jamesbmarshall

OK I'm with you. The sync client isn't really designed to work in this scenario. It's ideal where users have their own device (i.e. 1:1) but in a shared scenario the best way to interact with OneDrive for Business is going to be via a modern browser, utilising drag-and-drop features to upload files. Also, the Office client apps to save directly to SharePoint Online, etc.

Can you elaborate? You can easily sync your users with Office 365 (Azure AD) and run a PowerShell script to assign the licences automatically.

CloudMigrator365 springs to mind. There are lots. Try Microsoft Pinpoint - Select Country/Region. (Or something like Search Results on Microsoft Pinpoint)

Nothing - although I'll bet it's the usual problem that Microsoft does a lot of great stuff but a really bad job of making sure people know about it (it's harder than you think).

For Windows 8.0 users, Windows 8.1 is a free and optional update delivered through the Windows Store. For Windows 8.1 users, Windows 8.1 Update is a free and mandatory update delivered through Windows Update. If you're running Windows 8.0 or looking at upgrading to it then there's no reason not to look straight towards Windows 8.1 Update since it adds a lot of great features that make it easier for keyboard & mouse users (like re-introducing the Start button, being able to pin and manage full-screen modern apps from the taskbar, boot-to-desktop, etc.).

Actually, that's not strictly true. Microsoft doesn't sell directly, traditionally, it sells through re-sellers. Just like any other sales process, re-sellers can add a margin to the price. Where this breaks is in the cloud model, and more specifically when we publish $0 SKUs where it would be crazy to try and charge anything more. Some re-sellers systems are not capable of processing a $0 order and one way around this is to charge a nominal sum. It is unusual, but not unheard of.

Windows 8.1 Update 1 released, now available for download - Neowin

None taken...

It's not the 8th everywhere, yet! Yes, it will be available today as far as I know.

Just for the record, Office 365 has a 99.9% uptime target as part of the SLA, which for the paid-for elements is financially backed. Office 365 Service Descriptions Obviously, if you're paying $0 you can't really get money back, but it's not like we host the Office 365 Education free components on some ropey kit at the back of the data center!

Terminology check: OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive) = consumer service, accessed with a Microsoft Account (aka Windows Live ID). Not part of Office 365. OneDrive for business (formerly SkyDrive Pro) = school managed service, accessed with an Office 365 ID (aka ORG-ID, MOSID, etc.). Every Office 365 Education user gets an Office 365 ID. Requires SharePoint Online as part of Plan A2.

Here are some useful resources: Office 365 Education Deployment Resources - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs I haven't updated that page for a little while (I moved roles in December) but there should be some good links for you to work through. TechNet is your friend.

I believe, and I'd need to confirm, that you need A3 for this. Edit: you do.

If you haven't already, you'll need to place an order for Student Advantage with your re-seller. They'll handle the rest, and you'll end up with a product key which you can get from VLSC which you can enter into the tenant to unlock the Office 365 ProPlus licences for your students. I've written a bunch of useful blog posts on this: Browse by Tags - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Nope. The app is unlocked through Office 365 ProPlus, which is available through: - Student Advantage - Office 365 ProPlus for Students - Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty - Office 365 Plan A3 for Students (and Faculty) - Office 365 Plan A4 for Students (and Faculty) Or any of the other qualifying subscriptions outside of Office 365 Education. So you can give this to your students through Student Advantage at no additional cost (as long as you cover 100% of your staff for Office somehow), and you can just add this as Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty for your staff. See my earlier posts in this thread for example calculations, and speak to your re-seller for a quote.

Given that many, if not most, schools are already paying for Office for their staff via EES or OVS-ES the leap to Student Advantage is £0. Student Advantage is not free. We don't say that it's free. It's "no additional cost", which in most cases is true. There'll always be some customers who'll need to make an initial investment into some licensing for staff in order to unlock the student £0 SKUs; however, given my calculations earlier in the thread I think that even if you had to pay for staff the overall savings that Student Advantage brings make it very affordable.

Let me correct your maths! (600 * £0) * 12 = £0 with Student Advantage! (See: Browse by Tags - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs)

If you want either Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty or Student Advantage you need to set up an Office 365 Education tenant (and therefore, Windows Azure AD which is the ID framework underneath). You don't need to deploy SSO (Deploying Office 365 Education? You don't need single sign-on, and here's why!) to enable those services. You can literally just upload a CSV file, or if you have some spare server capacity deploy DirSync + Password Sync. It is easy. Honestly.

Those numbers are interesting, I'd like to know where you've got them from? If you have 100 staff then to licence them for Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty through Office 365 Education would cost (100*£1.70)*12 = £2040. If you licence all of your staff for Office 365 ProPlus then you could conceivably remove Office from your EES agreement and just keep Windows and Core CAL. (I don't know how much money that would save, but speak to your reseller). Let's put this in context. If you wanted to roll out the full Office suite that installs across PC and Mac on up to 5 devices per user (etc. etc.) and you didn't have Student Advantage at your disposal then you'd be looking at licensing every user. If you take an average secondary school that has say 100 staff and 900 pupils then you're looking at: (100 * £1.70) * 12 = £2,040 AND (900 * £1.27) * 12 = £13,716 Which gives you a grand total of £15,756. I think when you factor in Student Advantage (i.e. saving £13,716) it's a pretty good deal. Not to mention the fact that the iPad apps are free to review and present... so it's not like they can't use the apps at all. I don't think it's unreasonable to expect people to pay for some functionality. (Caveat: I'm quoting the prices that are showing in my Office 365 Education admin portal right now, without any discount that might be available through a volume license agreement. I'm also assuming that just Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty is enough to qualify you for Student Advantage. You'd need to confirm all of this with your re-seller to be 100% sure. I'm not a licensing expert... ). (P.S: You don't need to run Office 365 for Exchange Online, Lync Online or SharePoint Online in order to be able to take either Office 365 ProPlus for Faculty or Student Advantage. You can sign up just to access the Office 365 ProPlus benefits and continue to use your existing mail, UC and collaboration platforms.) (P.P.S: Even if you still had to pay for Office through your EES or OVS-ES VLs, you're still only looking at an additional £2K in this example to add the functionality for staff. I guess it really depends on your usage scenarios but that's still not very much. How many of your users both have an iPad and would need to be creating content on it; given that they're not likely to only have an iPad? You could choose just to enable the "full use" experience for the subset of staff that actually need it which brings cost down even further...)

I'm not going to wade into the opinion debate about whether the modern UI is good or not (but for the record: I think it is a great move forward that gets somethings right immediately, but leaves other things to be refined in future) but for those of you who are interested I'd recommend giving this video a whirl: UX Week 2012 | Jensen Harris | The Story of Windows 8 on Vimeo It's quite long, but worth watching if you've ever thought "what on Earth was Microsoft thinking with the modern UI?".

Are you sure? I don't have the time to test, but I'm pretty sure that you can have a single AD FS farm serving multiple TLDs and I can't find any documentation that differentiates between multiple TLDs in a single tenant, or across many. My brain might be forgetting stuff though, it's been a while now since I last looked at this and as much as I'd love to dive into my test rig I am focused on Windows now!

Correct. Microsoft Accounts (formerly Windows Live ID) are different to your Organisational Account (Office 365 ID, ORG-ID, MOS-ID). It is possible to have both associated, i.e. you can sign up for a Microsoft Account to access Skype, OneDrive, etc. with an Organisational Account but they're still separate; this means no institutional management or control of the Microsoft Account bit. Having a Microsoft Account associated with an Office 365 Organisational Account won't mess things up, but it does introduce a management challenge.

Rather than use the forums, log a support call! It's free, and 24x7.

If anyone wants information about Microsoft's standpoint on this, check: Office 365 Trust Center Also, Your Privacy is Our Priority - UK Education Cloud Blog - Site Home - MSDN Blogs

Why do you think it would be easier?