Office

Teams and Planner are excellent examples of new functionality that Microsoft can create using the toolkit of parts that exist within Office 365. The two applications have excited and delighted customers since their announcement, but the applications are not yet complete. Some challenges exist that Microsoft really needs to take on to round out functionality and capabilities.

Todd Klindt and Shane Young discuss OneDrive for Business SharePoint Sync, the SharePoint Migration Assistant Tool (SMAT) for SharePoint 2013 and how it can help you evaluate your move to Office 365, and Shane gushes over his first use of the FindTime feature.

Microsoft offers Office 365 administrators the opportunity to measure the security of their tenant against standard benchmarks set by Microsoft. Despite some glitches, the Secure Score service is a worthwhile and useful tool.

Microsoft has announced that they will block Office 365 tenants from creating workload-specific searches from July 2017. Instead of using Exchange Online and SharePoint Online, you have to create content searches and eDiscovery cases through the Security and Compliance Center. It’s a good change, even with the complication of keeping old searches until they expire.

Beginning in March 2017, SharePoint site owners will no longer be able to create new site mailboxes. Existing site mailboxes will function until they are replaced by something else.

Background processing usually remains hidden from end users. No need exists for a user to understand what maintenance goes on under the covers of the service. Office 365 delivers service with no fuss to its users, but recently I have noticed some instances when background processes have made themselves felt. Although these are not serious issues, they are a worrying sign of a lack of attention to detail.

Todd and Shane talk about Microsoft FastTrack and all of the great services to help you move from on-prem to Office 365, StaffHub, Windows Management Framework 5.1, and do some good ole fashion whining about the client-side object model (CSOM).

Outlook Tasks is a tool you can use to set reminders and track tasks in OneNote with Outlook. Learn how to use this dynamic feature.

Office 365 Connectors provide a means to connect network data sources such as Twitter, Trello, and RSS feeds to Office 365 Groups and Microsoft Teams. The out-of-the-box connectors work well, but there’s nothing like being able to process your own data, which is exactly what the Incoming Webhook connector allows you to do. In this example, we grab some Office 365 service incident information and post it to a group. All a mere matter of writing some PowerShell code.

Microsoft’s FY17 Q2 results posted on January 26 boasted a 49% year-over-year growth in commercial Office 365 revenues, contributing to an annualized run rate for commercial cloud products that now “exceeds” $14 billion. The number of cloud users has grown again, underlying the continuing movement of work to the Office 365 and Azure.