Microsoft Teams and Outlook get tighter integration to ease adoption to Teams

#MicrosoftTeams and #Outlook integration was announced and Ignite last month and is getting ready to start rolling out this January.

This will include three features designed to help users more easily shift conversations in email (that are really better suited to chat) move / shift the conversation to #MicrosoftTeams.

This will include.

1. Sharing an email message directly to Teams (without having to get the Team email address from the Team site first) which allows the  sharing of a copy of an email and any attachments from Outlook to a channel or chat within Team


2. Share a conversation via email allowing a copy of a Teams channel or chat conversation via email directly from the Teams client.


3. Reply to Teams missed activity email directly within Outlook clients, as well as seeing the latest missed messages.

#modernworkplace #microsoft365 #office365 #adoption

Need a New Year Resolution? How about improving your Productivity Score?

Happy new year everyone…

Like many, we are thinking about what things to give up, things to start doing and things we want to do better in 2020. When it comes to our work and the things we do how about thinking about how we can work more efficiently when we return to work this week or next…

You see, people are seen to be as collaborating if one person edits and shares a document (or presentation, spreadsheet, onenote etc), and then at least one other person accesses it or collaborates on the same version of that document.

So what – why are you telling me this?

The more people collaborate, the more they’ll invest in each other’s ideas, which in turn leads to efficient authoring, easier interaction, faster response and more agile decision making. It can also be more secure since access to these documents is controlled, the files don’t end up being shared all over the place (un trackable) via email and everyone is “on the same page”.

Since we are all part of multiple teams within our roles at work, taking these simple steps will help you to save time ever day while increasing your content collaboration, improving security and compliance within the organisation and making it more efficient and effective to work on or update files together rather than emailing multiple versions backwards and forward via email like we did in the 90s (and many still do today).

Here’s some tips to get you more productive

1. Encourage yourself and others to collaborate better

It’s a proven fact that we work more effectively when we collaborate better. Many of is though, still save our files locally or use VPNs (yes they are still a thing apparently for remote access) and then share files (which we expect people to comment and collaborate on via email attachments).

Let’s be honest, no one likes trying to merge all the changes from the many reply to all emails you get back with multiple versions of the same file (especially when everyone has different ideas or responds to an out of date version).

Improve your collaboration posture, your security ying and yang and be more productive… Heres a short little video to introduce (ok hopefully remind you) of the benefits of saving and sharing files in the cloud, co-authoring in real time, and collaborating with comments and @ mentions.

2. Learn about and adopt the benefits of cloud storage

Hopefully your not still storing stuff on your un protected (not backed up) desktop or using old school file shares.

Using OneDrive (thereby storing files in the cloud) means they’re always backed up, available from other devices, and set up for real-time collaboration and secure file sharing. Watch this quick video to understand the benefits using OneDrive has for you.

3. Replace those email attachments with “shared links”

Rather than sending files via attachments, it far more effective to share a link to your file (assuming you’ve saved it in OneDrive, Teams or SharePoint) within your email message. This way everyone (you decide) can view and update (if you give them permission) the file and see changes and collaborate in real time. This is also far more secure as you prevent recipients downloading or editing the file plus you can always revoke permissions if you wish.

For a quick video on how to do watch this short video clip..

You mentioned the word score? How is productivity measured?

That’s right. It’s now (well it’s in Public Preview right now) to measure how productive your organisation is through a new service within Office 365 called “Productivity Score”.

Productivity Score provides insights that help transform how work gets done.  It aims to provide your organisation visibility into how your organisation works, insights that identify where you can enable improved experiences so people can reach their goals, and actions to update skills and systems so everyone can do their best work. 

Productivity Score Summary

There are two categories that your (organisation) score is built from, the employee experience and the technology experience and both include a benchmark that helps you compare how you are doing compared to organisation similar to yours (based on size, geography and sector). 

The employee experience shows how Microsoft 365 is helping to create a productive and engaged workforce by quantifying how people collaborate on content, work from anywhere, understanding communication styles, and developing a meeting culture.

The technology experience helps you ensure the technology isn’t getting in the way by assisting you optimise your device experiences such as proactively remediating common helpdesk issues and improving PC startup times, and your network to ensure your apps work well.

Available today (registration/sign up request required until it releases formally in early 2020) in the Office 365 Admin Centre.

For more information from Microsoft on this as it develops read the following blog.

That’s it from me. Welcome any feedback and comments and in the mean time Happy Xmas and all the best for 2020!

2020: Hello Surface Hub 2X. Powered by the new Windows 10X?

After abruptly ending production of the original SurfaceHub in 2017, Microsoft originally announced the Surface Hub 2 in April 2018 with an impressive marketing video. In September 2018, we learned more about the reality and timeline of this new device with a “phased launch plan” which saw the introduction of two models: the Surface Hub 2S and the SurfaceHub2X.

SurfaceHub2S

The SurfaceHub2S arrived this year (we got ours delivered in August). This came with an impressive new premium design, looking for like a giant SurfacePro with a modest internals upgrade, superior new 4k screen, plus ability to have it roam on a lightweight battery powered stand. From a software perspective however, it’s identical to the original Surface Hub.

Surface Hub 2X

The SurfaceHub2X was promised for sometime in 2020 with all the new features showcased in the exciting promo video, complete with a rotating display and a software experience that enables seamless transitions between display modes, in addition to other features like active tiling.

As we come closer to this 2020 date, new details of the SurfaceHub2X are now beginning to come to light such the changes to the OS that are expected to power the new device (or upgrade module that will be available for the SurfaceHub2S). While not a suprise to many (and to honest, expected) Surface Hub 2X could ship with a variant of the Windows Core OS that was originally announced at the tail end of 2018.

What’s the big difference?

Unlike the original SurfaceHub and SurfaceHub2S which runs WindowsTeam edition, it is beleived that a varient of Windows Core OS (Windows 10X) will power the SurfaceHub2X when it ships next year. We also expect this to be an upgrade option (via upgraded interface card) for the existing SurfaceHub2S.

SurfaceHub2X Promo

When in 2020 can I get one?

We need to wait a little longer to hear exactly when. If this is indeed dependant on the release of Windows10X which is not expected until mid 2020 at the earliest we could be in for a longish wait…

… But bear in mind the SurfaceHub2S will have upgrade options…

<40p a day gets you Microsoft Teams Voice

Microsoft 365 Business Voice

….is a cloud-based phone system built and priced specifically for small and medium businesses which was announced at Ignite earlier this month and is available now.

Microsoft Business Voice enables users to make, receive, and transfer calls to and from landlines and mobile phones on the public switched telephone network (PSTN) directly into Microsoft Teams and/or on Teams certified desk phones, meeting room technology of course corporate or user owned smartphones (which can be protected and data governed by Microsoft Intune and Conditional Access naturally).

Microsoft Cloud Voice extends the functionality of Microsoft Teams bringing together all your calling, chat, and meetings in a single app across any platform, browser or mobile device removing the need for separate/third party web and audio conferencing services and IP Phone/PBX. 

This is the same service (complete with SLAs) that Microsoft has provided with Teams (and Skype for Business Online before that) in Office 365 Enterprise, but much more attractively priced for organisations up to three hundred users.  (these plans can also be mixed between plans).

This new plan/add-on provides:-

  • Unified calling & voicemail with chat and meetings in Microsoft Teams
  • 1,200 minutes per use and ability to migrate existing numbers
  • Global dial-in conferencing capabilities for up to 250 participants
  • Extend voice services into meeting rooms with Teams Room Systems
  • Full IVR and auto-attendant services
  • Support Teams desk phones or break free with soft-client and mobile

What does it cost?
Licensing for Microsoft 365 Business Voice Is limited to a maximum of 300 users and Is add-on service and Is available for any customers who have Office 365 Business, Office 365 Business Premium, Office 365 E3, A3 and Microsoft 365 Business, and Microsoft F1, E1, A3, & E3.

The Business Voice add-on license is available for just ÂŁ12 per user per month via web-direct or via your CSP Partner

This is excellent value
When you think this removes the need to use addition phone system (and charges) or 3rd party web / audio conferencing services like Zoom or WebEx (which is ~ÂŁ25 pupm alone) – you get a hell of lot of bang for your buck (or pound).

Existing organisations already using Microsoft Cloud Voice, can leverage this discounted bundle for up to three hundred users also, so you could save some good money!

 

#Ignite2019 Day 1 – Key Announcements

Today saw Day 1 of Microsoft’s Annual Ignite conference in Orlando.

As expected there was a lot of hot (mainly Teams and Azure) news announced first thing and after reading many of the blogs, tweets and linked in posts, I’ve tried to summarise and include all the main (and my favourite) highlights (so far) in this one post.

This will likely be out of date before I finishing writing it, as there will be other “smaller” announcements through the day and into the rest of the week. We have also seen some other key big announcements from Microsoft partners and even their “competition” all Microsoft focused of course. 

1. Microsoft Teams: Wealth of new features and integrations from Cisco and Zoom. 

As expected, Microsoft Teams got some big announcements today, with the much anticipated roll out (this week) of secure private channels. Also announced was early 2020 roll out of pinned channels, multi-window chats and meetings. Microsoft also announced new integrations with To Do, Microsoft Planner, Project, Outlook, Yammer and the newly updated Power Platform. 

2. Breaking down the vendor wars with improved meeting room and interop between Cisco and Zoom

Microsoft and Cisco have announced a partnership to work together to simplify the interop between Microsoft Teams Rooms and Phone System with Cisco Webex Room devices and IP voice gateways respectively and includes three new initiatives to help customers to get more out of their current investments.

  1. Cloud Video Interop (CVI):  Cisco Webex will introduce an interop solution that will be certified as a Microsoft Cloud Video Interop (CVI) solution and will allow Cisco Webex Room devices and SIP video conferencing devices to join Microsoft Teams meetings with a reliable interop experience.  Coming early FY20.

  2. Direct guest join, for meeting room devices: Cisco and Microsoft are also working together on a new approach that enables meeting room devices to connect to meeting services from other vendors via embedded web technologies.  They announced a new “direct guest join” capability from their respective video conferencing device to the web app for the video meeting service.

  3. Direct Routing for Phone System:  At the heart of Microsoft Teams Direct Routing are Session Border Controllers (SBC). Since many customers also use Cisco Networking technology including SBCs and want both companies to provide joint solutions that do not require replacement of key infrastructure. Support for Cisco as a certified SBC is due in CY2020.

Zoom and Microsoft also announced that they have worked together to enhance conference room interoperability and simplify how users connect to third-party meetings.

This Zoom and Microsoft collaboration provides interoperability between the Zoom conference room solutions to provide streamlined meeting experiences. This will mean Zoom Rooms will be able to join Microsoft Teams meetings and Microsoft Teams Rooms will be able to join Zoom meetings, all without the purchase of additional licenses or third-party services. This is coming early CY2020.

 

3. Microsoft Flow is renamed to “Power Automate”

So this might take some time to grow on me, but Microsoft Flow, is being renamed to Power Automate. The name change was announced to allow the platform to “better align” with the wider Power Platform. Microsoft Flow (Sorry Automate) is also getting new a bunch of new features including Robotic process automation (RPA) for automating complex processes that span legacy and modern applications.

 

4. New: Microsoft Endpoint Manager

Microsoft Endpoint Manager is an integrated solution that promised to centrally and securely manage all of the endpoints across an organisation.  This the next major milestone for Intune and will bring together Microsoft Intune and System Center Configuration Manager functionality while also adding a new intelligent actions and analytics.

Endpoint Manager will deliver a unified, seamless, end-to-end management for Windows, Android and Apple devices, apps, and policies without the complexity of a migration or disruption to productivity.

Expected in Q1 of 2020, Microsoft have also said they will be making Intune available to all existing SCCM customers for Windows PC management, meaning that Starting on 1st December 2019, customers can start to co-manage these devices in Microsoft Endpoint Manager, and start using cloud-powered features like Autopilot and Desktop Analytics.

 

5. New Chromium-based Edge: Jan 15 2020 Release

Actually one of my favourite #Geekouts right now – Microsoft has said that January 15, 2020 will be be for official release date of their new Chromium-based Edge browser for Windows and Mac. Microsoft announced that a “release candidate” build is available to download today in more than 90 languages which can be installed alongside the Canary, Dev, or Beta builds you may already be running or testing.

If you are a big Google Chrome fan, I urge you to try this out – its a really great browser and has loads of enterprise features built right in including native integration with your Office 365 environment.

https://www.microsoftedgeinsider.com/ 

 

6. New: Office Mobile app for iOS and Android

I’ve been using this for a while (well a week or so) and today Microsoft is making this generally available for preview. The new Office Mobile app for iOS and Android combines Word, Excel, and PowerPoint functionality into a a simple single mobile app, similar to the old Office Hub on Windows Phone for those that remember it!. The new app has a really useful comes with an “Actions” pane, with easy access to common tasks, including scanning documents.

 

7. New: Project Cortex – a Microsoft 365 application that leverages AI to help better organise company data 

Microsoft today, announced Project Cortex, the first new Microsoft 365 app since the announcement of Microsoft Teams that uses AI to analyse business data and in turn create a kind of neuro-knowledge network. The app will be able to organise data into different projects and customers, and make it easier for employees to find important info that can be buried in documents, conversations, or videos across their hybrid IT environment. This to me sounds a bit like Delve on steroids and one I need to read a bit more on (as I’m sure you will too), but it seems to be able to recognise data in documents and pull them together into actionable and useful information.

The follow video is quite an easy watch and shows some of the work they have done with early adopter customers https://youtu.be/K0Y15WKXuws

More in-depth info can be found here: 

 

Hope you found this useful – please share your favourite announcements, small or large…. 

The best tools to help you find and book your Meetings

While not so much of a problem between one or two people, when you are trying to arrange meetings or conf calls between a larger number of people (especially cross company), the process can be quite a frustrating and laborious process with lots of back and forth emails checking people availability. Unless you are lucky enough to have a PA!

#Microsoft has a couple of simple, yet powerful tools, tucked away in Office 365 to help, yet I’m often amazed how many people simply don’t know that these tools exist… So, this blog is aimed these people… Trust me. It will make your work life just that little bit easier.

There are two services I’m going to cover here: –

  • FindTime
  • Calendar.help [my personal favourite]

Microsoft FindTime

FindTime is an Azure powered Outlook add-in that makes it much easier to find the right time most convenient time for a group of people to meet. As I said, this is one of the most under-appreciated (and unknown) part of Office 365 / Outlook and it’s an absolute godsend if you book lots of meetings.

The basic problem with meeting scheduling is that everyone involved in a meeting has different availability and whilst intra-company you may be able to see colleague calendars, across company this is not easily achieved. This means that for a meeting with all parties to be arranged successfully a common free or preferred time must be found.

How FindTime works

Microsoft FindTime does this by coordinating communication between meeting participants by essentially “polling” each attendee to find their acceptable time from a set of choices the organiser chooses. As attendees vote or decline times, they see in real time others preferred timing for the meeting.

Once an agreed time is found, FindTime creates the meeting on behalf of the organiser. That’s it.

FindTime is simple and easy to understand and use (if the plug in is installed). The FindTime Outlook add-in works for Office (ProPlus), Outlook (Web) , and Outlook for Mac but is only needed by the actual organiser. Attendees who respond/vote to the FindTime polls don’t need the add-in.

Creating a New FindTime Poll

To create a new meeting poll, the organiser simply needs to either create a new message or select an existing message.

Within the email, The To: recipients are your required attendees while those on the Cc: list are optional.

From here, you click the Findtime button on the toolbar and then simply select some time slots for your meeting (see below).


The suggested time slots are organised by availability or time. Availability shows who’s free for a selected slot, but this depends on FindTime being able to access the free/busy time of the attendees. If your (or your attendees) Office 365 tenant doesn’t make free/busy time available to other tenants, FindTime won’t be able to consume this data when it initially checks availability so will be reliant on the attendee’s choice/preference only

Every Meeting a Teams Meeting

FindTime can create an online meeting with Teams (or Skype for Business Online).

As the organiser, once you’ve defined your preferred times, you simply insert the poll into the message and send the email as normal. In the background this then creates the poll in the FindTime Azure service to prepare for responses.

Responding to FindTime

People invited to the FindTime poll receive the poll in their email.

To respond, the user clicks on the poll which takes them to a voting page on which of the proposed time slots are acceptable.

Attendees then submit their preferred “choices” to FindTime, which collates the responses and settles on the best available time.

As people vote, the meeting organiser gets updates via email.

Reaching Consensus

Once each participant has voted and the organiser has picked the best time, the FindTime service auto schedules the meeting (assuming the required participants have reached a consensus on a time). If participants agree on multiple slots, FindTime selects the earliest available time.

If an agreed time cannot be found, the meeting is not automatically scheduled and the meeting organiser can update the proposed time slots to try and find one that suits. Alternatively, the organiser can go ahead with their preferred time and accept that some people can’t attend.

For more information, please head over to the FindTime FAQ.

Note. If this is your first time using FindTime, I recommend you check (and set) you default time as FindTime seems to like to default to US Pacific Time Zone. To check and set your default time zone, you need to go to findtime.microsoft.com and access your account settings.

Calendar.Help (aka Office 365 Scheduler)

In my option, this takes meeting scheduling to a whole new level and will soon be an integral part of Office 365 and Cortana – if it ever gets released in GA!

Calendar.Help leverages Cortana as the point of interaction and uses a combination of your Outlook Free/Busy and artificial intelligence processing to book meetings that work for everyone without the need for plug-ins etc.

The way Calendar.Help works is that you simply include Cortana@calendar.help in your email to set up meetings. Cortana uses natural language processing and interprets your request in the meeting to find the best time.

Here’s how Calendar.help works

As you can see from the email below, you simply send Cortana an email asking her to book a meeting for you.

Once Cortana has the request and is processing it, the organiser receives a confirmation email from Cortana. If “she” needs more information, Cortana will email the organiser to ask for clarification

Cortana then does her thing and liaises with the attendees to agree a time that works through a combination of asking and checking diaries in the attendees Exchange diary. Once attendees have responded and/or a suitable time has been found, Cortana books the meeting for you.

The meeting invite is sent based on your preferences and instructions.

Preferences and Settings

Out of the box, Calendar.help works well and there is a webpage where you can manage preferences in. This includes, blocking out lunch times, default meeting length, times to avoid and whether to always make the meeting an online meeting in Teams for example. You can also use the web-portal to initiate meetings and bookings or cancel pending requests, but you can also just ask Cortana to do this in the email.

One thing I find with Calendar.help however, is that sometimes, attendees respond directly to me and don’t include Cortana which means she is then out of the loop and unable to progress your meetings further…. this is kind of an end user education thing but can be a pain!

Would love to know how you find the service(s) described here – do you use them, do you find them useful, do you use some else?

PowerPoint Coach – come on – we all need this tool!

So, I have a couple of presentations coming up in the next couple of weeks and I have been dying to test out the #PowerPointCoach.

So before we head off for the weekend, I just wanted to make you all aware (if you weren’t) of this awesome new addition to PowerPoint if you haven’t seen or heard of it…

Introducing PowerPoint Coach

Training and feedback are vital in helping us confidence and improve our “public” speaking abilities. While we can self review, gain feedback from team mates or peers, Microsoft has gone a step further to help us using the power of AI….oooooooh AI…

Presenter Coach in PowerPoint does this listening and feedback for you (and you never have to worry about it drifting off as you rehearse). Presenter Coach lets you enter “rehearsal mode”, providing on-screen guidance for pacing, inclusive language, use of profanity, filler words (like “erm” and “actually”) and culturally insensitive phrases.

To test this out, head over to PowerPoint Online (not the desktop version), Open or create a presentation, then go to the “Slideshow” menu and click “Rehearse with Coach” Even works with “recorded slides”. 

It’s really great to see this in action after being announced earlier this year.

Of course one thing it cant do it tell you whether your presentations actually make any sense (well not yet anyway) – what is does it provides great feedback on your pace, flow and rythm…something i personally struggle with when I first kick off!  

 

have a good weekend all.

 

The Microsoft Whiteboard just got better

What’s Microsoft Whiteboard?

Microsoft Whiteboard allows Windows, SurfaceHub and iOS (Android coming soon) to Create freely and work naturally – giving ideas room to grow with Microsoft Whiteboard. Transform your work into professional-looking charts and shapes on an infinite canvas with an interface designed for pen, touch, and keyboard.

The Whiteboard app is also built into Microsoft Teams and can be used in video calls to help teams work collaboratively in a virtual whiteboard space.

Whats Changed?

Microsoft Whiteboard allows Windows, SurfaceHub and iOS (Android coming soon) to Create freely and work naturally – giving ideas room to grow with Microsoft Whiteboard. Transform your work into professional-looking charts and shapes on an infinite canvas with an interface designed for pen, touch, and keyboard.

Microsoft updated their White Boarding App yesterday “Microsoft Whiteboard” for Windows (including Surface Hub) and iOS yesterday adding a hugely requested feature which they have called “templates”.

What Templates are available?

The templates help to quick start meetings and get everyone on the same page. They have been added to help with common tasks and Team sessions around SWOT analysis, project planning, learning, and more. Microsoft have created layouts that provide an immediate structure  with helpful tips for running activities that can be easily expanded to fit any and all content.

Microsoft have said that more templates and capabilities will be made available continuously in the coming months.

If you cant see the feature yet, head to the store and check for updates!

If you dont have Whiteboard yet – you can get it here:

Another critical step to preventing Identity and Information Theft…

One of my earlier posts talked about how enabling Multi-Factor Authentication across your organisation can dramatically reduce your risk of attack/breach or data theft by Identity Compromise however after reading some of the comments and talking to some other IT admins and CSOs, I felt this needed a Part #2.

According to Symantec, 91% of all Cyber Attacks start with a spear phishing email  

Protecting Corporate Email

Its fair to say that “most” organisations who use Microsoft Exchange Online for their corporate email services use some form of additional security or protection…. 

Exchange Online Protection

Microsoft provides Exchange Online Protection (EOP) as a standard service with Exchange which essentially is an anti-spam and antivirus service.

Every and any mail security company, Symantec, proof point, mimecast, you name it, will heavily criticise Microsoft for its “lack” of protection against modern and zero-day threats and to be honest they are quiet right too but what many people aren’t aware of (and I don’t think Microsoft shout about it loud enough) – they have some pretty good advanced services you can enable (or buy).  Any security officer will tell you that they key to security is defence in depth and there isn’t a single  “master of all” platform or vendor out there that can protect an organisation from attack, regardless of what form it comes in.

Having multiple defences (not necessarily multiple vendors) in place helps because if spam sneaks by the first line, it might be stopped by the second. 

As you’d expect there are many 3rd party products and services available that complement the standard Exchange Online Protection services available including ProofPoint, Symantec, Mimecast etc, but if your organisation uses Microsoft Exchange Online then, depending on your licensing level, you have some pretty impressive advanced security features which to be honest, you should be using especially if you don’t use any 3rd party bolt-ons. This Office 365 ATP (note, its not specifically focuses on Exchange).

Hello Office 365 ATP

Microsoft Office Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), which is part of Office 365 E5 (or an add-on) builds on the Microsoft EOP and provides two key features aimed at protecting users from phishing attacks, malicious attachments and other advanced threat vectors which typically target users but getting them to click something, fill something in or download something. Again, according to Symantec 1 in 4 people will click a link in an email without checking the message header or checking it is from who they think it is.

Of course Microsoft claim Office ATP is the best line of defence for their Office 365 customers. As you’d expect, Third-party mail hygiene services beg to differ and say that their solutions offer better protection. Either way, you’re better protected when EOP is not the only line of defence.

So what’s Office ATP Include?

Office ATP delivers two key security enhancements for Exchange (and Office 365 in general) including ATP Safe Attachments and ATP Safe Links, both features designed to prevent or stop malicious content arriving in user mailboxes and indeed across the other key Office 365 services.

ATP Safe Attachments

The concept behind ATP Safe Attachments is fairly simple and is designed with protecting users against emails that may contain malicious attachments. ATP Safe Attachments helps here by intercepting all emails before they hit the users inbox, essentially detonates the attachment to makes sure its safe. ATP Safe Attachments also stops infections caused by malware being uploaded to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business sites, including the SharePoint Online sites used by Microsoft Teams (which is enough for Microsoft to claim ATP support for Teams).

There are a couple of configuration options around how Safe Attachments works which are mainly designed to control how attachments get delivered to users.

The options are relatively self explanatory. For avoidance of doubt, I’d strongly recommend using Dynamic Delivery, which means all users receive their email messages (at first) without the attachments (well, they get a place-holder) while those attachments are being scanned by Microsoft to check they are safe.

Safe Attachments doesn’t generally take long to process attachments and in my experience the delay is usually less than 30 seconds (though that can feel like ages if you are waiting for the scan to complete in order to open your attachment – especially if its a sales PO!). 

ATP Safe Links

ATP Safe Links as the name implies, provides “click-time” URL Protection to blocks malicious links by analyzing them at arrival time and also each and every time the user clicks on the link to protect against spear phishing attacks that weaponize a link after an email is delivered.

While links are being checked, users are prevented from getting to these to the sites. Yes, this can delay mail recipients from being able to get to information but given the amount of bad sites that exist on the internet (and that more than 91% of phishing attacks original from email), this is a fair compromise, even if users are sometimes frustrated when they can’t immediately reach a site because of a blocked link.

A newish feature in the ATP Safe Links policy allows Office 365 administrators to “delay message delivery” until all links in an email message are scanned (see below). This seems to be “off” by default but is definitely one I think should be enabled. 

” alt=”” aria-hidden=”true” />Configuring Wait for URL Scanning in an ATP Safe Links policy

What are my other Options?

I’m not going to go into the pros and cons of the other services in this blog, the 3rd party vendors will do this, but depending on your licensing level, need or desire to use multiple vendors for security or to standardise your security products across other key strategic vendors, you may choose to explore. Which is best – its hard to say but if you have nothing, I’d start with Office ATP as its most likely included within your licensing plan (and if not its easy to set-up a trial with your partner).

Summary

Microsoft and also many 3rd parties provide Advanced Threat Protection services across Exchange Online . At time of writing, Microsoft, however, are the only vendor that extend these services across other Office 365 services including SharePoint Online, One Drive for Business and therefore Teams.

What are organisation-wide Teams in Teams?

Organisation-wide teams provide an automatic way for everyone in a small to medium-sized organisation (up to 5,000 users) to be a part of a single team for collaboration and notifications.

With org-wide teams, an organisation can easily have a (well actually up to 5) public teams that pulls in every user in the organisation and keeps the membership up-to-date with Active Directory as users join and leave the organisation (assuming your AD is well managed of course).

As your organisation’s directory is updated to include new active users, or if users no longer work at your company and their Teams license is disabled, changes are automatically synced and the users are added or removed from the team.

Team members can’t leave an org-wide team.

As a team owner, you can manually add or remove users if needed.

Best practices for organisation-wide teams

To get the most benefit out of using an org-wide team, there’s some best practice Microsoft has published based on its research with customers:

  • Allow only team owners to post to the General channel, to reduce channel “noise.”
  • Turn off @team and @[team name] mentions to prevent overloading the entire organisation.
  • Automatically mark important channels as favorites to ensure that everyone in your organization engages in specific conversations.
  • Set up channel moderation so that moderators can control who can start a new post in a channel as well. As who can reply..You may want it as an annoucment only channel for example.
  • Remove accounts that might not belong. Such as test accounts etc.

I also discovered you can convert an existing Team to a Org-wide team if you want to.. Again this is an admin required task.

Private Channels in org-wide Teams?

There is of course Private Channels also coming very shortly to Teams which can also be used to segregate aspects of your org-wide Team to, well, less than all the organisation… I’d probably suggest not using this function inside these kind of Teams (assuming it’s permitted).

https://robquickenden.blog/private-channels-for-teams-are-almost-here

Thanks for Reading.

Private channels for Teams are finally here.

What are Private Channels In Teams?

Updated: 4th Nov 19

Private Channels (which are being released this week) will allow team owners to limit which team members can see the conversation and content within a particular channel within a Team (kind of a private space between a wider Team). This allows team admins to right-size channel participation and exposure without having to create discrete teams to limit visibility. This can help with reducing team sprawl and can help with internal and B2B communications.

Private channels will be indicated by a small lock / padlock icon next to the channel within a Team.

  • Team owners will be able to see all channels and private channels
  • Team members will only be able to see and participate in private channels they have been added to.
  • Any member of a Team can create a private channel and they then become the owner of that private channel even if they aren’t the owner of the Team.
  • Private Channel owners can add and remove members just like with a Team but to be a member of the Private Channel, the user must be (at least) a member of the Team first.
  • External users/guests can be added to a Private Channel just like with a Team but again the the guest must also be a member of the Team first.
  • Related to the above… YOU CANNOT USE A PRIVATE CHANNEL to invite guests and then only share certain information with them and not the rest of the Team.

But it’s not been an easy journey!

  • Private channels have been the most requested feature on User Voice
  • The feature has been in development for over two years now
  • On March 19th this year Microsoft announced that private channels will be coming out later this year
  • This week the upcoming change started apprwaing in customers Office 365 Message Centre
  • They start rolling out this week (Nov 4th)

Why do we need Private Channels in Teams?

Pretty much ever since Teams was released users have been asking (shouting) for Private Channels. The concept sounds straightforward enough; private channels would only be seen and accessible by the creator and whoever he/she invites. In practice, however, the feature has been a major development challenge.

According to the user requests and comments in Teams User Voice, people generally want more options when it comes to creating channels in Microsoft Teams. Specifically, they want channels that are:

  • Public-Open (Visible anywhere including outside the organisation that anyone can join)
  • Public-Invitation (Visible anywhere including outside the organisation; must be invited)
  • Company-Open (Only visible inside the organisation and anyone inside can join; those outside the organisation must be invited)
  • Company-Invitation (Only visible inside the organisation, must be invited)
  • Secret (Invisible to everyone except existing members, must be invited)

The need has raised quite a debate

What might seem a simple request has created lots of friction and almost brexit like opinion polls over the last couple of years

The “Pro” private channels want it becuase:

  • Private channels enable admins to have more granular control over who can and can’t access certain content.
  • Sensitive material can be more easily gated.
  • Having private channels would also make something like a manager/executive-only chat within a Team possible or make a customer focused team have an internal “private” area

The “anti” private channels don’t like the concept of a private channels because:

  • Teams is all about open collaboration. It was designed to make working with others as seamless as possible. Once you’re in a Team you have access to everything in there so the concept of a private channel goes again the grain.
  • By implementing more controls and requiring the team owner to manage permissions for every private team that gets created, it can quickly become counter productive and ‘anti’ to the purpose of the platform.
  • Private channels can be seen as unnecessary. You can arguably create a new separate team if you want privacy.
  • If you want a private chat between two or more managers/execs, you could simply create and use a regular group chat.

These are all workable (though not necessarily as convenient) options.

Why has it taken so long to develop?

Outside of the long and extensive debates above and Microsoft having to try to make sense of it, consult with large enterprise and event run early alpha tests with clients to test and confirm the pro and cons, the design and implementation of this feature has been complex

In simple terms, Channels in Teams simply were not originally designed or created to be “blocked off” or isolated and so because of this, the architecture of channels doesn’t lend itself to being private and has had to be majorly modified to accommodate this feature

There’s more to it than this though…

Every Team that’s created is enabled by other components of Office 365. For example, Teams need Planner for task management and SharePoint (that includes One Drive) for file storage. If a certain channel in a Team became private…

  • SharePoint permissions would be broken.
  • Planning permissions would be broken.
  • Stream permissions would be broken.
  • Tab level permissions would be broken.

The engineering team at Redmond have had to overcome a whole load of technical and process integration obstacles to provide options for organisation who wish to make part of their open collaboration platform. not open!

I already use Teams? What do I need to do?

You don’t have to do anything. Private channels can be used or disabled should IT not want this feature being used…whilst not released yet the options to control it are available now in the Teams policies settings in the Teams Admin Centre.

There isn’t a process to covert a Team into a channel within another team so this is a process you’ll need to consider and think about and there will be use cases for such you’ll want to consider… A personal example for our organisation is where we have Team sites for customer project work which is internal and another customer Team site we use for sharing and collaborating with a customer..

We in effect have duplicate Teams today for this reason. I expect we will look to consolidate these down to one and use private channels within a wider channel that we will use for internal / company confidential communications and docs.

Of course… This also is a great time to look at house cleaning Teams across the estate…Time will tell on that one!

When it is available?

Private Channels is rolling out this week…so now (almost). Like all new features.. They take a few days to roll out depending on your Office 365 release schedule.

Microsoft has a new SMS Organiser app and it’s brilliant

Microsoft has launched (in preview) an SMS Organizer app for Android devices.

Why? Well, other messaging apps like WhatsApp are really good at things like sorting messages and adding some intelligence but plain old text/SMS apps don’t get any love… Until now..

Microsoft originally released the app in India last year but its now popped up in early release mode in the Play Store here in the UK…according to sources it’s only available today in UK, USA and Australia today.

Why should I care?

SMS Organizer uses machine learning to automatically analyse and sort messages and then organises them into different folders for you.

For example, any and all messages recognised as spam or sales promotional messages get filtered into a “promotions” folder, while real messages live in inbox.


Microsoft also generates contextual reminders in your SMS inbox for things like flights, trains, and appointments or bookings and there’s also a whole bunch of customisation options including ability to block senders, star/favourite messages, and even archive/backup older messages.

Once you install it, it asks to take over as the default messaging app.

That’s it… Download it here… ANDROID ONLY.

https://aka.ms/smsorganizer

Thanks all

Rob

You can now include system audio in Teams meetings

August 2019:

Up until now (well, yesterday in my experience, it has not been possible to share your “system audio” when sharing or presenting content such as a video or PowerPoint from within a #MicrosoftTeams meeting.  A new update in in Teams which is rolling out “now” (mine “switched on” yesterday” now lets you do just that! 

This feature is easily missed but you can spot it (and enable) it from the share try tab when in a teams Meeting. When sharing content (such a application or your screen, simply tick the “include system audio” and you are good to go. 

A couple of things…

…you need to check to make sure this works though

First, you need to ensure your Windows audio device is the same as your audio device in Teams. So if you hear the audio from other participants in your headphones you have to make sure that your Windows system sound is played to that device too.

If you don’t have the same audio device selected in Teams and in Windows you will likely see the error below.

Secondly – if you have already stared a sharing session and forgot to enable the system audio, you can enable this “mid-sharing” by clicking the icon in the top control bar. To do this, simply move your mouse to the top of the screen and it should appear, select “Include system audio” by clicking on the button.

What about Live Events?

Right now, from my initial testing anyway, sharing system audio does not work with Live Events which is odd. I’ve seen nothing specifically about this in the Teams Road map but i suspect this is something that will be addressed in time. 

Thanks for Reading.

Rob

Microsoft finally puts the Nail in Skype for Business Online’s coffin

We knew it was coming and it’s actually taken longer than many people thought, but just 2 years after the first debut of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft has announced the Skype for Business Online will no longer be available from 31st July 2021 – which is two years from today!

Here’s what we know

  • Skype for Business Online will be officially retired on July 31 2021 and after that date the service will no longer be accessible in any region.
  • Current Skype for Business Online customer will experience no impact, changes or feature additions to their existing service
  • Organisations are advised to start planning their move to Teams soon and can access resources through Microsoft or their partner
  • Skype for Business Server is still supported until at least 2025.

Why now?

Microsoft has been working heavily on Teams since its launch which was always intended to fully replace Skype for Business Online at somepoint.

There gave been a plethora of new updates releases to Teams in recent months especially around voice, auto attendant services and support for direct routing (bring your own SIP). At Microsoft’s Global Partner Conference arlier this month, Microsoft also announced that their full APIs stack for voice have been released meaning that ISVs and software partners now finally able to bring their custom extensibility apps such as Contact Centre Solutions and Call Recording into Teams.

Unlike Skype for Business Online, it’s key to remember that Teams is not just a cloud phone system, but a fully integrated enterprise chat, collaboration and productivity platform with an extensive set of phone features.

Today Team and Skype for Business (online and on-premise) can co exist and even integrate to varying degrees with each other but each and all of the these modes have been designed with eventual migration to Teams in mind.

From September 1 this year, Microsoft will also discontinue the Skype for Business Online service for new users (meaning new customers cannot have Skype for Business Online) , providing them only with the option of Microsoft Teams as their central place for communication and cloud voice – or ofcourse Skype for Business Server.

Any organisation already using Skype for Business Online will retain all access, including the ability to add new users but organisations need to start planning for the migration which will turn off for good in 2 years time.

What about Skype for Business Server?

Any organisation using (or planning to use and deploy) Skype for Business Server will not be affected, and the Microsoft have committed to supporting the service until October 14, 2025 at the very least. Skype for Business Server 2019 has recently been released and comes with it, extensive integration to Teams to make integration and longer term migration possible.

How should I get started on migration from Skype to Teams?

Microsoft provide a comprehensive set of technical guidance and planning resources for Teams, and of course you can work with your Microsoft Partner to help you plan, pilot, migrate and train users.

That’s all for now.

Thanks

Rob

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. 

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

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:

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 ÂŁ11.50 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 ÂŁ6.00 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.

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.

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.