365 Message Center Show #68 – Recap

In this week’s episode of the 365 Message Center Show, we discuss a targeted Power BI message, new default setting for Exchange resources, the help and support pane in Office 365, and more!

3:31 Exchange Online – calendar AutomateProcessing changes through PowerShell – Read announcement MC151582
— When using PowerShell to create new resources (conference rooms, etc.), the default behavior will be to automatically accept the reservation if the resource is free. Previously, the default was ‘AutoUpdate’, which meant that a delegate for the mailbox had to approve the request manually.

6:52 Disabling Basic authentication in Exchange Online – Public Preview Now Available – Read announcement MC151642
— If you are using apps to connect to Exchange Online using basic authentication, this update is something to pay attention to. You will need to update your connection method to the ‘modern’ way.

9:53 The help and support pane is now available from the Office 365 navbar – Read announcement MC151704
— Your organization can put contact information in the help pane so your users can get assistance quickly.

14:13 Improving your SharePoint admin center – Read announcement MC151706
— The new SharePoint admin center is coming out of ‘preview’ – learn more about when it will be coming to your tenant.

3:29 Planned Maintenance: Power BI – Announcement MC151453
— Schedule maintenance for Power BI in the West US region was performed Oct 21st. Unfortunately, Microsoft removed the announcement from my Message Center after the period, so I can’t link to it. Check the video for my opinions on it.

33:10 Office 2019 servers available: SharePoint, Exchange, Skype for Business, & Project Server – Read the post in Tech Community
— All new versions of the Office Servers are available now via MSDN (for testing) and your volume licensing sites.

Set a reminder for next week’s episode: 365 Message Center Show #69

Coming up:

*You will need proper privileges within your 365 tenant to view the messages linked above

 

365 Message Center Show #67 – Recap

In this week’s episode of the 365 Message Center Show, we discuss anti-spoofing, @mentions in SharePoint, reminder emails from SharePoint lists, goodbye to T-bot, and more!

3:29 Reminder: We’re extending coverage of enhanced anti-spoofing protection to all Exchange Online organizations – Read announcement MC150492 
— A reminder for a change we have previously talked about – anti-spoofing coming to all Exchange Online subscribers

3:59 New feature: @mentions in page comments in SharePoint Online – Read announcement MC150553
— Mention someone within your organization on a SharePoint page in the comments. Darrell asked is this ‘SharePoint Social’ 2.0?

18:17 Known Issue: Enlighted Apps and Office 365 ProPlus apps, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint – Read announcement MC150680
— We thought it was interesting to see this announcement in the Message Center, instead of being in the Health center.

20:38 New feature: Create a reminder in SharePoint Online – Read announcement MC150716
— A new Microsoft Flow and SharePoint feature – being able to set reminders for items that have a date column. We have been doing this with SharePoint Disposition workflow but this MS Flow giving us another option.

23:17 Updated Feature: Microsoft Teams Help Experience – Read announcement MC151037
— Goodbye T-bot! Does this matter to you? Take the Twitter poll

33:10 Microsoft Teams video meetings in Chrome – Read the post in Tech Community
— Discussion around the lack of announcements for bringing the ability to do video Teams meetings within the Chrome browser.

Set a reminder for next week’s episode: 365 Message Center Show #68

*You will need proper privileges within your 365 tenant to view the messages linked above

 

Creating a custom Microsoft Flow template gallery in SharePoint

Microsoft Flow is the workflow tool in Office 365 to automate your tasks and business processes, whether your systems are on-premises, in Microsoft’s cloud, or even if they are not part of Microsoft’s catalog. Flow allows you to create templates to help you not recreate the wheel when you are creating your flows and you can even share those flows with others by exporting the templates.

Work less, do more with Microsoft Flow
Work less, do more with Microsoft Flow

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to work with Sarah Haase (Office Apps & Services Microsoft MVP) on an interesting issue: how to share Microsoft Flow templates within an organization without uploading them to the public Flow template gallery. Sarah put together a blog series explaining the background to the issues and how we worked to solve them – check out Sarah’s blog series here: Creating a Custom Microsoft Flow Template Gallery for Your Organization

Based on that effort, I was honored to showcase the solution at the Microsoft Ignite conference this year (thank you Sarah for all your help and work on creating the concept and presentation!). The session recording and slide deck is now available on the Tech Community site – head over and check it out!
Creating a custom Microsoft Flow template gallery in SharePoint (THR1111)

A special thank you to everyone who attended the session and please let me know if I can help you and your organization fully adopt and implement SharePoint, Microsoft Flow, and the other Microsoft 365 technologies!

Microsoft Ignite Keynote Interviews with Microsoft MVPs

The 2018 installment of the Microsoft Ignite conference was a week filled with learning, sharing, and connecting with the tech community. The week got started with a Keynote kicked off by Julia White and delivered by Satya Nadella. I was able to catch up with several Microsoft MVPs before and after the keynote to discuss what they’re looking for forward to at the conference, as well as what they thought about the announcements in the keynote.

Check out the interviews video below with Heather Newman, Sarah Haase, Luc Labelle, Mike Maadarani, and Drew Madelung – it was created, edited, and produced all on my mobile phone while at the conference.

SharePoint Fest Chicago 2018

I am excited to announce that I will be speaking at SharePoint Fest Chicago this year! Make sure you use my discount code GLENN100 to save on your registration for #SPFestChicago!

SharePoint Fest Chicago

I will be giving three presentations this time – check out the quick video below to hear exactly what my sessions are about!

OFF301 – Keeping up with change in Office 365
TMS202 – Use Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and Office 2016 to Keep Your Group in Sync
BI102 – Gaining insights with Power BI

 

 

SQL Saturday Memphis 2018

On October 6, 2018, I will be speaking in Memphis, Tennessee at the SQL Saturday event. The day is filled with sessions covering Azure, Python, SQL Server (of course), SQL on Linux, Power BI, and my session: Using Your On-prem Data in a Cloud World.

In my session, we will discuss the benefits of using Microsoft Flow, PowerApps, and Power BI, how those benefits translate to being on-prem, and how we can use the data in Office 365 as well. We will setup a data gateway and walk through using it to connect to data wherever it resides!

Click here for more details for the #SQLSatMemphis event, including registration and the schedule.

[UPDATE]
I had a great time connecting and learning in Memphis. The volunteer organizers and staff did an excellent job!
The attendees to my session were fun and engaged – thank you all for attending!


Here are my slides: Using Your On-prem Data in a Cloud World SQL Saturday Memphis 2018

365 Message Center Show #64 Live from Microsoft Ignite! – Recap

Special episode this week from the Microsoft Ignite conference! We sit down with Mike Ziock, Senior Director Service Engineering for Microsoft 365. We discussed a couple of messages in the Message Center, a few announcements from #MSIgnite, and talked about the process updates take from the Microsoft 365 roadmap to the Message center.

3:35 MyAnalytics nudges in Outlook – Read announcement MC148681 
— Small tips appearing within Outlook to help you set some time to be focused.

7:35 Multiple improvements to Project Online – Read announcement MC148693 
— Improvements coming to Project Online – but we don’t use Project Online, so Mike tells us why we would be seeing this in our messages.

9:26 OneDrive storage sense
— Along with Windows 10, OneDrive will use storage sense to make automatic decisions on what files to keep on your drive and the files that should be online only based on usage.

10:51 Intelligent prompt in OneDrive to share meeting notes
— OneDrive will prompt you to send meeting notes, presentations, etc. that were used during a meeting to attendees.

13:21 Microsoft Teams background blur 
— Microsoft Teams will detect your face and blur your environment on the screen

Set a reminder for next week’s episode: 365 Message Center Show #65

*You will need proper privileges within your 365 tenant to view the messages linked above

 

365 Message Center Show #63 – Recap

In this week’s episode of the 365 Message Center Show, there were several Outlook messages (new experience previews in the client and on the web, removal of the Groups footnote in emails, suggested replies, & block meeting invites from being forwarded), Insights in Excel (watch this space!!), preparedness for Hurricane Florence, and more!

1:40 Modern library content types and document templates in SharePoint Online – Read announcement MC147664 
— Darrell talked about this more in the last episode – this update makes it easier for content creators to add template options to document libraries in SharePoint

3:35 Outlook for Windows user experience updates and Coming Soon preview pane – Read announcement MC147699
— This is a coming soon alert for the….Coming Soon preview pane. The preview will allow your users to see the upcoming changes to the Outlook client.

6:06 Opt-in toggle to try the early version of the new Outlook on the web – Read announcement MC147700
— Similar to the update before, this update will allow you to preview the new look in Outlook on the web.

6:48 New feature: Insight Services in Excel – Read announcement MC147874
— This feature will bring a similar feature to a very popular Power BI feature, Quick Insights, to Excel. Make sure you check out the “additional information” on the message, as there are some best practice guidelines.

10:41 Email notifications and other Message Center preferences for customized admin roles – Read announcement MC147927
— Your various administrator roles will now receive email notifications from the Message Center.

11:44 Removal of footnote in group emails you are following in your inbox – Read announcement MC148091
— We like this update, as it was too easy for a user to unsubscribe to a Group’s emails and not remember to change their behavior so that they start checking the Group’s inbox for messages.

13:47 Microsoft 365 Preparedness for Hurricane Florence – Read announcement MC148281
— It is nice to see Microsoft be proactive in letting everyone know they are prepared when there are issues that impact your data.

16:08 Suggested replies in Outlook on the web – Read announcement MC148154
— This feature will bring the ability for you to quickly respond to short question emails. You can already see this type of functionality in other services, like LinkedIn’s private messaging system.

18:19 Data export in Microsoft Bookings – Read announcement MC148369
— As highlighted by Erica and Phil in the chatroom, this feature will allow you to export your data and import into other systems, including those not in Office 365.

21:48 Monthly feature updates for Office 365 (Office) – Read announcement MC148375
— We talked about our favorite feature in the Office monthly update. Check out the post to see them all.

Set a reminder for next week’s episode: 365 Message Center Show #64

*You will need proper privileges within your 365 tenant to view the messages linked above

 

My Schedule for Microsoft Ignite #MSIgnite

I’m excited for the Microsoft Ignite conference this year. In addition to delivering sessions and podcasting, I will also be helping at the Microsoft Teams booth. On Wednesday from 2:00 PM to 4:00 PM, I will be at the Teams booth, specifically the “At my desk” desk, with Loryan Strant. On Thursday, from 11:30 AM to 1:15 PM, I will be at the “Open Collaboration” desk answering questions and helping you learn more about Microsoft Teams! Please stop by and hang out with us!

Check out my short video for a preview of my sessions!

Here is my presenting and working schedule – join the podcast, attend the sessions, and hang out in the Microsoft Teams booth in the Expo area.

POD2018 – 365 Message Center Show
Tuesday, September 25, 10:45 AM – 12:00 PM
Podcast Studio
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66560?source=schedule#ignite-html-anchor

THR1111 – Creating a custom Microsoft Flow template gallery in SharePoint
Tuesday, September 25, 2:15 PM – 2:35 PM
Expo Theater #6
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66385?source=schedule#ignite-html-anchor

BRK1092 – Turn it all on in Office 365 – RE365 Debate
Wednesday, September 26, 12:45 PM – 1:30 PM
OCCC W240
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66502?source=schedule#ignite-html-anchor

Microsoft Teams Booth
Wednesday, September 26, 2:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Microsoft 365 – Modern Workplace: Intelligent Communications – At my desk
“At my desk” desk, with Loryan Strant

Microsoft Teams Booth
Thursday, September 27, 11:30 AM to 1:15 PM
Microsoft 365 – Modern Workplace: Intelligent Communications – Huddle
“Open Collaboration” desk

MUP2008 – Learning through sharing: The new way to build your community
Friday, September 28, 9:00 AM – 10:15 AM
OCCC W222
https://myignite.techcommunity.microsoft.com/sessions/66517?source=schedule#ignite-html-anchor

Microsoft Ignite 2018 Mobile App

The mobile app is now available for the Microsoft Ignite conference! Well, it is the MSFT Events app, but it updated with the Microsoft Ignite content and your schedule. Check out my quick video below on how you can start using it to build out your conference experience.

Download the MSFT Events app here: Apple App Store   |   Google Play