Lync For Mac 2011

admin

Buy a Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011 - license - 1 license or other Instant Communication Software at CDW.com.

Many of the customers I work with are currently making their way through an Office 365 technical pilot that needs to include Mac OS X machines as well as various versions of Windows. The Windows stuff seems fairly well documented and since we now have a GA release of Lync 2011 for Mac OS X I thought I would write a post about using OS X with Office 365…

Note: Most of this is documented on the following page, however it does not include Lync or any screenshots..

  • http://onlinehelp.microsoft.com/en-us/office365-enterprises/hh180727.aspx

Software requirements for Mac OS X and Office 365

There are some things that you need to know before rushing out to connect your Max OS X machines to Office 365. Firstly you will need a version of Outlook that supports Exchange Web Services (EWS). Older versions of Outlook for Mac used WebDAV which is not provided in Exchange Server 2010 and therefore is also not available in Office 365. Plus there are some minimum versions of Mac OS X and Browsers that are supported…

  • Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 Service Pack 1+
  • Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011 (v14.0.1)
  • Microsoft Office for Mac 2008 12.2.9+
  • Microsoft Entourage 2008 for Mac, Web Services Edition
  • Mac OS X 10.5.8+
  • Safari 4 or 5
  • Firefox 3.5 or 4
  • Chrome 3

Note: If you are using an internal CA for any of your Exchange or ADFS servers you must import the root CA certificate onto your Mac before working through these steps…

For the purposes of this article I will concentrate on Office 2011 since it represents the best end user experience and it is also the version I have the most experience with (and happen to have handy!).

Connecting to Office 365 Web Portal

OK, so this bit isn't very exciting however it is always my first step since it proves that my Office 365 account credentials are good and that the Mac has connectivity to the Office 365 service and ADFS.

  1. Open your browser (In this example I am using Safari 5)
  2. Navigate to https://portal.microsoftonline.com
  3. Login with your Office 365 user credentials
  4. Click on the Outlook link to connect to Outlook Web Access
  5. Select the Language and Time Zone preferences (if prompted)

Assuming everything went well, you should now be looking at your Office 365 users Outlook Web Access page via OS X Safari! For some of my customers this is actually “good enough”, however for the large majority they need the rich experience provided by Outlook and Lync on their Mac… so we need to continue on

Connecting Outlook 2011 for Mac to Office 365

Ok, so we have already connected to OWA via Safari so the next thing to do is configure Outlook. When you start Outlook for Mac 2011 the first thing it will ask you to do is to Add Account…

  • Click the checkbox to make Outlook the default application for e-mail, calendar and contacts then click Add Account
  • Once the Add an Account page is displayed, click on Exchange Account
  • Fill in your account details on the Exchange Account Information Page, ensure that Configure Automatically is checked and then click on Add Account
  • Outlook will warn you that your AutoDiscover request has been redirected to a different server
  • Ensure that the Always use my response for this server checkbox is checked and click on Allow
  • At this point Outlook will reconfigure itself to connect to your Office 365 mailbox by using the data from AutoDiscover
  • I typically also change the Account Description on the next page to show that it is an Office 365 Account
  • Close the Accounts Window and Outlook should show as connected and begin synchronising your mailbox content…
Lync For Mac 2011

Connecting Lync 2011 for Mac to Office 365

Lync For Mac 2011

NOTE: Lync 2011 requires an update to connect to Office 365 which is provided here…

I have to admit that despite being a Microsoft Employee I am also a Mac user (occasionally anyway) and for me Lync was the missing piece of the puzzle for making a Mac a usable experience.

Anyway, enough of that lets move on to connecting Lync…

  • Start Lync for Mac 2011
  • The first thing that Lync will ask is to set it as the default application for presence – if you want presence information then select Use Lync
  • The next screen will be the Lync for Mac 2011 login screen
  • Click on the Advanced icon at the bottom
  • Click on the Advanced button at the bottom of the Lync client
  • Set Internal Server name to sipdir.online.lync.com:443
  • Set External Server name to sipdir.online.lync.com:443
  • Click OK
  • Enter your login account details and password
  • Check the Remember my password checkbox and click Sign In
  • If everything went to plan, you should now see your Microsoft Lync for Mac 2011 client open up and show as connected!
  • I suspect this isn't actually that exciting to everyone, but I (and some of my customers) have been waiting for nearly a year to get this far!

The screenshot below shows my OS X Lion desktop connected to Microsoft Office 365 via a federated Active Directory account… and who says Microsoft and Apple cant work together!

Conclusion

As a regular Mac and Windows user it is vital to me that my systems are able to collaborate and share data effectively. It is also vital that I am able to communicate and collaborate effectively with my colleagues running Windows or Mac machines. I have to say that prior to having Lync my Mac experience was definitely lacking… however now I can connect Outlook and Lync to Office 365 I am able to function just as effectively on my Mac as I am on my Windows 7 machine. Being able to join conference calls, share my desktop etc even when I am on my Mac is a huge improvement to my productivity…

Having worked with a few customers who have a Mac OS X community to support I have to say that connecting them to Office 365 has been relatively painless… in fact it is arguably easier to connect a Mac running Office 2011 to Office 365 than Windows; largely since OS X doesn't require any patch updates or the Windows Live Sign In Assistant to connect reliably. The biggest problem area that I have seen is that organisations who have chosen to use their internal CA to issue certificates for their internal Exchange and ADFS services, must remember to import the root CA certificate on every new Mac that is deployed… failure to do this leaves the machine unable to authenticate to ADFS and AutoDiscover failing to configure Outlook.

Overall though I have to say that this is great work from both the Office 365 and Office 2011 for Mac teams…!

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011
Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 applications shown on Mac OS X Snow Leopard
Developer(s)Microsoft
Initial releaseOctober 26, 2010; 9 years ago
Stable release
Operating systemMac OS X 10.5.8 or later
TypeOffice suite
License
Websitewww.microsoft.com/mac/

Microsoft Office for Mac 2011 is a version of the Microsoft Officeproductivity suite for Mac OS X. It is the successor to Microsoft Office 2008 for Mac and is comparable to Office 2010 for Windows. Office 2011 was followed by Microsoft Office 2016 for Mac released on September 22, 2015, requiring a Mac with an x64 Intel processor and OS X Yosemite or later.

New features[edit]

Microsoft Office 2011 includes more robust enterprise support and greater feature parity with the Windows edition. Its interface is now more similar to Office 2007 and 2010 for Windows, with the addition of the ribbon. Support for Visual Basic for Applications macros has returned after having been dropped in Office 2008.[4][5] Purchasing the Home Premium version of Office for Mac will not allow telephone support automatically to query any problems with the VBA interface. There are however, apparently, according to Microsoft Helpdesk, some third party applications that can address problems with the VBA interface with Office for Mac.[citation needed] In addition, Office 2011 supports online collaboration tools such as OneDrive and Office Web Apps, allowing Mac and Windows users to simultaneously edit documents over the web. It also includes limited support for Apple's high-density Retina Displays, allowing the display of sharp text and images, although most icons within applications themselves are not optimized for this.

A new version of Microsoft Outlook, written using Mac OS X's Cocoa API, returns to the Mac for the first time since 2001 and has full support for Microsoft Exchange Server 2007.[6] It replaces Entourage, which was included in Office 2001, X, 2004 and 2008 for Mac.[7]

Limitations[edit]

Office for Mac 2011 has a number of limitations compared to Office 2010 for Windows. It does not support ActiveX controls,[8] or OpenDocument Format.[9][10] It also cannot handle attachments in Rich Text Format e-mail messages sent from Outlook for Windows, which are delivered as winmail.dat attachments.[citation needed] It also has several human language limitations, such as lack of support for right-to-left languages such as Arabic, Persian, and Hebrew [11] and automatic language detection. [12]

Microsoft does not support CalDAV and CardDAV in Outlook, so there is no way to sync directly Outlook through iCloud. Outlook also does not allow the user to disable Cached Exchange Mode, unlike the Windows version, and it is therefore not possible to connect to an Exchange Server without downloading a local cache of mail and calendar data. [13]

Office for Mac 2011 also has a shorter lifecycle than Office 2010, with support phasing out on October 10, 2017.[14] As 32-bit software, it will not run on macOS Catalina, released in 2019.[15]

Editions[edit]

Two editions are available to the general public. Home & Student provides Word, Excel and PowerPoint, while Home & Business adds Outlook and increased support.[16]Microsoft Messenger 8 is included with both editions, and Microsoft Communicator for Mac 2011, which communicates with Microsoft Lync Server, is available only to volume licensing customers.[17] Office 2011 requires an Intel Mac running Mac OS X 10.5.8 or later.[18]

Comparison of editions
Applications and servicesHome & StudentHome & BusinessAcademicStandard
WordIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
PowerPointIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
ExcelIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
OutlookNot includedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Communicator or LyncNot includedNot includedIncludedIncluded
Office Web AppsIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Remote Desktop ConnectionNot includedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Information Rights ManagementIncludedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Windows SharePoint Services SupportNot includedIncludedIncludedIncluded
Technical support90 days1 year90 days?

The Home & Student edition is available in a single license for one computer and a family pack for three computers. The Home & Business edition is available in a single license for one computer and a multi-pack for two computers. The Standard edition is only available through Volume Licensing.[19] The Academic edition was created for higher education students, staff and faculty, and includes one installation.[20] Office for Mac is also available as part of Microsoft's Office 365 subscription programme.

Development[edit]

Microsoft announced Office 2011 in 2009.[21] There were 6 beta versions released:

  • Beta 1
  • Beta 2 (Version 14.0.0, Build 100326)
  • Beta 3 (Build 100519)—announced on May 25, 2010[22]
  • Beta 4 (Build 100526)
  • Beta 5 (Build 100709)
  • Beta 6 (Build 100802)

Lync For Mac 2011 End Of Support

Access to beta versions was by invitation only,[23] although leaked copies were circulated among Mac file sharing websites.[24]

The final version was released to manufacturing on September 10, 2010,[25] was available to volume license customers a day later,[26] and made available to the general public on October 26, 2010.[27] Service Pack 1 was released on April 12, 2011.[28]

Lync For Mac 2011 Not Working

See also[edit]

References[edit]

  1. ^https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=55942
  2. ^'Microsoft Lifecycle Policy: Office 2011'. Support. Microsoft. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  3. ^'Microsoft Lifecycle Policy: Lync 2011'. Support. Microsoft. Retrieved February 21, 2018.
  4. ^Keizer, Gregg (May 14, 2008). 'Microsoft will bring back macros to Mac Office in 2011'. Computerworld. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
  5. ^Seff, Jonathan (May 13, 2008). 'Microsoft to bring back Visual Basic in Office for Mac'. Macworld. Retrieved April 21, 2010.
  6. ^'How to obtain support for Microsoft Outlook for Mac 2011 connectivity problems with Exchange Server'. Support (34.0 ed.). Microsoft. September 12, 2013.
  7. ^Miller, Dan (February 11, 2010). 'Microsoft Announces Office for Mac 2011'. Macworld. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  8. ^'Known issues in Excel 2011'. Microsoft. September 2010. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  9. ^answer from Michel Bintener Microsoft MVP (Macintosh), Discusion in the forum of user of Microsoft Office:Mac Archived February 13, 2011, at WebCite
  10. ^Office 2011: Mac-Version mit Outlook, aber ohne Opendocument, in German. Archived February 13, 2011, at WebCite
  11. ^Morgenstern, David. 'Microsoft boosts languages, proofing tools in Office 2011 for Mac, Unicode right-to-left support missing'. The Apple Core. ZDNet. Retrieved November 17, 2010.
  12. ^http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macword/how-can-i-set-word-2011-to-detect-different/ea5f2561-1ef5-4762-93a7-298c52579ab8
  13. ^http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/mac/forum/macoffice2011-macoutlook/is-there-any-way-to-disable-cached-exchange-mode/fe6b090e-fdd6-4666-8e54-db9e5348428e?msgId=f34acd1e-22e3-426d-872e-bccae2821420
  14. ^https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Support-is-ending-for-Office-for-Mac-2011-559b72b1-e045-4c73-bad3-d7f1841b9e8c
  15. ^Haslam, Karen. 'Which Mac apps won't work in macOS Catalina?'. Macworld. Retrieved October 31, 2019.
  16. ^'Office for Mac 2011—Compare'. Microsoft. Retrieved October 27, 2010.
  17. ^'Announcing Communicator for Mac'. Office for Mac Blog. Microsoft. September 24, 2010. Retrieved November 4, 2010.
  18. ^'Office System Requirements'. Microsoft Office for Mac. Microsoft. Retrieved November 5, 2010.
  19. ^Michaels, Philip (August 2, 2010). 'Microsoft sets pricing, October release for Office 2011'. Macworld. Retrieved November 7, 2010.
  20. ^'Office for Mac 2011 Hitting Store Shelves This October'. Microsoft Office Press. Microsoft. Retrieved November 19, 2010.
  21. ^Snell, Jason (August 13, 2009). 'Microsoft: Next Mac Office due late 2010 with Outlook'. Macworld. Retrieved November 14, 2009.
  22. ^McLean, Prince (May 25, 2010). 'Microsoft's Office 2011 beta 3 for Mac gets new icons'. AppleInsider. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  23. ^Sams, Brad (July 25, 2010). 'Office 2011 for Mac beta invites sent out'. Neowin.net. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  24. ^Paliath, Paul. 'Beta 2 of Microsoft Office 2011 leaked'. GeekSmack. Archived from the original on April 13, 2010. Retrieved April 14, 2010.
  25. ^'Office for Mac 2011 hits RTM'. Office for Mac Blog. Microsoft. September 10, 2010. Retrieved November 4, 2010.
  26. ^Weintraub, Seth (September 21, 2010). 'Office for Mac hits Microsoft volume licensing servers'. 9to5 Mac. Retrieved September 27, 2010.
  27. ^Mac Mojo Team (September 28, 2010). 'Office for Mac 2011 in the Store This October'. Office for Mac Blog. Microsoft. Retrieved October 29, 2010.
  28. ^'Microsoft Office for Mac Downloads and Updates'. Office For Mac. Microsoft. Retrieved September 16, 2011.
Retrieved from 'https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Microsoft_Office_for_Mac_2011&oldid=923953407'