?

 

Live@edu

 

 

Windows Live@EDU Single Sign On

 

The first link is interesting as it says we dont need ILM but we are led to believe we do..

 

The second link looks good too.. Ill check it out in the morning, thanks.

[RabbieBurns]

To populate the email field, can't you bulk select the users, righ-click, select properties and in the email field use %username%@somewhere.here.now ?

 

For the receiving problem, are the Live@edu servers configured as regular Exchange servers where by they don't accept SMTP from servers that aren't trusted/allowed?

 

Ill try that for bulk changing the email address field. Cheers.

 

As for the second point, that could be the case. I have added our exchange mail IP to the allowed list so I will see if that lets it through. Thanks

[cookie_monster]

The first link is interesting as it says we dont need ILM but we are led to believe we do..

 

The second link looks good too.. Ill check it out in the morning, thanks.

 

 

 

I'll keep my eyes peeled as we're intereste in Live@edu here but haven't had time to look into it yet.

[gshaw]

Live@Edu... I think I can help

 

We've been into this from early last year due to the Moodle integration as I saw it as a nice way to get some value-added services for free on top of the usual VLE stuff.

 

User accounts and passwords... fun fun!

 

You can either upload via PowerShell (works very nicely) or use ILM (with the OlSync add-on) to synchronise the accounts. What is doesn't do by default is passwords, you need to install another add-on to ILM (PCNS iirc) to handle that, but I've read quite a few threads on the very useful Outlook Live Answers site about password policies between AD and Live being different and as such causing some issues.

 

Passwords (if synced) go from AD > Live and not back the other way.

 

I'm hoping their new version of ILM (ForeFront Identity Manger) will make this process a bit easier and neater... will see in a few weeks at the Microsoft Education Conference I'm booked into

 

http://www.outlookliveanswers.com

 

Also a few useful bits on my blog for getting started with Live@Edu and making a custom Windows Live sign-in screen...

 

http://gshaw0.spaces.live.com

 

Looks like you can use the SSO to load a Live@Edu mailbox authenticating against the user's AD credentials, could be one for a Microsoft Partner I think. I'd guess you'd still need to provision the mailbox somehow though?

Edited March 2, 2010 by gshaw

[nadeem]

I did this - I just used a PowerShell script to migrate users over to live@edu - it does mean that they have a different password for their email, but I don't think this is a bad thing, as they will be able to keep their email address after they leave (which is what we do).

 

I know that MS UK is quite good at supporting new users onto the system, I'm not sure what MS AU are doing though.

 

There is a lot of interesting stuff coming to Live@edu, so its definitely worth doing.

[gshaw]

We're looking at implementing this. I don't understand the domain registration bit. If it's all externally hosted, why do they need a domain owned by the school?

 

Well you need to have something branding the email address to your organisation. Domains are dirt cheap for education so just get something similar or use a subdomain of your existing domain for student email

 

Hi again Nadeem, did you use the Moodle integration in the end or just using Live@Edu for email etc?

[RabbieBurns]

I did this - I just used a PowerShell script to migrate users over to live@edu - it does mean that they have a different password for their email, but I don't think this is a bad thing, as they will be able to keep their email address after they leave (which is what we do).

 

I know that MS UK is quite good at supporting new users onto the system, I'm not sure what MS AU are doing though.

 

There is a lot of interesting stuff coming to Live@edu, so its definitely worth doing.

 

MS have put us in touch with their 3rd party partners and offered us an educational discount. We probably will get them in eventually to just double check everyting and put some finishing touches to it.

 

How do you manage adding a new student mid-term for example.. do you just run the script again?

[RabbieBurns]

Live@Edu... I think I can help

 

We've been into this from early last year due to the Moodle integration as I saw it as a nice way to get some value-added services for free on top of the usual VLE stuff.

 

User accounts and passwords... fun fun!

 

You can either upload via PowerShell (works very nicely) or use ILM (with the OlSync add-on) to synchronise the accounts. What is doesn't do by default is passwords, you need to install another add-on to ILM (PCNS iirc) to handle that, but I've read quite a few threads on the very useful Outlook Live Answers site about password policies between AD and Live being different and as such causing some issues.

 

Passwords (if synced) go from AD > Live and not back the other way.

 

I'm hoping their new version of ILM (ForeFront Identity Manger) will make this process a bit easier and neater... will see in a few weeks at the Microsoft Education Conference I'm booked into

 

Outlook Live Answers

 

Also a few useful bits on my blog for getting started with Live@Edu and making a custom Windows Live sign-in screen...

 

Making "IT" work - Windows Live

 

Looks like you can use the SSO to load a Live@Edu mailbox authenticating against the user's AD credentials, could be one for a Microsoft Partner I think. I'd guess you'd still need to provision the mailbox somehow though?

 

we dont have a strict password policy for the students, especially for the younger ones.. Will this affect us having SSO ?

 

Its a very good point you make about students leave. The school is planning on letting students keep access after they leave - obviously we disable their account once they leave, would this affect the slivemail if we link it dynamically to AD?

 

Thanks for the link to customising the login page. I will have a play tomorrow.

[gshaw]

we dont have a strict password policy for the students, especially for the younger ones.. Will this affect us having SSO ?

 

Its a very good point you make about students leave. The school is planning on letting students keep access after they leave - obviously we disable their account once they leave, would this affect the slivemail if we link it dynamically to AD?

 

Thanks for the link to customising the login page. I will have a play tomorrow.

 

Have a look on my blog for a link to a free domain with DNS functions and set up a .co.cc domain to play around with, reason I say it is because you can't really test on a localhost machine so set up a spare PC and hook up to Internet with the test domain then you're laughing

 

Not sure how ILM treats disabled user accounts... will have to look into that one

Edited March 2, 2010 by gshaw

[MYK-IT]

Hi, we've been using the Live@Edu Email facility for over 6 months now.

 

Once the various MX Records etc have been setup etc, it has been quite easy to use and it's great knowing you don't have to build / configure an Exchange server etc.

 

Just using for Staff accounts at present, and as previously mentioned it can link to AD accounts using Power Shell etc, though not tried it yet.

 

You can also restrict emails, so for example if you were using it for students, they could only email internally etc.

 

I've not tried all the other collaboration tools that you also get, like Sky Drive and the facility to share MS Office Files online etc. That for another day!

[nadeem]

Hi again Nadeem, did you use the Moodle integration in the end or just using Live@Edu for email etc?

 

I want to integrate the live@edu into my moodle but not for login - fancy coming to London for the day?

[nadeem]

How do you manage adding a new student mid-term for example.. do you just run the script again?

 

For the odd one or two students I just add them in by hand in the Admin control Panel, for a batch I re-reun the script

[RabbieBurns]

I still cannot send mail into my live@edu test account. Ive added our mailserver IP to the allowed list.. IS ther something else Ive misseD?

[Abaddon]

I've only just looked at this service.. very interesting. Does anybody know what is done in the way of backups? If a student lost some work for example, is it retrievable?

[redhelpdesk]

We got ours configured ok, thanks to directions from gshaw and some tweaking by Microsoft!

 

Did you need to do anything special to be able to send email to your domain. We are having a problem where we cant sent email to our live@edu address, but can recieve mail from it.

 

 

Also, are you using ILM to manage accounts or just running the scripts?

[mwnci]

Have you checked you transport rules for that group, as it is possible to block incoming emails, but allow outgoing? I think at least one of my groups defaulted to this to start with.

[redhelpdesk]

I only have one test user in my setup so far. Where do I change transport settings?

[mwnci]

If you got into the account management console, edit you group, and look under 'Delivery Management' . If your use isn't a member of a group, then I'm not so sure. Maybe check your mx settings.

 

To add my pennies worth to this discussion, I have found live@edu to be great. We have plenty of control over our email setup, and have found it to just work. We save the hassle of running our own exchange server and it has been very reliable. I would certainly recommend it.