How do you know when you've been upgraded to the latest version (R4) of Outlook Live? Sign in to http://outlook.com/ecp. If you see the color scheme is yellow and the new Administrator Roles, User Roles, and E-Mail Migration tabs, you're on R4!

End users can verify their upgrade by signing in to Outlook Web App and checking the color scheme. It's blue in the previous version (R3) and yellow in R4.

You can't track what percentage of users has been upgraded, but users can easily tell by the change in color.

An administrator role group is a built-in universal security group with administrative rights assigned to it. Role groups make assigning administrative permissions easy. For example, if you hire a new employee for your help desk staff, you simply add the new employee to the Help Desk role group and they're ready to go.

• Administrator Role Groups
  
• Add or Remove Role Group Members
  
• Give Users the Ability to Reset Passwords
  

Top of page

Migrate the contents of users' mailboxes from an IMAP messaging system to their Outlook Live account using the Web management interface and a CSV file. It's an effective way to move from an on-premises messaging system to Outlook Live. Supported IMAP servers include:

• Microsoft Exchange Server 2003
  
• Microsoft Exchange Server 2007
  
• Courier-IMAP
  
• Cyrus
  
• Dovecot
  
• UW-IMAP
  

See Migrate E-Mail from an IMAP Server to Outlook Live.

Top of page

Outlook Live Directory Sync (OLSync) is a directory synchronization tool that you use to replicate and synchronize user information between your on-premises Active Directory Domain Services (AD DS) or Active Directory directory service and Outlook Live. New features in the latest version of OLSync include:

• The default synchronization of custom attributes
  
• New parameters for the Hosted management agent to improve cross-premises e-mail delivery and enable more complex routing support
  
• More robust error reporting and logging to help you troubleshoot issues
  

For information about how to upgrade to the latest version, see Upgrade ELMA or GALSync 2010 to Outlook Live Directory Sync. And if you're just looking into OLSync, check out Implement Outlook Live Directory Sync.

Outlook Web App now uses the Windows Live header and footer customization. Configure custom links in one place and they’ll show up across the Windows Live suite of services! The ability to customize the Windows Live footer is new. Now you can add a link to your internal usage policies, for example, or change the link text and target URL of the Account link. See Co-Brand Outlook Web App and Windows Live Services.

A role assignment policy is a collection of end-user management roles that control which Outlook Web App settings users can manage on their own. In Outlook Live, the role assignment policy is part of the mailbox plan that is assigned to users when their mailbox is created.

• Role Assignment Policies
  
• Change a Role Assignment Policy
  
• Change a Role Assignment Policy with Windows PowerShell
  
• Prevent Students from Changing Their Display Names
  
• Allow Faculty to Change Their Display Names
  

Top of page

You now have more flexibility in how you manage Windows Live IDs in your organization. When you create a new mailbox and the Windows Live ID already exists, you have the option of importing or evicting the Windows Live ID. Also, you can rename a Windows Live ID, keep a Windows Live ID when you delete a mailbox, and recover a deleted mailbox.

• Import or Evict Existing Windows Live IDs
  
• Create a New Mailbox for an Unassociated Windows Live ID
  
• Rename a Windows Live ID
  
• Options for Deleting Mailboxes
  
• Recover a Deleted Mailbox
  

Use a welcome e-mail message to tell users about their new Outlook Live account and give them the Windows Live ID and password they need to sign in for the first time. A great way to do this is to use the mail merge process in Microsoft Office Word and the CSV import file that you used to provision users. See Send a Welcome Message to New Users.

You can use the Web management interface to manage mail domains. You still create accepted domains in Windows Live Admin Center, but now you can use the Web management interface to configure the domain type as a hosted domain, where all recipient mailboxes in that domain are hosted by Outlook Live and all e-mail is delivered directly to Outlook Live, or a shared domain, where responsibility for mail delivery is shared between Outlook Live and another messaging system.

• Create Accepted Domains
  
• Change the Domain Type
  

Top of page

Use the Web management interface to configure rules to control the flow of e-mail messages sent within, from, and to your organization. Outlook Live provides a subset of the transport rules available in Microsoft Exchange Server 2010. With these rules, you can define specific conditions and the corresponding actions to apply to any message that meets a condition.

For example, you can create a rule that adds a disclaimer to any message sent outside your organization. You can also use Windows PowerShell to create more complex rules with conditions and actions that aren't available in the Web management interface.

• Organization-Wide Rules
  
• Create a New Rule
  

Top of page

Now you can use the Web management interface to manage supervision policies, which are e-mail policy settings that you can use to control mail flow. Supervision policies help you promote the online safety of minors. With supervision policies, you can:

• Create a "closed campus" so users can only send and receive e-mail from other users in your organization.
  
• Control e-mail that contains objectionable words.
  
• Create controls for who can and can't send e-mail messages to specific users.
  

For more information, see:

• Configure the Closed Campus Supervision Policy
  
• Configure the Bad Words Supervision Policy
  
• Configure the Anti-Bullying Supervision Policy
  

Check out Outlook Live Answers, a Q&A community of forums for Outlook Live administrators and users. You'll find a link to Outlook Live Answers at the top of every Help topic. Just click Forums.

In the Outlook Live Administrators forum, administrators can share information about how to deploy, configure, and manage the Outlook Live service. Users (and administrators!) can post questions or look for answers about e-mail, calendars, mobile phones, and more.

Need service status? You'll find a link to that too: Service Status at the top of every Help topic and at the top of the Outlook Live Answers page. Administrators and users can sign in to get the current service status for their domain.

Sometimes it's easier to just do it yourself! Now you can troubleshoot users' problems by accessing their Options page in Outlook Web App to view and change account settings. Users' privacy is maintained because you can access their account settings only, not their Inbox or other mail folders. For more information, see Access Another User's Options Page.

Top of page