October 26
Configuration checklist for K-12 administrators
Interest in Live@edu in K-12 continues to grow at an outstanding pace… and this is a customer segment that has very specific needs around how they manage and maintain the service. Along with my teammates, we often run workshops where we drill into these on a 1:1 and broad basis… you can keep track of these here: http://www.educationwebcasts.com/Results.aspx?keyword=teaching.
One of my colleagues, Barbara Chung, worked to pull together a list of the typical things that typical K-12 customers consider, and optionally deploy. I have added some of my own thoughts, and I am delighted to include this for you here. Any comments are appreciated.
Using the EDUADMIN TOOL: https://eduadmin.live.com
1. Safe-list your internal mail servers and gateways: If you have an on-premises mail server(s) hosting accounts for faculty and staff, you will want to whitelist the IP addresses of your internal mail servers and gateways in order to guarantee delivery of messages between the internal mail organization and your Live@edu domain. https://eduadmin.live.com/IPFilter.aspx |
2. Configure your Sender ID (SPF) DNS setting: This setting is related to handling of SPAM. It allows your email domain to build a reputation as a ‘good’ sender. This helps to avoid having your entire domain blocked as a ‘bad’ sender by the major ISPs when you have a problem; for example when a machine in your domain is compromised and used to send SPAM. https://eduadmin.live.com/Mail.aspx |
3. Deploy some Co-Branding: The co-branding process removes ads from those properties that have them: Spaces, SkyDrive, etc.
Be sure to co-brand both Outlook Live and Windows Live even if you are only using Outlook Live. https://eduadmin.live.com/Cobrand.aspx |
4. Configure Critical Notifications: Create a distribution group with more than one contact to cover times when your main contact is absent. You should check for notifications daily. https://eduadmin.live.com/Details.aspx |
5. Familiarize yourself with the support options: This will always contain the correct information for filing a support ticket or calling the telephone hotline. https://eduadmin.live.com/Support.aspx |
6. Configure accepted domains if necessary: An accepted domain is a domain that you associate with your primary tenant domain that you want to use as follows: |
· Create users who will have multiple email addresses for a single mailbox; for example: astudent@myschool.org and astudent@myschool.tx.k12.us |
· Create users who want collaboration tools, but not email. For example, teachers whose email resides in an on-premises deployment on a different domain, may still wish to login to Office Live Workspaces with their school ID https://eduadmin.live.com/Domains.aspx |
7. Consider using Single-Sign-On (SSO): Lets your users sign on only once for access to both internal resources, such as a school portal, and their Live@edu email. Implementation of SSO often requires outside consulting services to implement. Ask your account manager if you need help finding a partner to assist you. https://eduadmin.live.com/SSO.aspx |
Using PowerShell or the Exchange Control Panel
1. Provision user accounts: · Consider naming conventions for user accounts, · Set custom properties for dynamic groups, and · create test mailboxes when necessary. Unlike usernames in Active Directory, usernames under Live@edu cannot be easily reused. For enterprise scalability and identity management from Active Directory to Live@edu considering using GalSync 2010. Deploying GalSync may require outside consulting help. If you need assistance in locating a partner to assist you, please contact your account manager. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc511395.aspx and http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd575560.aspx |
2. Review Group Options and Create Groups Groups offer powerful features to your Outlook Live users. Take a look at them in the Exchange Control Panel (ECP) tool. Groups can be managed from an automated GalSync process, from ECP (manually), or via PowerShell script. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd302403.aspx |
3. Configure and test large broadcast messages. SPAM filters that sit between your on-premise email system and Live@edu will affect how you configure large distribution groups. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd439355.aspx |
4. Review Mailbox plans and set a default for users: · Show/Hide user name from the GAL · Allow/Disallow mobile connections to the service (ActiveSync, POP, IMAP) · Allow/Disallow connection via full Outlook client · Allow/Disallow forwarding to text http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd229067.aspx |
5. Create LiveIDs for teachers, if required If teachers will use Office Live Workspaces, but not Outlook Live email, import their email addresses as Mail User accounts. This will require the setup of an Accepted Domain (see above) on your primary tenant domain for your on-premises domain that your teachers reside in. Creating Mail Users for your teachers will also put them into the student Global Address List. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd207277.aspx |
6. Create Mail Contacts for teachers, if required. If faculty will use not use any Live@edu applications, but you want their email addresses listed in the GAL, import the addresses as Mail Contacts. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd302404.aspx |
7. Create mailbox resources, if required. Resource mailboxes are special accounts that can be automatically reserved when a user sends a meeting request. Resources can be rooms, projects, sports fields—any shared resource. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd569933.aspx |
8. Delegate service administration as necessary. There are a range of delegation options available, some can be quite advanced, others very straightforward. Explore some of the options below to decide what is right for you. · Create additional Outlook Live Administrators: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc188669.aspx · Create a password reset role, and assign it to a user or group: http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd297481.aspx · Create a completely custom role: |
9. Configure Instant Messaging in Outlook Web Access: By default, we enable Live Messenger presence information to be controlled from within Outlook Live, and we also allow users to engage in IM conversations from within the interface. This can all be disabled however. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd875469.aspx |
10. Disable Subscriptions, if desired. Email Subscriptions is a great service that allows students to pull their mail in from any other accounts they might have into a consolidated inbox. In K-12 however, email subscriptions may cause a concern as it allows a student to directly pull content into their Outlook Live inbox that bypasses any filtering or controls that the school may have put in place for inbound email. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1355.entry |
11. Configure options for managing mail delivery, if required. Outlook Live offers tremendous opportunities to control and monitor mail flow in your organization. You may wish to block external domains from emailing your students, block students from emailing the outside world, create a bad word filter, etc. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd251303.aspx |
12. Configure rules for controlling mail flow, if required Administrators can define specific message attributes, or conditions, and the actions that they want applied to any message that contain those attributes. For example, you may wish to add a disclaimer to any outgoing messages. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/dd207276.aspx |
13. Disable users from modifying how they appear in the Global Address List, if required. By default, Outlook Live allows users to modify the attributes that describe themselves in the GAL. This can be turned off by an administrator if required. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1089.entry |
14. Disable users from creating new distribution groups, if required. By default, Outlook Live allows users to create and manage Distribution Groups in the GAL. This can be turned off by an administrator if required. http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/blog/cns!C76EAE4D4A509FBD!1161.entry |
15. Review Cross-Mailbox Search and Mail Delivery tools. For many reasons, you may wish to monitor what is happening in your users’ mailboxes. We offer a growing range of comprehensive tools to enable this. http://help.outlook.com/en-us/140/cc836952.aspx |
Other useful tips
1. Follow Live@edu mini-notices for K-12 on Twitter: www.twitter.com/k12liveatedu |
2. Ask questions about Outlook Live on our community. http://outlookliveanswers.com |
3. Subscribe to the Live@edu blog RSS feed http://liveatedu.spaces.live.com/ |
4. Block unused Live Services URLs at the firewall: Some organizations want to block some of the Live@edu apps at the firewall to prevent students from accessing them while at school. This is not a recommended practice, since—absent very restrictive Internet filtering--any student would still be able to take their school email address and sign up for any number of unauthorized applications on the Internet. |
Home.live.com – Live Homepage |
Skydrive.live.com – Live SkyDrive |
Spaces.live.com – Live Spaces |
Profile.live.com – User’s Live Profile Page |
Office.live.com – Office Live Workspaces |
***Note that children <14 can’t get to these pages even from home |
5. Consider the need to extending written policy regarding Internet service to include Live@edu |
6. Consider pros/cons of extending services to Parents |
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