Microsoft

Workforce Transformation: Building Digital Skills

Lou GucciardoLeave a comment

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: 7/13/2020

Lou GucciardoLeave a comment

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 dataYouTube
Assess your VMware workloads for a move to Azure VMware Solution with Azure MigrateTech Community
Microsoft Azure Advisor: How to Improve performance, security, and reliability of your Azure VMsTech Community
SQL Server 2019 is released for SAP NetWeaverTech Community
Business Applications
Making buildings smarter with Azure IoTAzure
Azure AI: Build mission-critical AI apps with new Cognitive Services capabilitiesAzure
Easily add voice commands to your apps with Custom CommandsTech Community
Streamlining Microsoft’s payment processes with Microsoft Power AutomateIT Showcase
How to manage the Power Platform at enterprise scale AND help solve REAL problems with Alan ChaiChannel9
Power BI Desktop June 2020 Feature SummaryPower BI
2020 release wave 2 plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now availableDynamics 365
Microsoft acquires Orions Systems to expand Dynamics 365 capabilitiesDynamics 365
Windows
Proactively monitor ARM-based Windows Virtual Desktop with Azure Log Analytics and Azure MonitorTech Community
App Dev
Azure Certifications for DevelopersTips & Tricks
One Ops Question: What are Azure Blueprints?Tech Community
GDPR for Database DevelopersTech Community
Accelerate extraction of text, data and structure from your documents with Form RecognizerTech Community
Microsoft 365
On-demand training sessions for SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Yammer, and Stream – 2020-H2Tech Community
Introducing Microsoft Teams displaysTech Community
Re-imagine meeting room experiences with Teams-enabled devices for shared spacesTech Community
Teams: How to get the most from Together modeTech Community
Add additional properties to the profile card using the profile API in Microsoft GraphTech Community
The future of work—the good, the challenging & the unknownMicrosoft 365
Security
Introducing event timeline – an innovative, new way to manage your security exposureTech Community
Microsoft Security Matters Newsletter – June 2020Tech Community
Microsoft Threat Protection advanced hunting cheat sheetTech Community
Announcing GA: Mark new files as “sensitive by default” in OneDrive & SharePointTech Community
Security Controls in Azure Security Center: Secure Management PortsTech Community
Information Protection: Notes from the fieldTech Community
New study shows customers save time, resources and improve security with Microsoft Cloud App SecuritySecurity
Inside Microsoft Threat Protection: Correlating and consolidating attacks into incidentsSecurity
 
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Making buildings smarter with Azure IoTAzure
Recognizing Supplier Quality Problems Before They SpreadMBT

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

Lou GucciardoLeave a comment

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 DesktopAzure
Introducing Azure Load Balancer insights using Azure Monitor for NetworksAzure
Simplifying declarative deployments in AzureAzure
Azure.com operates on Azure part 1: Design principles and best practicesAzure
How Azure.com operates on Azure part 2: Technology and architectureAzure
New and improved learning experience with Microsoft LearnLearn
New scale-up SAP HANA reference architecture and moreAzureCAT
Azure portal June 2020 updateTech Community
Business Applications
Behind the Tech: Drew Endy: Bioengineering pioneerYouTube
Power BI Desktop June 2020 Feature SummaryPowerBI
Dynamics 365 Project Operations preview is now availableDynamics
Windows
New on Microsoft Learn: Stay current with Windows 10 and Microsoft 365 AppsTech Community
App Dev
Azure Arc enabled data services with Travis WrightYouTube
How to set up test environments in Azure for DevelopersMechanics
How Microsoft’s engineers learned the language of DevOpsIT Showcase
Elastic Jobs in Azure SQL Database – Part 1Channel9
Microsoft 365
What’s new to Microsoft 365 in JuneMicrosoft 365
Drive effective meetings with Teams apps while working remoteMicrosoft 365
Safe Documents is Generally AvailableMicrosoft 365
Security
CISO Stressbusters: Post #2: 4 tips for getting the first 6 months right as a new CISOSecurity
Endpoint analytics is now available in public previewEndpoint Manager
How Secure Score affects your governanceTech Community
Feeling fatigued? Cloud-based SIEM relieves security team burnoutSecurity
Lessons learned from the Microsoft SOC—Part 3d: Zen and the art of threat huntingSecurity
Defending Exchange servers under attackSecurity
Modernizing the security operations center to better secure a remote workforceSecurity
Proactively reduce lateral movement path risk to your organization with Azure ATPTech Community
MIP and Compliance V-blog#3: Setting up a secure collaboration environment – Security Admin POVSecurity
 
Manufacturing Industry Blog
Microsoft acquires CyberX to accelerate and secure customers’ IoT deploymentsSecurity
How the Virtual Twin Experience Can Help Manufacturers Ramp Up Production While Implementing Social Distancing in FactoriesDelmia
7 Manufacturing Digitization Challenges — and How to Overcome ThemNIST

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.