Category: Collaboration and Productivity

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Planning your Teams deployment… Don’t forget the Video

Teams is not just for chat and content sharing.

A recent Nemertes’ “Workplace Collaboration: 2019-20 Research Study” of more than 625 organisations, found that almost two thirds (64%) of participants were using or already planning to use “team collaboration” applications, while another 15% are already evaluating them for future deployment.

The report goes to say that of those using or planning to use team collaboration applications, a third said that they view them as the “hub for all collaboration”. This clearly shows that organisations see the value of converging disparate applications for chat, meetings, and calling into a single unified, contextual work space that integrates (or can be extended) with other line of business applications.

More importantly, Nemertes found that viewing team collaboration as a work hub correlates with success. Almost half of those organised surveys said they recognised measurable value from their team collaboration deployments (in terms of reducing costs, improving and simplifying processes), view team collaboration as a hub, versus less than a quarter who said they didn’t see any measurable business benefit from their deployments.

Looking at the Enterprise Chat Space (by that i means the likes of Microsoft Teams, Cisco WebEx Teams etc.,) it’s no surprise that Integrated voice and video conferencing is the most widely used feature of enterprise team chat applications.

For Microsoft Teams users, this means the ability to easily launch a meeting from within a chat or a Team channel, enabling participants to quickly join, converse, and share relevant documents from the team space.

Due to the “addictive-ness” and viral adoption of Teams within organisations, we often experience clients who are struggling to contain the spread of teams usage. This is good for Microsoft and good for users (since the application is clearly nice and useful to use), but if Teams isn’t part of the wider Video and Conference experiences then the usefulness of the meeting and video within Teams becomes limited (trapped) by who can access them and who they can reach.

If for example, an organisation has already invested in web or videoconferencing technology and has also deployed them into their meeting rooms, access to Teams Video becomes limited to users working remotely or gathered around laptops/PCs often “plugged” into the companies expensive meeting room screens in an attempt to “hack” some form of Teams Room System together – the experience is far from optimal.

In an ideal world (where cost isn’t an option), the ideal of course (if teams is the future) is to rip out these existing video conferencing / video rooms and replace them with new Teams Rooms Systems. If Teams is the organisation’s future then this is a good idea and can be done in phases as part of refresh.

Maximising Existing Investment in Room / Conferencing Systems

Since Microsoft Teams is still quote new, the goal for those using Microsoft Teams and who want to allow it to “spread it wings”, should look to integrate their existing meeting room and video endpoints into the Teams conferencing experience. 

This integration easily allows users in an existing (non Microsoft Teams Room) meeting room to easily join a Microsoft Teams meeting, share content, and collaborate with those in other locations either using room systems, or joining from desktop, laptop, or mobile devices seamlessly.

Cloud Video Interop (CVI)

Cloud Video Interop (CVI) services are available from Poly, Pexip and BlueJeans and these are the only certified and support (which is important) services that can enable these third-party meeting rooms and personal video devices (VTCs) to natively join Microsoft Teams meetings.

The integration of Microsoft Teams with existing room systems through Video InterOp Services provides 4 main business benefits:

  1. Retains the native Microsoft Teams environment for Teams users
  2. Users can join conference meet using the same tool that’s integrated into their work hub through the same consistent experience
  3. Leverages an organisations’ existing investments in video meeting room/conferencing systems thereby reducing any transition costs
  4. Allowing organisations to enable remote participants to join their Microsoft Teams meetings from any meeting room or device  – even if they are outside of the company.

Teams is the “Hub for Teamwork”

For Microsoft Teams to be successful and used to potential within an organisation, it should be viewed as a hub for team work rather than just an IM platform to replace Skype or Lync. When deployed an used within an organisation to full potential, Teams can enable the integration of other collaboration and business applications into all your team spaces including existing videoconferencing endpoints.

Enabling such integration will enable and empower your Teams collaborators to enjoy and utilise the investment of an organisations existing meeting room and video conferencing technology with minimal new investment, without replacing what is already there and within the context of the Microsoft Teams meeting experience.

 

Thanks for reading. That’s all for now.

 

Credit and References: Stats and data contained within this blog are taken from Nemertes: A global research-based advisory and consulting firm that analyses the business value of emerging technologies. 

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What are Flow and Power Apps all about ?

I was in a client meeting earlier today and we were talking about process automation, their journey to Microsoft 365 and shifting workloads from on-premise to cloud. During the meeting, the words “Microsoft Flow”, Microsoft PowerApps and “Power Platform” came up a handful of times until one of my customers said “Sorry, don’t mean to sound dumb, but what is Flow and PowerApps?”

Now then…I am not an expert in either of these (well yet anyway), but I have been playing around with these for a little while and just wanted to summarise (in-case there are others that simply don’t know) what these are and why you might/should care.

In Summary, Microsoft’s PowerPlatform is made up of a handful of core services, including Flow, PowerApps, Power BI and Dynamics 365

Microsoft Flow

Microsoft Flow is a cloud based services that can helps you (yes the user not just admins) automate almost any process. Flow is accessed from the Office 365 App Launcher and it does indeed look and feel like it is part of Microsoft Office 365 but actually it is more part of the Business Apps products group and more aligned, in essence to more to Power BI and Dynamics 365.

With Microsoft Flow you can easily build a set of steps that link together to form a process (a bit like If this then that) that start when a certain event happens or is trigger. These events can be a scheduled time, the update or creation of data (for example a file, record or an email) or they can be triggered manually (there’s even Flow buttons you can create). .

All the processes developed in Microsoft Flow use a browser based Flow Designer tool and enable users to create Flows without the need to do any coding (though you can so think “No or Low Code”.

There are loads (hundreds in fact) of template Flows to get you started and i was amazed how quickly it was to set-up a simple “trigger” flow that would detect an email containing a simple string (from a particular sender), send me an alert and add the email body to a Microsoft OneNote page.

Example Flow

I’m not going to go in to “how to create and use” Flows here as the links below will help get you started quickly…definitely worth a play around with one lunchtime!

Power Apps

PowerApps is also part of this “No or Low Code” Power Platform and really they shouldn’t be seen as separate products since they tie in and work really well together.

PowerApps essentially helps people create the interface into the business processes (Flow) that they would like to implement. PowerApps are often used by organisations to replace paper based processes – its similar in nature, if you are familiar with the kinds of apps and forms that Lotus Notes used to offer….

Who’s experts in this space.

There are quite a few dedicated Microsoft Partners in this space, but a couple of good sites and references to learn more (ones i am using anyway) are listed below

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Citrix VDI support for Microsoft Teams is just weeks away

At the Citrix Synergy event yesterday, Citrix announced the long anticipated optimization pack for Microsoft Teams for both the Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops.

This long awaiting announcement builds upon the previous Citrix HDX Realtime Optimization Pack for Skype for Business that has been used by nearly three quarters of a million users according to Citrix to achieve a native-like experience for Skype for Business within their virtual environments.

The diagram below, from Citrix illustrates the high level technical architecture of how this works.

As with the Skype for Business version,  customers will get what is promised to be a fully native, fully featured Microsoft Teams experience within their Citrix Virtual Applications and Desktops. This wont just support the chat and collaborative features within Teams but will support the full HD voice, video and content sharing features.  Citrix said that the upcoming update to the the Citrix Workspace app has a “built-in multi-platform HDX Media Engine that ensures optimized device and media handling, with audio, video, and screen sharing offloaded to the users device”.

Click here to watch a video of the experience

When will it be released?

This is currently in technical preview and Citrix have said that it should be released fully in the next couple of weeks. and will be shipped inline with an updated Citrix Virtual Apps and Desktops release.

Citrix have also said that once on the new version, they will need to deploy the VDI ready version of the Microsoft Teams client – no announcement was made when this version/update was expected however.

You can read the full announcement from Citrix here:

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Skype for Business Online Plan 2 being retired – what you need to know?

Microsoft have recently announced that after July 1st 2019, organisations will no longer be able to purchase Skype for Business Online Plan 2 as a standalone license and customers actively using it will not be able to renew it once their renewal time occurs.  Customers who have access to Skype for Business Plan 2 on one of the Office 365 suites (Office 365 E3 for example) will not be affected by this change as its still included.

Oh Sh*t – what are my options?

As I said above, those who have access to Skype for Business Plan 2 on one of the Microsoft 365 or Office 365 suites will not be affected by this change.

Advice from Microsoft is that organisations that are currently using Skype for Business Online Plan 2 standalone should consider moving these users to Microsoft 365 or Office 365 subscription which will provide access to Skype for Business Online Plan 2, but also of course Microsoft Teams, their primary (and now preferred) client for messaging, meeting and calls in Office 365.

But I still need Skype for Business Online!

Any organisation that wants/needs to continue using Skype for Business Plan 2, (i.e., they are not using Teams) can do so by moving to one the following subscriptions:

  • Office 365 Business Essentials, Office 365 Business Premium
  • Office 365 Enterprise E1, E3 and E5
  • Microsoft 365 Enterprise E1, E3, E5

Since Microsoft Teams is included in these subscriptions, organisations using Skype for Business Online standalone today will have the ability to also use Microsoft Teams with no additonal license. 

What about my Meeting Rooms?

Many organisation have been using Skype for Business Online Plan 2 (along with other standalone licenses such as Exchange Online) to licence their room systems (in order to add the Microsoft Phone System License) to which they can attach Conference and Calling Plans), rather than buying a the “more expensive” Office 365 E3 or E5 licence which includes features not needed by a room system.

Microsoft now have a specific Microsoft Meeting Room licence for room systems which is available for around £11.50 per room per month.

 

What about common area phones?

Yep – the Common Area Phone License will give you the Skype for Business/Teams capabilities and Phone System licenses, so this is for a basic phone like a Polycom VVX in a common area (like a conference room). This is available for around £6.00 per phone per month.

Worth nothing that with the Meeting Room license however you do you get more stuff: Teams, Skype for Business, Phone System, Audio Conferencing and Intune (so you can manage your rooms systems). You also get the ability to set-up a room mailbox without the need to buy an Exchange License where as you of course dont need this for just a common area phone. 

Longer Term

Longer term, we expect Microsoft to completely retire Skype for Business Online as it becomes and is replaced by Microsoft Teams.

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How to do the things you used to do in Skype..in MicrosoftTeams

As I have the pleasure of working with more and more organisations on the adoption and deployment of Microsoft Teams (and in many cases the migration from Skype for Business to Teams), it’s easy to get carried away with all the new exciting things you can do. We often get asked by users (through the user adoption/training process), “How do I do all the normal things I used to do in Skype…but in Teams”.  This post hopefully summarises the how!

To be honest I don’t use Skype for Business anymore (as my organisation has shifted to Teams), but the things I used to do daily (and still do in Teams) were chat (one2one and group chat), organising my contacts by grouping people, making and receiving calls (including PSTN), joining meetings/conferences, checking if someone is “online” and setting my “status”.

Chat

Chat is a high part of Microsoft Teams and there isn’t anything massivley different from a features perespective except that in Microsoft Teamsm the chat is “persistent” – which means it stays in Teams making messaging much more reliable and consistent between platforms and no more “this user is offline and can’t be delivered” rubbish.

Chat can be one to one or group chat. You can rename a chat, add or remove participants and even edit messages.

 

Organising contacts by groups

A common way of organising your contacts in Skype for Business is to simply group them.

In Teams, in order to find your contacts and groups, you open the chat tab in the left side navigation, Recent will usually open by default and is where you will find all your recent conversations.

To make it more like Skype for Business though, click on Contacts.

In Microsoft Teams you see you have a “favourites” group as you did in Skype for Business and by clicking “Create a new contact group” you can create all the groups you need.

Something missing in Microsoft Teams (at the moment) is the ability to drag-and-drop contacts between different groups which is a bit of pain. However one of the things I do really like about Microsoft is the fact that they care about their users and users can quickly suggest or vote of changes and improvements they want via their UserVoice forums for feedback. 

Make a call

Making a call in Microsoft Teams is essentially the same “workflow” as in Skype for Business. The easiest way is to open the chat/team you want to make the call from.

In a chat you click the phone or camera (dependent if you want to make the call an audio only or video call) located in the right corner. There you also have the option to share your screen. 

Making a call in a team channel

Within a team, calling looks a little different (but should still be familiar). Here, you can open the channel (within the Team) you want to call from. Here you will see in the panel where you write messages and there is an icon in the shape of a video camera. Simply click this to “video call” the channel (yes you can turn off your camera if you like!)

Since the channel usually has more members then a chat you will get the option to give your call a name/subject and also to schedule a meeting instead.  You also (if enabled by the admin) have the ability to record and transcribe the call too – which includes the audio, video, any notes taken, content shared etc. The main advantage of Skype for Business is still is recorded centrally (on Stream actually) rather than locally on the PC.

Join a meeting

Within Teams you can see all you meetings in Microsoft Teams and it is relatively clear if the meeting is a Skype meeting, Teams meeting or just a “regular” face-to-face meeting – I know right!!

If it’s a Teams meeting, you’ll from the screenshot below, its easy to quickly chat to partcipants or simply join the meeting with a click. For phone die hard fans or those not on teams, there is a also an Audio Dial-in section below the meeting invite.

A point to note, while you can join a Skype for Business meeting from Microsoft Teams  – it actually just launches legacy Skype for Business and runs the meeting from there….

Its’ a bit yukky i know!

Check someone’s availability 

When I was a Skype for Business user, I used the check people’s statuses loads and used to tag people for status changes (stalker mode as it was called).  I must admit, whilst this functionality actually does exist in Teams, I dont tend to use it very much since with persistent chat, I am more confident in people getting my messages (and hopefully replying). 

However, if you do like to know if and when people are free, you will see their “status” in front of their name. If you hover over their name, you can also see if they added any message and when they latest where online.

If a person is busy/offline you can follow a person’s status and get notified when they appear Available or Offline – easiest it to click … on the person you’re interested in and click Notify when availible.

Status settings in Microsoft Teams

Your status will follow the status from your calendar, but if you want to update your status manually you click your portrait /picture in the top right corner of the Teams Client

From here you can change your status (or reset it) and also set a status message if you want to like the What’s happening today? from Skype for Business.

You can also have the status message time-out/reset after a period of time (which is nice as Skype didn’t do this).

 

 

 

That’s it – all the key functions you use in Skype…but in Teams! 

Of course there is loads more that Teams does outside of basic messaging and calling which is not covered here such as bots, content collaboration and tabs…. 

Anyway…..hope you found this useful.

 

Credit goes to @amandassterner for the idea on this.

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Microsoft announces ‘Fluid Communication Experiences’ coming soon to Office 365

This week at Build (Microsoft’s annual developer conference), Microsoft announced the “Fluid Framework” a new software development kit (SDK) designed to help developers build faster and more flexibly distributed apps that will fundamentally change the way people think about document and collaborative editing and will help keep it ahead of the competition.

What is it?

In short, Fluid is a framework for building collaborative editing experiences.

Unlike the current Co auhtorsing capabilities of Office Online and Office Pro Plus though, since Fluid Framework can can be integrated across applications, that also means that users will be able to, for example, create and edit a document in an app such as Word and then share just an abstract or element of that document, say a table, in Microsoft Teams (or even a third-party application that supports Fluid Framework. All of the changes to the element sync in real time as a full document would in Office 365.

In one of the build demos, Microsoft’s demoed users could use formulas to calculate a cell in a spreadsheet inside the text document to calculate a number that is then automatically updated.

In another example Microsoft demoed how a document can be created and shared and then automatically translated in real-time to a variety of languages, while still allowing everybody to edit it in their own language.

Whilst in another demo, and element of a word document was inserted into Teams for review and edit without the actual document being uploaded or shared.

A Microsoft First?

Not in a tradional sense… but Microsoft has said that it’s Fluid Framework will sync faster than anything else currently on the market today whilst also providing developers the tools to deconstruct and reconstruct documents into different modular components so that they can then be integrated into different applications.

Microsoft PR head honcho Frank X. Shaw described the Fluid Framework as a way to “break down the barriers of the traditional document as we know it, and usher in the beginning of the free-flowing canvas.”

The Fluid Framework isn’t just about collaborative editing but it’s really a rethinking of how modern documents should work.

Microsoft already plans to integrate Fluid into some of its Office 365 applications later this year.

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Surface Hub 2: The Latest Update Annoucements

With the plethora of new information circling around the hugely  Microsoft Surface Hub 2 since their New York event and annoucnment of availability and pricing back on the 17th April. While we are still waiting for UK pricing and availablity, I wanted to try to summarise everything about the new Surface Hub is currently “public” into a blog post.

Release date and pricing

Whilst initially announced as ‘Hub 2’ in May last year, the evolution of the product into Hub 2S and Hub 2X (more on that later) means a staggered release, with the 2S variant becoming available in the North American market in June 2019, and other regions – including UK and other countries to follow “very” shortly after.

Pricing for  Surface Hub 2S in North America has been confirmed at $8,999, and as per the offical launch date into other markets, as well as  UK pricing is expected to confirmed (expected on 2nd May 2019).

Surface Hub 2S: The key specs

Taking it’s key desgn pricipals from the hugely successful Microsoft Surface “product family”, the Surface Hub 2 model comprises of a lighter (about 40%), thinner device in contrast to Surface Hub V1. The from the ground-up redesign introduces (as it did first time round) a new collaboration product category that I am sure the competition will quickly copy/immitate.

At just 27.9 kg , combined with the big reduction in bezel size, removing of built-in (non upgradable) cameras, inclusion of edge-side connectors and repositioning speakers to the rear, introduces the future option (coming in 2020) of tiling multiple devices together for greater options in both use, agility, and room design. On the subject of audio, the new speaker configuration in Hub 2 includes a subwoofer, and vastly superior quality speakers with ambient noise cancelling and  active speaker tracking.

The significantly smaller, more agile and lighter design is where the Surface Hub 2 has yet again created itself new space in the market. Whilst Surface Hub 1 could be used in a mobile environment (when used with the Microsoft Rolling Stand), the recent announcement of the APC Charge Mobile Battery which is designed to slot into the Steelcase Roam Mobile Stand, the Hub 2 takes this flexibilty even further with 2 hours of completely cable-free use.

Surface Hub 1 on Stand

Surface Hub 2S on Stand

I personally can’t wait to see this feature in our customers meeting spaces and to see how it creates even greater meeting & collaboration experiences for users in literally any space.

Aside from being massively impressed by the slick Microsoft launch (ok teaser) last year, the Hub 2’s mobility is truely genius – the beautifully engineered rolling stand deserves to win prizes as it really will set Hub 2 free and make collaboration truley possible in any space without the need for cumbersome cables or power one of the biggest blockers in creating agile teaching or collaboration spaces.

Surface Hub 2’s Partner in Crime – Whiteboard

In short, the Microsoft Whiteboard app is not confined (anymore) to Surface Hub. After already making is debut on Hub 1, it is a simple, clean yet vastly powerful and AI driven app that makes it easy to collaborate with multiple other people virtually using images, sticky notes, unlimited canvass, intelligent search and image services and of course …the digital pen. The app works across all Windows 10 devices, Apple Tablets and Android devices (very soon) and of course works seemlessly on all Surface devices including Surface Hub 1 and 2, Surface Studio, Surface Book, Surface Laptop and of course Surface Pro.

Whiteboard app if you havent tried it is simply awesome. I wont say much more on this blog – try it you’ll love it… what ever touch enabled device you use!

What Else is Coming?

Surface Hub 2X– When Hub 2X comes out next year, you’ll be able to easily upgrade a Surface Hub 2S to 2X through removable processor cartridge, unlocking upgraded operating system features, multiple device tiling, and the dynamic tilting screen.

Surface Hub 2S 85″ – The initial announcement/rumour of an 85″ Surface Hub version was made during the April 17 event, with product testing to commence early 2020, and anticipated for late 2020.

Surface Hub 2 Display only – Microsoft continues to build momentum in the Windows Collaboration Device product category with a display-only Hub 2 format that is pen and touch-back enabled, also expected later this calendar year.

Official Hub 2 Video

Talk to us & get started today

Cisilion is a leading Microsoft Gold Partner and Surface Hub Value Added Reseller and offers everything from supply and ship to complete life-cycle services.

Our offerings include everything from room design, supply and implementation, to change management and user adoption programs to ensure you and your teams achieve the maximum value from your investment.

Register your interest using the link below to reserve priority access to UK  Surface hub 2S stock when it becomes available.  You’ll also receive all of the latest updates and insights direct from both our team, and the Microsoft Surface Hub Team.

Thanks

Rob

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Admins can now restore files from Teams and Sharepoint

Microsoft has started rolling out File Restore for SharePoint and Microsoft Teams, a feature that allows Office 365 administrators to restore any files or folders deleted from the two services within the last 30 days.

“Files Restore is now available for SharePoint document libraries, protecting your shared files in SharePoint, Teams, Outlook groups, and Yammer groups connected to Office 365 groups and uses the same recovery capabilities that protect your individual files in OneDrive for Business,”.

Files shared on Microsoft Teams also leverage SharePoint Document libraries, which means that IT administrators don’t have to deal with separate storage containers and can quickly restore data.

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Microsoft Officially unifies labeling across Office 365 and Azure IP

Yesterday, after months of “preview testing”, Microsoft announced the “General Availability” (GA) of their Azure Information Protection (AIP) unified labeling client.

Sorry remind me – what is AIP?

Azure Information Protection (AIP) is a Microsoft 365 cloud-based solution that helps organisations to protect their data and information through the classification, labeling and (optionally), encryption of the data. AIP applies to a vast range of document types and emails data.  Labels can be applied automatically by administrators or SecOps who define rules and conditions, manually by your users, or a combination where users are given recommendations as to what labels to apply.

Example of recommended classification for Azure Information Protection

So what has changed in this update?

If you’ve been using labelling in Office 365 for things like DLP in the past you’ll know that this labelling has always been different to the labelling and classification service which is part of Azure Information Protection causing some pain and potential conflict between deifferent data and information labelling across the two services.

This GA release has now brought these together resulting in a completely integrated and unified labeling platform to eliminate managing labels in both the Azure portal and the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center.

The AIP unified labeling client gets its configuration (labels and polices) from the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center like all other Microsoft Information Protection workloads, including built in labeling in across the Office applications for Mac, iOS, and Android.

Microsoft say that this new release contains substantial new features from the original AIP client, including the manual and automatic labeling and exciting new features that are supported only for unified labeling, such as custom sensitive information types, dictionaries and complex conditions (AND/OR) that dramatically improve automation capabilities and reduce false positive rates.

Moving forward….

Microsoft’s advice is that for any organisation just starting their deployment and use of AIP are advised to start with the new unified labeling client and the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center to “enjoy” the unified client and admin experience.

From here on, new features will only be made available in the AIP unified labeling client.

But there is a but….. Since the new Unfied Client is not currently at full “feature parity” with old AIP client, organisations that require any of the features that are still not supported in the new AIP unified labeling client, for example “user defined permissions”, should start with the AIP client and upgrade these clients to the unified labeling client once the required features are released.

Microsoft does support “mixed environments” on the same environment which means you can run the AIP client and scanner, and the AIP unified labeling client on different devices at the same time. Additionally, Microsoft promises that the AIP unified labeling supports a seamless upgrade from the old AIP client.

How do I get it?

Complete release information for these two clients are available from Mcirosoft here: AIP client version history and the AIP unified labeling client version history.

More information about the AIP unified labeling client can be found in this Mcirosoft blog post.

You can download both AIP client versions from here.

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