Kurt Shintaku's Blog

Find out how choosing the right devices can transform your organization

A Gartner survey shows that “institutional agility is the way public-sector leaders and Chief Information Officers can balance stability with speed”¹ to respond faster and better to disruptions. How can you achieve agility while transitioning to a hybrid workplace? Start from the inside: provide employees with the devices they need to do their best collaboratively, safely, and from virtually anywhere.

A streamlined device strategy for state and local government must give teams modern tools to work effectively and foster security. The benefits of a hybrid approach range from boosted workforce collaboration and productivity to proactive protection, improved IT efficiency, cost reduction, and easier deployment. Take advantage of all these benefits by bringing cloud-ready Surface devices into your strategy.

Join us in this webinar to discover with real-life scenarios:

• How the Surface PCs and devices can help meet the needs of your workforce—for example, combining Surface, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft Teams to better remote working.
• How to address the IT challenges of hybrid work and its device deployment, management, and security needs.
• How to transition to an automated approach using an integrated cloud and modern device strategy.
• How to use chip-to-cloud protection to apply a zero-trust security strategy to devices.

Lead the digital transformation in government with Microsoft.

• Date/Time:
  Thursday, March 24, 2022
  11:00 AM Pacific Time
• Registration:
  https://mktoevents.com/Microsoft+Event/314743/157-GQE-382

For customers without Microsoft Unified Support agreements, they must turn to public forms of support for issues with Power Automate.  These forms are listed here:
https://powerautomate.microsoft.com/en-us/support/. 

Note: If your user account is Power Apps licensed, you are entitled for Power Automate rights and that should get you the ability to file for support through the first option in the above link called “Paid Subscription Support”.

POWER AUTOMATE COMMUNITY
Alternatively, you may choose to submit your questions to the Power Apps Community here:  https://powerusers.microsoft.com/t5/Power-Apps-Community/ct-p/PowerApps1

Got questions for the Power Automate engineering team?

"Ask Microsoft Anything" for Power Automate coming up next week!

Announcing the March 8th “Building Flows” AMA! Excited to announce our first AMA in the Power Automate community! On March 8th we will be hosting an AMA on “Building Flows”. Come prepared with your questions and we will be answering questions from 8:00AM until 9:00AM Pacific Time. What is an AMA? AMA stands for “Ask Microsoft Anything” – where we gather our Microsoft experts to answer all your experts on the chosen theme. Who will be at the AMA? We’re excited to have Chris Garty, Kishor Subedi, Matt Townsend as our experts from Microsoft to answer community questions.

Check it out here:

• "Building Flows AMA – March 15, 8AM-9AM PST" https://www.myeventurl.com/Events/Details/302

Here’s a quick reference for dial pad commands within Teams Audio Conference calls:

Meeting Participants:

• Command Menu *1
  Press *1 to play the descriptions of dial-pad commands that are available.

• Raise/lower hand *5
  Press *5 to raise or lower hand.

• Mute/unmute *6
  Press *6 to mute or unmute themselves.

Meeting Organizers:

• Admit all *21
  Press *21 to admit all participants waiting in the lobby.

• Mute all *22
  Press *21 to mute all participants (except the organizer).

• Toggle Enter/Exit Announcement *23
  Press *23 to enable or disable Enter/Exit Announcement.

This is documented here:

• Teams Audio Conferences: What in-meeting dial-pad commands are supported?
  https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/audio-conferencing-common-questions#what-in-meeting-dial-pad-commands-are-supported

Got G Suite legacy free edition?

• Get Microsoft 365 Business Basic for $2/use/mo.
• Get Microsoft 365 Business Std for $5/user/mo.
• Get Microsoft 365 Business Prem for $8/user/mo.

This is 60% off normal pricing. Compare each solution below:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/business

The deal is documented below:

If you’re a small business that’s relied on G Suite legacy free edition, we couldn’t help but notice you might be in the market for a new solution. We’ve got news for you: today, you can get a 60 percent discount on a 12-month Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, or Business Premium subscription, along with the help you need to make the move.

…

And we’re including one year of free support with Business Assist for Microsoft 365 to help you get up and running in no time. Business Assist is designed specifically for small businesses to make migration easy, with around-the-clock access to small business specialists who can work with you on everything from onboarding to sharing tips and tricks that will ensure you get the most out of your Microsoft 365 subscription. 

…
This offer is exclusive to current G Suite legacy free edition users who purchase a 12-month Microsoft 365 subscription by August 2, 2022. One free year of Business Assist for Microsoft 365 available to US customers only. Business Assist currently supports English language only.

Read about the offer here:

• A special offer for small businesses using Google’s legacy G Suite
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2022/02/10/a-special-offer-for-small-businesses-using-googles-legacy-g-suite/
• “Switch to M365” product page for Microsoft 365 Business
  https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/switch-to-microsoft-365

When a team of researchers at Microsoft analyzed how employees at that company were experiencing the shift to remote work, they found a surprising data point: Workers were scheduling more 30-minute meetings than they ever had before, contributing to an overall meeting-time increase of 10% each week.

This is not good news. As the researchers point out, meetings generally decrease employee productivity and happiness. It’s time to rethink (virtual) meetings.

The following two charts can guide you and your team in deciding when, why, and how to meet. The first, an HBR classic, offers a decision tree with options other than scheduling that block of time on the calendar.

Read more at:

• HBRA Guide to the Virtual Meeting: You still need to determine if you need to meet at all.
  https://hbr.org/2021/10/a-guide-to-the-virtual-meeting

Microsoft has helped thousands of organizations evolve their Zero Trust deployments to respond to transitions to remote and now hybrid work in parallel with a growing intensity and sophistication of cyberattacks.

This paper distills what we’ve learned from these customers informing the trends evolving Zero Trust, the updates to our viewpoint of this model from an architecture and implementation maturity perspective, and key recommendations to ensure you’re best prepared for our new reality.

• DOWNLOAD: Evolving Zero Trust: How real-world deployments and attacks are shaping the future of Zero Trust strategies
  https://query.prod.cms.rt.microsoft.com/cms/api/am/binary/RWJJdT

Cost Management anomaly detection is now available for subscriptions in the cost analysis preview. To check cost anomalies for your subscription, open any view in the cost analysis preview and click the see insights link to view all insights and details.

Read more at the announcement site:

• Public preview: Cost Management anomaly detection for subscriptions
  https://azure.microsoft.com/en-us/updates/preview-cost-management-anomaly-detection-for-subscriptions-2/

We are excited to provide a series of live webinars designed to help Public Sector and agency leaders on this journey. These sessions will cover a range of topics including:

• Discover insights gained from surveying Public Sector talent leaders globally on how they are engaging their employees right now and successfully developing talent at scale.
• An introduction to Microsoft technologies and skills programs to inform attendees on future trends and the benefits of skilling to meet organization’s vision for employees and workforce.
• Real stories and examples from experts and government and defense & intelligence customers who have seen success in developing employee and workforce skills as a direct impact from collaborating with Microsoft.

If you have missed any of these events, the recordings are available on demand.

• WEBINARS: Public Sector Skills Webinars Series for Government
  https://microsoftedu.eventbuilder.com/GovernmentSkillsWebinarSeries?source=PubSecSkillsPage

————

(A recent event/example)

Introduction to: Quantum Computing
During this session you will learn about Azure Quantum’s full stack approach and how to get started having quantum impact today!

• Originally Presented: January 27, 2022 7:00 AM (America/Los_Angeles)
• Duration: 31 minutes
• https://microsoftedu.eventbuilder.com/event/47145?source=PubSecSkillsPage

Explore best practices for increasing the security posture of your Azure Virtual Desktop environment. Learn about the Azure security controls you can use to keep your users, apps, and data safe and secure.

Join this webinar to:

• Apply reliable, end to end advanced security features of Azure.
• Learn about your role in the shared security model.
• Configure security components to fit your organization’s needs.
• Utilize the built-in security in the management plane.

Register below:

• Date/Time:
  Tuesday, March 8, 2022 10:00 AM–11:00 AM PST
• Registration:
  https://info.microsoft.com/ww-landing-security-best-practices-for-azure-virtual-desktop.html?lcid=en-us