Brian Alderman – MicroTechPoint

Microsoft 365 Administrator Certification

March 20, 2025March 20, 2025Brian Alderman

Microsoft announced an update to the Microsoft 365 administration certification. Let’s begin with the fact that Microsoft has renamed the certification from “Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert” to “Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert”. They dropped enterprise from the name. To obtain the previous Microsoft 365 certification, you had to pass both the MS-100 and the MS-101 exams. The new exam that has replaced the MS-100 and MS-101 is called the Microsoft 365 Administrator, MS-102 exam, which you need to pass to obtain the new Microsoft 365 Certified: Administrator Expert. However, before you study and take the MS-102 exam, you need to pass one of the prerequisite Microsoft exams. Below… Read More

Using the SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) to Migrate SharePoint Sites to Microsoft 365

March 15, 2025March 20, 2025Brian Alderman

Microsoft provides a free and simple migration tool, the SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT), to assist in the migration process from SharePoint sites to Microsoft 365. SPMT can perform SharePoint-related migrations to SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Teams from the following: SharePoint Server 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 SharePoint Foundation 2010 and 2013 SharePoint Server 2010 out-of-box (OOB) workflows to Power Automate SharePoint Designer 2010 and 2013 workflows to Power Automate Note: If you are proficient with Windows PowerShell, SPMT contains all the functionality available in PowerShell to complete your migration. Understanding SPMT It is important to prepare for and understand SPMT, including supported authentication methods, migrated content permission behavior, migration assessment,… Read More

Using SMAT to assess migration from SharePoint Server to SharePoint Online

March 5, 2025March 20, 2025Brian Alderman

The SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT) is a command-line utility designed to help organizations evaluate their current on-premises SharePoint environment and prepare for migration to SharePoint Online. SMAT assists in identifying potential issues that could arise during the migration process and provides recommendations to address these issues. It’s essentially a tool to ensure a smoother migration experience. Note: For information about the free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT), which assists in the migration process from SharePoint sites to SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Teams, see Using the SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT) to Migrate SharePoint Sites to Microsoft 365. SMAT Tasks Scans and Analyzes: The tool scans your existing SharePoint environment to collect information about the… Read More

Using Microsoft Migration Manager to Migrate Content to SharePoint Online and OneDrive

January 15, 2025March 20, 2025Brian Alderman

Microsoft SharePoint Online includes a free and simple migration GUI, Migration Manager, to assist you in your migration from SharePoint on-premises sites, file shares, and cloud-based document storage centers to Microsoft 365. The Migration Manager, which is located in the SharePoint Online Admin Center, can perform migrations to SharePoint Online, OneDrive, and Teams from: File shares Cloud-based document centers and Microsoft Stream Box Dropbox Google Workspace Egnyte Stream (Classic) content to Stream (on SharePoint) SharePoint Server on-premises using SPMT (can be downloaded from Migration Manager) 2010 OOB (Out-Of-Box) workflows to Power Automate SharePoint Designer 2010 and 2013 workflows to Power Automate SharePoint Server 2010, 2013, 2016, and 2019 SharePoint Foundation… Read More

Introduction to Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL (T-SQL)

December 30, 2024March 20, 2025Brian Alderman

Microsoft SQL Server Transact-SQL (T-SQL) is a proprietary extension of SQL (Structured Query Language) used by Microsoft SQL Server and Sybase ASE (Adaptive Server Enterprise). T-SQL is a powerful and versatile language that provides procedural programming capabilities and standard SQL functionality found in all RDBMS (Relational Database Management System) products. RDBMS is a collection of programs and capabilities that enable IT teams, database administrators (DBA), and database programmers to create, update, administer and interact with a relational database. A relational database is a database that uses tables to organize data into rows and columns that contain values that are related to each other. Microsoft SQL Server is one of… Read More

Administering M365 Governance using Rencore’s Governance Tool

September 18, 2024November 5, 2024Brian Alderman

You can’t become an advanced M365 administrator without understanding the importance of governance and how it affects and protects your information. Governance is necessary to ensure you are protecting your critical M365 information assets, while also minimizing risks associated with those assets. Microsoft 365 includes a minimal level of governance, but there are many more capabilities necessary to protect your assets stored in SharePoint, OneDrive, Teams, Exchange, Loop, Entra ID, Viva Engage, Power Apps, Power Platform, and Copilot. With that in mind, I’d like to strongly suggest that you take some time to research a powerful, dynamic, and full-featured governance tool available by Rencore. The seamless integration of this product… Read More

SharePoint Premium: What is it?

July 30, 2024July 30, 2024Brian Alderman

SharePoint is a powerful, flexible, and popular collaboration and content management platform that has been around for over 20 years. I’ve personally seen it go through many advancements in the nearly 20 years I have been working with it. I want to begin by briefly introducing SharePoint and discussing the lifecycle of SharePoint leading up to SharePoint Premium. SharePoint allows organizations to collaborate on ideas, information, and documents using sites and secure file sharing options. SharePoint also provides the ability to create intranet websites, which enables collaboration within your organization by providing a structured document storage and management system containing advanced collaboration options including versioning, workflows, and forms. SharePoint History… Read More

Introduction to Microsoft 365 Archive and Backup Functionality

June 10, 2024November 5, 2024Brian Alderman

Microsoft has finally introduced a Microsoft 365 built-in backup feature, as well as archiving capabilities. I will begin by explaining the difference between the two features, so you understand why there are two different features, when sometimes the names are used interchangeably. Important: Both new features are currently in Preview mode and are expected to be in General Availability (GA) sometime in 2024. Only tenant-level admins can create and manage your Microsoft 365 backups using Microsoft 365 Backup. End users won’t have the ability to enable backup or restores for their user account, mailboxes, distribution lists, or SharePoint sites. Currently, the admin roles determine which products you can manage with… Read More

Microsoft Renaming Azure AD (AAD) to Entra ID

August 12, 2023July 30, 2024Brian Alderman

Microsoft announced that they will rename Azure AD (AAD) to Entra ID in their attempt to reflect the progression of modern multicloud identity security, eventually simplify secure access for all Microsoft 365 users, and to provide naming consistency for identity and access solutions. Some experts in the industry likely wonder why? Why rename Azure AD (AAD) if Microsoft isn’t providing any enhancements, new features, or even deprecating features in Azure AD. It appears the reason is to integrate the Entra ID product name into the already existing Microsoft Entra product family, which includes: Microsoft Entra ID Microsoft Entra ID Protection Microsoft Entra ID Governance Microsoft Entra External ID Microsoft Entra… Read More

What’s New in Microsoft Teams Q2 – 2023

July 10, 2023July 17, 2023Brian Alderman

Microsoft Teams is an ever-evolving service that has become the primary desktop application for users to collaborate and communicate in throughout the day. With that in mind, Microsoft is investing a lot of resources, both financially and physically to ensure the product continues to evolve. With there being so many changes, it is important to keep abreast of the updates and new features to ensure your organization is taking full advantage of this powerful service. This quarterly post on Microsoft Teams will be useful for understanding the highlights of the new features and updates, specific to the Microsoft Teams desktop app and Teams on the web. Apps Searching for apps… Read More