Saturday, November 13, 2021

Microsoft Teams Information Protection

I have been getting lots of questions over past few months about protecting an organization’s data within Microsoft Teams.  These two posts were just made by Microsoft Teams and are a good introduction with additional references….

Protect your data across Microsoft Teams: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-community-blog/protect-your-data-across-microsoft-teams/ba-p/2945757 

Use sensitivity labels in your Microsoft Teams: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-community-blog/use-sensitivity-labels-in-your-microsoft-teams/ba-p/2945736


Friday, October 15, 2021

Microsoft Teams and Apple CarPlay

 I noticed the past few Teams conference calls I have attended while driving, I was seeing some new Teams integration with Apple CarPlay. 

Pretty cool.  I recommend folks give it a try.

"In addition to calling, your Microsoft Teams meetings are now available on Apple CarPlay. You can find a Teams icon on your Apple CarPlay screen. Simply use voice command through Siri to join your next meeting hands-free. You can also look up call history, make a call or send messages to one or more Teams contacts. Please note that this feature only supports audio mode to avoid distractions while driving."

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-teams-september-2021/ba-p/2793627 


Tuesday, September 21, 2021

Co-Authoring Support for AIP Files

I was extremely happy to see we are now publicly releasing co-authoring for documents that have AIP policies applied to them.  This had been a highly desirable feature I have wanted for years.  Collaborating on sensitive internal documents was very cumbersome until this feature came along.  Please review link for more information.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-and-identity/co-authoring-on-microsoft-information-protection-encrypted/ba-p/2693718


Sunday, August 8, 2021

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse Public Preview

I am very excited to see the new Public Preview of Microsoft 365 Lighthouse.  Organizations and managed service providers have numerous tenants they manage with the goal of driving consistent cyber security posture across those tenants.  Azure Lighthouse has been in market for awhile now, and organizations can use Microsoft 365 Lighthouse to achieve similar outcomes.  Right now this solution is only available for the Small and Medium Business (SMB) Market.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/small-and-medium-business-blog/microsoft-365-lighthouse-is-now-in-public-preview/ba-p/2540515

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2021/07/14/from-collaborative-apps-in-microsoft-teams-to-cloud-pc-heres-whats-new-in-microsoft-365-at-inspire/?ocid=usoc_LINKEDIN_M365_spl100002353594927

Sunday, July 25, 2021

Microsoft 365 Privacy Management (Preview)

There is a new solution called Microsoft 365 Privacy Management that has been released in preview which enables tenant administrators to safeguard personal data. You have the ability to identify privacy risk and mitigate it through automated policies. Policies can monitor data transfers, data overexposure and data minimization (identified unused data). Plus M365 Privacy Management also provides you capabilities to support subject rights requests which helps you to search for and produce reports about data stored in Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OnDrive and Teams.

Reference: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/compliance/privacy-management?view=o365-worldwide

Sunday, June 27, 2021

New Microsoft Information Protection features being released

There are many organizations that put a high emphasis on control of their critical business data.  These organizations should be considering how to leverage Microsoft Information Protection to its fullest potential.  There are several new features that are now Generally Available (GA) or being released in Public Preview.

  • Mandatory Labeling is now GA.  This is a pretty big deal.  It requires labels to always be applied to all data in Office 365.  The labels can be used to enforce policy on files.
  • New improvements for Exchange Online Auto-Labeling.
  • Public Preview for Co-Authoring files with Information Protection encryption on it.  I am extremely happy to see this because I always have felt this was a limitation for collaboration.
  • Public Preview of new AIP audit log explorer.  
  • DLP Alert Dashboard is now GA.  Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, OneDrive, Teams, etc. all have different DLP configurations and this single dashboard shows you a consolidated view of all DLP alerts.
  • Track and Revoke is now GA.  I really like see this.  This allows you to revoke access to sensitive documents.  There are tons of scenarios (good and bad reasons), why you may need to revoke access to a file immediately.

Reference: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/security-compliance-and-identity/what-s-new-in-information-protection/ba-p/2483154 


Thursday, June 17, 2021

Microsoft 365 Defender GA

 Microsoft over the past year has been consolidating all their Defender brands.  For instance Office 365 ATP was rebranded as Microsoft Defender for Office 365 (MDO).  Azure ATP was rebranded as Microsoft Defender for Identity (MDI).  Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (MDE) did not change.

Now the both MDE and MDO are delivered a converged user experience under what will be called Microsoft 365 Defender.  Now administrators will be able to do endpoint, mail and collaboration protection activities from a single dashboard.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-defender-for-endpoint/welcome-to-microsoft-365-defender/ba-p/2436618 


Sunday, May 16, 2021

Teams Customer Key GA

I have had many customers leverage Customer Key with Office 365.  Up till now, Customer Key was only supported for both Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.  Microsoft Teams has now made Customer Key Generally Available for Microsoft Teams.

If you are not too familiar with Customer Key, it provides the customer an additional layer of protection with a root level key over their data in their tenant.  

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/customer-key-support-for-microsoft-teams-now-generally-available/ba-p/2349855


Azure Sentinel Solutions

I have become a huge fan of Azure Sentinel lately as I have had many Office 365 customers start using it to send all of their Office 365 and AAD logs to.  Azure Sentinel just announced that Azure Sentinel Solutions is now public preview.  This provides a gallery of solutions that customers can snap into their Sentinel environment that will enable a richer experience when working with log data from other major systems in the ecosystem.

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sentinel/introducing-azure-sentinel-solutions/ba-p/2347312

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/sentinel/sentinel-solutions-deploy

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/azure-sentinel/rsa-conference-2021-new-innovations-for-azure-sentinel/ba-p/2346834


Sunday, April 11, 2021

Microsoft Teams and Exchange Server On-Prem Calendars

This is actually a really interesting three part blog series on how to configure Microsoft Teams (in the cloud), with Exchange Server on-prem.  Microsoft Teams can only be delivered in the cloud and draws huge dependencies on Exchange Online and SharePoint Online.  However there are still organizations that for various reasons still have Exchange Server on-premises.  This article focuses specifically on how you can integrate your Exchange Server on-prem Calendar with Microsoft Teams.

Part 1 - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-community-blog/microsoft-teams-and-on-premises-mailboxes-part-1-how-do-teams/ba-p/2229851 

Part 2 - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-community-blog/microsoft-teams-and-on-premises-mailboxes-part-2-teams-calendar/ba-p/2232602

Part 3 - https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-community-blog/microsoft-teams-and-on-premises-mailboxes-part-3-calendar-based/ba-p/2235211 


Sunday, March 14, 2021

Microsoft Teams and the DoD CVR Project

This is about one of the coolest projects I have ever been apart of.  This is a great case study written by the DoD about how Microsoft Teams was used to keep their entire business going during COVID.

https://www.c4isrnet.com/it-networks/2021/01/11/pentagon-shattered-speed-record-to-give-1-million-people-remote-work-tools/

Saturday, February 13, 2021

Microsoft Viva

I think everyone was surprised by the recent announcement of the new Viva capability.  The announcements state “Today we are announcing Microsoft Viva, the first Employee Experience Platform (EXP) built for the digital era. Viva brings together communications, knowledge, learning, resources, and insights into an integrated employee experience that builds on Microsoft Teams to empower people to be their best, from anywhere.”

When I started to dig into what Viva really is, in Office 365 terms I was super impressed with the vision.  When Microsoft Teams went to market a few years ago, it was solution that brought together many users experiences inside of Office 365.  Previously SharePoint Online, OneDrive for Business and Skype for Business Online were horizonal solutions with level of integration, yet Microsoft Teams brought them together into a single immersive user experience.  I see the same thing with Viva.

Viva is bringing together Microsoft Workplace Analytics and Microsoft MyAnalytics into an immersive experience within Microsoft Teams.  Viva Insights is the next revolution of these capabilities which I would say are being highly under utilized by customers and users.  This brings these capabilities to the forefront.

Additionally solutions like Microsoft AI is being used to create a solution called Viva Topics which will help users share knowledge and connect people with each other in their everyday jobs.

All of these capabilities will be critical in supporting workforces that are transitioning out of offices and into remote work scenarios.  I see tons of potential, and cannot wait to watch this evolve.

References:

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-viva/overview

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2021/02/04/microsoft-viva-empowering-every-employee-for-the-new-digital-age/

https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-teams-blog/introducing-microsoft-viva-the-employee-experience-platform-in/ba-p/2111481



Saturday, January 23, 2021

Teams Approval App now GA

The Microsoft Approvals App has now gone GA in Microsoft Teams.  This is a simple application that will allow you seek approvals from peers or managers activities and files.  It is totally integrated withing the Teams user experience really need for everyday type of work you do.  Consider giving it a try.

Reference

Approvals in Microsoft Teams, Now Generally Available - Microsoft Tech Community

Monday, January 4, 2021

Microsoft Search and Exchange Online

This week, I had to go into Microsoft Outlook to find an old HR benefit email I had gotten some time ago.  This case, as Microsoft employee get a benefit of free Xbox Game Pass subscription.  I had some old emails on it, and wanted to find the link.  When I found the old emails, none of the links worked because there old.

Then all of a sudden a message came up saying, “Link from your organization”, here is the correct link.  I clicked it, it took me straight to the internal benefit site.  This was awesome and I was totally surprised I did not even know about this feature.


I then did some additional investigation.  I put in some other Microsoft corporate terms into Outlook search and got back tons of other result “Link from your organization” section which gave me links within the Microsoft intranet to webpages that had the information for me.

Well, there was a simple reason for this.  Many folks may not have seen this but Outlook and Office are now integrated with Microsoft Search.  This all started about a year ago.  Basically, whenever you put in a search in Outlook, there is a search in your email however additional resources available to you will be searched.  If you organization has set up Microsoft Search appropriately, you will get items in your mailbox plus items across the organization that you have access to. 

Resources



Important Office 365 Security Recommendations

To mitigate threats consistent with the recent security incidents, here are some really good recommendations organizations should consider with regards to Office 365.  Go here - Protecting Microsoft 365 from on-premises attacks - Microsoft Tech Community

There are strongly recommended configurations that customers should be doing moving forward.