Category: Office 365

Microsoft 365, Office 365, Tips & Tricks

Updates that are now being rolled out in Microsoft 365

In addition to the Microsoft 365 Message Center (which is only available to those who are administrators of Microsoft 365), the Microsoft 365 Roadmap is the public primary source of information when you want to get an overview of the updates and features that are under development or rolling out in Microsoft 365 .

RoadMapAll

To avoid scrolling through the entire list (because it’s a long-running list), in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, you can select the services you are interested in and filter by the status that is relevant.

1 Roadmapelements

If you save the filtered views that are of most interest to you, you do not have to select and filter each time. The picture below shows how to do this in a very simple way. Continue reading “Updates that are now being rolled out in Microsoft 365” →

Document Collaboration, Microsoft 365, Microsoft 365 Governance, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, SharePoint Online

A small wish list from an old SharePoint veteran

I want to start this article by making it clear that I am a big fan of “Modern Experience” in SharePoint Online. I sincerely love the SharePoint we currently have to work with. It has never been easier to build modern portals and areas that are integrated with the other services in Microsoft 365. What you put together also works on mobile devices and everything is intuitive and clear. With Communication Sites and Hub sites you can build a good intranet in a few days (assuming you have done a good planning in advance). New features and further improvements are being rolled out continuously and what is not available today may already be tomorrow.

Working as an Office 365 consultant is now a delight as long as you are able to keep up to date with what is now and what is coming. With that knowledge you are equipped to give your clients the necessary tips and advice.

Brief introductory summary

The functionality and working method I describe below was simpler in the past but otherwise everything is much better nowadays” 🙂

Continue reading “A small wish list from an old SharePoint veteran” →

Group Policy, Intune, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Edge Chromium, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, SharePoint Online, Tips & Tricks

Microsoft Teams + Edge Chromium? Here’s how to get rid of those annoying additional logins.

Are these login boxes familiar? Keep on reading!

They often show up if you are using Edge Chromium as your browser and, from the Microsoft Teams client, open a file in “Files”or if you try to open the Team SharePoint site. (and also sometimes when You open a tab that shows a file).

Open a File
Open in SharePoint
Open in SharePoint
Open a File

Continue reading “Microsoft Teams + Edge Chromium? Here’s how to get rid of those annoying additional logins.” →

Image by Tumisu from Pixabay
Exchange, Microsoft 365 Governance, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, Office 365 Groups, Planner, PowerShell, Retention, Disposal and Archiving, Security & Compliance, Yammer

How do you keep track of when an Office 365 group is deleted?

I myself have relied on “Activity Alerts” in the Security & Compliance Center and it has worked well. As soon as someone deletes, for example, a Team or a Planner, a notification is sent to a team channel in my Governance Center and then I know that it might be something I should look into. Continue reading “How do you keep track of when an Office 365 group is deleted?” →

Document Collaboration, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Teams, Modern Workplace, Office 365, SharePoint Online, TeamsFest, User Adoption

Why Microsoft Teams is the key to successful collaboration

Collaboration in the past

I would like to start by telling you how i went from Lotus Notes, via SharePoint to Microsoft Teams.

Since 1997 I have been working on building systems for “collaboration”. The first few years I worked as a Lotus Notes-developer. Lotus Notes was at that time, in my personal opinion, the most effective platform for building good collaboration solutions. With Lotus Notes, i built document management solutions, good process support with automated workflows, ordering and booking systems, intranets and HR solutions. You could basically build most of it.

Best of all was that once you had built a good solution you could save it as a template. This template could then be used to quickly build the same, or similar solution elsewhere.

The replication in Lotus Notes means that you can distribute the load over different servers and you as a user can also replicate the databases so that you can work offline on your local computer when you do not have access to the Internet (this was during the time you did not always have access to fast internet everywhere and all the time).

Files were attached to Notes documents and you could use the email to attach links to the Notes documents which in turn contained those files. That’s how you (or at least i) did it “at that time”…

david-klein--94oJK3PDQw-unsplash
Photo by David Klein on Unsplash

SharePoint shows up

Continue reading “Why Microsoft Teams is the key to successful collaboration” →

Image by isuru prabath on Pixabay
Featured, IT Governance, Microsoft 365 Governance, Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, Planning, Tips & Tricks

How to use Microsoft Teams to simplify O365 Governance

Did you miss my “How to use Microsoft Teams to simplify O365 Governance” session at the Oktoberfest virtual summit, a.k.a. “TeamsFest”, hosted by European Teams User Group? Below you can see and download what you may have missed and that interests you.

(If you do not know how to use the governance plans, you can watch the session for clarity.)

Photo by Daniel Gonzalez on Unsplash
IT Governance, Microsoft Teams, Modern Workplace, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, Planning, Prepare for Change, Security & Compliance, Tips & Tricks, User Adoption

Things to Know Before Your Organization Opens Up to Use Private Channels in Microsoft Teams

Let me start by saying that I love new functionality that creates opportunities and solves concrete needs, BUT: Having a holistic perspective when managing your organization’s productivity platform is a puzzle with many pieces. In my opinion, there are mainly three pieces you need to fit together as soon as possible if you are to succeed in introducing new functionality into an organization. These pieces are: Continue reading “Things to Know Before Your Organization Opens Up to Use Private Channels in Microsoft Teams” →

Microsoft 365 Governance, Modern Workplace, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, Security & Compliance, Tips & Tricks, User Adoption

Do you use Private chats instead of Channel Conversations? Think about it and do it right.

Private chats in Microsoft Teams is super easy and intuitive to use but are you sure you are using it for the right purpose? When you start a Private Chat and share files in this chat, the files are saved on your OneDrive for Business folder and they are only available to the participants in the chat conversation. Are you sure it is so smart to save these files to your OneDrive? Continue reading “Do you use Private chats instead of Channel Conversations? Think about it and do it right.” →

IT Governance, Microsoft Teams, Modern Workplace, Office 365, Office 365 Governance, Tips & Tricks, User Adoption

How to reduce teams sprawl by making the existence of Private Teams visible for all users

As you probably already know, in Microsoft Teams, any user in the organization can sign up for Public Teams while Private teams require the owner of the team to invite members to the team. Unless users know which private teams already exist, the risk of unnecessarily establishing new teams, with the same purpose and similar content, increases. Continue reading “How to reduce teams sprawl by making the existence of Private Teams visible for all users” →

Microsoft Teams, Office 365, Prepare for Change, Tips & Tricks, User Adoption

How to temporarily disable private channels

Private channels in Microsoft Teams are now launched and rolled out to your tenant. You can create private channels for a specific group of team members in a team. Only those people that are added to the private channel will be able to see and write messages in it.

In my previous blog post “Private channels in Microsoft Teams are here but are you ready to release it in your organization yet?” i wrote about what to think of in order to start using it properly.

Have you informed your users about your guidelines for using this Private channels? If you haven’t done so, now is the time to do it. In the meantime,  you can (read: should) disable Private Channels for a time until everyone knows how it works and how to use it.

How do you do this then? It is easier than you think: Continue reading “How to temporarily disable private channels” →