Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Today we’re announcing that Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021. This post provides details on the retirement plan, a brief explanation of why we’re making this announcement now, and a summary of what we’re doing to help customers migrate to Teams.

What is the Skype for Business Retirement plan?
Skype for Business Online will be retired on July 31, 2021, and after that date the service will no longer be accessible. Between now and then, current Skype for Business Online customers will experience no change in service, and they’ll be able to continue to add new users as needed. However, starting September 1, 2019, we will onboard all new Office 365 customers directly to Teams for chat, meetings, and calling. Please note that the Skype Consumer service and Skype for Business Server will both be unaffected by this announcement.

…

Read the full announcement here:

• Skype for Business Online to Be Retired in 2021 https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/Skype-for-Business-Online-to-Be-Retired-in-2021/ba-p/777833

Microsoft just announced the acquisition of BlueTalon to assist with privacy & governance of data.

BlueTalon’s “Policy Engine” is a solution for identifying, controlling access to, & protecting data associated with users stored in Hadoop, SQL & NoSQL databases and big-data environments while providing control the column, row, cell or partial-cell level.

Today we are excited to announce the acquisition of BlueTalon, a leading provider of Unified Data Access Control solutions for modern data platforms. BlueTalon works with leading Fortune 100 companies to eliminate data security blind spots and gain visibility and control of data. BlueTalon provides a customer-proven, data-centric solution for data access management and auditing across the diverse systems resident in modern data estates.

Read more here:

• Microsoft acquires BlueTalon, simplifying data privacy and governance across modern data estates
  https://blogs.microsoft.com/blog/2019/07/29/microsoft-acquires-bluetalon-simplifying-data-privacy-and-governance-across-modern-data-estates/
• SITE: BlueTalon
  https://bluetalon.com 

Forms Pro is a simple, yet comprehensive enterprise survey solution for businesses to capture and analyze feedback to improve how they engage across their business. 

We are excited to announce that effective July 1, 2019, Microsoft Forms Pro will be generally available to Dynamics 365 and Office 365 customers.

Forms Pro will be included with Dynamics 365 Enterprise USLs and as a paid capacity add-on for Dynamics 365 Professional customers. Reference the Dynamics 365 Licensing Guide for details.

• Microsoft Forms Pro
  Create, send, and analyze surveys with ease to collect timely feedback and make informed decisions.
  https://formspro.microsoft.com/en-us/
• Purchase Microsoft Forms Pro
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/forms-pro/purchase
• Microsoft Forms Pro documentation
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/forms-pro/
• Get started with Forms Pro
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/forms-pro/get-started
• Flow for Forms Pro
  https://ms.flow.microsoft.com/en-us/connectors/shared_microsoftformspro/microsoft-forms-pro/

NEW! Check out our latest white papers to help you learn how to use Microsoft 365 and SharePoint to transform your organizational data, analytics and reporting.

• Using SharePoint and Teams as a Modern Dashboarding Platform (https://aka.ms/sharepoint/dashboard-wp )
  SharePoint has a long history of providing a first-class platform for business intelligence dashboards based on Power BI, Excel Online, Power BI Report server, and related tools. Adding conversations and other collaborative content brings context to the content and helps to foster a data culture.  SharePoint pages, as well as lists, can be integrated into Microsoft Teams, bringing all this richness to the Teams collaborative environment.  This paper will outline the various approaches to building dashboards in SharePoint, Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Server.
• Using SharePoint as a data source for Modern Reporting (https://aka.ms/sharepoint/reporting-wp)
  SharePoint is a great organizational data store.  SharePoint lists offer a quick and easy way for users to store and share millions of items, while document libraries have become the industry standard for document management, supplying secure, reliable storage. SharePoint libraries supply the backbone for document storage in all of Office 365. There are several different platforms and technologies for working with SharePoint data, such as Power Query, Excel, Power BI, SQL Server Reporting Services and SQL Server Integration Services.  This white paper examines the different platforms and approaches that can be used to report on SharePoint data and explains the procedures.
• Using Power BI with Complex SharePoint Field Types (https://aka.ms/sharepoint/datatypes-wp)
  SharePoint lists supply a quick and easy way for users to store and share millions of list-based items.  Text and number fields are straightforward, but complex field types in SharePoint present several challenges.  Power BI provides tools to aid with these challenges, and these tools are the focus of this white paper.

The folks at Office365 Training Portal have produced a downloadable .PDF that documents all the Emoji that can be posted into Teams discussions using “parentheses notation” such as:

• (smile)
• (laugh)
• (heart)
• …

Get the document for free here:

• DOWNLOAD: Microsoft Teams Emoji Shortcuts Reference
  https://office365trainingportal.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Microsoft-Teams-Emoji-Shortcuts.pdf

Wanna see all the controls you have around “guest sharing” in Microosft 365?

The link below is a new reference for the various settings that can affect guest sharing for the Microsoft 365 workloads: Teams, Office 365 Groups, SharePoint, and OneDrive. These settings are located in the Azure Active Directory, Microsoft 365, Teams, and SharePoint admin centers.

• Microsoft 365 guest sharing settings reference
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/Office365/Enterprise/microsoft-365-guest-settings
  

Michael Niehaus, Microsoft Principal Program Manager for Autopilot & Deployment, announced at his blog that he’s going to be doing a public Teams meeting to answer questions about pretty much anything.

If you know who Michael is, you know he’s the preeminent authority on Windows 10 & Office 365 ProPlus deployment & servicing & the primary speaker on these topics at Microsoft Ignite & similar conferences.  If you’ve ever had a Win10/O365ProPlus question that needed answering, this is a great opportunity to ask “the source”.

One of the things that I’ve wanted to do for a while is to have an open Q&A call – you know, the typical “office hours” concept from your college days, where someone says they’ll be available during certain times for any questions you might have.  In my case, I’m not an instructor, and true to the domain name of this site I fully expect to do this from “out of the office” – with any luck, I’ll be sitting at home in my recliner, contemplating what I might want for breakfast before heading into the office.

To cover a broad range of time zones, I’ve picked 8am Pacific Daylight Time (PDT), on Thursday, August 1st.  Here are the connection details:

Join Microsoft Teams Meeting

Conference ID: 330 973 15#

Local numbers

Using the Teams client (locally installed or via the web) is preferred, just in case there is any screen sharing needed, but feel free to call in if that’s easier.

If no one shows up, I’ll chalk this up as a failed experiment and go back to my breakfast.  Otherwise, I’ll look at doing this once a month.

For those with doubts about the time zone math, the zip file below contains an ICS file that you can import to your favorite e-mail client (e.g. Outlook):

Link: August-1-OOFHour.zip

Details below:

• DATE/TIME:
  8:00AM PDT
  Thursday, August 1st, 2019
• CONCALL INFORMATION:
  Join Microsoft Teams Meeting 
  Conference ID: 330 973 15#
  Local numbers

Interested in the Microsoft Power Platform?

Power Platform Summit North America delivers the can’t-miss annual conference for users of the Microsoft Power platform – Power BI, PowerApps, and Flow. With credible peer-to-peer knowledge exchange at its core, this event provides focused learning and networking as users gain instrumental solutions for their everyday Power platform challenges and larger organizational goals. In every industry and across the globe, Summit is well known as a premier user-centric experience.

At Summit, attendees will have access to:

• Summit is the only in-person event featuring user-produced education on how to maximize the performance of your software, regardless of version, to further your job role, career, and product investment.
  
• Expertise is shared openly and honestly in an authentic community-driven environment that allows you to home in on your region, industry and role—providing the ultimate customized experience that offers return on investment year-round.
  
• Network with peers who are in similar roles and face the same issues on a daily basis and receive un-biased support/problem-solving.

Read more here:

• Power Platform Summit North America
  October 15-18, 2019 | Gaylord Palms Resort | Kissimmee, FL
  https://na.powerplatformsummit.com/home

Many of Microsoft Defender ATP’s next-generation protection engines are built into the client and block majority of threats in real-time.

In the cloud, more advanced protections examine new threats on the fly and integrate signals from multiple sources.

Read about each of these technologies here:

• Inside out: Get to know the advanced technologies at the core of Microsoft Defender ATP next generation protection
  https://www.microsoft.com/security/blog/2019/06/24/inside-out-get-to-know-the-advanced-technologies-at-the-core-of-microsoft-defender-atp-next-generation-protection/

RDP/SSH to Azure virtual machines is much simpler and more secure with the new AzureBastion.

Azure Bastion is a new resource that you can deploy in your virtual network. In this video, you’ll learn how seamless and secure RDP/SSH to Azure virtual machines are in the Azure Portal and see how a public IP address on the virtual machines are not needed.

• VIDEO: RDP to Azure Virtual machines using Azure Bastion
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLjuWG-L57Q
• PRODUCT: Azure Bastion
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/services/azure-bastion/