Microsoft SharePoint Online for Enterprises

Configuration Request Guidelines

Dedicated Plans Version 12.3

Published: October 2012

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines ii

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Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines iii

Contents

Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 1 What’s New in this Release ......................................................................................................................................................... 1

Request Types ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Standard Configuration Requests for SharePoint Online ................................................................................................ 2

Custom Solution Reviews ....................................................................................................................................................... 3

Other Complex Requests ........................................................................................................................................................ 3

Configurations That Cannot Be Modified ........................................................................................................................ 3

New Feature Requests for SharePoint Online ...................................................................................................................... 3

Configuration Request Policies .................................................................................................................... 4 Validating Configurations On-Premises ................................................................................................................................. 4

Scheduling Configuration Requests ......................................................................................................................................... 4

Requests with User Impact .......................................................................................................................................................... 4

Frequent Configuration Requests ............................................................................................................................................. 5

Submitting a Configuration Request ........................................................................................................... 6 Configurations without Additional Requirements ............................................................................................................. 6

Configurations that Require PPE Sign Off ............................................................................................................................. 6

PPE Incidents ................................................................................................................................................................................ 6

Configurations that Require Analysis ...................................................................................................................................... 6

Notifications ...................................................................................................................................................................................... 6

Customer Responsibilities during the Configuration Request Process ................................................... 8

Appendix A PPE Configuration Sign-Off Email Template ......................................................................... 9

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 1

Introduction

This document provides guidelines for customers to modify configurations of the Microsoft® SharePoint®

Online offering of the Office 365 for enterprises dedicated plans. Customers modify configurations by

submitting a configuration request (CR) through the service delivery manager (SDM). These guidelines

apply to SharePoint 2010.

What’s New in this Release

New changes and updates to these guidelines include:

Through the Service Administration portal, customers can delete user profiles that have been

flagged as candidates for deletion by the User Profile Synchronization service. For more

information, see the Using the Service Administration Portal guide, available on the Customer

Extranet site.

CRs for the SharePoint Online service must be submitted using the appropriate request template,

and if any request is not in the appropriate template it will be rejected. All CR templates are

available on the Service Administration portal.

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 2

Request Types

Customer requests submitted through the SDM are entered into the Customer Request Analysis System

(CRAS) and categorized as follows:

Standard configuration requests are pre-approved configuration requests that do not require

management approval on a case-by-case basis, and these are documented on the Service

Administration portal.

New feature requests for a future product or service release when the designed behavior of the

product or service does not meet a customer’s needs.

Each of these types of requests is described in further detail in the Microsoft Online Operations Handbook

(available on the Customer Extranet site).

Standard Configuration Requests for SharePoint Online

Each type of pre-approved CR is detailed on the Service Administration portal and accompanied by a link

to an appropriate request template that can be used to submit a CR. For the latest version of the request

templates, follow these instructions:

1. Go to the Service Administration portal using the appropriate URL. In the sample URLs below,

“contoso” would be replaced by your company’s unique identifier.

o If you use the SharePoint Online Portal web application, use this URL:

https://portal.contoso.com/o365admin

o If you do not use the SharePoint Online Portal web application, use this URL:

https://team.contoso.com/o365admin

2. On the Service Administration page, in the left navigation pane, click the appropriate item for the

category of configuration you want to request.

3. On the page that opens, click the item for the desired configuration request.

4. On the page for the specific configuration request, click Download Request Form.

5. If you are prompted for your credentials, enter them and then click OK.

If at any point in time it is found that a CR cannot be supported on the SharePoint Online service, the CR

will be denied and you will be notified. If you have a question about a specific configuration that is not

included in the list, please engage the SDM and consider submitting a new feature request (as described

below).

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 3

Important

Only after you have validated and accepted the SharePoint Online service will Microsoft make any

changes you request to the configurations of the service. No requests to modify configurations will

be completed before customer validation of the service.

Note

If you have any technical issues with the Service Administration portal (such as denial of access,

missing templates, etc.) open a service request (SR) with the Office 365 support team.

Custom Solution Reviews

The review and approval of a high-level design (HLD) for a custom solution, or the review and deployment

of the code for a custom solution, also require submission of a CR. However, these CR types are used as

an advanced notice and must be submitted five business days before submission of the design or code.

(There are links to these CR templates on the Service Administration portal. To access them, click

Customizations.) This document also applies to custom solution requests, but does not provide complete

details on deploying a custom solution to the SharePoint Online environment. For complete information

about that topic, see SharePoint Online Custom Solution Policies and Process, available from the

Microsoft Download Center.

Other Complex Requests

Beyond the general guidelines within this document, more detailed information for complex requests is

available on the Customer Extranet site. For example, there is information on these and other topics:

Content Migration Policy

Site Use Confirmation and Deletion

Partner Access

Configurations That Cannot Be Modified

There are certain configurations that cannot be modified on the SharePoint Online service. Only the

changes listed on the Service Administration portal can be made. If a configuration change you want is

not listed on the Service Administration portal, it is not a standard change and is considered a new feature

request.

New Feature Requests for SharePoint Online

The guidelines in this document are focused on standard configuration requests. If you want to make a

configuration change that is not listed on the Service Administration portal, you should work with the

SDM to submit a new feature request. (Feature requests were previously known as non-standard change

requests.)

You must include both a description and details of the business impact in your request. A New feature

request template is available on the Customer Extranet site. Feature requests are reviewed upon receipt by

Microsoft. A feature request with sufficient detail that is received by Tuesday at 09:00 Pacific Time will be

taken to the weekly triage meeting and reviewed by all teams to determine if the request can be

supported. If a feature request does not include sufficient detail, it will be sent back requesting more

detail. If a feature request with sufficient detail is received after Tuesday at 09:00 Pacific Time, it will be

triaged in the following week. The turn-around time for feature requests is variable, but updates on the

status will be provided in CRAS.

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 4

Configuration Request Policies

The following are policies that must be followed when submitting CRs for the SharePoint Online

environment. A CR may be rejected if the request is found to be incomplete, or inaccurate, or if the

request will exceed prescribed limits imposed by the product or the service.

Validating Configurations On-Premises

Prior to submitting a CR to Microsoft, customers must validate the configuration in their own on-premises

test environment. The on-premises environment will also help identify any design issues or limits imposed

by the SharePoint product, any custom solutions, or any other specific configuration. Validating a change

prior to submission aligns with Change Management processes as per the Information Technology

Infrastructure Library (ITIL) framework.

The pre-production environment (PPE) that Microsoft makes available is only for functional validation

purposes. The PPE is not meant to be a substitute for a customer’s on-premises test environment for UAT

or scale testing.

Scheduling Configuration Requests

The following are important limits on the configuration request policies:

To control the risk introduced by making changes simultaneously, a maximum of four changes to

the production environment can be made during a given change window or within a business

day.

Custom solution deployments count as a change to the production environment, so an example

of the maximum changes that can be applied during a given change window would be three

standard configuration requests and one custom solution deployment.

A maximum of two distinct custom solutions can be scheduled for deployment at any one time

for each environment (production and PPE). Two custom solutions can be scheduled for

deployment in production and two in PPE. Additional custom solutions can be submitted for

review, but none will be scheduled for deployment until one of the solutions already scheduled

has been deployed.

If you are submitting multiple interdependent CRs, each CR must specify the sequential order of

implementation (ex: 1/2 Add Profile Property, 2/2 Add New Audience.) and the dependency must

be called out in the “Pre-Requisite/Dependecy Order” section of the CR template. If a sequence

has been specified in each of the interdependent CRs, Microsoft will implement them in that

order.

Requests with User Impact

Requests that might impact users due to potential downtime or performance degradation will be

scheduled to be implemented during a change window. For some CRs with user impact this schedule can

be modified, and the customer can provide an SLA exemption if they would like the CR to be

implemented outside of the scheduled change window and during a business day between the hours of

10:00 and 18:00 Pacific Time.

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 5

You may use the SLA Exemption email template (available on the Customer Extranet site) to notify the

SDM if you are willing to grant an SLA exemption if a configuration can be implemented ahead of the

next change window.

Microsoft will only implement CRs with user impact outside of a change window if the risk associated with

making a change on a weekday does not jeopardize the time that both Microsoft and the customer

require to validate the configuration. If it is determined that there is not sufficient time to perform a

complete validation, Microsoft may propose an alternate day for the change. Staffing schedules will also

be reviewed prior to committing to applying such changes outside of the designated change windows.

Frequent Configuration Requests

To expedite fulfillment and avoid operational errors, Microsoft requires that any configuration requiring

frequent manual or repetitive work be automated as a custom solution. Microsoft does not maintain a

repository of automation scripts, so these must be submitted by the customer. These custom solutions

will be deployed and run in the SharePoint Online environment only after review and approval following

the process outlined in SharePoint Online Custom Solution Policies and Process.

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 6

Submitting a Configuration Request

In order to request a standard configuration, you should choose the type of request you wish to submit

from the Service Administration portal, and complete the appropriate request template. Then you must

ask the SDM to submit the CR through the Customer Request Analysis System (CRAS), and attach the

completed request template.

Configurations without Additional Requirements

Many of the standard configuration requests do not require customer PPE signoff prior to production

implementation. Configurations that do not require PPE signoff or engineering analysis will be fulfilled in

4 business days.

Configurations that Require PPE Sign Off

Some types of CRs require you to sign off that the implementation of the configuration to the PPE

matches your expectations, before the configuration will be implemented in production. These types of

CRs are marked appropriately in the SCL. For those types of CRs that do require PPE sign off, Microsoft

will implement the CR to the PPE within 3 business days. Some configurations may take longer and the

planned implementation schedule in the CR will reflect this after acceptance of the request. After the

configuration is modified in the PPE environment, Microsoft will notify you.

You are asked to validate the configuration in PPE, and sign off on the configuration in an email message

to the SDM within 5 business days. The SDM must attach your sign-off email message to the CR before

Microsoft will implement the configuration in production. For a sample template, see Appendix A: PPE

Sign Off Email Template. All other configurations will be modified directly in production.

You must provide sign off, and then the SDM must attach that to the CR by noon Pacific Time for

Microsoft to be able to triage on the next business day. After receiving sign off, Microsoft will implement

those CRs with no customer impact in production within 3 business days, and those CRs with customer

impact in the next change window.

PPE Incidents

As PPE is not a production environment, any PPE incidents will always be prioritized below incidents that

impact production. Therefore PPE incidents are considered Severity D incidents.

Configurations that Require Analysis

Some types of CRs require Microsoft to review an aspect of your SharePoint Online environment before

the configuration can be scheduled or modified. In all such cases, this required analysis will be called out

in the template for the configuration type.

Notifications

Before a CR with customer impact is implemented in production, you will receive notification of the

implementation date of the CR, and the CR will be visible in the customer portal. The customer portal is

always the most current source of information about the status of a CR. Additionally, Microsoft will

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 7

provide updates upon successful completion, failure, or any delay which will require additional time to

fulfill the configuration request.

The following table provides timelines for implementing approved requests to change standard

configurations or deploy custom solutions from beginning to end. All days shown are business days.

Note

CRs with user impact will only be applied in production during a Change Window, unless an SLA

exemption is provided and approved.

Table 1. Standard Change and Custom Solution Timelines

Action Custom Solution Standard Configuration

Heads up notice 0 N/A

Microsoft review (CRT for custom solutions,

engineering analysis for standard

configurations)

Within 4 business days after

HLD approval*

Within 4 business days

Microsoft deploys custom solution to PPE, if

approved.

Within 3 business days Within 3 business days, if

required

Customer validates the deployed custom

solution in the PPE.

Within 5 business days** Within 5 business days, if PPE

deployment is required**

Microsoft deploys custom solution to

production.

Within 3 business days of

customer validation of PPE

Within 3 business days

* This assumes that the HLD has already been approved and a valid CR number attained. The HLD review period is 5

business days, assuming Microsoft requires no additional information to process the review.

** The 5-day PPE approval period is the maximum. If the customer does not require the full 5 business days for PPE

approval, deployment to the production environment can occur 3 business days after the customer gives PPE approval

(SLA exemption may be required).

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 8

Customer Responsibilities during the Configuration Request

Process

Table 1: Customer CR Process Responsibilities

If You Need To Customer Responsibility Microsoft Response

Modify a CR before it has

been implemented.

Notify the SDM as soon as possible. If notification is received in time, the CR will

be modified as requested.

If the notification is not received before the

CR is implemented to the PPE or production,

see below for details on Microsoft’s response.

Modify a CR after it has

been implemented to PPE.

Notify the SDM two business days

prior to the production

implementation date (if scheduled).

If notification is received in time, Microsoft

will retract the CR from PPE and close it. You

will need to submit a new CR for the modified

request.

If the notification is not received before the

CR is implemented to production, see below

for details on Microsoft’s response.

Modify a CR after it has

been implemented to

production.

A CR cannot be modified after it has been implemented to production. Instead the

customer must submit a new CR.

Cancel a CR before it has

been implemented.

Notify the SDM prior to the CR being

implemented to the production

environment.

If notification is received in time, the CR will

be cancelled as requested.

If the notification is not received before the

CR is implemented to production, you must

submit a new CR asking that the

configuration be rolled back, with a reference

to the original CR.

(Some configurations cannot be rolled back

completely. If a configuration can be rolled

back, Microsoft will use the rollback steps

provided in the original CR and schedule the

rollback per standard fulfillment times.)

Notify Microsoft that a

CR was implemented

incorrectly in PPE.

Notify the SDM and ask them to

update the CR with a request for

Microsoft to remediate.

Microsoft will review and remediate the

configuration as part of the same CR.

Notify Microsoft that a

CR was implemented

incorrectly in production.

Open an SR with Office 365 Support

that references the original CR,

stating what was originally requested

what that needs to be corrected.

Office 365 Support will process the SR and

correct the configuration to match the

original CR. (The SR will have no higher than

Sev-B severity, unless it is service impacting.)

Microsoft SharePoint Online Configuration Request Guidelines 12.3 | October 2012 9

Appendix A

PPE Configuration Sign-Off Email Template

A template to sign off on a configuration after validating it in the PPE environment is given below.

We hereby confirm that we have successfully validated the change listed below in PPE, and it can be now scheduled in production.

CR #

Change Description: < description>