BPOS & Mac

Some time ago I did a post on Mac support for BPOS (http://www.bposrocks.com/2009/11/bpos-now-offers-mac-support.html). Actually this was just a repost of the Microsoft Online Services Team announcing the public beta of Mac support for OS X.

In the meanwhile Microsoft has released its final Single Sign In tool for the Mac OS X. You can download it from here: Download Sign In application for Mac OS X. The sign in applications allows you to use single sign in with the applications like Entourage 2004/2008/2008 EWS, Live Meeting and My Company Portal.

The usage of the Sign In application has some limits:

• SSO only works with Safari 4 or higher must be the default browser. If another browser is used there will be no automatic login to My Company Portal.
• Communicator is not currently available for the Mac
• Document Connection can be used but will not be auto configured

When you open the package make sure you install it in the Applications directory. If you place it somewhere else it doesn't work as it is support to and will post an error message stating you have the wrong username and password.

The following software requirements are applicable:

Software	Supported Version
Operating system	Macintosh OS X 10.5 (Leopard) Macintosh OS X 10.4 (Tiger)
System software	Java client 1.4.2
Browser software	Safari 3 (on Macintosh OS X 10.5 or Macintosh OS X 10.4)
E-mail client software	Microsoft Entourage® 2008 Microsoft Entourage 2008 Web Services Edition Microsoft Entourage 2004
Authentication software	Online Services Sign In application
Improved access to SharePoint Online	Microsoft Document Connection for Mac
Office Live Meeting software	Live Meeting Web Access

Although the Sign In application works perfectly a big missing part in Entourage is the possibility to lookup users through the Global Address List (GAL). This problem is created because Entourage uses LDAP to talk to the directory server. Because an LDAP connection is not possible with BPOS / Exchange Online it just doesn't work. There are to workarounds for this:

• OWA GAL Search
• A script provided by the Entourage Help Page

Some additional information:

• Macintosh Support Service Description: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=c54976c5-cddc-4682-afc8-9a1dafd6ed11
• Microsoft Online Services Sign In for Mac: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details.aspx?displaylang=en&FamilyID=a3f34420-bb96-47ce-9844-4eab1eb9026d

Comments

[Patrik Louko]

What is the URL that you should use in Document Connection to access BPOS sharepoint intranet site? I tried copying the site name whne I access sp through the borwser?

It just says I do not have permission to make a connection. But I have full access...