Blog – Page 2 – MicroTechPoint

Introducing and Exploring Microsoft Forms

December 13, 2022February 24, 2023Brian Alderman

Microsoft Forms provides the capability to create surveys, quizzes, and polls. After doing so you can invite users to participate, from most any device, and then view the results in real-time, use analytical tools to summarize the information gathered from the form, and optionally export these results to Excel for use with other analytical tools. Creating and deploying a form is extremely easy, and can be completed with just a few mouse clicks if you are utilizing an Out-of-Box (OOB) template provided by Microsoft. However, there are a few additional mouse clicks necessary when creating a new form from scratch. To begin the process, you’ll need to decide what type… Read More

Introducing and exploring quizzes using Microsoft Forms

November 20, 2022February 23, 2023Brian Alderman

Quizzes are used to assess learning, get real-time feedback, and much more. Quizzes can be created as Web-based, inside OneNote notebook, and as a tab in a channel in Microsoft Teams. We are going to go through the basic steps necessary to create a web-based quiz, which as you’ll see is pretty similar to creating a form but with a few important differences. After logging into Microsoft 365, click the Forms option located on the waffle in the top left hand corner of M365 Click on the dropdown arrow on +New Form and choose New Quiz Type in title of quiz, optionally a description, and an image representing the topic… Read More

What’s new in Microsoft Teams – Q3 of 2022

October 21, 2022March 3, 2023Brian Alderman

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 Manage… Read More

Integrating Microsoft Forms with Microsoft Teams

October 9, 2022April 18, 2023Brian Alderman

Microsoft Teams has taken the world by storm and it has become the most versatile and utilized end-user service offered by Microsoft. There are already several components that are tightly integrated with Teams including SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, Azure AD, and over 600 additional apps available in the App Store. With Teams being so popular, it only makes sense for us to not only use it for collaboration, chatting, and video meetings, but also use it for gathering information from the millions of individuals who are accessing this powerful application. This is where Microsoft Forms comes in, a powerful tool that can be easily integrated with Teams to allow us… Read More

Managing Microsoft Teams using PowerShell

September 18, 2022May 16, 2023Brian Alderman

Microsoft’s PowerShell provides administrators the capability to automate routine tasks using a command-line shell that’s associated with a powerful scripting language. This command line utility is structured, intuitive, provides consistency, and is available across all Microsoft products, making it easier for an administrator to transition their PowerShell knowledge and experience from one product to another. Managing Microsoft Teams using PowerShell is an efficient way for your M365 and Teams administrators to manage teams, channels, team members, and many other Microsoft Teams components in bulk. As an example, using PowerShell, you can easily add hundreds of users to a team, or modify properties on these team, or modify properties on the… Read More

Managing SharePoint Online using PowerShell

September 3, 2022April 18, 2023Brian Alderman

SharePoint Online (SPO) is a powerful collaboration tool that is deeply integrated with Microsoft Teams and OneDrive. With the possibility of having tens of thousands of SharePoint sites with thousands of users accessing these sites, most of which will be managed by using groups, it is important for a SharePoint administrator to have the ability to automate, and bulk manage and configure these sites, users, and groups. With that being said, we need to have a thorough understanding of how PowerShell integrates with SharePoint Online and how you can use PowerShell to manage sites, users, and groups as well as generate PowerShell scripts to perform some of the more common… Read More

Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online: How are they integrated?

August 24, 2022February 24, 2023Brian Alderman

I have been asked numerous times about the integration of Microsoft Teams and SharePoint Online and where you manage their integration. I am going to begin with some basic points and then share some specific configuration settings associated with both of these M365 services. After accessing the Microsoft Teams interface and you want to create a new team, you can choose whether you create a public or private team, and 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 in the teams channel if you click the… Read More

What’s new in Microsoft Teams – Q2 of 2022

July 22, 2022March 2, 2023Brian Alderman

Understanding and preparing for the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition

July 12, 2022March 29, 2023Brian Alderman

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition is the last major release of SharePoint Server on-premises, so if you are currently running an earlier version of SharePoint on-premises, you may want to consider upgrading to SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. This is beneficial to us in a couple of ways. First, you’ll never have to perform a time-consuming, and costly upgrade to obtain new features for the product, and secondly you’ll still receive updates to the product but in a scheduled timely fashion. For more information on this SharePoint Server edition, as well as licensing information, upgrade process, software and hardware requirements, updates, and features and functionality in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, please visit… Read More

Upgrading SharePoint Server 2013 to SharePoint 2016 on a single server

June 22, 2022March 29, 2023Brian Alderman

When upgrading to SharePoint Server 2019, or SharePoint Server Subscription Edition you have to perform an interim upgrade to SharePoint Server 2016. In this environment you’ll upgrade the SharePoint components in preparation for the upgrade to 2019 or the Subscription Edition. This interim step can be completed on a single server so you don’t have to create a multi-server farm for this short term solution. However to upgrade to a single server farm, as you can imagine there are some steps necessary to ensure the upgrade process is successful which in turn will ensure your next upgrade is successful. For more information on this SharePoint Server 2016 single server upgrade,… Read More