The powerful collaboration tool SharePoint Online (SPO) is deeply integrated with Microsoft Teams and OneDrive. A SharePoint administrator needs to carefully automate, bulk manage, and configure these sites, users, and groups because it’s possible that tens of thousands of SharePoint sites each have thousands of users accessing them. Most of those users are managed using groups. To perform some of the more common SPO administrative tasks, you need a thorough understanding of how PowerShell integrates with SPO and how to use PowerShell to manage sites, users, and groups and how to generate PowerShell scripts. PowerShell for SharePoint Online has several cmdlets for managing all aspects of SharePoint Online. The SPO… Read More
Continue ReadingMicrosoft Teams and SharePoint Online: How are they integrated?
You’re probably wondering about the integration of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online and where to manage their integration. After I cover some basics, I’ll share some specific configuration settings associated with both of these M365 services. When you need to create a new team in the Microsoft Teams interface, you can choose whether to create a public or private team. When the new team is created, it creates a new SharePoint site. This new SharePoint site is connected to the Files tab located in the channels associated with that team. While you’re still in the Teams channel, if you click the Open in SharePoint option, you’re brought to the SharePoint site… Read More
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What’s new in Microsoft Teams Q2 – 2022
Microsoft Teams is an ever-evolving service that has become the primary desktop application for users to collaborate and communicate in. 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 app. 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. Calls N/A Chat LinkedIn profiles in… Read More
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Understanding SharePoint Server Subscription Edition
Over the years there have been several releases of SharePoint Server for on-premises installations. In the past, Microsoft released them about every three years (SharePoint Server 2007, 2010, 2013, 2016, 2019). This meant customers didn’t see any new features for three years and then we had to go through a lengthy, well-planned, and thought-out upgrade process to deploy the next version. You may be wondering where the next major release of SharePoint Server is since we haven’t seen anything about SharePoint Server 2022. … Microsoft released SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, which is expected to be the last major release of any on-premises SharePoint Server product. Microsoft is changing things up… Read More
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Upgrading SharePoint Server 2013 to SharePoint 2016 on a single server
Let’s say that you’re hosting a handful of SharePoint Server 2013 sites for a small number of users and you want to create a development SharePoint Server farm, or that you want to create a SharePoint Server 2016 farm as a short-term solution on the way to SharePoint Server 2019 or SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. In previous versions of SharePoint, if you ran an install of SharePoint on a single server, it installed SQL Server Express for you as part of the SharePoint installation. This isn’t the case with SharePoint Server 2016 or 2019, so you must install SQL Server (2014 SP1 or higher for SharePoint 2016) on the same… Read More
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What’s new in Microsoft Teams – Q1 of 2022
Microsoft Teams is an ever-evolving service that has become the primary desktop application for users to collaborate and communicate in. 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 app. 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. Calls N/A Chat Pinning a chat… Read More
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Microsoft Teams New Capabilities and Features
Microsoft continues to enhance Microsoft Teams and recently announced some pretty big updates to Microsoft Teams this month. I will discuss the top five updates in this article so you can quickly go test them out to see how beneficial they will be to your organization. Let’s begin my exploring the new capabilities in the Meetings feature of Microsoft Teams. Within the Recordings capabilities there are a few slick updates released and one of my favorites is the multi-speed playback which allows you to control the speed at which you play back the recorded meeting. This can be adjusted to slow down or speed up (0.5 to 2x). This is… Read More
Continue ReadingMicrosoft Teams Essentials for Small Businesses
Earlier this month Microsoft announced a new flavor of Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Essentials, targeted for small businesses. The Microsoft Teams Essentials standalone offering is the first of its’ kind and has a lower per-user price point than the Microsoft Teams offered in Microsoft 365. At only $4.00 per user per month, it includes the primary features and functionality including group chat, calendaring, file sharing, and unlimited group video calls, for up to 30 hours, all which are essential for small business working with your customers. Microsoft Teams Essentials does have some capabilities specific to its’ offering which include Extended meeting time (up to 30 hours) Large meeting capacity (host up… Read More
Continue ReadingMicrosoft announces first Microsoft 365 price increase in a decade
We knew it was going to happen, but just didn’t know when. With Microsoft adding so many new apps, features, and capabilities it was long overdue. In the decade prior to this price increase, Microsoft has enhanced the online offering significantly. Let me provide a high-level overview of what has changed since the initial release of Office 365. Microsoft 365 was introduced, which not only includes Office, but also Windows, and Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) Microsoft 365 has since added 24 new apps including Microsoft Teams, the Power trio (Apps, BI, Automate), Stream, Planner, and OneDrive Released over 1,400 new features and capabilities falling into three primary functional categories:… Read More
Continue ReadingPreparing for the MS-101: Microsoft 365 Mobility and Security Exam
Information about the MS-101 exam including its prerequisites, intended audience, and skills measured can be found on this Microsoft Web Site. This exam is used to obtain the Microsoft 365 Enterprise Administrator role and the Microsoft 365 Certified: Enterprise Administrator Expert certification. After discovering more about the MS-101 exam, you will want to prepare for the exam with some guidance provided in my seven Pluralsight courses specific to the MS-101 exam, which you can locate using the following Pluralsight’s Web Site link. I built the seven courses in a specific order, and some of courses are built on previous courses so it is best to watch them in the order… Read More
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