Office 365

Scan to Email with Office 365 using a Multi-function Printer

February 27, 2019 by Paulie Leave a Comment

Setting up a Multi-function device to scan to email via Office 365 is easy. This Microsoft document lists the three possible methods, which are:

SMTP Client Submission
Direct Send
Using an SMTP Relay

Which method you should use depends on your environment. If you already have an SMTP server configured internally, using SMTP relay may suit you better.

This post will cover the SMTP Client Submission method. The disadvantage of this method is that it requires the printer to use a licensed Office 365 account. But it is very easy to setup.

Setup scan to email from a HP Multi-function Device

I am going to demonstrate using a HP PageWide Pro 477dw MFP, but the same method will work for any brand. Before you begin configuring the printer, make sure you know the username and password of the Office 365 account you are going to use.

Login to the printers web interface.
Find the “Scan to Email” options:
Now you need to enter the following:
1. From Address: Use the Office 365 Account Email Address you want to use for the printer
2. SMTP Server: smtp.office365.com
3. SMTP Port: 587
4. Tick the box that says “Always use secure connection (SSL/TLS)”
5. Username: Use the Office 365 Account Email Address you want to use for the printer
6. Password: Enter the password for the account you want to use.
7. Scan a document!

The HP PageWide has got a nice internal address book for storing email addresses which makes scanning to email quick and easy.

Here is a video showing how to setup scan to email on Office 365 as per the above:

Disable Simplified Account Creation in Outlook 2016 or 2019

January 25, 2019 by Paulie 3 Comments

Recent builds of Outlook have a simplified account creation wizard. Here is how to disable it:

Close Outlook if it is already open.
Next, Open registry editor (Windows Key +R, Type in regedit and click OK.
In registry editor navigate to and select:
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\16.0\Outlook\Setup
From the Edit menu, click new, then DWORD (32-bit) Value:
Name the new DWORD:
DisableOffice365SimplifiedAccountCreation
Double click on the new DisableOffice365SimplifiedAccountCreation entry.
In the Value Data box type 1, then click OK:
Close registry editor and restart Outlook.

If you prefer, simply download DisableSimplifiedAccountCreation.reg here and the correct registry entry will be imported.

Image of Windows Registry Icon — To download, right click and then choose save as.

How to connect to Office 365 with PowerShell

December 22, 2018 by Paulie 1 Comment

Many of the posts on this blog and others will require you to connect to Office 365 with PowerShell. The web admin interface for Office 365 is very good, but there are just some things that cannot be done via the web interface. So this post shows you how it is done and the problems you might come up against. I will go through each step in detail and then post complete code.

Connect to Office 365 with PowerShell

Open a PowerShell session
Store your Credentials in a variable:
```
$Cred = Get-Credential
```
Enter your Office 365 Credentials when prompted:

Create a new PowerShell session from the Office 365 Server:

$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $Cred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection

Import the session:
```
Import-PSSession $Session
```
If you do not receive any errors on this step, continue to step 6. You may receive the error:

Import-PSSession : Files cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system.

If you do get this error, you need to change your PowerShell Execution Policy.
Now you can run any commands you need.
When you have finished, remove the session you created in step 2:
```
Remove-PSSession $Session
```

Complete code to connect to Office 365 with PowerShell

$Cred = Get-Credential
$Session = New-PSSession -ConfigurationName Microsoft.Exchange -ConnectionUri https://ps.outlook.com/powershell/ -Credential $Cred -Authentication Basic -AllowRedirection
Import-PSSession $Session
# Run any commands you want here
Remove-PSSession $Session

Change PowerShell Execution Policy

If you received this error when you tried to execute step 5:

Import-PSSession : Files cannot be loaded because running scripts is disabled on this system.

Then you need to change your PowerShell execution policy. To connect to Office 365 with Powershell your execution policy to at least Remote signed:

Open PowerShell as an administrator:
In your PowerShell window run the command:
```
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned
```
Choose “Y” when prompted to change the execution policy.

You will now be able to connect to Office 365 with Powershell.

Office 365: How to add or remove an email alias using Powershell

December 19, 2018 by Paulie 1 Comment

Use the Powershell cmdlet Set-Mailbox to check email aliases assigned to Office 365 accounts, add aliases or remove aliases. Additionally the handy form underneath will generate the correct Powershell commands for you.

Check current email aliases assigned to an Office 365 account:

Get-Mailbox mailboxName | select -ExpandProperty emailaddresses | Select-String -Pattern "smtp"

Add an email alias to an Office 365 account:

Set-Mailbox mailboxName -EmailAddresses @{Add='[email protected]'}

Remove an email alias from an Office 365 account:

Set-Mailbox MailboxName -EmailAddresses @{Remove=’[email protected]’}

Or you can just use the form below and the required Powershell will be generated for you….

Now that you have got multiple email aliases, here is how to configure Outloook so that you can send from an alias.

Use CDO to send email from VBScript or VBA through Office 365

December 16, 2018 by Paulie Leave a Comment

Sending email via VBScript or VBA using CDO is easy to do, but the correct configuration to relay through Office 365 is confusing to say the least and it took me me a while to find the correct settings.

I knew from configuring other devices and software that the preferred way to setup SMTP to relay to Office 365 was to use TLS on port 587. The problem is that officially CDO does not support TLS, but unofficially it does. So I tried in vain to develop some code that would send email via smtp.office365.com using TLS and always came up with the following error:

The server rejected the sender address. The server response was: 530 5.7.57 SMTP; Client was not authenticated to send anonymous mail during MAIL FROM

So clearly the TLS support in CDO is not sufficient to be able to work with the Office 365 SMTP Server. The trick is not to use TLS at all, but to use SSL instead on port 25 instead, which seems to work fine:

VBScript to Send Email via Office 365 (smtp.office365.com)

This is just quick sample code to get you on the right path:

Dim objMessage, objConfig, Fields
Set objMessage = CreateObject("CDO.Message") 
Set objConfig = CreateObject("CDO.Configuration")
Set Fields = objConfig.Fields
With Fields
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2 
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "smtp.office365.com"
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") = "[email protected]"
  .Item ("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") = "Office365Password"
  '.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendtls") = True
  .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl") = True
  .Update
End With
Set objMessage.Configuration = objConfig

With objMessage
  .Subject = "Test Message"
  .From = "[email protected]"
  .To = "[email protected]"
  .HTMLBody = "Test Mesage"
end With
objMessage.Send

VBA to send email via Office 365 (smtp.office365.com)

The code for VBA is almost the same as VBScript and I tested it using Excel 2016 without any problems at all. But first you need to add a reference to your project:

In the Office VBA Code Editor go to Tools, and then References:
In the References dialog box add a reference to the “Microsoft CDO for Windows 2000 Library”:
Use the following sample code….

Sub Office365_Email_Test()
    Dim objMessage, objConfig, fields
    Set objMessage = New CDO.Message
    Set objConfig = New CDO.Configuration
    Set fields = objConfig.fields
    With fields
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusing") = 2
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserver") = "smtp.office365.com"
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpserverport") = 25
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpauthenticate") = 1
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendusername") = "[email protected]"
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendpassword") = "Office365Password"
        '.Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/sendtls") = True
        .Item("http://schemas.microsoft.com/cdo/configuration/smtpusessl") = True
        .Update
    End With
    Set objMessage.Configuration = objConfig
    
    With objMessage
        .Subject = "Test Message"
        .From = "[email protected]"
        .To = "[email protected]"
        .HTMLBody = "Test Message"
    End With
    objMessage.Send
End Sub

A few things to note:

The account that you use must have at least an Exchange Online license.
You will only be able to send from addresses that account has send as permission for or an alias of that account.
It would probably be a good idea to use an account dedicated for sending SMTP because the password is being stored in clear text.
Your Firewall or your ISPs Firewall may block outbound port 25.
I’ve left the code for TLS in-place above but commented out, in case anyone else wants to have a play with it.

I hope this helps, I spent ages trying to relay through Office 365 over TLS with VBA, but SSL works just fine.