Way back in 2014, I wrote an opinion piece for an IT magazine, in which I ruthlessly but constructively criticized the One Drive for Business service, which was then only half-built, didn’t work as it should, and imposed restrictions on users that were unknown to competing products at that time (total number of files, folder names, etc.). Needless to say, today OneDrive is a mature and good SaaS service.

Apparently, my article was included in the press clipping of the local Microsoft team at the time, so I got a nervous call immediately after the article was published. At that time Microsoft still had a team in my country. Today it no longer has one.

Microsoft has almost completely walled itself off from its partners. And this process is obviously continuing today, or at least the announced changes to the partner program suggest so.

What do you think? Hit reply and drop me a few lines.

Have a really great day.
Matic Z.

[FEATURED STORY] WORLD BACKUP DAY – 31 March

My observation is that attitudes towards backup have changed radically over the last decade. In the minds of IT professionals, it has become an integral part of every organization. It used to be just an unnecessary expense. Even cloud services need their own backup, although there are those who will argue against this. But it is true that this has become quite a complex task because of the enormous interconnected nature of the services.

Why Azure AD Backup is Needed.

Making Office 365 More Sustainable with Self-Service Restore.

How to setup Active Backups for Office 365 on a Synology NAS.

How to do branching in Forms. In case you have a very long questionnaire within MS Forms, you might want to enable branching in Forms to improve user experience.

Parent Connection in Microsoft Teams for Education. Parent and guardian connection which allows educators to chat directly with parents is now available in Teams for Education.

Presenting with cameo in PowerPoint. With Cameo you can integrate your live camera directly into your PowerPoint presentation.

Real-world Planner use cases. The Planner has been around for quite some time. Although you may use other tools within the Microsoft cloud for the same purpose (Dynamics 365, for example), it is still very useful for its simplicity.

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Deploying Office Templates. Especially now that the workforce can be widely geographically dispersed due to the hybrid way of working, there is a need to distribute Office templates efficiently. There are two options. I like the first one best because it is more cloud-native.

Migrate MS Forms Between Microsoft 365 Tenants. It’s a relatively simple process that takes just a few minutes.

How To Backup And Restore Windows 365 Cloud PC. Just recently, Microsoft introduced point in time restore for Windows 365 Cloud PC. However, this restore does not come without some risks.

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Enabling MFA for Microsoft 365 Admins Using PowerShell. Admins should be the most protected users in the whole organization and their use should be limited to sysadmin tasks. Microsoft data shows that 78% of administrators do not have MFA turned on. Fortunately, there is an automated way to quickly fix this.

How to become a Microsoft Security Ninja. As silly as it sounds, Microsoft has ninja programs where those interested in information security can learn practically everything they need to know about the subject to master IT security in the Microsoft Cloud. All ninja programs on one page.

10 tips to secure your identities in Microsoft 365. It is easiest for hackers to attack where access is easiest. And given that we humans are lazy about our information security, the most common attack vector is the user’s identity. How to protect user identities as much as possible?

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An in-depth look at the Microsoft Partner program updates. I had déjà vu when I read this article. I remember in 2019 when Microsoft wanted to remove the internal use rights (IUR) licenses almost overnight. Due to the quick reaction of the partner network, Microsoft took a step back then. Now, however, Microsoft is announcing much more extensive changes to the partner program.

The Importance of Clear Communication. This article should also be read by Microsoft employees who are working on changes to the Parnter program.

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DATES TO KEEP IN MIND

June 14, 2022 – Internet Explorer 11 on Windows 10 – End of Support.

April 11, 2023 – Exchange Server 2013, Microsoft Office 2013 – End of Support.

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☁️ Last but not least …

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