Archive
GPO and PowerShell support in #AzureAD and #Intune? Tech Preview released – #EnvokeIT Workspace Client
Finally… we’re pleased to announce that we now have released the Tech Preview of the EnvokeIT Workspace Client service!! 🙂
What is this and why did we build this SaaS device configuration service?
Have you also tried to roll-out Windows 10 with Azure AD and potentially also Microsoft Intune and lack capabilities like Group Polices to control registry and files or to run PowerShell scripts?
We’ve solved that for you! The EnvokeIT Workspace Client is a device configuration client built on the cloud and for the cloud! Now you have all the capabilities that you require to deliver a modern Windows 10 Out-of-the-box delivery using Azure AD!
Have a look at our “quick” overview video or just sign up for a free Tech Preview tenant and you’ll be up and running within minutes!
The service is built for Windows on Azure and leverages the latest technology to ensure that you can adopt the Windows and Azure AD architecture without lacking what you need from good old Group Policies!
Here are some examples of what the service can solve for you:
- You want to remove the Windows “bloatware” for all your Windows 10 devices, no problem
- If you want to specify and ensure that all your users have the same company background, you can do that!
- If you need to configure application settings for all users, no problem!
- Do you need to have an updated User Guides or other material easily pushed to your users desktop, no problem!
- If your web applications require that they are put in Local Intranet or Trusted Sites in your browsers, then you can push that out!
- Does your Windows application require specific local settings files to be pushed to the clients, no worries we’ve got you covered there as well!
- Do you need to push out Microsoft Edge policies you can do that as well! For a complete list of built-in Group Policy objects that you can configure see this list.
- If you need to do special configuration of the OS, applications or user settings you can do that through PowerShell scripts, you write the scripts and our agent makes sure it’s run in user or system context. Configuration possibilities are endless with PowerShell script support!
Read more at the site or sign up for your own trial tenant!
https://cloudclientportal.envokeit.com
http://www.envokeit.com/en/project/envokeit-workspace-client/
And if you need any assistance in your Windows 10, Office 365 or Enterprise Mobility Project just contact us at EnvokeIT: info@envokeit.com or send an email to me directly: richard.egenas at envokeit.com
//Richard
Converged Microsoft Account and Azure Active Directory Programming Model – #Microsoft, #Azure
Wow, finally Microsoft is doing something about the Microsoft Account and Azure AD identity “mess”! 🙂
Until now, building an application that worked with both personal and business accounts from Microsoft required integrating with two different technology stacks. Not only that, you had to have separate buttons in your app where your user needed to choose, up front, to sign-in with a personal account or a work or school account.
With the v2 app model preview, it is possible to sign-in both personal and work users with a single button. Let’s take a quick look at the end user’s experience. We begin with your application, with the addition of a “Sign-in with Microsoft” button.
We’re using the Microsoft brand because end users don’t know about Azure or Azure Active Directory. But they do know that Windows, Outlook, OneDrive, Xbox, and Office 365 are services from Microsoft and they need an account from Microsoft to sign-in there.
When the user clicks the button, they come to a consolidated sign-in page:
The user enters their username. Under the covers we figure out if the username corresponds to a personal account or a work account. Then we take the user to the right page to enter their password. Today this may involve a redirect – in the future we’ll optimize this out.Â
Read more here!
//Richard
Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365 – #Office365, #IAM
This is cool!
Paul Andrew is a technical product manager on the Office 365 team working on identity.
Today we’re adding Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365 to Office 365 Midsize Business, Enterprise plans, Academic plans, Nonprofit plans, and standalone Office 365 plans, including Exchange Online and SharePoint Online. This will allow organizations with these subscriptions to enable multi-factor authentication for their Office 365 users without requiring any additional purchase or subscription.
Multi-factor authentication increases the security of user logins for cloud services above and beyond just a password. With Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365, users are required to acknowledge a phone call, text message, or an app notification on their smartphone after correctly entering their password. Only after this second authentication factor has been satisfied can a user sign in.
Multi-factor authentication has been available for Office 365 administrative roles since June 2013, and today we’re extending this capability to any Office 365 user. We’re also enhancing the capabilities that have been available since June. We’re adding App Passwords for users so they can authenticate from Office desktop applications as these are not yet updated to enable multi-factor authentication. And we’re enabling users who are authenticated from a federated on-premises directory to be enabled for multi-factor authentication.
This addition of multi-factor authentication is part of our ongoing effort to enhance security for Office 365, and we’re already working on Office desktop application improvements to Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365, which we’ll introduce later in this post. Office 365 offers many robust built-in security features for all customers and also optional controls that enable subscribers to customize their security preferences. More information about security in Office 365 is available inthe Office 365 Trust Center.
Let’s take a look at how Office 365 customers can take advantage of multi-factor authentication and configure it, including using App Passwords for Office desktop applications.
After entering your account password, you see a message like this while your phone is being called for acknowledgement.
Multi-Factor Authentication for Office 365
Office 365 administrators enroll users for multi-factor authentication through the Office 365 admin center.
Microsoft is progressing quickly! – SkyDrive Pro updated to 25GB and improved sharing – via @BasvanKaam
I must say this once again, Microsoft looks to be on the right track when it comes to getting back as one strong supplier of services in the future/present “BYOD” world. As I wrote in my post #Microsoft – On the right track! – #Windows, #BYOD, #Citrix now Microsoft is actually targeting to solve many of the gaps that we see with today services for BYOx scenarios. For instance how to manage what you want on top of the device (Azure, Intune, SkyDrive, Work Folders etc…) in a controllable fashion and not a full managed device that costs you a fortune to manage… and ShareFile, Box and others are great solutions that have many features that SkyDrive doesn’t have. But there is one thing that they all lack (or please enlighten me!!):
Encryption at rest on Windows, OS X and Linux OS’s/distributions, here all providers are leaning on that you already have hard drive encryption like BitLocker etc. But who manages that then? Can you then say that your service is “BYOD-compliant”? I wouldn’t say so… It’s not only SmartPhones and Tablet devices that we loose… but here Microsoft and SkyDrive may be the first to come with encryption on at least Windows 8.1 devices and somewhat manageable…
But again back to the announcement from Microsoft and SkyDrive:
Microsoft announced today that it is giving business users more storage space and a better way to share files across multiple devices. As first reported by TechCrunch, through its SkyDrive Pro accounts, employees will now receive 25GB of storage to start out with, a sharp increase from 7GB — and even this capacity can be increased to 50GB or even 100GB. Additionally, using SkyDrive’s Shared with Me view, users can share files with their friends and co-workers securely and in real-time.
According to Microsoft Senior Product Managers Mark Kashman and Tejas Mehta, the new storage space limits will be available for both new and existing customers.
This certainly makes the service standout among its competitors, namely Dropbox and Box. It was only about a week or so ago when the latter heralded in the launch of a new pricing plan aiming to increase the number of small businesses using its service. For personal users, Box also wound up doubling the amount of free storage they received.
Here’s how you can figure out the overall storage for each user:
With Office 365, you get 25 GB of SkyDrive Pro storage + 25 GB of email storage + 5 GB for each site mailbox you create + your total available tenant storage, which for every Office 365 business customer starts at 10 GB + (500 MB x # of user(s)1).
While Dropbox, Box, and Hightail certainly are some of the popular services out there today, SkyDrive isn’t something to be trifled with either. Through its integration with the Surface, Windows Phone, and other Microsoft products, along with iOS and Android devices, it has the potential to be a very powerful service.
As for the new sharing feature, just like you would perhaps see in Google Drive or any other cloud storage service, SkyDrive Pro is now offering a Shared with Me view that lets you take a shared document and view, edit, re-share, download, and more — all as if it were in your own storage bin.
But Microsoft isn’t stopping there, as it is adding several minor, but interesting enhancements to SkyDrive. The company has also increased the overall file upload limit to its SharePoint Online service to 2GB per file. Files placed into the recycle bin will now remain…
Continue reading here!
//Richard
Good News: Office 365 ProPlus can be activated on RDS – #RDS, #XenApp, #Citrix
This is interesting and good news!
Thanks for sharing Jesper_Osgaard!!!
In case you missed it – the latest Product Use Rights (january 2013) now includes a note under Additional Terms #3, page 82
“3. Each user may also use one of the five activations on a network server with the Remote Desktop Services (RDS) role enabled”
Note: Office 365 ProPlus is the upcoming version of Office 365
Source:Â Good News: Office 365 ProPlus can be activated on network server with RDS role enabledÂ
//Richard
Large collection of Free #Microsoft #eBooks via @anders_keis
This is a great contribution! Thx a lot Anders Keis Hansen for providing the info to me!
A lot of ebooks provided by Microsoft Press including: SharePoint, Visual Studio, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Office 365, Office 2010, SQL Server 2012, Azure, and more.
Many of these ebooks are offered in three formats – PDF, Mobi (Kindle) and epub. Hope you find them useful & Happy Learning!
These books were originally posted by Eric Ligman, you can read the original posts from here:Â
1- Large collection of Free Microsoft eBooks for you, including: SharePoint, Visual Studio, Windows Phone, Windows 8, Office 365, Office 2010, SQL Server 2012, Azure, and more.
2- Another large collection of Free Microsoft eBooks and Resource Kits for you, including: SharePoint 2013, Office 2013, Office 365, Duet 2.0, Azure, Cloud, Windows Phone, Lync, Dynamics CRM, and more.
Continue reading and downloading here!
//Richard
The IT Melting Pot! 