To be honest I still can’t understand the branding Microsoft is making for their online services: BPOS or business productivity online standard, Microsoft Online Services and Office 365, (I will call them MSCloud). I guess “All roads lead to Rome”… right? 

Problem definition

1. Our corporate email platform is Exchange Online, a MSCloud service. 
2. Our SharePoint (SP) servers are cloud based but are not hosted at a MSCloud service.
3. I need to setup SP to send automatic email notifications when changes occur. 
4. SP Administration allows the email notifications configuration only with SMTP servers set for Anonymous access.
5. Exchange Online provides an SMTP host but only works with authenticated access.

I can’t seem to successfully relay emails from SharePoint using the SMTP provided by Exchange Online.

Solution in a Nutshell 

1. SharePoint should use a local SMTP server.
2. The local SMTP server should be configured to relay to Exchange Online using authentication and correct ports.
3. Exchange Online should be configured to accept messages from your IP Range.

 Before you go forward

1. The solution has been tested with: SharePoint Foundation 2010 and Windows Server 2008 R2 within a development environment.

 1ST: Local SMTP & SharePoint

1. Open the Server Manager, I normally right click over “Computer” and select the “Manage” option.
   
   
   
   
2. Select “Features” on the Server Manager window and confirm that the SMTP Server is installed. If not select the “Add feature” option. I will assume you have it installed.
   
   
   
   
3. In order to configure the SMTP Server you will need to open the IIS 6.0 Manager. I know you are using IIS 7, butyou will be opening the IIS 6 Management Console (installed when installing the SMTP Server feature). Open it.
   
   
   
   
4. Right click on the Virtual Server and select “Properties”. There find the name of the Fully-qualified domain name.
   
   
   
   
   
   
5. Open the SharePoint Central Administration, go to the “System Settings” section and click on the “Configure outgoing email settings” link.
   
   
   
   
6. Fill the form using first the FQDN you found on the step 4 and then fill the email address you will use to send the notifications. This email is the one hosted on Exchange Online.
   
   
   

 2ND: SMTP Server settings

1. Open the SMTP properties (like the step 4 above).
2. Be sure that the section of IP Address says (All unassigned) and then click the “Advanced” button. Confirm that the port is 25.
   
   
   
   
   
   
3. On the tab “Access” click on the “Relay” button and add the IP addresses used by your network interfaces. (An ipconfig command on the command prompt would help).
   
   
   
   
4. Click on the “Outbound security” button on the “Delivery” tab. Be sure to select “Basic Authentication” and provide the correct credentials for the account specified before on the SP Central Administration (step 5 above). Then select the “TLS encryption” box and Ok to accept the changes.
   
   
   
   
5. From the same “Delivery” tab click on the “Outbound connections…” button. There modify the TCP port to 587.
   
   
   
   
6. From the same “Delivery” tab click on the “Advanced” button.
   
   
   

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  • There check that the FQDN is the same than the one set on your SMTP. 
  • The smart host is set to: smtp.mail.microsoftonline.com. There is a list of other smart hosts available for different geographical areas. 
  • Be sure that the “Attempt direct delivery before sending to smart host” check box is not marked.
    

 3RD: Exchange Online should be ready to accept communications from your SMTP

1. Go to the admin.microsoftonline.com page and authenticate with your administrative credentials.
   
   
   
   
2. Select Exchange Online from the “Service Settings” tab.
   
   
   
   
3. On the “Safe senders” section you can add new Safe senders be specifying domains or IPs. In this case you should add the public IPs (normally one) that your SP box uses.
   
    

After all this is done I would advise you to restart the SMTP and IIS services.

Now you are free to start setting up some email notifications on your SP sites. Just be sure that your user accounts have email addresses assigned.

p.s. Please feel free to comment and let me know if you find something to improve in this guide.

Credits: Vinit Keny a Microsoft Support Specialist helped me to find the way to success.

Can you find a relationship between what Apple does and SharePoint?

I think the relationship exists in terms of strategy.

Note: When I talk about PC I mean Windows, Mac and other OSs.

During the past event where Steve Jobs launched the new MacBook Air he said a couple of important things: he believes that the new computers are the future and Apple will release a version of the App Store for Macs.

I went to the Apple Store to see how the beautiful new machines behave. My curiosity was based on the slow processors, small local storage capacity and short 2GB of Ram. The results were surprising to me.

The new MacBook Air flies. Playing a Youtube video and having all MS Office loaded, all iLife apps open the machine performed very fast. Each application had a document open and the iPhoto was full of pictures. That means something!

The PC industry went almost always with the hand of Microsoft. They coordinated the next versions of Windows and the hardware required to run it at its best. That was great for the industry. The concept was always getting faster and more powerful hardware to handle more complex software. 

Apple is making the first steps into the opposite concept. Now it is safe to have smaller machines with longer battery charge with less powerful processors. Why? because technology is allowing them to optimize the configurations and the ways we use computers are changed as well:

1. The HDD are normally slow, that is the bottleneck. New flash technology works much faster for example: iPhones, iPads, iPods and now the Mac Book Air.
2. New graphic cards are faster and more power savvy.
3. We are using the Internet for storing documents and other kind of files. The PC industry is getting “cloudy”. Attention with this note SharePoint PROs!

The success of the App Store is the envy of the Industry, now everybody wishes to imitate that success. The inclusion of it into the OSX is going to be in my opinion a big opportunity for developers. Apple is opening a new chapter and the rest of the industry will have to follow or innovate. Why is that such an important thing?

1. I miss the great apps from my iPad when I’m using my Mac. For example the experience of reading news using Pulse is much more effective than opening all the news sites at the same time or better looking than using Google reader.
2. Even if developers made such great apps for the PC environment I have no idea where to find them and losing the time searching is something I am against.
3. The Windows environment is full of great and experienced developers and the opportunity of having so many involved on a Windows App Store sounds like a great opportunity for Microsoft and partners.
4. Apps are small applications with a single need to fulfill. The experience of using a computer will be richer than now.

The full software as a service concept now involves hardware optimized for using services. That hardware must be easy to carry and independent for long periods of time from a PC.

The Web browser will lose importance (Microsoft please adapt fast). It will be better to make an App that runs good than a web site that needs to be compatible with multiple browsers. For example, I hate the slow PayPal web site but I love the PayPal App for iPhone; why not have a fully powered App instead of a slow web site?

Why would I need to use Google each day if I could search in a smaller DB of Apps in the App store?

Why would I need to search for services using Google if some apps already made that work for me? (for example Yelp will help me to find good restaurants).

If you are a SharePointer and you believe those trends are real then we have to try to ask the right questions in order to get ready to catch opportunities. In short the trends I’m talking about are:

1. App stores for multiple platforms will help developers reach customers and consumers reach solutions directly from a connected device.
2. The need of more powerful hardware will be limited to some special tasks. Powerful enough hardware will be accepted if mobility and independence increases.
3. Single purpose software will be an important choice for consumers.
4. Less browser use, less searching on a browser. More of socially supported applications.

As a consequence the online Ads industry will have to adapt.

So the questions I’m asking myself as a SharePointer are:

1. Is SharePoint a platform that can help me build single purpose Apps? - My current answer is: yes! by using SharePoint templates and Solutions. Soon by creating Apple Apps that feed from SP sites.
2. Is it possible to have corporate App stores?
3. Is SP the right technology to use for public facing Apps?
4. Is it a waste of resources to use SP as a web repository of information to feed Apps? in opposition to using free open source platforms.

Scenario:

I could see myself in a near future deploying customer side SharePoint Solutions that feed and connect with client side Apps available for PC and Mobile platforms.