Upgrade from Live@edu to Office 365

Upgrading from Live@edu to Office 365 can either be a very simple process or fairly complicated. The actual process of upgrading the domain is a three-click-procedure where most of the job is done behind the scenes.

To upgrade the domain, follow these three steps: http://www.microsoft.com/liveatedu/upgrade-center/upgrade-center-home.aspx?locale=en-US&country=US

However, you probably have automatic provisoning of accounts and maybe a Single-Sign-On (SSO) solution using certificate för Live@edu. The Microsoft recommended way of replacing OLMA for creating accounts is DirSync, but there will be an Office 365 agent for FIM and that’s what you really should use. Replacement for SSO is federation and there are two ways to implement federation:

  • Active Directory Federation Services (AD FS) 2.0
  • Shibboleth Identity Provider (IDP) with SAML 2.0 for Active Directory

You need to plan the implementation of these two features before upgrading the domain. This is best done with a test domain. You can set up both FIM agent and ADFS federation for the test domain, verify functionality and then simply switch to production when upgrading the domain. You can follow this checklist or read more about the transition on the Office 365 community.

Live@edu upgrade checklist

This checklist is for the Live@edu to Office 365 for education transition, with FIM agent and Single sign-on using federation.

  • Create a testdomain.
  • Add a public domain, such as test.yourdomain.com.
  • Configure the FIM agent for the test domain and create a few accounts. Make sure the UPN is the same in your AD as in Office 365 (e.g. test.yourdomain.com).
  • Set up SSO with ADFS or Shibboleth.
  • Verify the functionality.
  • Upgrade the Live@edu domain.
  • Make sure the UPN is correct for the upgraded users or fix it with Powershell.
  • Switch the FIM agent to the former Live@edu domain.
  • Configure the federation for the former Live@edu domain.
  • Kill the test domain.

Most of this information is collected at the community, and it is recommended to read the section about Single sign-on.