Like many MVP's I'm in the process of preparing to go to MVP Summit being held at Microsoft headquarters in Redmond near Seattle in week commencing Monday 11th March 2024. Although everything shared with us at this event will be under NDA and that includes the agenda I do expect there will be a lot … Continue reading Preparing for MVP Summit with Microsoft Copilots
Blog Writing with AI – Productive or Waste of Time?
Blog Writing with AI - Productive or Waste of Time? Here's an example
Enabling Bing Chat Enterprise
At Microsoft Inspire today (18th July 2023), Bing Chat Enterprise was launched. There is more detail in the Microsoft 365 blog post about the announcement. Bing Chat Enterprise builds on Microsoft Search and the public edition of Bing Chat to bring the power of AI to your enterprise data. The advantage of using Bing Chat Enterprise for work tasks … Continue reading Enabling Bing Chat Enterprise
Search Folders in New Outlook
The Unread Mail folder is back! Search folders are supported in the latest builds of New Outlook.
Hybrid Work Settings in Outlook
Now available in the New Outlook for Windows is the hybrid work setting. You'll notice a plus in a location pin icon on the date header to set your location with. Location Pin Icon If it's newly arrived for you, you may also see an informational message as shown below which says New hybrid work … Continue reading Hybrid Work Settings in Outlook
Add to Calendar
In this article, I'll look at using the new Outlook for Windows client (in preview May 2023) use the My Day pane to turn an email into a calendar entry.
May 2nd 2023 – A Huge Leap for SharePoint
At the M365 Conference in Las Vegas on May 2nd 2023 Microsoft announced a raft of updates, most around SharePoint. There were many tweets about the updates including this one from @LeonArmston summarising the blog posts about the announcements. All new features appear on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap and here are those announcements starting to … Continue reading May 2nd 2023 – A Huge Leap for SharePoint
What are Copilot and Business Chat announced at the “Reinventing Productivity with AI” event
Following the Microsoft The Future of Work: Reinventing Productivity with AI virtual event on March 16th 2023, I was asked to summarize what Copilot and Business Chat are. Here is my summary plus the available resources to learn more. Copilot sits alongside existing Microsoft 365 tools and can be used to help us whilst we … Continue reading What are Copilot and Business Chat announced at the “Reinventing Productivity with AI” event
Guest Blogs
I have written a series of blog posts for partner organizations which are listed below. 2023 Managing Custom Office Templates With an Organization Assets Library - Tekki Gurus New Updates to Microsoft Teams for Information Management & Governance Professionals - Leadership Through Data Microsoft 365 Quarterly 'Ketchup' - April 2023 - Leadership Through Data 6 … Continue reading Guest Blogs
Speaking
Here you can find details of my upcoming speaking engagements and links to videos of past sessions. For conference organizers here is my Sessionize profile. Most of my presentations are also shared on Linktree Upcoming DateEventTopicLocationLinkApril 6 2023MS Copilot & Viva DaysTaming the Wave of New Tools in Microsoft 365: Purview for Viva, Copilot and … Continue reading Speaking
SC-400 Course Extras and Exam Prep
SC400 Exam Prep and Course Extras
Administrative Units for Microsoft 365 Services
"If I had a penny, for every time someone asked me for this, I would be a very rich person" Many cultures have similar sayings, but when it comes to being able to assign a Microsoft 365 admin role based on organisational units, it is certainly true for me. Indeed one customer asked me this … Continue reading Administrative Units for Microsoft 365 Services
Did you miss all those announcements and blogs at Ignite November 2021?
The announcement firehose at the start of an event means can be overwhelming to find the details. Here are my favorite information sources for #MSIgnite
SC-900 Extras
Links & resources to support SC900 course & exam
MS-900 Course Extras
References and extras to support MS 900 course deliver
SharePoint Alerts, Notifications and News Digests
A few ways of finding out what is happening in your SharePoint sites using alerts notifications and news digests
Scheduler for Microsoft 365
Scheduler is an intelligent meeting scheduling service which sits on top of Office 365 and uses AI to help find suitable meeting times. The process is quite similar to what we as humans do when we try to agree a time to meet and can be summarised as: Agree that a meeting is neededSuggest a … Continue reading Scheduler for Microsoft 365
Multi Tenant MFA with one FIDO2 Key
Can you use 1 security key on multiple devices for multiple Microsoft 365 accounts? Yes!
MS-100 Extras
MS-100 Overview & My Tips MS-100 or Microsoft 365 Identity and Services is one of two exams that make up the Microsoft 365 Certified Enterprise Administrator Expert certification. The certification also requires you to pass & hold a valid Microsoft 365 Associate level certification in addition to passing the MS-100 and MS-101. The Microsoft 365 … Continue reading MS-100 Extras
MS-700 – Microsoft Teams Administrator Associate
Last Updated 5th May 2022 MS-700 Overview & My Tips MS-700 or Microsoft Teams Administrator Associate is the certification for Teams Administrators. As a Teams Administrator you do need to have a good grounding in all things Microsoft 365 as Teams is the tool that pulls it all together and exposes any weaknesses in your … Continue reading MS-700 – Microsoft Teams Administrator Associate
May Records Updates for Microsoft 365
(This blog post was written as a guest post on Blog - Leadership Through Data) On 19th May 2021 Microsoft published a blog announcing Multi-stage disposition approval in Microsoft Records Management in Microsoft 365 as well as some other really nice enhancements to the Information Governance and Records Management tools. The headline feature is the … Continue reading May Records Updates for Microsoft 365
Using Find Time for Meeting Polls
Find Time is a great add-in for Outlook which you can use to arrange meetings with both colleagues and people outside your organisation. Combining the ability to see availability for colleagues with a poll for people to vote on, the Find Time add-in is designed to stop the to/fro of emails trying to find a … Continue reading Using Find Time for Meeting Polls
Creating Custom Timers
A recent tweet and LinkedIn post attracted a lot of attention, due to the lunch timer running in the background. As a result I promised a blog post on how I built is, so here it is. This is what we are aiming for, this is the timer used in the original tweet running in … Continue reading Creating Custom Timers
Meeting Transcription in Microsoft Teams
There are two ways of displaying in text format what is said during a Microsoft Teams Meeting; Live Captions and Transcript. Live captions are shown on screen (usually at the bottom of the meeting screen) and disappear as new captions are generated. Live captions are visible only to users who switch them on. Live Captions can … Continue reading Meeting Transcription in Microsoft Teams
My Favourite Virtual Background Sources
Apart from creating my own backgrounds in PowerPoint which I covered in an earlier post, these are my personal favourite sources for background images for virtual meetings. Ikea https://backgroundsbyikea.com/ Microsoft https://adoption.microsoft.com/microsoft-teams/custom-backgrounds-gallery/https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/outlook-blog/online-meeting-backgrounds-outlook-exchange-amp-bookings/ba-p/1688841 https://education.microsoft.com/en-us/resource/6eb1ef79 Warner Bros https://www.warnerbros.com/news/articles/2020/07/08/virtual-backgrounds-microsoft-teams-calls
Delegated Team Meeting Creation
Lots of people don’t create the meeting invites for the meetings they run in this blog I will lay out what the issues are and then consider ways to avoid these when acting as a scheduler.
Manage Teams Meeting Options
Teams meeting options are how you can control who can do what in your meeting. In the Education sphere this control is essential but they are also very useful in many other scenarios.
Getting Started with Viva Topics
Viva Topics set up experience with screenshots
Microsoft Teams Break Out Rooms – Some Early Observations
With the launch of breakout rooms for adhoc and scheduled Team meetings, many people are celebrating and it is a much requested feature, but how does it work. Microsoft have released a couple of great articles so I’m not going to reinvent the wheel and write a full guide myself, but I would like to share my early observations.
Where is my meeting recording?
With Teams meeting recordings moving to OneDrive and SharePoint from Stream users and admins need to understand what this change means. It’s not just the location a recording is stored that is changing but also who can records and the sharing options once the recording is done.
Check your Camera before a Teams Meeting
Did you want to check your camera and background before a Teams meeting and ended up trying to join a meeting early to do so, or worse joining a meeting late as you needed to adjust your settings and it took too long, or worst still what about joining a meeting and bringing up a … Continue reading Check your Camera before a Teams Meeting
Solving Problems with Meeting Options in Teams
Do you ever get a message telling you you can't change the meeting options for a meeting you set up? It's probably due to what you were doing the last time you used the Teams web app (aka Teams in your web browser). These messages changed a little while ago to show you who is … Continue reading Solving Problems with Meeting Options in Teams
Thoughts on Click & Collect for small business
So this blog is a bit of a departure for me and results from (virtual) conversations with friends and family. As I write on Nov 1st 2020, England is about to go into a new lockdown (whatever, it's officially called) and "non-essential" shops are required to close but can still offer click & collect services. … Continue reading Thoughts on Click & Collect for small business
Create your own Teams backdrop using PowerPoint
Create your own Microsoft Teams backdrop using PowerPoint
Using the Learn Community in the Tech Community
The new Microsoft Learning community in the Tech Community is live along with the new blog. The tech community is quite simple to navigate but I wanted to take this opportunity to share a few tips. Thanks to my fellow MCTs for their help with these too, especially Julian Sharpe, Denise McLaughlin and Rolf McLaughlin. … Continue reading Using the Learn Community in the Tech Community
Extending the Feedback Form into PowerBI
A little while back I wrote a blog on my training feedback form and the flow I had built to send delegates the useful links. See https://m365train.co.uk/2020/04/14/training-feedback-personalised-with-forms-and-power-automate/ Well today I have built a PowerBI report from the SharePoint list which stores the feedback data. As this is the first ever PowerBi report I've written from … Continue reading Extending the Feedback Form into PowerBI
External & Guest Communication in MS Teams
Using Microsoft Teams with internal and external people, it can be a challenge to determine which features we can use with whom.
Using OBS and Stream Deck for Virtual Training
By combining OBS Studio and Stream Deck for Mobile, I’ve built some useful set ups that are helping me with virtual training delivery that I wanted to share with fellow MCTs as well as anyone else delivering webinars and virtual training/teaching.
Virtual Training – Elgato Stream Deck Mobile
Trainer/Teachers, do you need a scene switcher? Consider the mobile app version of Stream Deck. Here's how I set it up for testing.
Star Wars Day – Record a Meeting in Microsoft Teams
A star wars themed video demo about meeting recordings in Microsoft Teams
Training Feedback Personalised with Forms and Power Automate
Using Forms with SharePoint and Power Automate to send a custom response to training course feedback, including reference links.
Using Flic and Hue to build a Do Not Disturb light
There are some great articles out there on building your own automated "Do not Disturb" lights and also some great products, but I decided that I needed one that was a little more manual, but still a bit geeky.
Channel Notifications
Are you a member of a Team across more than 1 organisation/M365 Tenant? I use Channel Notifications to help me keep on top of the less well used teams.
Resources to help you work from home
List of useful resources for using Teams to work from home.
Arrange Windows on Screen
Multitasking is much easier when you can have multiple windows on screen at the same time. These techniques work in both Windows 7 and 8. To tile windows (any windows version): Open the applications you want to see on screen (do not minimise) Right click in a blank area of the task bar Select Show Windows … Continue reading Arrange Windows on Screen
Calculating Employee Holiday Allowance in Excel
This article looks at managing holiday using Excel 2010 and making use of the following Excel features: INDIRECT function NETWORKDAYS function Format as Table Conditional Formatting The finished file is available here (Holidays). However this article explains how to use the finished article and how to create it, so read on (or bookmark me for … Continue reading Calculating Employee Holiday Allowance in Excel
Questions?
Do you have a question for me or a suggestion for a blog topic? Please feel free to submit it as a comment to this post or tweet me @sfennah
Simple Formulas and Functions in Excel
Creating Simple Formulas Formulas can be used to perform simple calculations such as addition and subtraction, or more complicated applications such as complex financial functions and statistics. All formulas begin with an equal (=) sign. The equal sign tells Excel that the cell data should be interpreted as a formula. Otherwise, Excel interprets the data … Continue reading Simple Formulas and Functions in Excel
Interesting Updates 4th April 24 – M365 Roadmap
There were too many items on the roadmap which caught my eye today for a social media post, so it became a blog. Teams 3 updates for Microsoft Teams. 1st, a new addition. Updated the teams & channels onboarding flow, is looking to simplify getting new users onboarded into the Team, especially teams with a … Continue reading Interesting Updates 4th April 24 – M365 Roadmap
Reviewing the M365 Roadmap
Since November 2021 I've delivered a regular webinar to help simplify the process of keeping up to date with the ever changing world of Microsoft 365. This webinar series is delivered on behalf of Leadership Through Data. Details & sign up can be found on their website. UK USA & Canada Australaisa Included in these … Continue reading Reviewing the M365 Roadmap
The Inaugural M365 Miami Community Days Event
In early Feb I travelled to Miami for two community events. First, I had the pleasure to be involved with the inaugural M365 Miami Community days event. Organised by a recently established non-profit organisation, this event fills a gap in the offered events in a city which has a vibrant IT industry. Left Uncharted was … Continue reading The Inaugural M365 Miami Community Days Event
South Coast Summit 2023 Review & I’m an Award Winner
This weekend was South Coast Summit 2023 and the Microsoft Technology UK Community and Partner Awards 2023. The event was another great conference thanks to the amazing organising committee. As my personal experience volunteering at and helping to organise events grows, I appreciate even more the time, blood, sweat and tears that goes into organising … Continue reading South Coast Summit 2023 Review & I’m an Award Winner
Reflections on Scottish Summit 2023
Scottish Summit 2023 had too many things to highlight to fit into a traditional social media post, so you are getting a blog from me instead.
Choosing My Day Calendars in Outlook
Are you using the New Outlook for Windows or Outlook Web? Do you use the My Day side pane? If so, did you know that you can choose which calendars are displayed there? I was unaware till I stumbled across it today. Here's how you choose. First display the My Day pane using the My … Continue reading Choosing My Day Calendars in Outlook
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