Office 365 Fast track deployment process

I spent some time preparing for the MS 70-346 exam by reviewing "Managing Office 365 Identities and Services" on the Microsoft Virtual Academy site. A few of their comments explain all of the frustration I experienced with my consultant when it came to implementing the expanded pilot:

They explain the the fast track deployment process is designed to "Get the customer on to office 365 in a matter of hours."

They also stated, "You don’t need to go through all of that risk assessment that you would normally typically do if you were deploying servers on premise.…..simply because there is no risk. You’re not changing things like the mail delivery architecture. You’re not changing MX records. You’re not doing any of that sort of stuff."

We ran into quite a few issues with the deployment all of which were played down by the consultants:

• Mobile Devices had to be reconfigured
• Initially unable to connect to on premise public folders
• Public folders were dropped from distribution lists that were sync’ed from AD
• Migrated users were no longer able to manage sync’ed distribution lists
• No allowances were made for on premise anti-spam and anti-virus solutions.

There were just the highlights.  All of these issues should have been addressed before the first mailbox was moved.  I never understood the rush to production exhibited by the consultant and our Microsoft reps until I sat though this video.