Office 365 guide series – Information Rights Management in SharePoint Online

Hi folks, long time no blogging…

A lot has happened in my life since I last updated my blog, I switched jobs so I have a slightly new focus now in my workplace, it has shifted more against SharePoint Online and Office 365. Say what you want about the cloud service named Office 365 but Microsoft is determined…to make it work and piece by piece it gains in value.

One of the great things offered in Office 365 that is also part of the SharePoint Online offering, is Information Rights Management. Thru the use of the other cloud service Azure Rights Management Service (Azure RMS), real IRM protection can be offered to all SharePoint Online customers on the adequate subscription plan. There is still a lot to be done with the service, but as is, it is way, WAY better than nothing, which is what most people have available today in their current solution. IRM or RMS is available to all customers with an onpremises solution as well, but setting RMS up is a challenge for any administrator. In SharePoint online, you will have it up and running in a total of 5 clicks…(depending on what you count as a click…)

IRM – Its all about stopping unwanted access

And what is so great about this IRM, RMS or DRM you may wonder? A beloved child has many names (Old saying in Sweden), well…it is fantastic. IRM offers you the possibility to set a policy on documents (and email messages) that allows you to specify what the user may or may not do with the document, you may also specify exactly what user or grop may or may not read, write, print, download and so on. The really great thing with IRM is that even if you put a document on a USB drive and someone gets their hand on that USB drive, they still need to authenticate against the Azure RMS service before getting any access at all to the document, and even then, what you may do is controlled by the IRM policy. You are in Control of the data even after the document leaves your controlled environment…not bad huh?

So, how is all this greatness achieved you ask? Well, I will not go into all the magic behind the scenes in this post, but I will show you how you can do it yourself, in your current Office 365 tenant or if you prefer, in an evaluation tenant to avoid the risk of affecting your users (which is virtually impossible anyway but just as a precaution…and to make your bosses feel safe).
Lets get started, jump drectly to a section using the links below:

The complete guide to enabling IRM protection in a SharePoint document library	Jump straigt to the guide, a step by step on how you implement RMS and IRM protection in SharePoint Online.
Who gets access to RMS, license plans listed	Get the list of what subscription plan includes RMS and what does not.
What works and what doesn’t?	The cmplete list of supported OS’s and Applications that support Azure RMS and the ones that do no yet support Azure RMS.
About the IRM/RMS technology – How does it work, what does it do?	The functionality explained.
References/Links – Find the information online	Link to when you get all the info you need in the sometimes difficult Microsoft TechNet way…

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The complete guide to enabling IRM protection in a SharePoint document library

This is done in four steps:
– Activate Azure RMS in the Office 365 administration portal.
– Activate RMS in SharePoint online
– Create and set a IRM policy in a document library
– Quickly verify your Information Rights Management

Step 1. Activate Azure RMS in the Office 365 administration portal.

1.1 Log on to your Offcie 365 tenant as a global administrator, go to the Office 365 admin center. You will find the shortcut in the admin dropdown.

1.2 The Office 365 admin center

1.3 Now select on the lefthand menu, service settings

1.4 In the top menu select ‘rights management’

1.5 Click on the link to Manage your ‘Azure Rights Management’

1.6 This is where you leave your Office 365 tenant, note the URL you now se in your browsers address field:

1.7 In Azure RMS you will be met by this text saying that yiou have not activated Rights Management yet.

1.8 In order to activate the RM feature, click on ‘activate’…DUH! Then click on ‘activate’ again…if you are absolutely sure…

1.9 Wait for it….

1.10 Now you should see this, A nice green checkmark telling you that Rights Managemen has been activated.

1.11 Done! Now you can move on with activating Rights Management in your SharePoint Online admin portal. The steps you have now taken makes the RMS service available in all parts of your Office 365 tenant, like in Exchange, SharePoint (and Lync).
(As you can see, you can lso make some additional configurations of RMS, for example you can create your own custom policys, fr some reason though, you are required to sign up for a separate Azure RMS suscription for this…the link to where you sign up is added to the page to make things simpler for you)

Step 2. Activate RMS in SharePoint online

2.1 Go to the SharePoint administration portal. Find the shortcut in the Admin dropdown.

2.2 In the lefthand pane, select Settings.

2.3 Scroll downto the section named ‘Information Rights Management (IRM)’

2.4 Under Information Rights Management (IRM), on the right side, select ‘Use the IRM service specified in your configuration’

2.5 Click on the ‘Refresh IRM Settings’ button. (Buttons…welll…maybe they are touch buttons?)

2.6 In ashort while, you will see the text ‘We successfully refreshed your settings’ below the button.

2.7 Done! This means that IRM functionality has been enabled in your SharePoint Online tenant and the IRM settings will now be available in SharePoint.

Note! If you have not previously activated IRM in your Office 365 admin portal, then you will see this massage instead:

If that is the case, simply go back to Step 1 in this guide and activate IRM in Office 365 first.

Step 3. Create and set a IRM policy in a document library

3.1 Go to a site in your SharePoint Online site collection of choice (can be the rootsite or a subsite), go to a document library (default is probably ‘Documents’).
Now, click on the ‘Library’ tab.

3.2 To the right in the ribbon, click on ‘Library Settings’

3.3 Click on ‘Information Rights Management’

3.4 This is the Information Rights settings for the current Document Library, what you change here will only affect this document library and the documents in it. Remember though, that what you change here will affect ALL documents in this library, in all folders, of all types. By default, IRM is disabled and has no affect at all.

3.5 What you see here, is only the name and the description and the activate button. In order to see more of the settings, click on SHOW OPTIONS. This offers all the settings that are currently available for a document library in SharePoint Online.
Start now by giving your policy a name and type in a description, this is what will be shown to the user, so its better to use a good explainatory description.

3.6 Click on ‘SHOW OPTIONS’. Configure what the policy is and what is allowed and what isn’t. For the sake of easily verifying the functionality, only configure that the document cannot be opened in a browser. In the first section, ‘Set additional IRM library settings’ check the box to prevent the documents from opening in the browser.

3.7 The two other sections has even more options, ‘Configure document access rights’…

3.8 …and ‘Set group protection and credentials interval’.

3.9 When you have configurd the policy like you want it, hit Ok.

3.10 Done! All document in your library are now protected uing the IRM policy you configred. THat IRM is used cannot be seen unless you have access to the IRM setting in the Library Settings. What a regular user can see, is the effect of the policy alone.

3.11 Whithout the policy activated you get a preview of the document(offered by Office Web Apps) and the option to view and edit in browser like below:

3.12 When the policy has been activated, you do not get any preview and the view and edit in browser options are gone.

3.13 You are now done, your document library is IRM protected using Azure Rights Management Service.

Step 4. Quickly verify your Information Rights Management

4.1 Upload a Word document to the document library. (Your document is now IRM protected)

4.2 Click on Edit, you should be prompted to download the document. Cancel the dialog.

4.3 Click on the three dots, you should see a notice that a preview is prevented by RMS.

4.4 You will also notice that the dropdown many does not offer any choice to open in browser or preview in browser.

4.5 Done!

Note: A good bestpractise is to Always verify that your IRM protection policy is activated and works as expected. Some settings must be tested using a Office client application andsome can be tested onin like in this scnario.

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Who gets access to RMS, license plans listed

Licensing option	Office 365 Small Business	Office 365 Small Business Premium	Office 365 Midsize Business	Office 365 Enterprise E2Office 365 Education A2	Office 365 Enterprise E3Office 365 Education A3Office 365 Government G3	Office 365 Enterprise E4Office 365 Education A4Office 365 Government G4	Office 365 Enterprise K1	SharePoint Plan 2	Exchange Online Plan 2
Information Rights Protection (IRM)	No	No	No	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	No

Like you can see, far from all license plans include RMS.

In addition to the Ofice 35 subscptions that include RMS, there is also a RMS for individuals subscription that will allow a user outside of the organization to open and access IRM protected documents from an organizaton that uses IRM protection using RMS.

Note: If you have a subscription plan that does not include RMS, like a Office 65 E1 or E2, then you can get the RMS functionality as an add-on from Micosoft (Azure RMS Standalone). Talk to you account represenative or your LAR/license vendor. This optio cos a lot less than to upgrade to a E3 plan simply for the RMS functionalty.

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What works and what doesn’t?

So, we wat to use RMS and IRM protection, but what is supported, can we use it whereever we want and whenever we want? No, you can’t…
There are some things that work and sometings that don’t work, I have tried to list them all blow, as time goes by, Micrsoft will most likely subtract from the No list and add to the Yes list *.

Implementation	Supports Azure RMS
Operating Systems
Windows 7 Professional SP0	Yes
Windows 7 Enterprise SP0	Yes
Windows 7 Ultimate SP0	Yes
Windows 7 Professional SP1	Yes
Windows 7 Enterprise SP1	Yes
Windows 7 Ultimate SP1	Yes
Windows 8 Pro	Yes
Windows 8 Enterprise	Yes
Windows 8.1 Pro	Yes
Windows 8.1 Enterprise	Yes
Mac OS X (minimum 10.7, Lion)	Yes
Mobile Devices
Windows Phone 8	Yes
Android 4.0.3	Yes
iOS 6.0	Yes
Windows 8 RT	Yes
Windows 8.1 RT	Yes
Applications
Office 365
Office Professional Plus 2013	Yes
Office Professional 2010 (With RMS addon)	Yes
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011	No
Microsoft Office for iPad	No
Microsoft OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive)	No
Microsoft OneDrive for Business (formerly SkyDrive Pro)	No (!)
Sharing Applications
Minimum OS version of Windows 7 Service Pack 1	Yes
For Mac OS	No
On premise Servers
Exchange 2013	Yes
Exchange 2010	Yes
SharePoint Server 2013	Yes
SharePoint Server 2010	Yes
Windows Server 2012 (FCI)	Yes
Windows Server 2012 R2 (FCI)	Yes

* I asume that all else not listed here does not support Azure RMS.

The RMS connector is supported on Windows Server 2012 R2, Windows Server 2012, and Windows Server 2008 R2.

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About the IRM/RMS technology – How does it work, what does it do?

(This section is a direct quote from Microsoft, they actually have a pretty good short and to the point explaination here.)

What is Azure Rights Management:

Azure Rights Management lets you encrypt and assign usage restrictions to content when your organization subscribes to Microsoft online services. Rights Management helps protect content that is created and exchanged by using Microsoft Office as well as other applications or services that have been updated to integrate with the Rights Management service. By implementing a cloud-based rights management service, Rights Management provides an alternative for organizations seeking information protection capabilities within Microsoft Office 365.

Rights management provides the following:

Safeguards sensitive information
Applications and services such as Microsoft Office 2010 and Microsoft Office Professional Plus 2013, SharePoint Online and Microsoft Exchange Online are enabled to help safeguard sensitive information. Users and administrators can define who can open, modify, print, forward, or take other actions with the information. Organizations are provided usage policy templates such as “Company Confidential – Read Only” that can be applied directly to the information.

Provides persistent protection
Rights Management persists protection of file data when at rest and in motion. Once information is locked, only trusted entities that were granted usage rights under the specified conditions (if any) can unlock or decrypt the information.

Supports closer management of usage rights and conditions
Organizations and individuals can assign usage rights and conditions using rights management that define how a specific trusted entity can use rights-protected content. Examples of usage rights are permission to read, copy, print, save, forward, and edit. Usage rights can be accompanied by conditions, such as when those rights expire.

Integrates rights management with Office 365
Rights Management is integrated with SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and other Office 2010 and Office Professional Plus 2013 applications to provide rights management functionality across the Microsoft Office suite.

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References

Office 365 Information Protection using Azure Rights Management
http://blogs.technet.com/b/rms/archive/2013/11/11/office-365-information-protection-using-azure-rights-management.aspx

Set up Information Rights Management (IRM) in SharePoint admin center
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-sharepoint-online-enterprise-help/set-up-information-rights-management-irm-in-sharepoint-admin-center-HA102895193.aspx

Azure Rights Management
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj585024.aspx

Administering Azure Rights Management by Using Windows PowerShell
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj585027.aspx

Requirements for Azure Rights Management
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn655136.aspx

Cloud subscriptions that support Azure RMS
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dn655136.aspx#BKMK_SupportedSubscriptions

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Enjoy!

Regards

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The Iphone Apps of SharePoint Online and Office 365

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This time I will shed some light on what Microsoft have made available for the Iphone users out there. I’m usng different phones over time, but I have an Iphone and I discovered that there is actually quite a lot you can do from and on the Iphone that is SharePoint Online related (Only focusing on the supported Microsoft realesed here)
In this post I will try to list them all and write a bit about what you can do with them.

This is the list of SharePoint Online related apps available (2014-03-23)

1. OneDrive for Business (Formarly SkyDrive Pro)
2. Office Mobile for Office 365 Subscribers
3. SharePoint Newsfeed
4. Microsoft OneNote for Iphone
5. Office 365 Admin
6. OWA for Iphone
7. Microsoft Rights Management Sharing

Lets start to show what you can see in the App store where they are all available as free downloads, first one out is OneDrive for Business. This is not a Deep dive into technology or functionality or detailed feature sets, but rather a listing of what is available, see what can be done in the gui, the next step is your own, download the apps and try them out for yourselves.

Good luck!

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1. OneDrive for Business (Formarly known as SkyDrive Pro)

This is as good as they get, you can easily access your personal and shared files at any time (Located in your MySite or other organizational sites within the Office 365 tenant). OneDrive for Business will keep your OneDrive files in synch at all times and available online or offline.
OneDrive for Business or SkyDrive Pro as it was originally called, is the shit, no doubt about it.

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2. Office Mobile for Office 365 Subscribers

These are the classical Office application, do some final Changes or touch ups, create the files you need while on the road without any Computer. This is a complete ‘mini Office’ compatible with Office 365.

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3. SharePoint Newsfeed

SharePoint Newsfeed, follow what is happening in your organizations social and Corporate newsfeeds. This app will make sure that you are up to date at all times.

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4. Microsoft OneNote for Iphone

OneNote…if you don’t use it today, start using it! It is a really really good companion in your daily work, not sure if the App can replace the real application, but you can read and edit your OneNote files in your phone, how cool is that?

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5. Office 365 Admin

For the Office 365 Administrator, or for the partners out there monitoring the Office 365 tenants for customers, this is the best app of them all(except for OneDrive for Business obviously). In the Admin ‘hub’ you can get the status of all the services in your Office 365 tenant. You see all the major services status on the start page, then you can drill down to what is failing, which Component has the issue, and you can read the log from the Microsoft maintenance staff, what they are doing to solve the issue. This is great. If onluy you could add users and reset their passwords as well…but you can’t get Everything. A good monitor/dashboard from Microsoft this anyway.

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6. OWA for Iphone

Well, no need to explain, this is the OWA (Outlook Web App, not Office Web Apps) experience in your Iphone. You get email, calendar and Contacts in your hand. In a familiar format.

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7. Microsoft Rights Management Sharing

Microsoft Rights Management Sharing. Well…this is what it says, use the App to set IRM protection on files and to open IRM protected files. IRM protected files, and you can access them on your Iphone, who would have thought…?

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Ok, thats it. These are the Apps on the Iphone that are related in one or many ways to SharePoint Online, or at least to Office 365. They are all written by Microsoft Corporation and they are free to download from the App store.

References

See Appstore in your Iphone, search for Microsoft Corporation and you will find them all.

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Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the third in the Office 365 and SharePoint Online series.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online (This post)

This time I will explain how to:

Use Office templates within your SharePoint Online document libraries. In every organisation, or at least the majority, you talk about templates and you know that you have them, somewhere, but in the end, you and everyone else end up using an existing document and make changes, like you take an agreement from one customer and make changes to the numbers and customer names…would it not be nice if you could get everyone to use the same template? And if a change to the template affected everyone? Wouldn’t that be just smashing eh?

Now I’ll show you the easy steps you have to follow to just get started, We’ll use a simple word template in this example, but you can use any template that you allready have.

Note: In this guide, I will show the quick and easy method, in a later post, I wil show how to use Content Types wich will also allow you to use custom templates, but in a much more controlled way. A link to that post will be added here when that guide has been posted.

Start by locating a word template, or create one, add some info to the header with logo and company name and address maybe, and add something to the footer for example and save the file as a dotx file. Save it locally so that you easily can access it when we want to upload it to our SharePoint online. – I have created a simple letter template for the company DonkeyMind, with their logo and some additional info in it. I’ll use this in my step by step guide below. I saved this as letter.dotx in my ..\documents\DonkeyMind templates\ folder.

In a SharePoint Online site, now do this:

1.0 Upload the template file. This is not the easies thing to do, unfortunately Microsoft has choosen to make it a lot harder in SPO and SharePoint 2013 than it really has to be (Browse button from 2010 has been removed), unknown to me why. But this is how you do it:

1.1 Browse to your document library in SharePoit online, where you want to use your own custom document template.

1.2 Click the tab, Library. This will present the ribbon for you with the settings available for a document library.

1.3 In the ribbon, click on Open with Explorer

Note: The site URL has to be added to the ‘Local intranet sites’ or ‘Trusted sites’ with added logon automatically, if it isn’t, you will get a popup telling you that it will not work otherwise.

1.4 Click ok on the Internet Explorer Security warning

1.5 The library will now open in a Explorer window, in this windows you will see a folder named forms which is a bit greyed out.

1.6 Double-click on the folder forms, now you will see the following list of files

1.7 Now, in a separate explorer window on your computer, locate your saved template file (dotx)

Note: In my case, I stored it under ..\Documents\DonkeyMind templates\

1.8 Put the tw0 explorer windows side by side

1.9 Drag and drop the template file from your local folder to the SharePoint library forms folder

1.10 The file will now be uploaded to the SharePoint forms folder

2.0 When the file is uploaded ok, go back to your browser and the document library

2.1 Now, we need to change the template used from the default template.dotx to our own template, in my case, letter.dotx. Again, click on the Library tab.

2.2 Click on Library Settings

2.3 In the Library Settings dialog, click on Advanced settings

2.4 Locate the Document Template section

2.5 Change the filename in the Template URL to reflect your template files name

2.6 Click on OK

2.7 Click on Documents in the ‘breadcrumbs’ to go back to the library again.

2.8 Click on the Files tab

2.9 Now, on the New Document button, click on the dropdown and New Document

2.10 Press Yes in the dialog asking if you really want to open this file, because you do…

Note: Avoid this by changing the Trust Center settings in your Office applications.
1. Allow trusted locations on my network.
2. Add new location
3. Type in the https path to your SharePoint Online tenant
(See references for 2007 and 2010)

2.11 You may also get prompted for your username/email address for the Office 365 account. Type it in and press Next

Note: This dialog only shows up if you are not logged into your office applications using your Office 365 account

2.12 And Password…Sign in

2.13 The new document opens, based on the template

2.14 When you have types your letter and are done, simply press Save, this will show you the save as dialog with the path to the SharePoint document library at the top

2.15 Select that and type in a filename and save the file

2.16 You are done, use the New Documents button to create your standard letters based on the custom template, again and again.

3.0 Done!

Note: All the same steps apply in SPO as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, exept for the ‘add site URL to trusted sites’ issue. In an onprem situation the URL is most of the time already considered Trusted or Local intranet.

References

Learn how to set up a template for a library.

How to enable or disable hyperlink warning messages in 2007 Office programs and in Office 2010 programs
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/925757

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Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

SP2013logo

Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the second in the Office 365 and SharePoint Online series.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata (This post)

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

This time, I will explain how to:

Use Managed metadata and the termstore to control your Navigation.

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This is not as complicated as it may seem, the difficult parts have been taken care of by Microsoft when setting up the ManagedMatadata Service Application for us.

Navigation is part of the Publishing Infrastructure features in SharePoint, so in order to manage Navigation, the Publishing features must be activated. So if you do not already have it activated, lets do so now.
In your SharePoint root site: https://orgname.sharepoint.com (in my case I’m using a separate Site Collection for this https://blksthl.sharepoint.com/sites/donkeymind) do this:
1. Go to Site settings.
2. In Site settings, locate the column Site Collection Administration, click on Site collection features

3. In the list of Site Collection features, scroll down to the one called SharePoint Server Publishing Infrastructure

4. On the far right, click on Activate

5. Wait for it, it will take a little while and then it will to show that it is Active. Scroll to the top while waiting, there you will see the ‘Working on it twirl’…

6. Next step is to go back to Site Settings, and locate the category Look and Feel and there you now have Navigation.

7. Click on Navigation.
8. The Navigation settings will by default be configured to use Structural Navigation

Note!
You have the same choice for both the Global Navigation (Top) and the Current Navigation (Left)
In this guide, we will focus on the global, but in order to manage the current navigation follow the same steps.

9. We want to change the Global Navigation setting to Managed Navigation as below.

10. Scroll down a bit past the Current Navigation setting to the area called Managed Navigation: Term set
11. Here you will see your Term Store content

12. Expand the Taxonomy node, and you will see the shared terms and the site collection specific node, in my example: Site Collection – blksthl.sharepoint.com-sites-donkeymind

13. Click on the button Create Term Set and a termset for your navigation will be created.

14. In the Term Store tree you will also see a new node:

15. This is were your navigation entries will be stored. Next we will go to the Term Store Management Tool to start on our new navigation.
16. Before you do, notice the setting below the term windows, these settings will allow you to control what happens when new pages are created.
17. Make changes if you want to, I’ll just leave them as is, I will be creating subsites, not pages.

18. Now, click on the link to the Term Store Management Tool

19. or if you go via Site settings, find the Site Administration Category

20. Click on Term store management
21. In the Term Store Management Tool, you will same as before, see some shared metadata and a site collection node.
22. Expand the site collection node, now you will see the Navigation node we just created.

23. In this example, I will add an entry to the global navigation that is for a subsite I have created, named SubDonkey. It will only be one entry in the navigation and that will open my subsite SubDonkey.
24. Right-click on orgname Navigation

25. Click on Create Term
26. Type in the name of the term, use the same name as you want to show up in the Navigation when done, in my case I named it SubDonkey, hit enter
27. A new empty termlabel will show up but simply click on the new term to make it go away.

28. When the new term is selected, you get a list of choices and configurations you can make.
29. You can here type in a description, add a second label, language and some more. Let this page be as it is.
30. Now click on the tab Navigation

31. This brings up a new page of navigation specific settings.

32. In here, I’m making a few modifications.
33. I add a Navigation Hoover Text: Take me to the SubDonkey.
34. I set Visible In Menus to: Show in Global Navigation Only (deselect the show in current)

35. I select Simple Link or Header, I hit browse and locate my subsite

36. select the icon for the subsite, like in my case, SubDonkey.

37. Click on Insert at the bottom right.

38. Verify your navigational settings for the new node. When done, hit the Save button.

39. Now you are done, go to your rootsite to verify the result.

40. Note the SubDonkey Navigational link with the Hoover Text showing (Mouse is over in image).
41. Repeat the steps 20 to 40 to add more terms and new nodes to your navigation.

Note!
Do not be afraid of trying new things, link to pages, to external sites, you can always delete the node if you don’t like the result.

42. Done!

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Note: All the same steps apply in SharePoint Online as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, you will need to first configure the Managed Metdata Sevice Application before any of these steps can be performed though.

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References

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None so far 🙂

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Enjoy!

Regards

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Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

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Greetings SharePoint Online users!

This is the first in a series of Office 365 and SharePoint Online guides primarily aimed at users and power users, my aim with these guides is to show in an easy to grasp way, how you do a few relatively easy but important tasks in SharePoint Online/Office 365. Tasks that will give you a lot of functionality with relatively little effort. Since a lot have been covered already for SharePoint onprem in blogs and other online documentation like TechNet, but not specifically for Office 365 or SharePoint Onlne, I feel that there is a gap to fill here.

1. Office 365 guide series – Create a new list from an Excel spreadsheet

2. Office 365 guide series – A guide to SharePoint Navigation using metadata

3. Office 365 guide series – Using your document templates in SharePoint online

This first time, I will explain how to:

Create a new custom list from an existing excel spreadsheet
This task is simple if everything goes smoothly, but if you have never done it before, or if you have tried but got stuck on any of the little hickups you may encounter, then this may be the perfect guide for you.

– Start by creating your Excel spreadsheet. Make sure that it is a xlsx file. You may also use an existing spreadsheet with your listdata, copy from an old file, save another format as xlsx.

In the spreadsheet, follow the following rules to get a good result:
– Make sure that you do not have any empty column headers between columns. This will cause all headers to be imported as row 1 instead of beeing headers, new column headers will be created as 1, 2, 3 and so on.
– Keep the spreadsheet ‘clean’, remove empty rows, empty columns and any text above the header row and to the right or under of the table or cell range.
– The first column to the left will be the default edit field in the SharePoint list. Make sure that it has values on all rows.
– For best result, avoid formulas with calculated values.
– Use Excel 2013.

In a SharePoint Online site, do this:
1. Decide on a name for the list, it will be the URL and name of the list.
2. Go to the ‘cogs’/Settings and select Add an app

3. You will now see a list of all available apps (installed)
4. Search for Import or scroll down until you find the app called Import Spreadsheet
5. Click on Import Spreadsheet

6. Type in the Name of the new list
7. Type in a optional Description
8. At the File location field, click Browse…
9. Browse to your xlsx file on your computer
10. Click on Import

11. The Import Wizard starts, by default, the Range type is set to Table Range
12. Change this to Range of cells
13. Click in the Select Range field
14. In the Spreadsheet, select the top left cell and then make sure that you select the entire table of data you want imported
15. It should now read something similar to: Sheet1!$A$1:$G$400 (top left : bottom right)

16. Now you click on Import
17. You may now get a logonprompt from Excel, enter the emailaddress for the SPO account and click next
18. Enter the account password and click on Sign in
19. Excel will now create the list and start importing the data, you will see a little progressbar at the bottom of the Excel application.
20. When the import is done, the new list will open and you will see the columns from the top

Note: You may note sometimes that a ‘mailto:’ has been added to the email column values.

This is added in excel but hidden when a cell is formatted as an email address. In the example above, note that the first row has the value of ‘Email’ which made the list field be formatted as single line of text instead of email.
The trick is most of the time to make sure that all fieldvalues in a column are consistent in format. One cell with a different format will cause the entire column to get a different formatting.

21. Done!

– You may now want to add a link in the left hand navigation to the list. Check the url in the addressbar of IE and copy it.
– Click on EDIT LINKS
– Click on +Link
– Type in the Text to display (will be seen in the navigation), for example ‘Contacts’ and paste the URL into Address
– Click OK
– Try the link out to make sure
– Done! (Again)

Error list

1
You get ‘The specified file is not a valid spreadsheet or contains no data to import’
When: When you browse to your Excel spreadsheet and click Import
Fix: Add site URL to trusted sites in Internet Explorer, it has to be in either trusted sites or Local Intranet sites.

2
A new header row is created instead of the headers I got (Column1, Column2, Column3…) and the headers becomes values if the first datarow
When: You have one or many empty headers in your cellrange
Fix: Remove all columns with blank headers, or add a value to them, this is only within your cell span.

3
If you get the error, ‘An unexpected error has occured. (-2147467259)’
When: Something is wrong with the SPO User session you have open
Fix: Sign out of your SPO session, close all IE windows, Close Excel – logon again to SPO, Add app…same procedure as last time.

4
Very large files, field data types get wrong, you expect Single line of text but get Multiple lines of text
When: The cellrange probably contain one or more ‘special’ values that is interpreted by excel/SPO as something else than it is.
Fix: With large files, create a new excelfile with only header and one row, make sure that the header row or the data row do not contain any value or characters out of the ordinary. Then, copy paste the rest of the rows in quick edit or datasheet view.

5
The wrong Column becomes the default edit column with the ‘…’ for the edit dropdown meny.
When: The column you want to use for default edit is not the first from the left.
Fix: First column will be the default edit field with the …make sute the Cell range starts with the top left cell.

‘

Note: All the same steps apply in SPO as well as SharePoint 2013 onpremise, exept for the Excel logon prompt and the ‘add site URL to trusted sites issue. In an onprem situation the URL is most of the time already considered Trusted or Local intranet.

References

None so far 🙂

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Skydrive Pro availability and functionality chart

‘

Wow! Skydrive Pro, what a great invention! (I know, It has been out there for a while already…)
I assume that you all know what Skydrive Pro is all about, but to just real short sum it up, SkyDrive Pro is:
A client application that allows a user to keep files synchronized between his device and his online SharePoint document library.

Now, the thing is, that apparently, you are not really supposed to run Skydrive pro unless you with that mean to it against anything but Office365…seems like this was meant to be but is slowly turning toward not meant to be…
I do realize that Office 365 is the future for Microsoft, but when such a great feature is available, and it must be a rather easy task to get the functionality dynamic so that you can connect to any webfolder, it is a shame that the support for running Skydrive Pro as a SharePoint onprem has so little support.

From my tests and research this is what works and what does not work:

	Windows 8.x x64	Windows 8.x 32bit	Windows 8.x RT	Windows Phone	IOS	Android	Mac OSX
App to Onprem *	No	No	No	Yes	No	3^rd party	No
Desktop to Onprem**	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No
App to Office 365 ***	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	3^rd party	No
Desktop to Office 365 ****	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	No	No

Please, do let me know if I am missing out on anything in the chart!

Windows 7 uses the same App and Desktop application as Windows 8x

* The App model with the possibility to connect to SharePoint 2013 Onprem
** A Desktop integrated application that connects to SharePoint 2013 Onprem
*** The App model with the possibility to connect to SharePoint Online/Office 365
**** A Desktop integrated application that connects to SharePoint Online/Office 365

So, if you want to make use of your internal onprem SharePoint 2013 farm for Skydrive Pro, you have to rely solely on Windows 8x or Windows Phone (Available in the Office hub)

The Skydrive pro desktop klient is available in Office 2013 versions as well, except for the Office 2013 for Windows RT

‘

Skydrive pro requires SharePoint 2013 or Office 365 (Eligable subscriptions)
SharePoint 2010 works only with SharePoint Workspace on Windows OS

References

What is SkyDrive Pro?
http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/sharepoint-server-help/what-is-skydrive-pro-HA102822076.aspx

What is SkyDrive Pro in SharePoint 2013 and how does it relate to SkyDrive?
http://www.toddklindt.com/blog/Lists/Posts/Post.aspx?ID=388

How to setup SkyDrive Pro on Mac OSX
http://www.dogu.no/blog/posts/2013/08/26/how-to-setup-skydrive-pro-on-mac-osx.aspx

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Fixing the ScriptResource.axd Errors 500 Internal Server Error

ASP.NET Ajax client-side framework (ScriptResource.axd) failed to load.
The status code returned from the server was: 500
Status: 50 The request is not supported
An unknown error occurred while processing the request on the server
asp.net ajax client-side framework failed to load
or

Greetings SharePoint geeks!

The problem
This post is purely created from a little peice of reality. I just experienced this issue myself in a SharePoint setup published externally thru TMG.

It is not entirely easy to troubleshoot, with quite a few components involved, however, I managed in the end and I will here also give you a few hints on how to go about t-shooting something like this.
Anyway, the circumstanses look like all or some of these:

– An internal SharePoint webserver (sp01)
– A TMG 2010 Server connected to the internal network and the internet, used for many more services than SharePoint
– A Web Application, CollabSite, published using a Firewall policy (from the SharePoint publishing wizard)
– A MySite Web Application also published using the same wizard but a separate policy.
– Both sites are configured to only use https/SSL with a certificate issues by an internal CA.
– An external DNS record pointing both URLs to the eexternal interface of the TMG server.
– Internal DNS records also Points to the external interface of the TMG

When connecting to the sites, mysite.domain.com or collabsite.domain.com from a client on the internet. The site prompts for authentication, the site loads…almost…a popup appears that states:

‘asp.net ajax client-side framework failed to load’

The dialogbox popup

Most of the site loads, you see the blue banner at the top but nothing more.
Reloading the site does not give you the popup again, but soads the site without any of the AJAX functionality, like the ribbon and buttons in the top right area. The ribbon will on some pages show up but it only shows the ‘working on it’ twirl instead of the tools/buttons you would expect.

I will here describe why this happens and how you fix it. But first, I will give you a short version…

Short version
1. SharePoint/IIS offers the ScriptResource.axd files in a compressed format
2. TMG cannot inspect compressed files unless Compression filter/http Compression is enabled
3. Enable the ‘Compression filter’ in TMG under the ‘System’ node
4. Apply, done!

Long version
First we look at what is requested and what is delivered. I use IEs built-in F12 Developer Toolbar, IE later than IE9 will have a Network tab and this allows you to trace the traffic. Same thing if you use Firebug/Fiddler or Wireshark, whatever is available. Browse to the failing site, press F12 and select the Network tab. Here you click on the ‘Start Capturing’ button

This causes IE to collect and show all traffic coming to and from the browser.

The two /ScriptResource GET statements are what fails. This is all that is needed to stop all AJAX functionality, now we know that it has to do with something we do not get down to the browser ok, but why is that, how do we fix it? We need more info to be able to answer those questions.
We can get a bit more info from IE still, select one of the GET lines and click on ‘Go to detailed view’ to see more about the issue.

We get some more info here but not really something that tells us what is going on.

I now tried the same thing from a client on the inside, I added an entry to the local hosts file and added the url and pointed it directly to the IP address of the SharePoint Web Server. With this setup the problem is gone. What this tells me is that the problem is most likely something to do with TMG and how that is configured. Lets take a look.
Logon to the TMG server, make sure that you have permissions to manage TMG.

Since the site at least loads, we have toi assume that https and the publishing in general works as expected. It can’t be all bad.
You will find the logs by clicking on ‘Logs and reports’ in the left pane on TMG.

First add a filter, it should include a filter for:
‘Log record type’ = Firewall or Web Rule
‘Log time’ = Live
‘Action’ != Connection status
‘URL’ contains collabsite (Something that will identify the traffic to your site)

Now, you need to start a Query.
Click on start Query, Then go to your browser with the failing site and refresh the site again.
This should give you something like this in the TMG log

You get a few more pieces of info, but still no real answer to what is wrong…now..it is time.
Now we give up and ask a friend like I did or Google/Bing up this blog post.
Apperantly, this is due to SharePoint ‘offering’ these scriptresource.axd files, which by the way are files that do not exist, they are virtual…anyway, the files are offered in a compressed form, and when TMG is not configured to use compression, it can’t handled files beeing offered in a compressed format, at least that is a more or less accurate explaination to the what happens.
To soolve the issue, yup, it is easy.

Note! DO not make any Changes to the TMG if it is used in production, most Changes made will or can affect the functionality of other applications than SharePoint. Do this when it fits.

In TMG, go to the system node in the leftpane

Locate the Filter named Compression Filter and right click, Enable. It has to be enabled in order for TMG to ‘undersdtand’ compressed files…

Now, make sure that the filer shows an enabled state

You might Think that the Compression filter is now enabled…but no. You have to apply the Changes to TMG first, do this by clicking on the Apply button

The Apply/Discard buttons show app after you have made any change to anything in TMG. Obviously, Discard does nothing and does a reset on all Changes you have made, Apply makes it real. The Changes are commited.

Now. You should be ok. Check again in the browser. To be 100% sure, Close the browser and start a new one, browse to the address and logon if you have to.
Click on F12, Networking, ‘StartCapturing’ and refresh the browser.

Now, as you can see, the ScriptResource.axd files load ok with a 200 back from IIS. Test functionality and you will see that you have full AJAX functionality restored!

Failed Connection Attempt
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 50 The request is not supported.
Rule: Sharepoint
Source: External (10.0.0.10:5656)
Destination: Local Host (collab.internal.domain.com 10.0.0.2:443)
Request: GET http://sp01.domain.com/ScriptResource.axd?d=j1ZhaacmuTdtaXKJmCKiL5N9BhFaiHjoyTepROfiG-dsvaranCGsbhWSAJThJOqErvtnV3f3JK-eai_4uSJCTTsp5WYkDzemQHrfpRrKq-8pIRNncb_vHcHCmvp1E9WFzbrvgUHEnQm3_A6TBJte_EfSWNQReBfix-6dygtTl0aL7MpGhhWiHQWrWzz1Cixd0&t=6119e399
Filter information: Req ID: 1658eda1
Protocol: https
User: Anonymous

Allowed Connection SERVERNAME DATE
Log type: Web Proxy (Reverse)
Status: 200 OK.
Rule: Sharepoint
Source: External (10.0.0.10:5656)
Destination: Local Host (sp01.internal.domain.com 10.0.0.2:443)
Request: GET http://sp01.domain.com/ScriptResource.axd?d=NPjpKZ25gaaa-UUxeA8GUGfiRsyQ0pvhyH-cklhXQDb_uZT9hy-ZNDagl3Gq5QHfhXPAOU_Ngxhu5H5qxWSnmMDCX-IUhKwtH01F785ZmXZ82_V3aeC5wX4aXxARfov8ZzG-FFwXtesO2xApQUCazxU3-FfqQL1NCZqTLM2ttQQhILR1azFbosx9-RCON3JR0&t=6119e399
Filter information: Req ID: 0670e57f
Protocol: https
User: anonymous

References

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Loopback Check configuration Tool released – free download

Hi All.

It is here! Free for all! DOWNLOAD

I am happy to announce that the Loopback Check Tool has finally been made available at Codeplex – https://loopbackchecktool.codeplex.com
No more last minute t-shooting the loopback check and ending up disabling it, trying to find the KB or a decent blog post on how to do it.

This Tool takes care of it all for you. Download the exe, put it on your servers, run it to configure the Loopback Check feature simple and easy.

Its simple.
Its small (21kb zipped)
Only click and make it happen
No installation, one single exe that works on most Windows Servers (and clients)
Disable the Loopback check completely (Not recommended)
Enable or Disable the Loopback Check function
Enable it and add excluded URLs (Recommended, now easy to do)

This is a preview image of what the tool looks like

The tool works fine on:

Windows Server 2012
Windows Server 2012 R2
Windows Server 2008 R2
Windows Server 2008
Windows 7
Windows 8
Windows 8.1
And probably a few more…

References:

You receive error 401.1 when you browse a Web site that uses Integrated Authentication and is hosted on IIS 5.1 or a later version
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/896861/en-us

A quick guide to configuring the Loopback check
https://blog.blksthl.com/2013/05/07/a-quick-guide-to-configuring-the-loopback-check/

DisableLoopbackCheck & SharePoint: What every admin and developer should know.
http://www.harbar.net/archive/2009/07/02/disableloopbackcheck-amp-sharepoint-what-every-admin-and-developer-should-know.aspx

Thanks to:

Herakles and Gutke!

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

Delete the Service Applications of SharePoint 2013

‘

Delete Service Applications in SharePoint 2013

Too much candy?

Cheers all!

I have noted that it is not always that easy to get rid of a Service Application should you wish to remove it completely. It can be either during initial setup, after a service breakdown or for any other reason, you want it gone and you want it to be completely gone when you are done. The next step is often to set it up again from scratch…so any remnants will cause you problems.

So, which way is the easiest to choose? I say PowerShell, 100(or maybe 99) out of 100.

Below, I have for your convenience created oneliners that will take care of all of your Service Applications for you.

After each Command, add the flag -RemoveData to have all data and databases removed at the same time.
Use the -RemoveData with care though, be absolutely sure that all data absolutely needs to be deleted Before using the flag.

‘
‘

The commands available, in alphabetical order

Service Application	Command
Access Services	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Access Services”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Access Services 2010	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Access Services 2010*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Application Discovery and Load Balancer Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Application Disc*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
App Management Service	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “App man*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Business Data Connectivity service	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Business*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Excel Services Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Excel*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Machine Translation Service	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Machine Translation*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Managed metadata	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Managed metadata*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
PerformancePoint Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Performance*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
PowerPoint Conversion Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “PowerPoint Conv*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Search Administration Web Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Search Admin*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Search Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Search Service*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Secure Store Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Secure Store*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Security Token Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Security Token*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
State Service	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “State Service*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Usage and Health Data Collection Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Usage and Health*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
User Profile Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “User Profile*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Visio Graphics Service	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Visio*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Word Automation Services	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Word auto*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()
Work Management Service Application	Remove-SPServiceApplication -id (Get-SPServiceApplication \| Where-Object {$_.typename -like “Work Management*”} \| Select-Object id).id.tostring()

Running the commands above will look something like this

Note: Beware of the signle and double quotes if you copy the code…

‘References

Delete a service application in SharePoint 2013
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee704553.aspx

Remove-SPServiceApplicationPool
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff607921.aspx

_________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn

A quick-guide to setting up OWA with SharePoint 2013 – start to finish

Future and existing Office Web Apps – OWA Lovers!
😁
This time, I just found that a quick guide like this was something that I needed myself, and since I could not find anything that was short and compact enough, I made my own guide…
This Little guide is completely based on the TechNet articles mentioned in the references section, but this is nontheless a lot shorter and easier to follow.

–

The old Clock at Oakwood station
–

–
–

Click your OWA task of choice:

Step 1

Prepare a 2008 R2 Server to run OWA

Prepare a 2012 Server to run OWA

Step 2

Install Office Web Apps Server

Step 3

Deploy a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm that uses HTTPS

Step 4

Configure SharePoint to use OWA over https (recommended)

Configure SharePoint to use OWA over http

Additional

Disconnect SharePoint from OWA farm

Configure the Default open behavior for documents

Credits and References

–
–
Prepare a 2008 R2 server to run Office Web Apps Server

1. Install the following software (Minimum required):

2. Import the server module
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)
Import-Module ServerManager

3. Add the required Features and Roles by running this command:
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Static-Content,Web-App-Dev,Web-Asp-Net,Web-Net-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,Web-Security,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-Filtering,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Mgmt-Console,Ink-Handwriting,IH-Ink-Support

4. Restart the server if prompted when the command finishes.

5. Done

TechNet Reference
Back to menu

–
–
Prepare a 2012 server to run Office Web Apps Server

1. In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator, add the required Features and Roles by running this command:
Add-WindowsFeature Web-Server,Web-Mgmt-Tools,Web-Mgmt-Console,Web-WebServer,Web-Common-Http,Web-Default-Doc,Web-Static-Content,Web-Performance,Web-Stat-Compression,Web-Dyn-Compression,Web-Security,Web-Filtering,Web-Windows-Auth,Web-App-Dev,Web-Net-Ext45,Web-Asp-Net45,Web-ISAPI-Ext,Web-ISAPI-Filter,Web-Includes,InkandHandwritingServices

2. Done

TechNet Reference
Back to menu

–
–
Install Office Web Apps Server
1. Download Office Web Apps Server from the Microsoft Download Center (Link).

2. Run Setup and walk through the steps in the wizard.
Windows Server 2012, open the .img file directly and run Setup.exe
Windows Server 2008 R2 SP1, use any program that can mount or extract .img files. Then run Setup.exe

3. Download and install the Office Web Apps Server update KB2810007.

TechNet Reference–
Back to menu

–
–
Deploy a single-server Office Web Apps Server farm that uses HTTPS

If components of the .NET Framework 3.5 were installed and then removed, you might see “500 Web Service Exceptions” or “500.21 – Internal Server Error” messages when you run OfficeWebApps cmdlets. To fix this, run the following sample commands from an elevated command prompt to clean up settings that could prevent Office Web Apps Server from functioning correctly:
In Windows Server 2008 R2:
%systemroot%\Microsoft.NET\Framework64\v4.0.30319\aspnet_regiis.exe -iru
iisreset /restart /noforceIn Windows Server 2012:
dism /online /enable-feature /featurename:IIS-ASPNET45

1. Create the Office Web Apps Server farm

New-OfficeWebAppsFarm -InternalUrl <InternalURL> -ExternalUrl <ExternalURL> -CertificateName <CertificateName> -EditingEnabled

<InternalURL> FQDN name of the server that runs Office Web Apps Server
<ExternalURL> FQDN name that can be accessed on the Internet
<CertificateName> Is the friendly name of the https/SSL certificate used
-EditingEnabled, optional and is added to enable editing in Office Web Apps

2. Verify that the Office Web Apps Server farm was created successfully

Go to the https://internal.url.com/hosting/discovery
If you see a (WOPI)-discovery XML file in your web browser then all is good.

Depending on the security settings of your web browser, you might see a message that prompts you to select Show all content before the contents of the discovery XML file are displayed.

3. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Configure SharePoint to use OWA over https (recommended)
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

The Web Application to be used must be configured to use Claims as authentication method, else OWA will not work.

1. Create new binding:
New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName <WacServerName>
(<WacServerName> must be the FQDN internal URL)

2. Verify current zone:
Get-SPWOPIZone

3. Change to internal-https if it is set to http:
Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-https

4. Verify https:
Get-SPWOPIZone

5. Verify functionality in a document library (Not using the system account, appearing as sharepoint\system)
Click on the ‘Three dots’ after a documents name and see if you get a preview, if you do, its all good!

6. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Configure SharePoint to use OWA over http
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

The Web Application to be used must be configured to use Claims as authentication method, else OWA will not work.

1. Create new binding:
New-SPWOPIBinding -ServerName -AllowHTTP
( must be the FQDN internal URL)

2. Verify current zone:
Get-SPWOPIZone

3. Change to internal-http:
Set-SPWOPIZone –zone “internal-http”

4. Verify http:
Get-SPWOPIZone

5. Check AllowoverHttp setting:
(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

6. Set AllowOAuthOverHttp to True.
$config = (Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig)
$config.AllowOAuthOverHttp = $true
$config.Update()

7. Verify change:
(Get-SPSecurityTokenServiceConfig).AllowOAuthOverHttp

8. Verify functionality in a document library (Not using the system account, appearing as sharepoint\system)
Click on the ‘Three dots’ after a documents name and see if you get a preview, if you do, its all good!

9. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Disconnect SharePoint from OWA farm
(In a PowerShell prompt running as administrator and with the SharePoint snapin loaded)

1. Remove the binding
Remove-SPWOPIBinding –All:$true

2. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
Configure the Default open behavior for documents

1. On a per farm level: Adjust the default open behavior on a per-file-type basis by using the New-SPWOPIBinding and Set-SPWOPIBinding Windows PowerShell cmdlets.

2. On a per Site Collection level by activating the ‘Open Documents in Client Applications by Default’ site Collection feature.

3. On a per Document library level using the Library setting – Advanced setting – ‘Default open behavior for browser-enabled documents’

4. Done

TechNet Reference –
Back to menu

–
–
References:

Deploy Office Web Apps Server
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219455.aspx

Configure SharePoint 2013 to use Office Web Apps
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431687.aspx

Configure the default open behavior for browser-enabled documents (Office Web Apps when used with SharePoint 2013)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee837425.aspx

Set-SPWOPIBinding
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/jj219454.aspx

Plan Office Web Apps (Used with SharePoint 2013)
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431682.aspx

SharePoint authentication requirements for Office Web Apps
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ff431682.aspx#authentication

Configuring Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 (Steve Peschka – Microsoft)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2012/07/23/configuring-office-web-apps-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx

Enabling Licensing and Editing for Office Web Apps in SharePoint 2013 (Steve Peschka – Microsoft)
http://blogs.technet.com/b/speschka/archive/2012/12/31/enabling-licensing-and-editing-for-office-web-apps-in-sharepoint-2013.aspx

Thanks to:

Mattias Gutke! All the time dude!
Ankie D – a great customer who has forced me to learn more on OWA
Stefan K – Another customer who made me refresh my knowledge
Steve Peschka, he wrote the original guide…see ref section

___________________________________________________________________________________________________

Enjoy!

Regards

Twitter | Technet Profile | LinkedIn