Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Interested in short, 5min recaps of some of the key areas highlighted at Microsoft Ignite 2025 this year?

• Opening keynote recap with Judson Althoff
• Powering Frontier partnerships
• Security in the agentic era – the core primitive
• Advancing accessible AI-learning experiences
• Microsoft Entra: what’s new in Secure Access on the AI Frontier
• How Copilot Transforms Outlook, PowerPoint, Word, and Excel
• Customized AI for your business with Copilot Tuning
• Real Copilot adoption journeys that worked
• Safe and scalable DevOps with AI agents on GitHub
• Inside Azure Innovations with Mark Russinovich ​
• Securing and governing low-code solutions ​
• Modernize your apps with AI agents in GitHub Copilot ​
• Create apps with M365 Copilot and App Builder ​

For a playlist of all the Microsoft Ignite 2025 Recaps: (5min)
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLahhVEj9XNTfaUh3x5Gh2qrNbTyvh6zs_

For viewing of over 500+ breakout session recordings (~60min), visit:
https://ignite.microsoft.com/en-US/sessions

We’re introducing Audio Recap for Microsoft Teams, a new way to catch up on your meetings. With audio recap, your meeting recap is transformed into an audio experience you can listen to on the go. Whether you’re commuting, walking between meetings, or simply prefer listening, it’s a hands-free way to stay connected and informed. You can generate an audio recap for up to eight meetings at a time, and choose the delivery style that best fits how you want to listen.

Learn more about audio recap in Microsoft Teams: https://msft.it/6057tyO0Z

(A 3rd party overview for Audio Recap was done on m365scripts.com which I could never outdo, so I’m just posting it here for you to read. You’re welcome. 🙂 https://m365scripts.com/microsoft-teams/get-audio-recap-of-microsoft-teams-meetings/)

Wouldn’t it be great if you could automatically check if your Windows patch rollout will work on your clients *before* you begin?

INTRODUCING WINDOWS AUTOPATCH UPDATE READINESS
If you’re using Windows Autopatch, you now have preemptive checking, aka “Update Readiness” to anticipate issues before you even begin the rollout! Stop fixing issues after they happen.

Proactive checks help catch hidden prerequisites and safeguards before deployment. Administrators can review lists of devices that need remediation & address them up front. And proactive guidance is presented in a troubleshooting map – including actionable alerts driven by the audit logs that Windows Autopatch & Intune creates.

Read more about the new Update Readiness for Windows Autopatch on the blog:

• BLOG: Windows Autopatch — Elevate your update experience for modern work
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/windows-itpro-blog/windows-autopatch-%E2%80%94-elevate-your-update-experience-for-modern-work/4468111

With the recent announcement of Intune Remote Help’s coming inclusion with Microsoft 365 E3/G3, (and other SKUs) many customers are just discovering the capabilities of Intune Remote Help.

Remote Help is a cloud-based solution that securely connects help desk teams to users. It features permission-based access controls, device compliance checks, organizational login requirements, and incident management ticket tracking. IT administrators can use session reporting to identify support trends and recurring issues.

The three main benefits of using Remote Help are:

• Reduce security risks: Remote Help enables secure IT and worker connections, strengthening your Zero Trust architecture.
• Boost efficiency: IT and help desk teams can quickly and effectively address service issues.
• Support employees anywhere: Remote Help provides a simple and reliable way to connect workers with the technical assistance they need.

The Intune Remote Help interactive demo walks you through scenarios step-by-step with interactive annotations and navigation controls. The demo reviews:

• Setting up Remote Help
• Configure the Remote Help app
• Deploy the Remote Help app
• Integrate with ServiceNow
• End user: Remote Help experience for Windows
• End user: Streamlined web app experience for macOS
• End user: A native app experience on macOS

To start the Intune Remote Help interactive demo, visit:

• https://regale.cloud/Microsoft/viewer/1746/remote-help/index.html#/0/0

For more information about the recent announcement of Intune’s new capabilities included in Microsoft 365 E3/G3 & other SKUs, visit:

• https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/blog/microsoftintuneblog/microsoft-365-adds-advanced-microsoft-intune-solutions-at-scale/4474272

Do you schedule meetings for your team within Outlook?
How about this Copilot prompt:

“Find a time next week to schedule a meeting called “Discuss City of Los Angeles’ Automation Requirements” between myself, Anya Merkle & Zach Gretch for 1 hour before 5PM. Make this a Microsoft Teams meeting but also book a room in the Orange County office. Put the following agenda in the body: Review customer requirements, Outline upcoming meeting, Assign responsibilities to team members, Document next steps.”

Microsoft 365 Copilot can find available times across all of your attendee’s schedules and present them for you to select, the schedule the meeting on people’s calendars and include:

• Sending out the invite with a specific subject & body
• Microsoft Teams meeting
• Booking a room via Microsoft Places

Here’s the output of the above Copilot prompt:

For more information:

• Schedule a meeting using Copilot
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/schedule-a-meeting-using-copilot-72712d86-ae55-4f2a-95de-19bce2e1ec5b

“Getting Started with Copilot Control System” is for IT and Security leaders and practitioners to prepare, deploy, manage & measure Microsoft 365 Copilot and agents at Enterprise scale.

This playbook is intended to be a practical, actionable guide for IT and security professionals, to confidently adopt and deploy Copilot and agents. In it, we’ll show you how to leverage familiar Microsoft technologies to exercise control without inhibiting innovation. The guidance, real‑world best practices, and built‑in capabilities explored in this playbook are intended to help organizations:

• Prepare your tenant for Copilot and agents with the right security, compliance, and readiness baselines to speed adoption and address oversharing.
• Deploy Copilot and agents with centralized controls, guardrails, and governance for optimal license
  allocation, cost control, and lifecycle management.
• Manage adoption to optimize performance and prove value to stakeholders through policy enforcement, audit readiness, and measurable ROI.

This playbook serves as a reference guide for each phase of the process for preparing, deploying, and managing Copilot and agents throughout your organization.

• DOWNLOAD: eBook, “Getting Started with Copilot Control System” – Secure, govern, manage, and measure AI at enterprise scale​
  https://adoption.microsoft.com/files/copilot/control-system/CCS-Getting-Started-Playbook.pdf

The Microsoft Fabric Chargeback app helps you understand which teams, users, and workloads are driving capacity usage, enabling you to build chargeback processes that fairly allocate costs based on actual consumption.

As a capacity admin, you can view key parameters such as metric types, dates, and operation names, and share the report with others in your organization to support transparent and informed cost management.

For more information:

• What is Microsoft Fabric Chargeback app (preview)? – Microsoft Fabric

View the following video to get a “first look” around the use of the Fabric Chargeback Reporting app.

First Look at Microsoft Fabric Chargeback Reporting | Install, Refresh & Report Tour

Announcing the 2026 Microsoft Government BizApps + Copilot Summit returning to Reston, VA on March 10–11, 2026

There is no cost to register for Government employees. Join us for a two-day experience bringing together government and industry leaders to explore how AI and Business Applications are transforming the U.S. Public Sector.

• Day 1: Hands-on Build-A-Thon, Hack-A-Thon, and Prompt-A-Thon so bring your device and your ideas.
• Day 2: Keynotes and deep-dive sessions on AI-powered processes, automation, and the future of the AI workforce across 4 different tracks.

Don’t miss this opportunity to learn, build, and lead with AI.
Save your seat today!

• Dates:
  March 10–11, 2026
  8:00am – 5:30pm ET
• Location:
  Reston, VA (Details available upon registration)
• Registration:
  https://carahevents.carahsoft.com/Event/Details/682872-microsoft

Microsoft announced the end of support for Project Online and PWA in Office 365 by September 30, 2026. The following is a very thorough webinar from our partner, Projility, that breaks down what this announcement means for your organization and how to plan your next move with confidence.

This webinar specifically covers the following:

• Overview of the retirement timeline
• Licensing, planning, change management, and governance considerations
• Migration paths to Project Server SE or Planner Premium & best practices

ABOUT PROJILITY
Projility is a Microsoft Partner that provides Enterprise Project Management professional services to organizations looking for assistance with their Project Online migration, or overall EPM guidance. They also have a YouTube channel in which they provide Project expertise at no cost to subscribers & they are very experienced with State & Local Government customers:

• Tucson Airport Authority
• Santa Clara County, CA
• VIA Metropolitan Transit Authority, San Antonio, TX
• State of Michigan’s Center for Educational Performance and Information
• North Dakota Department of Health and Human Services
• City of Auburn, Alabama
• State of North Dakota
• State of Indiana Office of Technology

You can contact them at info@projility.com or if you’re a customer of mine, contact me & I’ll make a formal introduction.