Microsoft announced 3 exiting updates for the Office 365 platform.

User Soft Delete

It happens more than you would expect. A user gets deleted by accident or a employee gets rehired. If your using Office 365, then that used to mean that you were in serious trouble. With this update from Microsoft, you now have 30 days after a delete, to restore the account. That can be proven very useful if you have project-based employees that jumps in and out of the organization.

Read more about it on the community blog or the Delete or Restore Users article.

User Name Sync-to-SharePoint Online Improvement

If you’ve ever experienced the odd User Name issue, you will be glad to know that Microsoft are rolling out an update to remove the i:0#f|membership part of the username. The improvement of the sync should eliminate the extra characters in the user’s name. The issue occurs because of the change in Authentication providers from Windows Authentication in the BPOS days to Forms Based Authentication today.

This improvement will roll out over time and Microsoft expect that all customers will receive the update by the end of August 2012.

If you have the problem and wants to fix it manually, take a look at this article.

Lync-to-phone

It’s now possible the make and receive phone calls to and from any number from a users computer or smart phone by a calling service which is purchased separately from a partner.  Telefonicas has a subsidiary, Jajah is the first available partner that can provide this service.This enables you to have a single work number across all your devices from the computer, laptop, smartphone and your tablet. With the Lync-to-phone, phonecalls is an integrated part of a unified communication experience along with IM, presence, video-to-video and web conferencing.

Read more on the Connect Lync Online to the network article and see the supported peripherals.

NOTE: This update will only be available for the US and UK customers initially.

[Office 365]