Google Apps - Office365 equivalent services

The table below outlines the services offered in Google Apps for business and the matching services in Office365 that provide matching and enhanced functionality.

Most notably 50GB mailboxes , 25GB Skydrive Pro

Bulk activation of users in Office365

I recently had to activate 2000 Exchange Online P1 users and 100 Office365 E4 Users.

So how can we do this quickly?

Powershell to the rescue.

Ensure that the Windows Azure Active Directory Module for Windows PowerShell is installed. Launch the module and run the following commands.You can download the module HERE

I need a CSV file for Exchange Online Plan 1 users and Office365 E4 users. To do this I run the following powershell commands to export all unlicensed users to a csv file.

Get-MsolUser -all | where {$_.isLicensed -eq $false} | select-object userprincipalname | out-file c:\users.csv

I can then review the contents of this csv file and create two csv files.

Exchange Online Plan 1 users : p1.csv
Office365 E4 users : e4.csv

Connect-MsolService (Enter Global Administrator credentials)
Get-MsolAccountSku (Take note of the account skus)

Assign a usage location to each set of users with the following powershell commands. The usage location in this example is Ireland IE

Import-Csv -Path c:\P1.CSV | foreach {set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_.UPN -UsageLocation IE} 

Import-Csv -Path c:\E4.CSV | foreach {set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName $_.UPN -UsageLocation IE} 

Then assign a license to each set of users.

Import-Csv -Path c:\P1.CSV| Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName {$_.’UPN’} –AddLicenses “Contoso:EXCHANGESTANDARD” 

Import-Csv -Path c:\E4.CSV| Set-MsolUserLicense -UserPrincipalName {$_.’UPN’} –AddLicenses “Contoso:ENTERPRISEWITHSCAL” 

And there we go all users activated.