We Discuss: Cyber Security & Microsoft 365
First up on the show, we discuss cyber security and Microsoft 365. More than ever, it’s important to protect both your on-premises and cloud services from attack, so we the show with a quick run- through of the most important things you need to do to protect your cloud environment. We also share a few horror stories around cyber security and Microsoft 365 you’ll be interested to hear.
The Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer Now Includes a Teams to Exchange Hybrid Integration Test
This new addition to the familiar RCA makes things easier if you are deploying Microsoft Teams ahead of a migration to Exchange Online. The Teams integration for Exchange On-Premises allows features like Calendaring to work in Teams when a mailbox is on Exchange 2016 or Exchange 2019. This new set of tests help you validate the configuration is correct and troubleshoot.
“This new test is a comprehensive check of integration between Teams and Exchange. If you use Teams and you have an Exchange hybrid deployment (mailboxes in the cloud and on-premises), this new test is for you!”
New Teams Integration Test in the Microsoft Remote Connectivity Analyzer
The REST API Preview for On-Premises Mailboxes is ending, and the Feature is Being Retired
As Paul says in the podcast, it’s pretty rare for Microsoft to “do a Google” and launch a preview or beta, then take the feature away. However, it’s likely that this was rarely used and isn’t in line with Microsoft’s priorities or customer needs. If it does affect you, let us know in the comments.
The end of the REST API for On-Premises Preview
PowerPoint Cameo Rolls Out to Office Beta
PowerPoint Cameo allows you to add your webcam into PowerPoint Presentations. You can, much like when an image is inserted, change the shape and animations to suit your needs. It’s available now in the beta channel, which you can switch to by following these instructions.
Roadmap & Message Center
Live Steaming via RTMP Arrives in Microsoft Teams
A delayed feature is now rolling out and will be complete by the end of the month. This feature allows you to live stream your Teams meeting via RTMP. RTMP is a protocol that has been around for a long time, and although there are more modern protocols such as RTSP and HLS, RTMP is almost guaranteed to work with any provider. You can therefore stream direct to YouTube, Restream.io and other providers from Teams, or even a local server that can provide recording & broadcast capabilities. This is enabled using the Teams PowerShell module, by configuring Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy with the parameter -LiveStreamingMode set to enabled.
A Device Store is Coming to the Teams Admin Center
The new Teams device store will arrive in April and be available to small and midsize customers in the USA and Canada initially. We discuss whether this will be received warmly by customers or partners; and in general, we expect this will be a good thing especially if it includes features like automatic provisioning for devices like Teams Phones.
Browser Account Switching is Coming to Microsoft 365 Web Apps
Today, you can use an account switcher in the Azure Portal (and selected other apps) to switch between various work accounts and personal accounts. This feature is on its way to Microsoft 365 web apps, including Outlook on the web, OneDrive, SharePoint Online and the Microsoft 365 portal.
We discuss this, comparing and contrasting it with Edge’s features to do similar switching – and ask how useful it will be for general business users.
Cast Your Screen in a Microsoft Teams Room
Microsoft seems to be on a quest to eventually remove the need for unplugging and plugging cables in meeting rooms. d by adding the cast feature to the Teams Desktop Client (on Windows and Mac) you can drop down in the main Teams client window and choose to cast the screen or content without setting up a meeting.
On the show Paul and I chat about how this feature will initially be used by people in the same tenant or organization, so it will be less useful when you visit a company with Teams rooms, or shared working spaces for visitors. However, it means dropping into an empty meeting room with a few colleagues and popping a spreadsheet onto a screen will be slightly easier and less cable heavy. The feature rolls out this month.
New Whiteboard Gets External Sharing Capabilities
The latest version of Microsoft Whiteboard, labelled by Microsoft “Whiteboard on OneDrive for Business” gets a new capability to support Whiteboard sharing during a meeting. This allows sharing to device accounts (for example, a Surface Hub) and crucially – users outside the tenant.
One of the benefits of moving Whiteboard to OneDrive for Business is that it leverages the underlying Microsoft 365 platform configuration for SharePoint Online & OneDrive, so if you’ve already restricted external sharing, this won’t work by default.
A new setting to allow Loop content to be temporarily shared has been added though, and according to Microsoft “other fluid-based content such as Loops in teams” will in the future use these settings too, so consider this when enabling the underlying settings.
Unfortunatelly you cannot use Cameo and Teams together, only one will go, even if you have two cameras installed