Microsoft 365 Groups are the backbone of various Microsoft 365 workloads. As you might know, each group utilizes a SharePoint site collection, and an Exchange shared mailbox.
When you create a new Microsoft 365 group, SharePoint Online must store the associated site collection somewhere. SharePoint Online uses predefined paths to determine the storage location. These paths are called: Managed Paths.
SharePoint Online uses two different pre-configured managed paths:
With /sites as the default setting for the Microsoft 365 tenant.
Whenever you create, e.g., a new team in Microsoft Teams, the associated site collection is stored in https://TENANTNAME.sharepoint.com/sites/TEAMNAME. As a SharePoint administrator, you see the site collection paths in the list of active sites in the SharePoint Admin Center.
But what can you do, if you want to store the associated site collections in the /teams managed path?
The SharePoint Admin Center provides you with an option to change the managed path for sites, created by users.
Open the SharePoint Admin Center, navigate to Settings -> Site Creation.
Change the setting for Create team sites under to /teams/.
The description of this setting is misleading. This setting affects not only SharePoint team site creation initiated by users on the SharePoint start page or OneDrive, but site collections created by Microsoft 365 Groups as well.
You do not need to enable the checkbox to let users create sites from the SharePoint start page and OneDrive. This setting is only required, when you want to enable self-service site creation of modern SharePoint sites for users. The modern SharePoint sites are based on Microsoft 365 Groups.
After changing the path, SharePoint Online creates new associated site collections for Microsoft 365 Groups in /teams/.
Enjoy SharePoint Online.
You are interested in OneDrive and OneDrive for Business? You want to know how you can integrate the OneDrive technology into your IT infrastructure securely?
Here is the list of OneDrive related sessions at Microsoft Ignite 2017
See you at Microsoft Ignite!
This year's Microsoft Ignite Conference takes place on November 4 - 8 at the Orange County Convention Center (OCCC), Orlando, Florida.
Choose from over 1,000 Breakout and Theater Sessions to learn about new technologies and methods, or talk directly to Microsoft professionals and MVPs about your technical challenges. Select the sessions and hands-on experiences that are most interesting for you based on the Microsoft Learning Paths to suit your job role.
You will find me directly in the Modern Workplace & Modern Life in the exhibition area. Just stop by to learn more about the possibilities of modern and secure collaboration using Microsoft Teams, Mobile Productivity, and more.
Feel free to contact me via email to arrange an appointment at Ignite 2019: thomas@mcsmemail.de.
See you in Orlando!
On May 11th, the SharePoint Saturday Cologne took place at the new Microsoft Office in Cologne.
My session covered the migration of legacy public folders from Exchange Server 2010 to modern public folders hosted on-premises or Exchange Online. Additionally, I've talked about the pros and cons of a migration to Office 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams.
The slide deck is available on SlideShare.
Enjoy Exchange Server and do not forget about the end of support for Exchange Server 2010 on January 14th, 2010.
SharePoint Conference North America is just 4 weeks away! Now is a great time to register and make your plans to BE THERE in Las Vegas.
See the schedule, available now, with over 160 sessions to immerse yourself each day on what you need to know about SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, and Office 365. Check out The Road to @SPConf, which reveals the inside scoop about SharePoint Conference North America and what you can expect with the return of the SharePoint community.
Register today | Don't miss the conference
Starting September 11th 2017 Microsoft Teams supports guest access for external users.
Guest access for Microsoft Teams uses a separate guest license type that must be activated in the services & add-ons section of the Office 365 Admin portal.
Office 365 Admin portal notification:
When we make this change, the ‘Pick the license you want to configure’ setting in ‘Settings > Services and Add-ins > Microsoft Teams’, will now have an option for ‘Guest’ with a default value of “off” for the ‘Turn Microsoft Teams on or off for your entire organization’ setting.
When you've not activated guest licenses, external user receive an odd error when trying to access your shared team.
Enjoy Office 365!
Once upon a time at an Exchange Conference near you, a member of the Exchange Product Group (PG) announced that the very last Exchange Server will go away when having an active Exchange hybrid setup.
This was a hot topic for discussions at the Microsoft Exchange Conferences (MEC, @IamMEC) in 2012 and 2014, already. Since then the Exchange PG came up with a number of reasons why this is not possible. The question on when we will finally be able to remove the very last Exchange Server from the on-premises Exchange organization was asked every year at the Ignite Conference.
Currently, the supported scenario for hybrid configurations between your on-premises Exchange organization and Exchange Online requires that you keep the last Exchange Server for creating, and managing Exchange related objects, even if those objects are located in Exchange Online.
The following diagram illustrates the current requirements:
In the past, there was communication on certain interim solutions that were supposed to support you in removing the last Exchange Server from your Exchange organization. Such interim solutions were:
At Ignite those solutions even made it into the official session catalog:
All those interim solutions leave your on-premises Exchange organization and the Active Directory configuration in an uncomfortable twilight-zone. It was still something that worked somehow, but you knew it was officially not supported, and the secure and stable operation of the hybrid configuration was at risk.
But wait...
Removing the last Exchange Server is supported! (at least when all components are released)
The new approach for managing your Exchange Online tenancy after migrating your on-premises Exchange organization to Exchange Online does not require an on-premises Exchange Server.
The new mode of operation reduces your on-premises requirements to:
The following diagram illustrates the new modern Exchange Online Management experience:
Simply you remove the requirement to use on-premises Exchange Server to write to your on-premises Active Directory. Instead, Azure AD Connect uses a new synchronization capability to handle the new Exchange Management experience in the AAD Connect MetaVerse. The on-premises AD-connector writes the changes to Active Directory which keeps the Active Directory up-to-date for all other on-premises solutions that require identities to have a proper state.
You execute all Exchange-related actions using the new Exchange Online Management PowerShell module, or, if needed, the new Modern Exchange Admin Center (EAC, which was announced at Ignite 2019.
Before you uninstall the last Exchange Server from your on-premises Exchange organization, ensure that you
PS C:\> Get-WindowsFeature Display Name Name Install State ------------ ---- ------------- [ ] Active Directory Certificate Services AD-Certificate Available [ ] Certification Authority ADCS-Cert-Authority Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Pol Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Svc Available [ ] Certification Authority Web Enrollment ADCS-Web-Enrollment Available [ ] Network Device Enrollment Service ADCS-Device-Enrollment Available [ ] Online Responder ADCS-Online-Cert Available [ ] Active Directory Domain Services AD-Domain-Services Available [ ] Active Directory Federation Services ADFS-Federation Available [ ] Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services ADLDS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Services ADRMS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Server ADRMS-Server Available [ ] Identity Federation Support ADRMS-Identity Available [ ] Device Health Attestation DeviceHealthAttestat... Available [ ] DHCP Server DHCP Available [ ] DNS Server DNS Available [ ] Exchange Online Remote Features EXORemote Available [ ] Fax Server Fax Available [X] File and Storage Services FileAndStorage-Services Installed [X] File and iSCSI Services File-Services Installed [X] File Server FS-FileServer Installed [ ] BranchCache for Network Files FS-BranchCache Available [...]
PS C:\> Install-WindowsFeature -Name EXORemote Display Name Name Install State ------------ ---- ------------- [ ] Active Directory Certificate Services AD-Certificate Available [ ] Certification Authority ADCS-Cert-Authority Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Policy Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Pol Available [ ] Certificate Enrollment Web Service ADCS-Enroll-Web-Svc Available [ ] Certification Authority Web Enrollment ADCS-Web-Enrollment Available [ ] Network Device Enrollment Service ADCS-Device-Enrollment Available [ ] Online Responder ADCS-Online-Cert Available [ ] Active Directory Domain Services AD-Domain-Services Available [ ] Active Directory Federation Services ADFS-Federation Available [ ] Active Directory Lightweight Directory Services ADLDS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Services ADRMS Available [ ] Active Directory Rights Management Server ADRMS-Server Available [ ] Identity Federation Support ADRMS-Identity Available [ ] Device Health Attestation DeviceHealthAttestat... Available [ ] DHCP Server DHCP Available [ ] DNS Server DNS Available [X] Exchange Online Remote Features EXORemote Installed [ ] Fax Server Fax Available [X] File and Storage Services FileAndStorage-Services Installed [X] File and iSCSI Services File-Services Installed [X] File Server FS-FileServer Installed [ ] BranchCache for Network Files FS-BranchCache Available [...]
Even though not explicitly stated, you should restart the server after installing the Windows feature.
As part of the next AAD Connect synchronization cycle, the magic happens.
Verify that you can edit the Exchange related attributes of synchronized Active Directory objects in Exchange Online or Azure AD before you remove your last Exchange Server.
Whey ready to uninstall the last Exchange Server you must use the following command line parameters to remove the server as intended. Otherwise, you'll leave the Exchange organization in an inchoate state. Ensure that you use an administrative PowerShell session.
./Setup.exe /mode:uninstall /SwitchToMEMA /IAcceptExchangeOnlineLicenseTerms
Normally, you do not have to accept license terms when uninstalling Exchange Server, but in this case, you have to accept the Exchange Online license terms.
Enjoy the modern experience and management options of Exchange Online!
Exchange Conferences