{"id":12003,"date":"2012-01-11T11:33:59","date_gmt":"2012-01-11T11:33:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=12003"},"modified":"2012-01-11T11:33:59","modified_gmt":"2012-01-11T11:33:59","slug":"my-office-365-subscription-experience","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aidanfinn.com\/?p=12003","title":{"rendered":"My Office 365 Subscription Experience"},"content":{"rendered":"

I set up my first trial of Office 365 last year during the beta.  It was a pretty smooth process for E-Mail, requiring an MX and confirmation.  I didn\u2019t really care too much about SharePoint.  Lync \u2026 well \u2026 Lync requires a lot of DNS stuff, none of which was possible to do myself in my registrar\u2019s control panel.  For a trial, it wasn\u2019t worth getting them to set up the records for Lync manually.<\/p>\n

Before the Christmas holidays, I signed up for another trial, this time choosing the P plan for professionals and small businesses.  The 25 GB mailbox was tempting \u2026 I\u2019ve a number of email accounts (personal, MVP stuff, Microsoft stuff) and it\u2019s been annoying for me to use, and some folks I know just send 1 email to all of them to get me \u2013 my clear delineations weren\u2019t clear to others.<\/p>\n

Problem: Partner Selection<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

This morning I decided to subscribe to the P plan.  Payment was easy.  The issue I had with the signup process was from the channel point of view (I work for a distributor).  Way off to the side, almost invisible, was the option to Add Partner.  This was where I could optionally choose to add a qualified Office 365 partner.  I thought \u201cI\u2019ll do that and choose one of our customers (a reseller) that has signed up with our O365 distribution channel\u201d.  Up popped a screen and it asked me for the partner ID of the reseller.  Huh!  I\u2019m pretty sure folks in Microsoft think<\/em> that every MSFT partner lives in the Microsoft Partner Network website and can shout out their numeric partner ID like a soldier does their serial number.  Not quite!  When faced with this, I did what any customer will do \u2013 I clicked cancel and completed the payment without specifying a partner.  <\/p>\n

Email Setup<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

First thing was to get my email address configured.  The MX was set up last year.  But my account (the default administrator) was set up with a damned onmicrosoft.com address.  I configured my sign-in to use my domain but the sent email still used the MSFT domain.  I edited my account in Admin \u2013> Users \u2013> <Select Account> \u2013> More \u2013> Change Mailbox Settings, and removed the \u201cother address\u201d from Email Options.<\/p>\n

Email Migration<\/u><\/strong><\/p>\n

I wanted to import a Hotmail and a Gmail account.  Hotmail was smooth and easy.  I went into Options \u2013 See All Options \u2013> Account \u2013> Connected Accounts.  Here I added the details of my hotmail account.  All the folders and email were imported nice and smooth.<\/p>\n

Gmail is a different beast.  You have to enable POP access in your Gmail account (Settings \u2013> Forwarding And POP\/IMAP).  That beast is importing 1.5 GB of email right now, and it appears to have 2 issues:<\/p>\n