Author: Tony Redmond

Agents are the Most Interesting Initiative in Copilot Wave 2

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Microsoft's big launch of Copilot Wave 2 featured many new capabilities, like a super-duper focused Inbox for Outlook (one that works this time), Python in Excel, and a profusion of agents for SharePoint Online. The idea behind agents is pretty good and should be valuable, even if IT might have some dark thoughts about how agents might allow people to access information that they shouldn't (this won't happen).

• Copilot

September 19, 2024

Practical Graph: Creating Contacts using the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Three years ago, we described how to create organizational contacts in user mailboxes with Graph API requests. In this iteration, we read the contacts from a Microsoft list and use Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK cmdlets to update user mailboxes. The techniques explained in the article can be used in many scenarios.

• Microsoft Graph

September 17, 2024

12 Comments

Microsoft’s Simple Message: Prepare to Move to Exchange Server Subscription Edition

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Microsoft plans a transition of the current Exchange Server licensing and support model to Exchange Server subscription edition (SE) starting in 2025. Organizations must prepare for the transition by upgrading servers to the latest cumulative updates of Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019. The transition is unlikely to be seamless, but glitches can be avoided by good planning and careful monitoring of community discussions.

• Exchange Server

September 13, 2024

4 Comments

Practical Graph: Working with Microsoft Lists using the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Microsoft Lists are a powerful tool for end users to store and manage data stored in SharePoint Online sites. The Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK includes cmdlets to work with Microsoft Lists and this article explains how to use the cmdlets to add new lists, add items to lists, retrieve data from lists, and remove items from lists.

• PowerShell

September 12, 2024

6 Comments

Using Dynamic Watermarking with Sensitivity Labels

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Dynamic watermarking is a new feature for sensitivity labels that's intended to provide a visual deterrent to screen captures of confidential documents. The feature works by using the email address of the signed-in user as a watermark. Everything works and the feature seems effective, but this isn't something to use with every sensitivity label.

• Security

September 5, 2024

Microsoft Enhances Message Recall for Exchange Online

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Microsoft released the initial implementation of a cloud-based message recall feature last year. Now they're back with a set of enhancements to take the rough edges off, like explaining to users why messages disappear from the inbox and enabling support for external services like email hygiene and mail autosignature providers.

• Exchange Online

August 29, 2024

2 Comments

How to Handle an Unwanted Sensitivity Label

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Sometimes sensitivity labels defined for use within a Microsoft 365 tenant turn out to be unnecessary. The question then is what to do with these unwanted sensitivity labels. The answer is to pause for thought, gather information, and then make an informed decision, all of which we discuss here.

• SharePoint Online

August 21, 2024

Practical Graph: Working with Exchange Online Mailbox Data

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Exchange Online mail folders and messages are a very important resource for Microsoft 365 tenants. This article discusses how to use cmdlets from the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK to retrieve information about mailbox folders and mail messages together with some performance tips for dealing with folders that store thousands of messages.

• PowerShell

August 15, 2024

One comment

Copilot for Microsoft 365: Datacenter Investments, Customer Spend, and Black Hat Exploits

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

Market analysts question if companies like Microsoft will ever generate a return on their AI investment. That hasn't stopped Microsoft spending $19 billion in FY24 Q4, so they must be hopeful. Meanwhile, at Black Hat USA 2024, a presentation exploring some vulnerabilities in Copilot should make all Microsoft 365 tenants with Copilot consider how to secure their organization better.

• Blog

August 12, 2024

3 Comments

Using Azure Email Communication Service to Send Messages

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

If you're looking for an email service capable of handling large volumes of email to external recipients, Microsoft will propose Email Communication Services (ECS). Built on top of Exchange Online, ECS shares some characteristics with the High Volume Email (HVE) solution. After testing both, HVE is probably a better solution if you have a Microsoft 365 tenant.

• Blog

August 6, 2024

One comment

The New Outlook for Windows Reaches General Availability

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

The new Outlook for Windows client is generally available, which means that Microsoft supports it for product usage. That's all fine for those who want to use the new client once they understand that a considerable functionality gap still exists between the new Outlook and Outlook classic. Fortunately, Microsoft will support Outlook classic until "at least 2029."

• Blog

August 1, 2024

21 Comments

Exchange Online’s New High Volume Email (HVE) Solution

• Post author:By Tony Redmond

The Exchange Online High-Volume Email (HVE) solution handles up to 100,000 internal messages and 2,000 external messages daily. It's intended to replace on-premises Exchange servers that organizations keep just to service email submission from devices and applications. In this review of the preview version, we discovered that almost everything works just fine, if you keep within the throttling limits.

• Exchange Online

July 30, 2024