Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 8/3/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Our Teams CSMs during a virtual coffee shop. For more tips on maintain a connected culture check out Matt’s blog to review how remote work is affecting all of us see MICROSOFT ANALYZED DATA ON ITS NEWLY REMOTE WORKFORCE

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Creating cloud ready environments with Azure landing zones	Azure
Azure Cost Management + Billing updates – July 2020	Azure
New Windows Virtual Desktop capabilities now generally available	Azure
Achieve High-Availability for SAP HANA Scale-Out on SLES with HSR and automatic failover	SAP
Business Applications
Advancing resilience through chaos engineering and fault injection	Azure
Microsoft field technicians get their mobility back with Dynamics 365 app	IT Showcase
A Closer Look at Data Platform Capabilities in Dataflex for Teams	Power Apps
Windows
Enabling secure remote work using Windows Virtual Desktop | Azure Friday	YouTube
Introducing the Bing Enterprise Homepage	Search
Introducing the Microsoft Edge enterprise roadmap and release schedule	Edge
App Dev
Eight ways to optimize costs on Azure SQL	Azure
Azure Synapse | On Demand Serverless Compute	Mechanics
Azure Synapse | Dynamics Data Masking	Mechanics
Azure Hybrid Benefit update: Expanded rights for Microsoft SQL Server	Licensing
Microsoft 365
SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: July 2020	SharePoint
New capabilities for Teams Management | July 2020	Teams
What’s New in Microsoft Teams | July 2020	Teams
To Do is now integrated with the Microsoft 365 suite of applications	ToDo
Announcing Tasks in Microsoft Teams public rollout	Teams | Planner
Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – July Update	Exchange
What’s New with Microsoft 365 | July 2020	YouTube
Security
Boost security of your remote workers with confidence using Security Policy Advisor	Microsoft 365
Empower your analysts to reduce burnout in your security operations center	Security
Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Solving cross-domain security incidents through the power of correlation analytics	Security
Guiding principles of our identity strategy: staying ahead of evolving customer needs	Security
Manufacturing	Industry Blog
Aiming for more than just net zero	Azure
How Automation and AI May Help Level the Playing Field for Women in Manufacturing	NIST

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Please reach out to us if you need assistance. Have a great week!

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 7/27/20

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Introducing the Microsoft Azure Well-Architected Framework	Azure
Deliver hybrid cloud capabilities with the next generation of Azure Stack HCI	Azure
Using Azure Lighthouse and Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions to view telemetry across Multiple Tenants	SAP
How to manage Azure resources with the new PowerShell Invoke-AzRestMethod cmdlet	Tech Community
Enabling secure remote work using Windows Virtual Desktop	Channel 9
Business Applications
Using Microsoft Azure to develop a robust external supplier API catalog	IT Showcase
How to use Power Platform | Getting Started	Mechanics
On-premises data gateway July 2020 update is now available	PowerBI
Democratizing customer feedback with the new Dynamics 365 Customer Voice	Customer Voice
Windows
Explore and validate Windows 10 builds with Windows Insider Channels	Tech Community
New Surface Hub OS update released for public preview	Tech Community
Windows 10 roaming settings for remote work scenarios	Tech Community
Announcing the public preview of Universal Print	Tech Community
App Dev
Learn everything you need to know about Azure Data Explorer	Tech Community
Announcing Machine Learning on Azure SQL Managed Instance Limited Preview!	Tech Community
Business Continuity in SQL Database	James Serra
Microsoft 365
Sync Up – a OneDrive podcast : Episode 11, “Introducing Add to OneDrive”	OneDrive
Lists GA | “A home for all your lists” 🎙 – The Intrazone podcast	Lists
The New Employee Onboarding hub – Improving the new hire experience	SharePoint
New Meeting and Calling Experience in Microsoft Teams!	Teams
Teams is shaping the future of work with low code features to enhance your digital workspace	Teams
From new experiences in Microsoft Teams to better data protection—here’s what’s new in Microsoft 365 in July	Microsoft 365
Reimagining how NBA fans and teams experience the game of basketball with Together mode in Microsoft Teams	Teams
New Meeting intelligence in Insights pane in Outlook	Outlook
Introducing Microsoft Dataflex, a new low-code data platform for Microsoft Teams	Teams
Security
Advancing Privacy with Zero-Knowledge Proof Credentials	Tech Community
Creating a Custom Dashboard for Azure Security Center with Azure Resource Graph	Tech Community
Announcing high value asset tagging in Microsoft Defender ATP	Tech Community
Announcing general availability of the new version of Microsoft Secure Score	Tech Community
Announcing public preview of Microsoft Endpoint Data Loss Prevention	Tech Community
Announcing public preview of Double Key Encryption for Microsoft 365	Tech Community
Seeing the big picture: Deep learning-based fusion of behavior signals for threat detection	Security
Cyber security trends that are here to stay and how to detect and recover from ransomware attacks	Security
Preventing data loss and mitigating risk in today’s remote work environment	Security
Manufacturing	Industry Blog
Build safer, more resilient workplaces with IoT solutions	IoT
5 ways to evolve your Firstline Workforce for the new normal	Teams
Azure Synapse | Just in time inventory at Aggreko	Mechanics
High-Mix/Low-Volume Manufacturers Are a Sweet Spot for Collaborative Robots	NIST

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Have a great week!

Workforce Transformation: Building Digital Skills

As we beginning emerging from the global pandemic and worldwide recession we face the daunting task of rebuilding. Though different for every business, similar themes like changing business models, resiliency in supply chain, modernizing business process and realigning security to new threats have emerged.

Common to solving these and all the others tasks on our seamlessly endless to do list is our people. By transforming our workforce, increasing digital skills and engagement we enable  every employee to rebuild, renew and rethink our business. We have the opportunity to come out of this pandemic stronger than ever before. The key is investing in our people.

This Sway provides a summary of programs Microsoft offers designed to increase digit IQ and prepare for the new world we are all face.

Click on this image to launch Sway

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 7/20/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Economic Impact: Teams as a Platform

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Announcing the general availability of Azure shared disks and new Azure Disk Storage enhancements	Azure
Running SD-WAN virtual appliances natively in Azure Virtual WAN	Azure
Protecting Windows Virtual Desktop environments with Azure Security Center	Azure
Run high scale workloads on Blob storage with new 200 TB object sizes	Azure
Designing a Secure Cloud-Native Architecture using Kubernetes on Azure	YouTube
Introducing Azure Monitor for SAP Solutions | Azure Friday	YouTube
Azure Monitor best practices and recommendations | Azure Monitor Virtual Series	YouTube
SAP on Azure General Update – July 2020	Tech Community
Business Applications
Preparing for what’s next: Financial considerations for cloud migration	Azure
Azure Maps Power BI visual now in preview	Azure
Are you a Power Platform App Maker? Now’s the time to get certified	Tech Community
How to Build No Code Chat Bots	Mechanics
Announcing public preview of external tools in Power BI Desktop	PowerBI
Windows
Security baseline for Microsoft Edge v84	Security
App Dev
The Benefits of Advanced Threat Protection in Azure SQL Database	Channel 9
Azure SQL and IoT	Channel 9
Microsoft 365
Prefrontal Project Cortex	Tech Community
Total Economic Impact™ Of using Microsoft Teams as a platform and Teams with Power Platform	Tech Community
Managing your availability in Microsoft Teams	Tech Community
Get more control of your day with Microsoft 365	Microsoft 365
Security
Intune announcing public preview for Android Enterprise corporate-owned devices with a work profile	Tech Community
New version of Microsoft Secure Score	Tech Community
5 cybersecurity paradigm shifts that will lead to more inclusive digital experiences	Security
Prevent and detect more identity-based attacks with Azure Active Directory	Security
CISO Stressbusters Post #3: 3 ways to share accountability for security risk management	Security
Manufacturing	Industry Blog
Azure Time Series Insights Gen2: Leading the next generation of industrial IoT analytics platforms	Azure
Uncertainty Leads Manufacturing C-Level Expectations for Remainder of 2020	MAPI

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Have a great week!

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 7/13/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. Please find below an overview of available resources and what’s new at Microsoft.

The Future of Work

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
How to create dashboards with Azure Monitor data	YouTube
Assess your VMware workloads for a move to Azure VMware Solution with Azure Migrate	Tech Community
Microsoft Azure Advisor: How to Improve performance, security, and reliability of your Azure VMs	Tech Community
SQL Server 2019 is released for SAP NetWeaver	Tech Community
Business Applications
Making buildings smarter with Azure IoT	Azure
Azure AI: Build mission-critical AI apps with new Cognitive Services capabilities	Azure
Easily add voice commands to your apps with Custom Commands	Tech Community
Streamlining Microsoft’s payment processes with Microsoft Power Automate	IT Showcase
How to manage the Power Platform at enterprise scale AND help solve REAL problems with Alan Chai	Channel9
Power BI Desktop June 2020 Feature Summary	Power BI
2020 release wave 2 plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available	Dynamics 365
Microsoft acquires Orions Systems to expand Dynamics 365 capabilities	Dynamics 365
Windows
Proactively monitor ARM-based Windows Virtual Desktop with Azure Log Analytics and Azure Monitor	Tech Community
App Dev
Azure Certifications for Developers	Tips & Tricks
One Ops Question: What are Azure Blueprints?	Tech Community
GDPR for Database Developers	Tech Community
Accelerate extraction of text, data and structure from your documents with Form Recognizer	Tech Community
Microsoft 365
On-demand training sessions for SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer, and Stream – 2020-H2	Tech Community
Introducing Microsoft Teams displays	Tech Community
Re-imagine meeting room experiences with Teams-enabled devices for shared spaces	Tech Community
Teams: How to get the most from Together mode	Tech Community
Add additional properties to the profile card using the profile API in Microsoft Graph	Tech Community
The future of work—the good, the challenging & the unknown	Microsoft 365
Security
Introducing event timeline – an innovative, new way to manage your security exposure	Tech Community
Microsoft Security Matters Newsletter – June 2020	Tech Community
Microsoft Threat Protection advanced hunting cheat sheet	Tech Community
Announcing GA: Mark new files as “sensitive by default” in OneDrive & SharePoint	Tech Community
Security Controls in Azure Security Center: Secure Management Ports	Tech Community
Information Protection: Notes from the field	Tech Community
New study shows customers save time, resources and improve security with Microsoft Cloud App Security	Security
Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Correlating and consolidating attacks into incidents	Security
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Making buildings smarter with Azure IoT	Azure
Recognizing Supplier Quality Problems Before They Spread	MBT

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Have a great week!

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 7/6/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. Please find below an overview of available resources and what’s new at Microsoft

Just Announced! Microsoft Global Skills Initiative YouTube

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Cost optimization with Windows containers	YouTube
Build, distribute, and deploy application updates to Azure virtual machine scale sets	Azure
Azure Firewall Manager is now generally available	Azure
Adventures deploying Windows Virtual Desktop into Production	Tech Community
Released: Public Preview for SQL Server Management Pack (7.0.23.0)	Tech Community
One Ops Question: What are Azure Blueprints?	IT OPS
Business Applications
Exploring Power Virtual Agents	Tips & Tricks
Gain deeper insights from customer reviews using Opinion Mining	Tech Community
Learn everything you need to know about Azure Data Explorer	Tech Community
Learn how to convert your ideas to solutions with Power Platform	Power Apps
Windows
Enabling remote work for IT Pros	IT Pro
Simplified Windows Update settings for end users	Tech Community
Reduce the size of multilingual Windows images with LXPs	Tech Community
App Dev
How to save on low priority workloads with Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS) and Azure Spot	YouTube
Landing your App on Azure, going: Paas, Serverless or Containers. Intro	Tech Community
Monitoring SQL Server with Azure Sentinel	Tech Community
SQL Server | Best Options for Database Migration into Azure	Tech Community
Updating to Azure Functions v3 in Visual Studio	Tech Community
ASP.NET Core Series: Getting started with the Worker templates	Channel 9
Microsoft 365
What’s New with Microsoft 365 | June 2020	YouTube
SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: June 2020	Tech Community
Microsoft Teams Updates | May 2020 and Beyond	Mechanics
What’s New in Microsoft Teams | June 2020	Tech Community
Introducing new OneDrive features to share and collaborate across work and life	Microsoft 365
5 Tips for migrating existing Line of Business applications to Microsoft Teams you can do today	Teams
A new learning app in Microsoft Teams	YouTube
Security
Assess your CCPA compliance with Microsoft Compliance Score	Security
How to Defend Users from Interception Attacks via SMB Client Defense	Tech Community
General Availability: Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels in Teams/SharePoint sites	Security
Announcing the Android Enterprise security configuration framework	Security
Malware detection in real-time	Tech Community
The psychology of social engineering—the “soft” side of cybercrime	Security
Afternoon Cyber Tea: Cybersecurity & IoT: New risks and how to minimize them	Security
Best security, compliance, and privacy practices for the rapid deployment of publicly facing Microsoft Power Apps intake forms	Security
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Azure Digital Twins: Powering the next generation of IoT connected solutions	Azure
Azure Digital Twins Preview New Capabilities	Channel 9
How the Virtual Twin Experience Can Help Manufacturers Ramp Up Production While Implementing Social Distancing in Factories	Delmia

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Have a great week!

Microsoft Tech News and Product Updates; 06/29/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Deploy to Azure Container Instances with Docker Desktop	Azure
Introducing Azure Load Balancer insights using Azure Monitor for Networks	Azure
Simplifying declarative deployments in Azure	Azure
Azure.com operates on Azure part 1: Design principles and best practices	Azure
How Azure.com operates on Azure part 2: Technology and architecture	Azure
New and improved learning experience with Microsoft Learn	Learn
New scale-up SAP HANA reference architecture and more	AzureCAT
Azure portal June 2020 update	Tech Community
Business Applications
Behind the Tech: Drew Endy: Bioengineering pioneer	YouTube
Power BI Desktop June 2020 Feature Summary	PowerBI
Dynamics 365 Project Operations preview is now available	Dynamics
Windows
New on Microsoft Learn: Stay current with Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 Apps	Tech Community
App Dev
Azure Arc enabled data services with Travis Wright	YouTube
How to set up test environments in Azure for Developers	Mechanics
How Microsoft’s engineers learned the language of DevOps	IT Showcase
Elastic Jobs in Azure SQL Database – Part 1	Channel9
Microsoft 365
What’s new to Microsoft 365 in June	Microsoft 365
Drive effective meetings with Teams apps while working remote	Microsoft 365
Safe Documents is Generally Available	Microsoft 365
Security
CISO Stressbusters: Post #2: 4 tips for getting the first 6 months right as a new CISO	Security
Endpoint analytics is now available in public preview	Endpoint Manager
How Secure Score affects your governance	Tech Community
Feeling fatigued? Cloud-based SIEM relieves security team burnout	Security
Lessons learned from the Microsoft SOC—Part 3d: Zen and the art of threat hunting	Security
Defending Exchange servers under attack	Security
Modernizing the security operations center to better secure a remote workforce	Security
Proactively reduce lateral movement path risk to your organization with Azure ATP	Tech Community
MIP and Compliance V-blog#3: Setting up a secure collaboration environment – Security Admin POV	Security
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Microsoft acquires CyberX to accelerate and secure customers’ IoT deployments	Security
How the Virtual Twin Experience Can Help Manufacturers Ramp Up Production While Implementing Social Distancing in Factories	Delmia
7 Manufacturing Digitization Challenges — and How to Overcome Them	NIST

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates; 6/22/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Seven ways to achieve cost savings and deliver efficiencies with Azure infrastructure	Cloud Strategy
Minimize disruption with cost-effective backup and disaster recovery solutions on Azure	Backup & Recovery
Achieve higher performance and cost savings on Azure with virtual machine bursting	Backup & Recovery
Azure Cost Management + Billing updates – May 2020	Azure
Optimize your Azure costs to help meet your financial objectives	Cloud Strategy
Optimize costs and increase agility with the latest SAP on Azure offerings	SAP on Azure
Augmenting Azure Advisor Cost Recommendations for Automated Continuous Optimization – Part 2	Tech Community
Business Applications
Advancing Microsoft Teams on Azure—operating at pandemic scale	IT Pro
What’s New in Microsoft Forms | Features | May-June 2020	Microsoft Forms
Empowering Microsoft finance professionals to make data-driven decisions on cash flow	IT Showcase
2020 release wave 2 timeline for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform	Dynamics 365
Microsoft buys data modeling vendor ADRM Software	ZDNet
Windows
A calendar approach for keeping the modern workplace up to date	IT Pro
Transform Windows feature updates with a servicing calendar	IT Pro
App Dev
Cost optimization strategies for cloud-native application development	IT Pro
Using the BOT Framework Composer Tool	Tips & Tricks
Debugging Async Code: Parallel Stacks for Tasks	Visual Studio
Announcing .NET 5.0 Preview 5	,NET Blog
Microsoft 365
PowerPoint Live is now generally available	Microsoft 365
Upcoming Exchange Online Device Access and Conditional Access changes with Outlook mobile	Exchange
Visio as a tab in Microsoft Teams is generally available	Visio
Security
Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) with Azure Security Center | Azure Friday	YouTube
Microsoft Threat Protection leads in real-world detection in MITRE ATT&CK evaluation	Security
Zero Trust—Part 1: Networking	Security
Exploiting a crisis: How cybercriminals behaved during the outbreak	Security
Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Mapping attack chains from cloud to endpoint	Security
UEFI scanner brings Microsoft Defender ATP protection to a new level	Defender ATP
Start With the (Cybersecurity) End in Mind {Includes link to Verizon Data Breach Report]	CMTC
Manufacturing Industry Blog
A Holistic Approach to Developing a Modern Manufacturing Workforce	NIST

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1, Part 2,  Part 3, Part 4, Part 5 & Part 6 – Series on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates; 06/15/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. A couple of items of note from last week;

Covid 19 “Back to Work” Solution Template

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
General availability of Azure Files on-premises Active Directory Domain Services authentication	Azure
New features and insights in Azure Monitor	Azure
Analytics and Integration for SAP Global Instance running on-premises with ADF	SAP on Microsoft
MS Build playlist for IT Pros	Tech Community
Cumulative Update 1 for the Whitepaper SAP on SQL Server	Tech Community
Business Applications
Announcing general availability of Microsoft Information Protection in Power BI	Tech Community
COVID-19 “Back to Work” Solution Template using Microsoft Healthcare Bot, Azure and Teams	Tech Community
Power BI Desktop June 2020 Feature Summary	Power BI
Power BI Faq	James Serra
Windows
Beyond the Edge: How to Secure SMB Traffic in Windows	Tech Community
App Dev
Microsoft Power Apps for Manufacturing Webcast 10 AM to 11 AM PST	June 16th, June 18th
Build 2020 – App Dev on demand videos	Tips & Tricks
Accessing On-Premise File Systems from Azure Logic Apps	Tech Community
Get to know the Power Apps Component Framework (PCF) in the Power Platform	Channel 9
Microsoft 365
Custom backgrounds in Microsoft Teams make video meetings more fun, comfortable, and personal	Microsoft 365
Workplace Analytics feature updates: Power BI dashboard edition	Tech Community
New in MyAnalytics: Insights to improve wellbeing	Tech Community
OneDrive Roadmap Roundup – May 2020	Tech Community
Security
Deliver a Security Score weekly briefing	Tech Community
Top 5 reasons organizations use OneDrive for data security while working remotely	Tech Community
Top 4 tips to protect your remote workforce with data compliance in OneDrive	Tech Community
How to respond to potential Malware uploaded to Azure Storage Blob	Tech Community
Getting started with Insider Risk Management	Tech Community
What’s new in Microsoft 365 Compliance and Risk Management	Security
The science behind Microsoft Threat Protection: Attack modeling for finding and stopping evasive ransomware	Security
11 security tips to help stay safe in the COVID-19 era	Security
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Microsoft Power Apps for Manufacturing Webcast 10 AM to 11 AM PST	June 16th, June 18th
Trevor Noah & Brad Smith discuss digital skills training during COVID-19	YouTube
Optimization and Execution: How Manufacturing can lead the Industry Renaissance	DELMIA
Managing Productivity	NIST
Cognizant’s Connected Factories	Channel 9

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1 & Part 2 – Overview on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.

Microsoft Tech News & Product Updates: 6/8/2020

Happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend.   A couple of items of note from last week;

Product News, Tech Posts & Announcements from last week

Azure Infrastructure
Azure Data Explorer dashboards – public preview	Azure
Quick Start with Azure Resources Graph and Python API	Premier
Business Applications
Analytics and Integration for SAP Global Instance running on-premises with ADF	SAP on Microsoft
Building inclusive, accessible experiences is a catalyst for digital transformation	IT Showcase
Microsoft announces new supercomputer, lays out vision for future AI work	AI
Rapid application development with Microsoft Power Platform & Azure	Power Apps
Windows
Introducing an improved spellcheck experience in Microsoft Edge	Windows
App Dev
How to isolate latency issue for Azure Storage Account	Tech Community
Simple and easy distributed deep learning with Fast.AI on Azure ML Introduction	Tech Community
Microsoft 365
How to Optimize Stream & Live Events traffic in a VPN scenario	Tech Community
Remote working for IT Pros	Tech Community
New SharePoint feature: Multilingual publishing for pages and news posts	Tech Community
SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: May 2020	SharePoint
What’s New in the New Outlook for Mac? – June Update	Outlook
Galactic Collaboration Summit – upcoming online training event	Tech Community
GlobalCon2 – upcoming week-long online training event	Tech Community
Security
What’s New: Azure Sentinel Threat Hunting Enhancements	Azure
Microsoft Security Matters Newsletter – May 2020	Security
Remote Working: Fewer people working on-premises doesn’t mean less risk to their identities	Security
Security Controls in ASC: Remediate Vulnerabilities	Security
eDiscovery for Teams Webinar	Tech Community
Role-based Access Control in Intune – Identifying Tenant-wide and Delegated Configurations	Tech Community
MIP and Compliance V-blog part 1 – Setting up a secure collaboration environment	Tech Community
Manufacturing Industry Blog

View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG

Remote Work Resources

• Enabling remote work with Microsoft 365 Part 1 & Part 2 – Overview on YouTube by Stephen Rose
• If you own Office 365 and are currently deploying Teams, we have multiple free programs we can offer to assist. If you are interested, we can schedule a 30-minute call to review the available resources.
• If you have users that are not licensed for Teams, we are offering a free 6-month Office 365 E1 subscription to our clients affected by COVID-19.
• Microsoft is offering Windows Virtual Desktop at reduced rates.  If you are interested, we can schedule a call to review options.
• We have created a PowerApps CRISIS COMMUNICATION template and reclassified Push Notifications from premium to standard licensing so you can use the apps full functionality.  Details are available here. Schedule a remote MTC session to review app and provide deployment guidance.
• To assist our customers and community in their crisis response efforts, we’re extending the Priority Notifications promotion into the second half of 2020. Ongoing access to Priority Notifications will be available to facilitate in crisis response and recovery efforts. After the promotion period ends, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
• Leverage a bot to answer questions and keep employees up to date. Here is a the template for FAQ Plus.  You can find a description of other available templates here.
•  Build a Crisis FAQ bot using Power Virtual Agents
• Build a crisis management site in SharePoint to connect people and information here is the blog post and the Look Book so you can add to your tenant.
• In partnership with Commvault we are offering free data protection for devices through 9/1. Please see offer here.
• The Microsoft Work from Home Guide can be downloaded from this blog post. This is the guide Microsoft distributed to its employees.
• Partner PTC is offering use of their AR Remote Assist Product Vuforia Chalk for free through June.
•  Dynamics 365 Remote Assist allows field technicians and engineers to collaborate with colleagues and experts from different locations, reducing travel and resolving some of the immediate obstacles facing us all. Dynamics 365 Customer Service or Dynamics 365 Remote Assist may be available free of charge for up to 6 months if you are implementing a solution in response to COVID-19, either on a Microsoft-provided template or custom implementation.  
• User Solutions, a producer of production scheduling software systems, announces it will offer Resource Manager for Excel (RMX), a standalone production scheduling and materials requirements planning system, free of charge to manufacturers temporarily repurposing their production lines in the fight against the coronavirus pandemic.
• Microsoft has created a detailed guide for enabling remote work designed for IT Pros. It can be downloaded from this blog post.
•  New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers

Join the community Microsoft Tech Community: Enabling Remote Work

Please see my post Enabling Remote Workers for a categorized overview of resources and my Enabling Remote Workers PointDrive for a more comprehensive list of documentation.