Microsoft 365

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Use Desired State Configuration to Snapshot the Configuration of Your Microsoft 365 Tenant 5 Comments

Use Desired State Configuration to Snapshot the Configuration of Your Microsoft 365 Tenant

Microsoft 365 Desired State Configuration (DSC), is a way to capture details of a tenant's configuration using PowerShell in such a way that any changes made to the configuration can be easily detected. DSC allows administrators to understand when configurations change so that they can take action when necessary. In this article, Sean McAvinue explains how to use DSC to capture and report details of your Microsoft 365 tenant.

November 8, 2021
Loop, Mesh, Connect IQ, and Lots of Teams Dominate Office at Microsoft Ignite 2021 5 Comments

Loop, Mesh, Connect IQ, and Lots of Teams Dominate Office at Microsoft Ignite 2021

The Office news at Microsoft's Fall Ignite event was dominated by Teams and technology associated with Teams. A new Microsoft 365 app called Loop will be available in 2022 and we'll have the chance to use Connect IQ to make our messages even more intelligent than they are now. And if you really get funky, you can join a Teams mesh meetings in a virtual environment. But the bad news is that Teams Shared Channels are delayed until preview in early 2022.

November 2, 2021
Hidden Gems in Microsoft 365 E3 Licensing

Hidden Gems in Microsoft 365 E3 Licensing

In many organizations, Microsoft 365 is a significant investment. However, you get so much with Microsoft 365 E3 licenses that many organizations are unaware of, including beneficial features across Productivity, Compliance, Security, and Device management. Kat Greenan shares some of her secrets and the hidden gems that can be found in a Microsoft 365 E3 license.

October 29, 2021
Ignite 2021 is Next Week. Here’s What I Anticipate for Microsoft 365 4 Comments

Ignite 2021 is Next Week. Here’s What I Anticipate for Microsoft 365

Microsoft Ignite 2021 happens (virtually) on Nov 2-4. There are tons of sessions scheduled and in this post we consider some important Microsoft 365 topics that we hope Microsoft will cover to help technologists plan tenant development over the coming year. Above all, we're looking forward to being able to attend conferences like Ignite in person so that we can learn from experts from inside and outside Microsoft.

October 26, 2021
How to Create a Microsoft 365 Licensing Report Using the Microsoft Graph SDK for PowerShell 138 Comments

How to Create a Microsoft 365 Licensing Report Using the Microsoft Graph SDK for PowerShell

After figuring out how to convert a script from using Azure AD licensing cmdlets (due to stop working in June 2022), we move on to create a licensing report for a tenant using cmdlets from the Microsoft Graph SDK for PowerShell. The code is pretty straightforward, but you need to do some up-front work to extract and prepare some input files containing product and service plan codes. Given that Microsoft is increasing its license fees, it's a good time to report this information...

October 14, 2021
Consumption Models and Potential Cost Introduced by Microsoft’s New Teams APIs Require Careful Calculation 2 Comments

Consumption Models and Potential Cost Introduced by Microsoft’s New Teams APIs Require Careful Calculation

Along with the general availability of a new Graph Export API for Teams, Microsoft is introducing new licensing and charging models. Understanding the charging incurred for different uses will take some time to sort out and could pose real challenges for ISVs working in the migration space. Developers need to understand terms like model A and model B, seeded capacity, and consumption units and how these apply to their apps. The question now is if this is a test bed for Microsoft to apply similar charges to other APIs.

October 5, 2021
Getting the Most out of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Policies 4 Comments

Getting the Most out of Microsoft Defender for Office 365 Policies

This article examines the different components of Defender for Office 365, and how you can customize the configuration beyond the baselines to enhance the relevance and impact the policies have on your tenant. The most important aspects to review when modifying the configuration from baselines and the reasons to consider each configuration option are highlighted, but they don’t take you all the way. The items listed here are a subset of what’s available, but when combined with the baselines will help you to bring your Defender implementation to the next level.

October 1, 2021
Contemplating Commsverse

Contemplating Commsverse

Paul Robichaux provides insights from the independent Microsoft Teams conference, Commsverse, that just took place last week at Mercedez-Benz World outside of London.

September 21, 2021