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 | |
| Update #3: Business continuity with Azure | Azure Blog |
| Tracking Reservation Utilization | Azure Cost Management | YouTube |
| Enhanced features in Azure Archive Storage now generally available | Azure |
| Have you seen the “My” URLs of Azure Active Directory? | Tech Community |
| Azure Data Explorer and business continuity | Tech Community |
| New identity features help empower essential Firstline Workers | Tech Community |
| Business Applications | |
| How Microsoft transformed key Finance audit practices with Azure DevOps | IT Showcase |
| Explainer: What is a Planetary Computer? | YouTube |
| Start using the Common Data Service on the Power Platform with Ryan Jones | Channel 9 |
| Windows | |
| How to configure file associations for IT Pros | Tech Community |
| App Dev | |
| Azure Maps updates offer new features and expanded availability | Azure Blog |
| Optimize cost and performance with Query Acceleration for Azure Data Lake Storage | Announcement |
| Using Azure Functions Premium Plan to avoid cold starts | Tips & Tricks |
| Azure DevOps: Update release variables across stages | Rajbos |
| Microsoft 365 | |
| Connect people across the entire organization through communities in Microsoft Teams | Teams Blog |
| How remote work impacts collaboration: findings from our team | Jared Spataro |
| Design your remote work culture with Microsoft Teams apps | Teams Blog |
| How Microsoft Teams will use AI to filter out typing, barking, and other noise | Venture Beat |
| Security | |
| Azure Security Center enhancements | Security |
| Protecting your organization against password spray attacks | Security |
| MITRE ATT&CK APT 29 evaluation proves Microsoft Threat Protection provides deeper end to end view of advanced threats | Security |
| Moving towards real time policy and security enforcement | Azure AD Blog |
| Microsoft Endpoint Manager simplifies deployment of Microsoft Defender ATP for macOS | Tech community |
| Manufacturing Industry Blog | |
| Flash whitepaper: IT top of mind for Firstline Workers | Tech Community |
| How Star Wars Inspired the Future of Robotics in Manufacturing | CMTC |
View previous weeks news, tech posts and announcements here on Linkedin or follow me on Twitter @MrLouisG
Remote Work Resources
- 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 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.
Upcoming Training
Power Apps: Search here for App in a Day workshops, Free online training at Learn
Azure Developer: events
Office 365 & Teams: Join the Adoption Monthly Community Calls
Azure: Microsoft Cloud Workshop hosts extensive hands on labs and workshop content
Mr. Wombat Blog 