Exchange Mailbox audit in office 365

Office 365 November 24, 2018 Leave a comment

Post July 2018 the mailbox audit will be enabled by default for all mailboxes in the cloud.

In a hybrid setup ,Once after the mailboxes are moved to the cloud the mailbox audit will be enabled after they are converted to mailboxes from mail enabled users.

Earlier we have to run the Set-Mailbox -AuditEnabled $True every time we add a new mailbox or a mailbox is migrated to the cloud so that mailbox Audit is turned on.

Once the mailbox audit logging is enabled for owner actions we might see lots of items getting occupied for user actions in audit folder. This Audit logs is stored individually on users mailboxes itself in Hidden audit folder.

Get-MailboxFolderStatistics -Identity Helpdesk@exchangequery.com | select name,itemsinfolder,foldersize

This audit folder will not come under the user mailbox quota. It will consume the recoverable items quota for each user mailbox. In order to overcome this mailbox quota limit for these recoverable items the storage quota for the recoverable items folder is automatically increased from 30 GB to 100 GB when a hold is placed on a mailbox in Exchange Online.

Without hold the default value will be 30 GB


We can also see that the audit will be enabled by default in the organizational config.

To enable audit org level – Set-OrganizationConfig -AuditDisabled $false
To disable audit orglevel – Set-OrganizationConfig -AuditDisabled $True

we can see the audit is enabled by default 

Get-Mailbox helpdesk | fl *audit*

 For AuditOwner we can see the below 

Get-Mailbox helpdesk | Select-Object -ExpandProperty auditowner

We can see the mailbox login which will record the client logins for the owner actions inclusive of protocols POP and IMAP. Apart from this we have for inbox rules and calendar delegation which will be definitely useful in terms of troubleshooting or investigation of an compromised account.

When your tenancy begins auditing all mailboxes by default, the per-mailbox AuditEnabled setting will be overridden. However, you may still choose to disable audits for a subset of your users if there is a business need. You can elect this option by configuring audit bypass associations on the identities you intend to ignore with the Set-MailboxAuditBypassAssociation cmdlet. We can also customize the audit logging entries based on our requirement using set-mailbox and -AuditOwner option.

Below command will bypass audit for the specified mailbox.

Get-Mailbox usteam | Set-MailboxAuditBypassAssociation -AuditBypassEnabled $true

We can run a audit report from the security and compliance center to generate audit report during an investigation. We have export operation as well.

More filter options are available 

Based on the monitored mailbox audit actions we can also create an alert and notify the information security team mailbox/group for these actions which are not meeting the organization compliance.

Over the next several months, Microsoft will enable the default-auditing configuration on all tenants with a steady ramp-up with all commercial customers to be covered by the end of the calendar year. So we can expect this to be covered for all tenants by the end of this calendar year.

Mailbox audits will be stored for all user mailboxes within the commercial service by default.
The default audit configuration will change and include more audit events.

Quick Tips – Search mailbox operation in office 365

Office 365 November 15, 2018 Leave a comment

In office 365 the search can be used to search in-place items from email, documents, Skype for business and Microsoft Teams.In this article we will look into the steps to search emails from  mailboxes present in office 365.

The search and delete operation can be executed when an important confidential  message is sent by mistake to unintended recipients, a suspicious message have been circulated to few users or it can be even a phishing email. Admin can run into any of the above scenario and can be requested to perform this action.

In office 365 we can use the native search-mailbox , compliance search or the content search available in the office 365 security and compliance center.

The search-mailbox is exactly similar to what we have in on premise.We have to be a member of Mailbox Search and Mailbox Import Export role group to execute the search and delete operation.

We need to establish PSSession to office 365 with below:

$Cred = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $Cred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session

Search-Mailbox

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Then we need to execute the search operation based on the search parameter , search query and operators as per our requirement to search the required data.

Example of basic search which allowed to log data to a target mailbox

Search-Mailbox -identity mbx@domain.com -SearchQuery ‘subject:test’ -Logonly -LogLevel full  -TargetMailbox mbx@domain.com -TargetFolder SearchResults

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The delete operation can be used to delete the content.

Search-Mailbox -Identity mbx@domain.com -SearchQuery ‘subject:test’ -DeleteContent

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Compliance Search

We can use the compliance search operation to search and delete any emails from mailboxes present in office 365. We need to establish new pssession to compliance as below.

$Cred = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.compliance.protection.outlook.com/powershell-liveid/ -Credential $UserCredential -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

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Once connected we can initiate new compliance search with New-Compliance search commandlet.

First New-Compliance search with required  parameter and content match query needs to be created.

New-ComplianceSearch -Description Marketing-Search -Name MarketingTeam -Exchangelocation alias@domain.com -ContentMatchQuery “‘Teach English in China'”

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Then we need to start the compliance search with Start-ComplianceSearch

Start-ComplianceSearch -Identity searchname

Post this operation we have 3 options with New-ComplianceSearchAction report only mode , export the searched data also delete the search results as below example.

Report Mode

New-ComplianceSearchAction -SearchName SearchName -Report

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Export Mode

New-ComplianceSearchAction  -SearchName SearchName -Export

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After we run the command with export once export is completed it will be available in the security and compliance center in the export section ready for download.

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We can also use the delete option

New-ComplianceSearchAction -SearchName SearchName Puirge -PurgeType softdelete

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Get-ComplianceSearch can be run to check the existing executed compliance searches.

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Content Search

We can also use the content search option available in office 365 security and compliance center. Here we can specify the content locations from where it has to be searching the required content.

Here we have 3 options to search.

New Search – which is the default option and provides the search query parameters and conditions.

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Guided Search –  Guided search  has the same options like new search except it has an addition guided wizard like below. Rest of the search query parameters and the conditions remains the same.

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ID Search –  We can perform a targeted search based on providing a csv input file.

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For ID search we need to provide a well formatted CSV input as mentioned in this Technet  format the document ID column and populate the selected column as mentioned in the article.

Once the CSV is prepared and imported it will be ready for  save and run as below.

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After the save and run operation we get the results as below

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We have options to choose the locations from where the data has to be fetched from modify location. This option is available only on New Search and Guided Search.

After specifying the location – add the search query keywords – date range – sender and other required parameters based on the search requirement.

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once the search query is completed we can see the search results in the searches tab like below

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We have an option to download the search results

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We have options  to export the report  like below.

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Imp Notes:

  1. The ID search is limited and supported only for mailbox items.
  2. We need to be member of Organization Management or at least Compliance Administrator role group in-order to consume this service from Security & Compliance Center.

Configure DKIM in office 365 Environment

Antispam, DKIM, Office 365 November 3, 2018 Leave a comment

In this article we will go through the steps to enable DKIM in pure  office 365 cloud environment.

For understanding DKIM concepts and  Enabling DKIM in on premise environment you can follow my previous blog 

The main difference between enabling DKIM in on premise environment and office 365 is:

  1.  In on premise we keep the private keys in our outgoing Anti spam gateway or DKIM agent which will be responsible for signing every outbound emails with DKIM stamp. Later we publish the public key in the DNS record.
  2.  But office 365 requests the customers to publish the CNAME and point them to a public key in DNS which will delegate the corresponding name space to office 365.

With this office 365 CNAME option we can rotate the keys whenever required. Because in this case the private key is owned by Microsoft and the public key is maintained in their office365 DNS records. We just need to create CNAME in our DNS console only for the first time. Later we need to create CNAMES only for the new domains we are adding in office 365.

First we need to enable DKIM from the Exchange admin center from the office 365 portal – navigate to protection – click on DKIM tab

We can enable for the routable domains registered with office 365. But when we enable them without publishing the DNS records for DKIM then we will get the below error.

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We have to publish DKIM DNS records as below:

Create 2 CNAME records for 2 selector’s to sign the outgoing emails with DKIM.

In our case we need to create below records from the DNS hosting provider console.

Host name: selector1._domainkey.exchangequery.com
Points to address or value: selector1-exchangequery-com._domainkey.exchangequery.onmicrosoft.com
TTL: 3600

Host name: selector2._domainkey.exchangequery.com
Points to address or value: selector2-exchangequery-com._domainkey.exchangequery.onmicrosoft.com
TTL: 3600

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Once we create these 2 CNAME records office 365  will take care of signing all the outgoing emails with DKIM with their signing agents.

Now if we go to office 365 portal and enable the DKIM it will get enabled. If we have a closer look we have an option to  rotate DKIM keys just in one radio button which is amazing option. Ideally its  not required to do this option from our side  since office 365 will do the rotation  of their keys once in a while as a part of their security checks.

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To verify if the mail is signed by DKIM we can send one test email to gmail and if it says signed by your domain name then its DKIM enabled outbound email.

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In the message headers we can see the DKIM status as passed.

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Further if we look into the message headers we can see

Authenticated Received Chain (ARC)- New email security mechanism standard Which is currently used by office 365.
DomainKeys Identified Mail (DKIM)-  If the DKIM is enabled we see the DKIM value as pass.
Sender Policy FrameWork(SPF)-  SPF verification results.

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Also in the DKIM signature we can see the selector and the domain name like below

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Further we can look into the DKIM public keys by running the below command.

Get-DkimSigningConfig -Identity exchangequery.com | fl

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Additional General Info:

Below can be the possible results as a part of DKIM test in the message header.

  • DKIM=Pass – Message was Signed.
  • DKIM=Fail – The message was signed and the signature or signatures were acceptable, but they failed the verification test(s).
  • DKIM=None – The messages were not signed.
  • DKIM=Policy – The messages were signed but the signatures were not acceptable.
  • DKIM=neutral = The message was signed, but it was not formed correctly. This is possibly a configuration error on the sending domain side.
  • DKIM=temperror – This is a temproary error where unable to verify the public key for the DKIM verification.
  • DKIM=permerror = The message could not be verified due to some error that is unrecoverable.

Configure Microsoft Intune to secure office 365 apps in Mobile Devices

Intune, MDM October 25, 2018 Leave a comment

Microsoft intune is a  cloud service which was introduced in office365. This intune service is charged per user license. It can be configured for cloud only users as well as hybrid users.

Intune can be used for end users end point protection, MDM ,MAM ,application distributed storage, software license inventory reports , hardware inventory reports , mobile device app publishing, security monitoring.

This blog focuses only  on configuring the in tune  MDM\MAM for cloud only users to secure the office 365 services configured in mobile devices.Using this we would be able to enroll Mobile devices, manage devices and applications, protect the corporate data and retire them when required.

First thing is to see the license required for intune to assign them to end users.

Get-MsolAccountSku

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We need to see the MDM user Scope set in the azure portal.

https://portal.azure.com

By default it is not set to any users. We can create a group and assign the scope to the group. This will perform the MDM enrollment for Android, iOS devices.

Here we have three URL’s:

  1. MDM/MAM Terms of use – Can be used to set company terms of use.
  2. MDM/MAM discovery URL – This is the device enrollment URL.By default it is set to office 365 enrollment url and can leave them as it is if you are using only intune as MDM/MAM service.
  3. MDM/MAM Compliance URL– URL to be used to give more information to users on why the device  is non-compliant if it doesn’t meet the standards.

All the above options can be customized based or left blank based on the current MDM/MAM setup. If we are rolling out the MDM/MAM first time for all users then we can leave these url’s as default and can update only the terms of use and compliance url as per the company’s security policy.

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Now we need to create  below policies:

  1. Device Compliance Policy –To manage compliance for IOS & Android devices.
  2. Device Management policy- for IOS and Android device management.
  3. App Protection policy-Can be created to protect targeted apps only.
  4. Client Apps – Can be used to assign curated managed apps, such as Office 365 apps, to iOS and Android devices
  5. Create one Conditional Access Policy for MDM (Optional)–  Can be enforced to use only Outlook for IOS Andriod, restrict logins from geo locations.

Create Device Compliance Policy-

We need to navigate to the https://portal.office.com – Admin – Select Microsoft Intune and navigate to intune blade

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We need to create compliance policy for Android and IOS devices.Example below for Android where the minimum version is 7.1 and blocking rooted devices can be done.

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Compliance policies conditions and actions can be created based on the requirement.

Create Configuration Policy:

Configuration policies can be created for Android, Android Enterprise and IOS  in our case , since we are focusing only on configuring the MDM for mobile devices.

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Example of creating one configuration  policy for Android devices and restrictions that can be applied to secure corporate data like disable  screen capture, copy paste.

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App Protection Policy:.

The app protection policy can be used to protect  and enforce policy only on selective apps. This helps the admins to control only the corporate data even on BYOD devices.

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Targeted apps can be selected here we can select only required corporate apps.

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We have policy settings which can be controlled for the apps installed on the mobile phone.

Example we have an option to choose which storage can be enforced to end users to save the data. These restrictions are applicable only for the targeted apps which we have selected in the previous section.

 

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Further sign in security requirements can be controlled based on Device Manufacturers, Pin Attempts etc..,

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Create Client Apps:

Also Intune Client apps can be assigned Android/IOS to end users through intune company portal.

Example one created for publishing VLC player in the Intune Company portal for Android Users.

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Once applied end user can see this apps  from the android device from the Intune Company Portal App.

Conditional Access Policy  for MDM can be created like below:

Select apps – Create one only for Exchange Online

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Login location can be set from where the user access can be controlled based on physical location.

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Required approved client app only can be selected.

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List of Intune enrolled devices can be seen.

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When drill down further it would show all the installed apps in  the discovered apps section.

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Further we can see the device compliance status. In below case my device is compliant except for the password which i did not configure as per the password policy set for Android devices.

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From the client side in Android device user needs to download the company portal to access all Intune features.

  1. Example VLC app which we published from Client apps for end users.
  2. If the device is not meeting the compliance requirements we get the alert on devices tab.
  3. We get the user warning when the user configures the email.

WhatsApp Image 2018-10-25 at 14.29.37WhatsApp Image 2018-10-25 at 14.33.34WhatsApp Image 2018-10-25 at 14.33.34 (1)

Notes:

  1. This blog gives an overview of how to start enrolling mobile devices through Intune for Office 365 Apps. There are more options available in intune for MDM\MAM and these have to be configured based on the  requirement.
  2. If there are currently any MDM solution in place we need to analyze the current user experience provided to the end users and provide the same or enhance more than the current one.
  3. Its always recommended to test all these features in staging domain evaluate the results before moving into production
  4. Best recommended to roll out the MDM intune only for few pilot test users in beginning and later perform a staged roll outs  based on the  end user  responses.

Manage Microsoft Teams from Powershell and admin center

Microsoft Teams October 13, 2018 Leave a comment

This article outlines the steps to manage Microsoft Teams from powershell and admin center.

We need to download the Microsoft Teams Module from the powershell Gallery

Install-Module -Name MicrosoftTeams -RequiredVersion 0.9.0

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Verify if the module is installed

Get-Module MicrosoftTeams -ListAvailable

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Connect to Microsoft Teams

Connect-MicrosoftTeams -Credential $cred

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To view the teams

Get-Team

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To view Team Guest Settings and Team Fun settings

Get-TeamGuestSettings

Get-TeamFunSettings

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List of team commands available as of now

Get-Command -Module *teams*

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To create new Team

New-Team -DisplayName TeamName -Description GiveDescription -AccessType private -AddcreatorasMember:$false

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Unfortunately Add-TeamUser is not available for bulk operation as of now. Microsoft will release them in near future very soon from teams module.

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Bulk adding/removing  the associated group unified group for that team is not populating the users to the Team immediately. The Microsoft Teams PowerShell module is based on Microsoft Graph.This is because of the Microsoft Graph SLA is 24 hours to replicate and synchronize any changes done from azure AD.

Below command can be used to bulk add the users to associated teams group.

Import-Csv D:\Teams\Test.csv | % {Add-AzureAdGroupMember -ObjectID mentionobjectid -Refobjectid $_.objectid}

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Below command can be used to bulk remove the users to associated teams group.

Import-Csv D:\Teams\Test.csv | % {Remove-AzureAdGroupMember -ObjectID mentionobjectid -Refobjectid $_.objectid}

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The same action can be performed via unified group as well.

Import-Csv E:\Teams\T1.csv | % {Add-UnifiedGroupLinks -Identity T1 -LinkType Members -Links $_.userprincipalname}

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Now the new admin center for Microsoft Teams and SFB have options to manage MS teams

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Adding and updating locations data

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Following options are available from end users options in MS Teams

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Following meeting policies to control the features are available

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Following org wide settings are available

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We have the meeting customization settings

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Option to customize the real time media traffic to online is also available

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Controlling  the live event policies is present

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Global user level policies can be enforced

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Controlling external access

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We have option to control the guest access settings

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We have very nice option to have email integration, File sharing option and show organization tab to end users.

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Skype for business Interop, search and Bots feature can be customized.

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We have the teams upgrade options which have island mode set by default.

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After this we have the Call quality dashboard and first line worker configuration as a last option. The First line worker configuration will be removed and will not be available after october 2019 according to Microsoft . All these features available in  first line worker configuration are available in MS Teams and customer needs to shift to MS teams.

Above are the list of administrative options available for Microsoft Teams as of now and they will be definitely changing and adding more new features since Microsoft is more focused on enhancing and bringing new features in Microsoft teams.

Thanks & Regards
Sathish Veerapandian

Microsoft Teams – Blur your background experience

MSTeams September 26, 2018 Leave a comment

Microsoft  recently added a new feature of blur my background in Microsoft Teams. This feature is really cool. This helps participants to attend the meeting on the go  from anywhere like coffee shop, restaurant , even from home without worrying the background  and provide participants to focus only on the person attending the meeting.

Once we have joined the meeting, there is an option to choose blur my background.

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Once enabled we see the background completely blurred. This is a rock solid feature which is more helpful when we are attending meeting from outside, home and do not need to worry about  on choosing  a right place to attend a video conference.

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New artificial intelligence (AI) powered option from Microsoft uses facial detection to blur the background during video meetings.

Microsoft through  its machine learning technology brought intelligent meeting recording which will provide speech to text transcription capable of applying captions automatically and searchable transcript. These options will be available worldwide later this year and customers will be able to stream live and on demand events in teams.

 
Source – https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2018/09/24/10-new-ways-for-everyone-to-achieve-more-in-the-modern-workplace/

Bulk Import local PST files to Office 365 mailboxes

Office 365 September 18, 2018 Leave a comment

In this article we will look at the steps to bulk import PST files to office 365 mailboxes.
There might be a scenario when a switch over from on premise to office 365 is done users might have maintained local PST files in network drive without an archive solution which is a bad practice.
When we run into these kind of scenarios its definitely not recommended to maintain this data in this approach.We might have bunch of pst files or probably more which might be 10 years worth of email that needs to be imported to the associated mailboxes.

There are 2 options to perform this action

Method 1: Use the free Azure service to upload the .PST files and map to the users mailbox.

Below prerequisites needs to be done:

1)So as a initial prerequisite move all the pst files to one central location which will be easier to perform the bulk import. If you have them in different sites then better to create one central location per site.

2)If we have more number of PST files and the data is more then create multiple jobs which will be better for tracking and not to choke the bandwidth and throttling.

3) The administrator will require a mailbox import\export rights to perform this operation.

Step 1:  Assign RBAC Mailbox import Export role to the required account. This can be done via power shell to connecting remote session to office 365 account or via Exchange admin console in office 365.

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Once permission is granted navigate to data migration option setup  in the admin  page in office 365 admin URL – Here we need to select the option upload PST files.

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Now Upload PST files go to New Import Job and type the Job name >> Next. Then check on Upload Your Data or hit on Next.

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Now an import job window will appear. Here we need to click on Show network upload SAS URL and copy the URL by clicking Copy to clipboard. After that download Azure AzCopy for download the AzCopy tool and install the application.

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Click on Azure AzCopy software and type the given command.

AzCopy.exe /Source:\\network path /Dest:”SAS URL” /V: give location  to save log file \AzCopy.log /Y

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Note: We need to give the Sharing Permission for our file or folder where the PST file is present.

Navigate  to the import data window and check on the both preparing the mapping file’s option and click on Next.

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Now in this import data we need to create the pst mapping and user in the excel file.

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And upload the file by clicking the Select mapping file option

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Once done we can see the pst files have been successfully imported to the associated office 365 mailboxes.

Method 2: Use a third-party solution for migrating PST to O365 Cloud Platform

Sometime we need  solution to import specific items from bunch PST file data into Office 365. So here we are going to discuss one more method which is a third-party tool for migrating PST to Exchange Online Mailbox.

I happened to have a look at this  MailsDaddy PST to Office 365 Migration Tool and it provides  security and easiness to Import all PST file data like emails, contacts, calendars, appointments, and attachments etc into o365 .

The tool carries advantages like:

Export the selected items only: It will show all the preview of PST file data and you can select the items and migrate them to O365 account. This is very much useful where in terms of an organization have restored a large mailbox from the old backup tapes for a legal issue. Here the exported huge PST from the backup can be taken and only the required important emails can be selected and imported to the user mailbox in online.

Date Range Filter: With the data filter option you can search the emails between the specific times and import only required data from PST file to Exchange online Mailbox. This option is also useful for cases where end user requires a restore of missing emails or a resigned employee from an old data from the backup and extract data only for last 1 year and importing them to the associated  office 365 mailbox.

Impersonation Option: Using this option, we will be able to migrate multiple mailboxes using sharing throttling and connection limits of each users. To use the impersonation export option, users must have application impression rights and full access to the admin account.

Bulk export Option: With this option, we can export multiple PST files into multiple mailboxes by mapping all mailboxes using a CSV file.

Below are the steps to use the Mails Daddy PST import tool :

Step 1: We can download this application and install it.

Step 2: Once it installed launch this software. After that click on Add file to upload the PST file.

Step 3: Once we click on upload the PST the software it will show all the preview of the PST file data.

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Now we can select the mail, contacts, calendars, appointments, and attachments etc. if we need to export only selected items.
Click Export button to import all data from PST into Office 365.
Now select the provide export option and put the Office 365 Mailbox ID and password>> click Export.

Here we have 3 options export  all folders , export selected folders, export to primary mailbox and export to archive mailbox.

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Once the export is clicked the  selected emails will be imported to  associated office 365 mailboxes successfully.

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