[m365weekly] #45

☁️What’s on my mind

Almost exactly 1 year ago I launched this M365 Weekly Newsletter with issue #0. I had only 3 subscribers at the time – my wife, my friend, and my personal Gmail account. What was meant to be the test if I can be consistent enough to make this newsletter work, turned out to be gathering some traction after all.
This #45 issue is being sent to over 1.3k subscribers which I hope means you like the content.

Thanks for reading and being a subscriber.

Have a great week.
Matic Z.

FEATURED STORY: MICROSOFT SWAY

Sway is one of the tools I rarely use. It’s been 6 years since Microsoft launched it. So what is Sway?
When launched quite a few called it PowerPoint killer. It was built to make presentations different, more interactive, some kind of a storytelling tool.

Two weeks ago I came across this sway presentation about building SharePoint intranet sites. It is a bit stuffed with text and images but it’s far from a classic PowerPoint presentation and it catches the eye.

Another use case comes to my mind. Why not using Sway presentation as a product landing page? You can even get the embed code and bring it to your own domain and you can embed some other sources into your Sway presentation as well (Youtube video, Stream video, …).

Give it a try. In case you need some instructions, here’s a good getting-started video from Youtube.

💻 Productivity & Modern Workplace

12 ways to organize links in SharePoint. When you have more than one way to do something it can be quite a challenge to decide which method to choose. It turns out there are a dozen ways to organize links in SharePoint. All documented with cons and pros in this article.

Connect a Google Sheet spreadsheet to Power BI as a data source. Yes connecting Google Sheet to Power BI is possible and quite simple, really.

Teams Real Simple with Pictures: Using Teams Webinar Registration Data Part 1: With Automation. Teams Webinar service is competing directly with webinar platforms and services like Zoom, GoToWebinar, and others. The main pro is that you can connect it to Dynamics 365 and use it to feed the presence data into CRM and marketing tools you may be using in Dynamics 365.

6 New & Upcoming Sharing Features in Microsoft 365. A set of new features regarding sharing that is coming to Microsoft 365 shortly or has recently been deployed.

PowerApps tips and tricks. PowerApps are almost their own universe with all the laws, good practices, procedures. It’s good to know a few tricks to make better apps.

Check your tone when writing messages in Outlook on the web. Imagine Outlook as a mother, raising her voice “John, mind your language!!!”. Just like a mother, the Outlook web app can read the tone of the text and suggest you some edits.

Share blog posts on Twitter and LinkedIn using Power Automate or MS Flow. Let’s do some automation in your marketing (or other) efforts.

☁️Sysadmin Stuff

Teams Network Assessment Tool. Is-it-only-me-or-it-is-down-for-everyone kind of questions arises whenever Teams acts weirdly. Use this tool to make sure your network environment is configured properly.

Email filtering reports. Have you noticed that some nice reports are available in the Security console?

Manage Exchange Online at Scale. Microsoft Certified Master (MCM) and Microsoft Certified Solutions Master (MCSM) provides a glimpse into his speaking session at TEC and how to manage ExO at scale with PowerShell.

Migrating file shares with SharePoint Migration manager. Most of the file share migration tasks don’t go swiftly as planned.

☁️Security & Data Governance

A deep-dive into the SolarWinds Serv-U SSH vulnerability. Detailed analysis of rather fresh 0-day that was discovered this summer.

The Differences Between Microsoft 365 Backup and Retention. Yes, there is a difference. And there is no native backup for Microsoft 365, yet. It’s your responsibility to back up the data.

What Is Intune Endpoint Manager. Basics of this SaaS explained. Learn how to use it to manage mobile devices.

7 Best Practices to Secure Your Guest Sharing Environment in Microsoft 365. How to know when you’re sharing too much with the guests in your M365 organization? Mitigate the risks with these handy tips.

☁️Noteworthy (long)reads

How the Satin Codec Makes Teams Music Mode Work. I’ve been at a new year’s party in the middle of the lockdown. It was a Teams party. One of the rooms was filled with dance music. The audio quality was awful. But not anymore – music mode raised audio quality to hi-fi standards. Interested?

Get free DMARC visibility with Valimail Authenticate and Microsoft Office 365. Handling DMARC reports “by hand” is virtually impossible because these reports are in XML format hence meant to be read by machines.

☁️On a Less Serious Note

☁️ Last but not least …

Here are a few things you can do if you enjoyed reading this newsletter: