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Author: Habib Mankal

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In this episode, we interview Microsoft Office Apps and Services MVP Joanne C. Klein, around the topics of :

  • Governance
  • Compliance
  • Data Loss Protection

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In this episode, we cover the major Microsoft 365 announcements around

  • Teams
  • Planner
  • Stream
  • Threat Protection
  • Administration
  • Authentication

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In this episode, the team discusses our notes from the field while working with clients in helping support their end-users.

Dino - Identifying Capacity Issues

Habib  - How do you know when a Teams user is provisioned?

Get Started with Teams App Dev & the Power Platform

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In this episode, the team discusses all aspects of using Microsoft Teams live events broken down in the below categories.

  • Live events Services
  • Administration
  • Organizer/Producer
  • Presenter/Attendee

Microsoft 365 Live Events Assistance (Public Preview)

What are Microsoft Teams live events?

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In this episode, the team discusses our lives during the past 2 weeks and our experiences supporting remote workers. Additionally, Microsoft Teams has been incurring additional load, listen in on what services and features have been throttled down temporarily.

Crisis Communication sample template Power Apps

Microsoft Learning Pathways

Microsoft Developer Virtual Conference

Throttling

Teams:

  • Chat read receipts disabled in some regions, huge load on chat backend service
  • Azure voicemail Service - not playing greetings at times
  • Call Queues and Auto Attendants failing to receive calls
  • To best support our Microsoft 365 customers worldwide and accommodate new growth and demand during these unprecedented times, we're making temporary adjustments to select non-essential capabilities. We do not expect these changes to have a significant impact on the end-users experience but wanted to make you aware.
  • Examples of changes we may make include:
    • How often we check for presence
    • The interval in which we show when the other party is typing
    • Video resolution

OneNote:

  • OneNote in Teams will be read-only for commercial tenants, excluding EDU. Users can go to OneNote for the web for editing.
  • Download size and sync frequency of file attachments has been changed.
  • You can find details on these and other OneNote related updates as http://aka.ms/notesupdates.

SharePoint:

  • We are rescheduling specific backend operations to regional evening and weekend business hours. Impacted capabilities include migration, DLP and delays in file management after uploading a new file, video or image.
  • Reduced video resolution for playback videos.

Stream:

  • People timeline has been disabled for newly uploaded videos. Pre-existing videos will not be impacted.
  • Meeting recording video resolution adjusted to 720p

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In this episode, the teams talks about the guidance for remote workers during Covid-19 and beyond. Check out our discussion on the guidance and how our home remote sessions are setup.

Michael's home office

Dino's home office

Curtis's home office

Habib's home office

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/02/working-remotely-during-challenging-times/

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/03/05/our-commitment-to-customers-during-covid-19/

For teachers, students, and parents

https://aka.ms/RemoteLearningHelp

For admins or educators hoping to quickly deploy remote learning strategies

https://aka.ms/teamseduremote

How schools can ramp up remote learning programs quickly with Microsoft Teams

https://aka.ms/remote-learning

For admins

https://aka.ms/TeamsForRemoteWork

End user

https://aka.ms/remote-work

Working Remotely Checklist

For Organizations

Microsoft has made Teams available at no cost for 6 months

  • If you work for a business that isn’t currently licensed for Teams, we’ve got you covered with a free Office 365 E1 offer for six months. Contact your Microsoft partner or sales representative to get started today. (Note: the same offer is available in the Government Cloud, but not available in GCC High and the Department of Defense.)
  • If you work in education and want to set up teachers, students, and administrators on Teams, use Office 365 A1. This free version of Office 365 is available to all educational institutions. Sign up by following this link.

For Individual Workers

Home Office Etiquette

  • mute landlines or mobile ringers if your mic is going to be one
  • tell people in your house you are going on a call if you will have your mic on!
  • Lighting – play with different lighting to optimize your video. Lamps behind the camera.  Try to minimize light behind you.
  • Minimize Distractions near you (tv, radio, others talking if possible)
  • Turn off Fans, phone on vibrate near the mic
  • OS notifications from PC/Laptop
  • Focus assist – Myanalytics - microsoft.com
  • Remember Teams Mobile is an option
  • Teams can transition a call from mobile to the desktop client and vice-versa which is great if you need to be roaming around
  • Teams Web for Guests don't have the Client Installed

Home Network

  • It is all about the network quality at home.  Real time traffic sensitive to bandwidth and latency
  • Test it.  Simple tests.  Simple testing strategies
    • https://fast.com (very simple network test powered by NetFlix)
    • Office 365 Network Onboarding tool (https://connectivity.office.com/)
      • This proof of concept (POC) tool runs tests that allow providing specific guidance about networking connectivity improvements that can be made between a user location to Office 365
      • will show your nearest ingress & egress point into Office 365 and
      • measures speed from your home desktop to O365 front-door
      • Resolving issues
    • If you have WiFi issues – look at moving to your main device to WIRED (laptop or desktop)
  • Sometimes a network router reboot is best
  • Use the online tools to find out where the issue is (your router, your ISP connection)
  • Firewall setup? Reboot Router can fix issues sometimes

Media - Audio and Video Guidance

  • Use a certified Teams (of SfB) device if possible.  Certified USB wired headsets start at $42 Cdn so not terribly expensive
  • Try not to use Computer Mic and speakers as they are known to cause a poor audio experience for all other users in the meeting.
  • Most built in web cams on laptops or notebooks work well for video.  If you have a home office for work you might consider a dedicated webcam that sits on top of your monitor or on a tripod.
  • For a full list you Check out the certified list of devices at https://products.office.com/en-ca/microsoft-teams/across-devices/devices
  • Turn on your video if possible -  The use of video repeatedly shows it increases the collaboration experience amongst co-workers
  • Don't force video upon people but suggest it if possible.  Understand that it might not be appropriate at times.  I.e.  Children are home from school
  • TEST Audio and Video BEFORE YOU JOIN!
    • Teams Test Call Feature – allows you to record your voice and will play it back for you to hear how it would sound for others when you are in an actual call
    • In Teams goto Devices > Video to see what your Video Quality looks like – best to try and have camera level or just above your head.

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In this episode which is similar to Episode 36, we cover a massive amount of features in Microsoft Teams that have been launched, rolling out or announced in the past 90 days. We've pulled all this information from Office 365 message center, Microsoft Tech community, Office 365 Roadmap with Teams filter.

Here are a list of features covered:

End-user 

  • Read receipts
  • User Pin Apps, pin channels
  • Enhanced scheduling experience in Teams
  • Meeting Notification settings
  • Live Captions
  • Presenter and attendee controls
  • New Files experience
  • Teams conversation to Outlook
  • Tags in Teams (march)

Voice/Devices

  • Dial plans, emergency address, Dynamic emergency calling, updated AA & CQ in Admin Center
  • New device ThinkSmart View (collaboration bars have hdmi out, this doesn't)
  • Poly CCX

Administration

  • Chrome 80 issues
  • GA Microsoft 365 Usage Analytics Power BI  (12 months)
  • Colleague joined teams notification
  • Policy Packages for EDU and Health (health released today)
  • SharePoint site swap for ~10,000+ users

Security 

  • Legal Hold for private channels
  • ATP Safe Links
  • Communication compliance
  • Security defaults replacing Baseline Protection policies

 

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In this episode, the team talks about the various ways to stay updated during a Microsoft 365 outage and service disruption. See below for reference links,  documentation and twitter handles to follow.

Reference Links and Locations

https://portal.office.com/adminportal/home#/servicehealth

Office 365 Admin Mobile App

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office/office-365-management-api/office-365-management-apis-overview

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/office365/servicedescriptions/office-365-platform-service-description/service-health-and-continuity

Twitter handles

@AzureSupport

@MSFT365Status

@IntuneSuppTeam

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In this episode, we talk with Senior Product Manager Microsoft Teams mobile experience Arvind Muthukrishnan. As you know how amazing the Microsoft Teams mobile application is, we wanted to get some more insights as to how it came about and what's coming to the mobile platform.

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In this episode, we talk with Paul Woodsfounder of AdoptAndEmbrace.comand co-author of Adopt & Embrace Microsoft Teams"A manager's guide to communication, collaboration, and coordination with Microsoft Teams"

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