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Office 365 Ten Years On

Launched on June 28, 2011, Office 365 is ten years old. The effect of Microsoft's cloud office system has been profound on corporate IT. In this article, we reflect on some of the major developments relating to Office 365 since 2011.

June 28, 2021

Is Your ISP Lying to You?

How do you know if your network is routing your office 365 traffic optimally? Using three tools that you own today, Nicolas Blank shows us how to understand what your ISP or your corporate network is up to.

June 24, 2021

Using Filters with the Get-ExoMailbox Cmdlet

It's a good idea to replace older calls to the Get-Mailbox cmdlet with Get-ExoMailbox. However, it's not just a matter of cut and paste updates. In some cases, the nature of the new REST-based cmdlets mean that some additional care is necessary to ensure that the updated code works as expected. As we examine in this article, filters are just one example where some attention to detail is needed to make sure Exchange Online delivers the right set of mailbox data.

June 21, 2021

Skype for Business Online is retiring – What does it mean?

July 31st, 2021, is the day that Skype for Business Online (SfBO) officially retires. What does that mean for you and your users? It means just that, that SfBO will not be available in Microsoft 365 anymore, and Teams Only mode will be the only option for users homed in Microsoft 365. In this article, Stale Hansen explains the different transition options available, shows how to flip your tenant over to Teams Only mode yourself, and offers some best practices based on personal experience.

June 18, 2021
Scheduler for Microsoft 365 Debuts 2 Comments
Using Cortana and Scheduler for Microsoft 365 AI voice command

Scheduler for Microsoft 365 Debuts

Scheduler for Microsoft 365 is a new meeting scheduling service launched with a $10/month price tag (per user). Scheduler and Cortana work together to find the most suitable meeting times for participants to get together. Scheduler works for any kind of attendees (as long as they can receive email) and the big pay-out is that you can ask Cortana to set things up and leave the meeting for artificial intelligence to sort out. Sometimes things don't work out and humans need to get involved, and that's when privacy concerns come into play. If you can cope with the issues and have a lot of meetings to organize, Scheduler for Microsoft 365 might do a job for you.

June 17, 2021

Creating Personal Contacts in User Mailboxes with PowerShell and the Graph

An earlier article explained how to create organizational contacts in user mailboxes with Graph API calls. This article builds on that idea with three improvements. First, we select target mailboxes for update by looking for those added in the last month. Second, we allow any mail-enabled recipient to be added as an organizational contact. Third, we incorporate some code to check if a contact already exists in a mailbox. Like anything with PowerShell, this code can be improved..

June 15, 2021
Taking Control of Your Unmanaged PCs with Intune One comment
Azure AD Intune Windows 10

Taking Control of Your Unmanaged PCs with Intune

In a frantic rush to enable remote workers at the onset of the pandemic, many organizations were forced to ship devices directly to the user from the supplier without any prior configuration by IT. Administrators must take back control to properly secure and manage these devices. This article will show you how to regain control and prepare for scalable deployments consistent with corporate policy; reviews best practices for long-term management; and gets you thinking about how to protect your organization from this type of unmanaged situation in the future.

June 14, 2021

Microsoft Delays June 2021 Cumulative Update for Exchange Server

Microsoft has delayed the release of the June 2021 cumulative updates for Exchange Server for two weeks to integrate the Windows Antimalware Scan interface (AMSI). The change will allow Exchange 2016 and Exchange 2019 servers running on Windows Server 2016 or later to integrate antimalware engines to check HTTP requests for potential problems. If ever there was good reason to delay an update, this is it.

June 12, 2021