Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Microsoft Bookings is an online and mobile app for businesses who provide services to customers on an appointment basis.

Unfortunately, everything you read about Microsoft Bookings says that it’s “available to use by default for Office 365 Education A3, Office 365 A5, and Office 365 Business Premium subscriptions.”

Q: Did you know it’s coming to Office 365 Enterprise subscriptions as well?

Beginning May 12, 2020, Microsoft Bookings will be available as on by default to Office 365 Enterprise E3 and Office 365 Enterprise E5 customers.

If you purchased Office 365 Enterprise E3/Office 365 Enterprise E5 through a Microsoft Enterprise agreement or through volume licensing, you have to get the Microsoft Bookings add-on through the Volume Licensing Service Center (VLSC). Once you get the free add-on, you you can assign licenses to users in your organization. Work with your channel partner or reseller to place a zero dollar purchase order for the add-on. Once you’ve purchased the add-on in Volume Licensing Service Center, follow these steps to get licenses and assign to your users in the Microsoft 365 admin center.

(Note: Microsoft 365 GCC tenants will have Bookings available in the future, however, as expected with all services published to Government Community Cloud, availability is pending Federal approval.)

Read more about this feature here:

• SUPPORT: Get the free Microsoft Bookings add-on for Enterprise subscriptions:
  (Primary documentation page)
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/get-access-to-microsoft-bookings-5382dc07-aaa5-45c9-8767-502333b214ce
• SUPPORT: Set Up Bookings
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/set-up-microsoft-bookings-e38ba99c-c8d4-4e41-b0da-cf81d20a3f8b?ui=en-US&rs=en-US&ad=US
• SUPPORT: Publish your business calendar online with Microsoft Bookings
  https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/publish-your-business-calendar-online-with-microsoft-bookings-47403d64-a067-4754-9ae9-00157244c27d

We are very excited to announce an ‘Ask Microsoft Anything’ (AMA) event for “Microsoft 365 Apps”!

<ks> “Microsoft 365 Apps” is the new name for “Office 365 ProPlus”.  Yeah, I know.

The AMA will take place on Wednesday, May 27th, 2020 from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT in the Microsoft 365 Apps AMA space in the Microsoft 365 Community. Add the event to your calendar with this link.

• Date/Time:
  May 27th, 2020
  9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT
• Location: (ONLINE)
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-apps-ama/bd-p/Microsoft365AppsAMA
• Add to Calendar:
  https://www.myeventurl.com/Events/Details/90
• Announcement:
  EVENT: Microsoft 365 Apps “Ask Microsoft Anything” (AMA) – May 27th, 2020
  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-365-apps-ama/announcing-the-microsoft-365-apps-ama/m-p/1381184

[Note: The following is targeted toward end users who are enthusiastic advocates for Microsoft 365 services & would like to participate in a birds of feather program.  While IT Pros may join, it’s focused on business users.]

You are a champion. You are passionate and curious by nature. You believe there is a more effective way to accomplish your day to day tasks. Your knowledge of Office 365 helps you achieve more. People recognize you as a go-to person. You are in the right place.

We have created this program for Office 365 users like you to connect with like-minded people who not only love using our product but also seek new and more efficient ways to tackle their everyday tasks. We want to make sure that you are getting the most out of Office 365 and enable you to help bring more people to your level of passion and knowledge, to work better together.

The Office 365 Champion program exists to support you with regular communication, connection to peers and thought leaders, and a center of gravity for your Office 365 education journey. Let’s get started today. Fill out the below registration page to get started.

By signing up for this community, you’ll have access to following opportunities:

• Regular email communications (community topics, latest news, tips and resources)
• Regular champion-peer networking and sharing
• Partnerships with Microsoft at premier events and meetups in your industry
• Access to Microsoft subject matter experts and unique Office 365 training and content

(Please note that at this time all program communications will be in English.)

• OFFER: Office 365 Champions Program – End User Advocates
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/success/champions/
  https://aka.ms/O365Champions
• Monthly Office 365 Champions Community Call Resources & Calendar
  https://aka.ms/O365ChampionResources

Are you a Microsoft M365 Admin? The Microsoft M365 Message center is built for IT Admins as a convenient location to keep track of new and upcoming changes, including new and changed features, planned maintenance, and other important announcements that let you take a proactive approach to change management.

Our team is constantly looking to evolve the user experience of M365 Message center, and we want to know what you think about it! We’re looking to speak one-on-one with qualified IT Admins who are active or former users of Message center and are willing to share their experience with Message center. This is a great opportunity to help develop the future of Message center.

• Online interviews can be scheduled throughout the month of April for 30, 45, or 60-minute blocks.
• Research will be conducted in partnership with PK, our third-party research firm.

To indicate your interest in participating in this research, please fill out the survey.

• Help Microsoft develop the future of Message center! IT Pros we want to hear from you!https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/driving-adoption/help-microsoft-develop-the-future-of-message-center-it-pros-we/m-p/1289923

Learn how to bring the benefits of low-code app development—such as increased innovation, improved efficiency, and reduced development costs—to your organization while mitigating the risks.

In this white paper, you’ll get the answers to key organizational questions such as:

• How do I manage an organization where IT isn’t creating the applications?
• How can I ensure the security of my organization’s data?
• How can IT support this potentially decentralized approach to building new software?
• How will change management work?
• What are the next steps to bringing low-code development to my organization?

Download the whitepaper here:

• WHITEPAPER: Understanding the Impact of Low-Code Development with Power Apps + Power Automate (.PDF)
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-Landing-Low-Code-Development-Impact-ebook.html

Learn how to reduce costs and increase the agility of your IT resources when you read the e-book, IT Strategy: Driving Efficiency Through Low-Code App Development. Discover seven reasons why IT leaders are turning to low-code app development platforms, such as:

• Reducing IT backlog while driving innovation across the organization.
• Allowing anyone in the organization—not just developers—the ability to create apps with drag and drop simplicity.
• Digitizing time-consuming manual, repetitive, and paper-based tasks by setting up automated workflows.

Download the book here:

• DOWNLOAD: eBook, “IT Strategy: Driving Efficiency Through Low-Code App Development”
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-IT-Strategy-Driving-Efficiency-Through-Low-Code-App-Development-Ebook.html

To accommodate the requirements of government cloud customers, there are some differences between government plans and commercial plans. Refer to the following table to see which features are available in each government environment.

• Usage metrics for reports and dashboards
• Azure B2B between GCC and commercial cloud
• Paginated reports
• …

Please review this link for up to date information on what’s available in the GCC implementation vs Commercial implementation of Power BI.

• DOCS: PowerBI Feature Availability in GCC
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/power-bi/service-govus-overview#power-bi-feature-availability

Did you ever want to hide the email addresses of individuals that you invite to a meeting… like a Teams Meeting?

This is a common scenario coming up with meetings involving citizens and public officials. For example, you might not want to expose the email address of a judge of an attorney in the invite of a Teams meeting.

A BCC: field does not exist in appointments/meetings like there is in Outlook for Desktop emails and if you’d like to request such a feature, (there’s a lot of votes for it), check out the Outlook for Desktop UserVoice – go to this link to vote for it.

RESOURCE FIELD:
There is however a well-documented workaround involving the usage of the Resources field.  It’s not obvious but it is well documented in the link below so check it out. tl;dr: Before you send a meeting invite:

1. Open a meeting request – go to Scheduling Assistant – Add Attendees
2. Do one of the following:
1. Click the Resources field and add the attendees you want to hide
2. OR… select the dropdown list next to each name already in the invite list and choose “Resource (Room of Equipment)”

Note:  This will be the attendees name in the location field of the meeting request.  You can change or erase the location field after if you choose.

For more details, see below.

• SUPPORT: Add Bcc recipients to a meeting request
  https://support.office.com/en-us/article/Add-Bcc-recipients-to-a-meeting-request-fcaff39e-7fcd-4a77-81e9-b609c57dadb1

(Re: Outlook Web Access… Unfortunately, no such feature exists in Outlook Web Access.  If you want to request this, go to this link on UserVoice for Outlook Web Access.)

Many organizations are turning to the Zero Trust framework to better support remote work and manage risk.

Try our assessment tool to help determine where you are in your journey.

With such a large influx of employees working remotely, many of the traditional network-based security controls are unable to protect the organization. For many organizations, there are two options: route all remote traffic through a strained legacy network architecture, resulting in poor performance and user productivity; or relax restrictions and risk losing protection, control, and visibility. Many organizations are turning to Zero Trust security framework to better support remote work and manage risk.

The Zero Trust security framework helps organizations effectively meet these challenges by gating access to resources individually using granular access policies that take advantage of dynamic user and device risk signals and other telemetry to make more adaptive access decisions.

Support for your Zero Trust journey

Getting started on your Zero Trust journey can be daunting, but we’re here to help. We’ve created the Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment tool to help you determine where you are in your Zero Trust journey. Our assessment tool will help you assess your readiness across identities, devices, apps, infrastructure, network and data, and then provide go-dos and deployment guidance to help you reach key milestones.

WHITEPAPER:
We recently published Microsoft Zero Trust Maturity Model vision paper detailing the core principles of Zero Trust, along with our maturity model, which breaks down the top level requirements across each of the six foundational elements.

Read the announcement here:

• ANNOUNCEMENT: Announcing the Microsoft Zero Trust Assessment Tool
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2020/04/02/announcing-microsoft-zero-trust-assessment-tool/

Design your cloud solutions with high availability, security, and scalability

Base your cloud solutions on strategy and architecture that meets the needs of your organization. In the Azure for Architects e-book from Packt Publishing, you’ll find simplified guidance for everything from understanding core services to delivering advanced solutions. Explore topics including:

• Common design patterns, principles, and best practices for working in Azure.
• Designing for high availability, performance, scale, and resilience, and making informed decisions about deployment strategies.
• Core Azure services as well as advanced solutions that use the Internet of Things, serverless computing, DevOps, and data services.
• Cost management, security, and monitoring to ensure your solutions meet business requirements.

Take a structured approach to your development and create solutions faster with the foundation provided in this exclusive e-book, free from Microsoft.

• DOWNLOAD: eBook, “Azure for Architects”
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/resources/azure-for-architects/