How to use new O365 Templates?

As mentioned in the release notes: SAM 6.5 Release Notes - SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. Help and Support

There are a bunch of new Office 365 templates, but I'm unsure of how to use them. Mainly, what "nodes" do you assign them too? and what O365 credentials do you need? I'm finding virtually no documentation on how to use these. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks!

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agusst

When I setup the couple templates I use....I set the node to the poller you're using for the monitoring, and my O365 creds to make the connections. It was a while ago but I think I needed to install the Azure tools on the poller as well so the powershell commands were available.

I would agree though regarding the documentation...

gundamunit1

I added portal.office.com as a node and assigned these templates to it.

But problem is that when I look at Mailbox Sizes which is part of the Microsoft Office 365 Exchange Mailboxes template, it says "No mailboxes found".

So I must be doing something wrong.

tdowns

Right.. I'm still having problems too. I tried the instructions here: Monitoring Microsoft Office 365 with SAM

Using "api.admin.microsoftonline.com" as the external node URL.

What I get during the check credentials step is a bunch of Green "up" status sections, but the data is mainly missing (i.e. "NoDataAssumingUp") or commandlet errors:

Errors: ==============================================

Connect-MsolService : The term 'Connect-MsolService' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program. Check the spelling of the name, or if a path was included, verify that the path is correct and try again.

At line:100 char:5

+ Connect-MsolService -Credential $cred

+ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

+ CategoryInfo : ObjectNotFound: (Connect-MsolService:String) [], CommandNotFoundException

+ FullyQualifiedErrorId : CommandNotFoundException

I've used my own credentials as a test, since I have done so successfully in the past. I'm assuming that the PS Directory Module is not loading as part of the template... anyone know how to fix this or actually get any of these templates working like the documentation shows?

Many thanks!

Ted

gundamunit1

I created a ticket with support on this but it seems to not help.

They're saying that the reason this template is not returning any data is because the node does not have powershell 2.0.

But this node is not one that I control. So it seems to be useless templates.

HerrDoktor

Just let the monitor run against your OrionCore Server... that's what I do.

When you take a closer look in the script details, you see that it is importing a session from O365

Function Connect-ExchangeOnline {

$global:office365 = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential ${CREDENTIAL} -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue"

Import-PSSession $office365 -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue" | Out-Null

}

Hope that helps

HerrDoktor

When thinking about it I did have another Idea

what did you enter as execution mode, Local Host or Remote host. I believe in your case this needs to be "local host"

Cheers,

Holger

stevenwhunt

Execution mode should be set to local host. Essentially the PowerShell script is executing on the local Orion server and returning the results after interaction with external Office 365 APIs.

gundamunit1

I run the monitor against the Orion server and the Mailbox Sizes template still says "No mailboxes found".

And it is using the Local Host for execution mode.

mesverrum

What node you assign these components to is really irrelevant. Some people create a node pointed at the o365 gateway servers, but you could really use anything as a sort of placeholder.

Looping in mrxinu , since he knows more than anyone about the setup of these scripts.

mrxinu

Agreed. Since you're pointing at the O365 URL you can associate it with any node you want. Most folks have been creating an external node (purple icon) called "Office 365 Monitoring" or something similar.

FormerMember

I am having the same issue while using the Office 365 template: "The term 'Connect-MsolService' is not recognized as the name of a cmdlet, function, script file, or operable program."

Based on the conversation above, I'm wondering if the version of PowerShell that are installed on the "target" server matter, or if it's only about the version of PowerShell on the Orion application server. Can someone clarify and confirm this? Thanks.

mrxinu

SAM application monitors can be run in local or remote mode. If you're running in local mode it's the local version of PowerShell and its modules that you're relying on. If you're running in remote mode it's the remote system (this also requires some work to set up WinRM between the hosts).

If you open up a new PowerShell session on the local server and try to use the Connect-MsolService cmdlet, does it work? Also, in the SAM template, if you expand advanced, do you have the architecture set to x64?

solarwinds456

I am also struggling to get this working. I have tried both adding an external node and using my main Orion server. I continue to get "No mailboxes found" as well as an error stating I have to many concurrent runspaces currently connected (I have none other than this Orion monitor) and I need to close existing runspaces before connecting.

Fail to create a runspace because you have exceeded the maximum number of connections allowed : 3 for the policy party : MaxConcurrency. Please close existing runspace and try again.

joelgarnick

I got them working, but here's what i did to figure it out...

If you copy the script out of each component monitor and paste it into your favorite text editor you can edit the script so you can run it directly in powershell (basically this boils down to changing how the script handles credentials since the ${Credential} variable is a Orion specific variable):

There are 2 basic substitutions/edits to look out for:

1) Replace:

Function Connect-ExchangeOnline {

$global:office365 = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential ${Credential} -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue"

Import-PSSession $office365 -AllowClobber -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue" | Out-Null

}

...with:

Function Connect-ExchangeOnline {

$Credentials = Get-Credential -Message "Enter your Office 365 admin credentials"

$global:office365 = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $Credentials -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue"

Import-PSSession $office365 -AllowClobber -WarningAction "SilentlyContinue" | Out-Null

}

2) Replace:

$c = Get-Credential -Credential ${CREDENTIAL}

...with:

$c = Get-Credential

In both cases this will result in a popup when you run the scrip that will allow you to authenticate to you o365 account.

So, what i did was copy each script out to a text editor, make the credential changes outlined above, then pasted the script into powershell on my laptop and ran a timer to get a sense of how long each script takes to execute. Record the results for each component monitor, add them up to get the total execution time for the full application template, then make sure you set your timeout and polling frequency accordingly. Times ranged anywhere from a few seconds to 42 minutes for one of them.

Running the scripts locally outside of Orion can also give you a better sense of what information they gather, what error messages you may get, etc. There are a few that will generate an error message but will still fully execute and display data. I noticed this with the ones that start with "$totalResults = $args.Get(0)" ....so keep in mind there are some warnings or errors that don't actually impact the functionality of the monitor.

The ones that return "NoDataAssumingUp" i'm assuming are checking for features that are not relevant to my specific account, but i could be wrong with that. I ran across another post that mentioned that option was put in there to account for Microsoft frequently changing around how things are setup...so they could also be templates that just need to be updated based on whatever Microsoft has changed since the template was originally written.

Anyway, hope this helps a person or two...

joelgarnick

Which specific template is this (which component in which application template)?

There are a couple that require adding a module (Windows Azure Active Directory) - (https://technet.microsoft.com/library/dn975125.aspx)

Basically, run powershell as administrator, "Install-Module MSOnline" then follow the prompts...

mrxinu

Hey joelgarnick! I wrote the O365 templates. Good call on the authentication bit - not quite sure why that was working when I was testing it but I'm glad you worked it out. As for the NoDataAssumingUp, the thinking there was since we're determining health based on events (good, bad or indifferent) if there haven't been any events reported that we're going to assume that all is well. I couldn't think of a better name for it.

joelgarnick

ah, thanks for clarifying...that part was a little fuzzy, but I was able to roll with it!

So...question for you...some of the templates use "Disconnect-" function at the end, some use "Exit 0" and some have no escape command at the end. Is there a particular reason for the differences? I'm curious because of the throttling that Microsoft tends to do...wondering if the ones with no escape command leave sessions open that could come back to haunt me...

Thanks!

mrxinu

I used a Disconnect cmdlet where I could find one, but I see what you mean. Now that I'm reading this article it looks like maybe there could be a cleanup step added at the end to clean things up even without a Disconnect equivalent.

bszweda

I'm trying to use this template and I get "100 NoDataAssumingUp" on every component in every template I try with a variety of user accounts. When I look at the details of the test results I get:

I was getting similar code and realized my credentials were incorrect

I was using my username instead of username@domainname after I made the change things started working.

cmazko

We recently added articles about SAM's Office 365 templates to the SolarWinds Success Center. You can access them via this link: Using Microsoft Office 365 templates.

All feedback is welcome!

alankar.srivastava

What credentials and pre-requisite required to monitor the office 365 in solarwinds ? I have NPM 12.2 and SAM module.

zhymmer

Maybe this can help you guys

To use Office 365 templates, you'll need:

An Orion account with SAM administrator rights.
Administrator-level rights for target servers.
An Office 365 account with global administrator rights.
- The account must be a member of an Office 365 admin role.
- The account should be an inclusive account to support the monitoring of all mailboxes.

Use UPN format to enter Office 365 credentials; for example, <a class="link-mailto" href="mailto:user@domain.onmicrosoft.com" rel="external nofollow" style="padding:0 18px 0 0;font-size:12.35px;color:#04c9d7;" target="_blank" title="mailto:user@domain.onmicrosoft.com">user@domain.onmicrosoft.com</a>. Do not use domain\username format.

Using Microsoft Office 365 templates - SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. Help and Support

Monitoring Microsoft Office 365 with SAM

Microsoft Office 365 template requirements - SolarWinds Worldwide, LLC. Help and Support

But if anyone can help me after that

Re: Office365 Template Message formating ?

I have the template setup, but i don't know what to do with it. I didn't find a way to create a report out of it or create an alert, it just give me a huge string with bunch of info. So right now i don't really like it. But maybe i did something wrong