Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Flow – Part 2 – Create and Apply Template

14th of August, 2018 / / 1 Comment

In the previous blog here, we got an overview of the high level Architecture of a Complex Modern team site provisioning process. In this blog, we will look at the step 1 of the process – Create and Apply template process, in detail.
Before that, below are few links to earlier blogs, as a refresher, to prerequisties for the blog.

  1. Set up a Graph App to call Graph Service using App ID and Secret – link
  2. Sequencing HTTP Trigger Azure Functions for simultaneous calls – link
  3. Adding and Updating owners using Microsoft Graph Async calls – link

Overview
The Create and Apply Template process aims at the following
1. … [Keep reading] “Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Flow – Part 2 – Create and Apply Template”

Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow – Part 1 – Architecture

10th of August, 2018 / / 3 Comments

In one of my previous blog here,  I have discussed about creating Office 365 groups using Azure Function and Flow. The same process could be used also to provision Modern Team sites in SharePoint Online because Modern Team Sites are Office 365 groups too. However, if you are creating a Complex Modern Team Site with lots of Libraries, Content types, Termstore associated columns etc. it will challenging to do it with a single Azure Function.… [Keep reading] “Provisioning complex Modern Sites with Azure Functions and Microsoft Flow – Part 1 – Architecture”

Installing Skype for Business Server 2019

30th of July, 2018 / / 2 Comments

A few weeks ago, Microsoft announced the availability of Skype for Business 2019 server preview for download and I thought it was about time I checked it out!
 
Obtaining the installation media
You can obtain the installation media (a 1.68GB ISO file) from here: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Skype-for-Business-Blog/Announcing-the-Skype-for-Business-Server-2019-Preview/ba-p/218435
Easy!
 
The Lab
I’m running everything up at Windows Azure, but by all means feel free to spin up a new VM in your on premises lab if you have one.… [Keep reading] “Installing Skype for Business Server 2019”

The 5 ways to migrate from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

19th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

Microsoft recently published a technet article outlining the different ways to migrate away from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams. The article currently contains 5 different migration methods. Lets take a closer look at each of them, and how they might be used within your organisation.
The 5 migration methods
They say good things come in three’s, but in this case they come in five! Five different methods of moving from SfB to Microsoft Teams. When it comes to migration planning, choice is a good thing
5-migration-methods-teams
 
Migration Method 1: Skype for Business with Teams Collaboration
Ok, so you have a Skype for Business deployment right now, and are looking at moving to Teams.… [Keep reading] “The 5 ways to migrate from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams”

Measure O365 ATP Safe Attachments Latency using PowerShell

19th of July, 2018 / / 1 Comment

Microsoft Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) is a cloud based security service that is part of the O365 E5 offering. Also can be separately added to other O365 subscriptions. Now a lot can be learned about ATP from here. But in this post we’re going to extract data corresponding to one of ATP’s primary features; ATP Safe Attachments.

In short, ATP Safe Attachments scans documents for malicious content and can block these attachments depending on the policy configuration.… [Keep reading] “Measure O365 ATP Safe Attachments Latency using PowerShell”

Sharepoint 2013 Cumulative Updates Patching Overview

18th of July, 2018 / / No Comments

A couple months ago, I had the opportunity to help a client to patch their Sharepoint on-premise 2013, which was last patched up to 2014. It was a challenging but interesting experience. We decided to use the Nth-1 patch, which was March 2018 at that time. It was a 5-weeks engagements, where we had to break down the steps and processes from back-up preparations, roll back strategies, on-patching strategies to post-patching testings. Lots of inputs and discussions among DBAs, system engineers, IT manager and Sharepoint engineers.… [Keep reading] “Sharepoint 2013 Cumulative Updates Patching Overview”

Planning Site structure and Navigation in SharePoint Modern Experience Communication and Team sites

26th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

If you are planning to implement or implementing Modern team sites or Communication sites, there is change in best practices for planning and managing the Sites structure, Site Hierarchy and Navigation. This is a very common question during my presentations – how do we manage site structures, navigation and content in Modern experiences.
So, in this blog, we will look at few strategies for planning Site structure and Navigation in Modern Experience sites.
1. First and foremost, get rid of nested subsites and Site hierarchy navigation.… [Keep reading] “Planning Site structure and Navigation in SharePoint Modern Experience Communication and Team sites”

Your Modern Collaboration Landscape

24th of June, 2018 / / No Comments

There are many ways people collaborate within your organisation. You may or may not enjoy the fruits of that collaboration. Does your current collaboration landscape cater for the wide variety of groups that form (organically or inorganically) to build relationships and develop your business?
Moving to the cloud is a catalyst for re-evaluating your collaboration solutions and their value. Platforms like Office 365 are underpinned by search/discovery tools that can traverse and help draw insight from the output of collaboration, including conversations and connections between people and information.… [Keep reading] “Your Modern Collaboration Landscape”

Automate network share migrations to Sharepoint Online using ShareGate PowerShell

7th of June, 2018 / / 2 Comments

Sharegate supports PowerShell scripting which can be used to automate and schedule migrations. In this post, I am going to demonstrate an example of end to end automation to migrate network Shares to SharePoint Online. The process effectively reduces the task of executing migrations to “just flicking a switch”.

Pre-Migration

The following pre-migration activities were conducted before the actual migration:

  1. Analysis of Network Shares
  2. Discussions with stakeholders from different business units to identify content needs
  3. Pilot migrations to identify average throughput capability of migration environment
  4. Identification of acceptable data filtration criteria, and prepare Sharegate migration template files based on business requirements
  5. Derive a migration plan from above steps

Migration Automation flow

The diagram represents a high-level flow of the process:
 

The migration automation was implemented to execute the following steps:

  1. Migration team indicates that migration(s) are ready to be initiated by updating the list item(s) in the SharePoint list
  2. Updated item(s) are detected by a PowerShell script polling the SharePoint list
  3. The list item data is downloaded as a CSV file.
… [Keep reading] “Automate network share migrations to Sharepoint Online using ShareGate PowerShell”

SBC Direct Routing For Teams – How are you affected?

30th of May, 2018 / / 1 Comment

What exactly is Direct Routing for Microsoft Teams
If you’ve been following along at home, you’ll have heard about the recent announcement with Microsoft Teams now allowing you to directly connect your existing on premise Sonus (Ribbon) or Audiocodes SBC to Microsoft Teams across the internet, to allow your Teams users to make and receive calls from the cloud.
Here’s a handy diagram direct from Microsoft that shows how it works

Hold on a minute Craig, Isn’t PSTN calling already available in Teams?… [Keep reading] “SBC Direct Routing For Teams – How are you affected?”