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Configuration
Featured

Configure Teams to Co-exist with Google Workspace

With the rise of remote work over the past several weeks (now turned months and years), I’ve engaged with many customers who want to use Microsoft Teams to as part of their work-from-home tool set.  Many of my customers have investments in both Microsoft Office 365 as well as Google G Suite Workspace or Google Apps (frequently with other third-party IdP, metadirectory, and federation services thrown in the mix), so it’s not always just as easy as “flipping a switch.”… [ Continue reading ]

Configuration
Featured

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) Best Practices and Recommendations

Yes. I said it.

Someone needed to put a line in the sand and today, that person is me.  I’m going to say these are some best practices.

But of course, your mileage may vary, depending on your type of organization (users at a local bank or city government will have different threats presented to them than an engineering firm with international customers, for example). … [ Continue reading ]

Books

Update: Expert Microsoft Teams Solutions available for pre-order

Apologies for the delay–but with the advent of Operator Connect and a few other new features, we wanted to make sure we brought you the most up-to-date desk reference for configuring Microsoft Teams.  We’ve also included a great flow chart on the number porting process, which we think will be really helpful to organizations starting up with cloud voice!… [ Continue reading ]

hacks

Launch Microsoft Edge with a specific window size

Recently, while working on a book, I needed to take screenshots. I was moving across multiple devices and working with other authors on this project, so it was important that all screenshots be taken from the same window size.

As long as you close all of your Edge browser windows, you can fire up a new instance with command line parameters that will configure it for you.… [ Continue reading ]

Information

Configuring Viva Connections in Teams – A Quickstart Guide

For folks who want to get started on bringing your intranet into Teams, here’s a quick take on configuring Viva Connections, including screenshots, tips, and the ever popular “what happens to the end users” question answered.

Buckle up.

Introduction

Viva Connections, from our marketing material, is “a desktop and mobile experience that brings together relevant news, conversations, and resources in one place for your organization.”… [ Continue reading ]

Books

MS-900 2nd Edition Exam Prep book teaser

Seeing as how we’re just a few days away from the launch of another title, I wanted to release a teaser chapter for our updated and upcoming MS-900: Microsoft 365 Certified Fundamentals exam prep guide.

MS-900 Second Edition book cover

This was another great team effort with Yura Lee, Marcos Zanre, and the entire Packt publishing team (Romy Dias, Aamir Ahmed, Prachi Sawant, Vaidehi Sawant, and Shazeen Iqbal). … [ Continue reading ]

Exchange

Update to Wipe Exchange Online Mailbox Script

Earlier this evening, a former peer asked me about trying to bulk delete items from the Drafts folder on a customer’s Exchange Server 2010.  While Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 reached end of support in October 2020, it still will work (though we certainly don’t recommend keeping it around, as it’s no longer receiving regular maintenance, support, or security updates).… [ Continue reading ]

Information

Quick-and-dirty Catch-All Mailbox for GCC Channel Meeting Invitations

It’s well-known that our Government Community Cloud instance of Office 365 doesn’t support emailing a channel.  This can be problematic when you are attempting to schedule a channel meeting and include recipients not on the platform.  What ends up happening is the recipient can actually receive an NDR (because they can’t send the meeting acceptance back to the channel).… [ Continue reading ]

Books

Expert Microsoft Teams Solutions available for pre-order

At long last, I’m pretty excited to announce this labor of love with some of my peers / teammates:

We’re still finalizing a few things (so a few chapter titles/headings may change), but here’s the top level outline:

Chapter Title Topics
1 Teams Overview Azure AD architecture Organization and user interface Instant messaging, chat, and presence Calendaring Mobile Devices
2 Approvals Creating and responding to approvals Administration of the Approvals app
3 Task Management Planner, To Do, and the Tasks App
4 Bookings Creating and managing a booking calendar Integration with other apps and services
5 Meetings Scheduled, Ad-hoc, and Channel meetings Meeting features (including transcription, recording, webinars, break-out rooms, and registration) Meeting options Audio conferencing
6 Meeting Room Licensing and configuring Meeting Rooms Room scheduling Meeting room devices
7 Live Events Scheduling live events Presenting and sharing content and invitations External meeting production
8 Teams app development Building and publishing apps in Teams
9 Workflow integration Connecting Power Automate to Teams, including posts and notifications
10 Power Virtual Agents Creating and publishing chat bots
11 Phone System Terminology, including calling plans, communication credits, conferencing, and emergency policies Calling features Licensing
12 Cloud Phone System Architecture Cloud-only and direct-routing configurations Implementing phone system features, including E911, creating and assigning phone numbers, policies (call park, calling, caller ID, emergency) Configuring outbound calling
13 Microsoft Teams devices Working with phones, Teams rooms, collaboration bars, and Teams displays
14 Planning and adoption The Microsoft Teams adoption framework
15 Governance Identity and authentcation Compliance (including retention and information barriers) Lifecycle management (including provisioning and access packages
16 Integration with Exchange Hybrid Enabling and configuring hybrid connectivity between Teams and Exchange
17 Security and Data Protection Conditional Access, Data Loss Prevention
18 Reporting Call Quality Dashboard, Call detail reports, User-based call reports, Live events, Teams usage

You can go pre-order it here: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09DDV1WR6… [ Continue reading ]