M365 Weekly Newsletter
Issue #211
☁️Productivity & Modern Workplace
Microsoft 365 Licensing Made Easy – Business Premium vs E3 vs E5. Microsoft 365 licensing can feel overwhelming, but here’s a breakdown: Business Premium is ideal for SMBs, offering robust security and Office apps. F3 suits frontline workers with basic needs. E3 works for enterprises over 300 users, though you’ll need security add-ons. E5 is for high-compliance industries, providing maximum security and control at a premium cost. Choose wisely to save money. VIDEO
Setting Up Calendar Sharing Between Microsoft 365 Tenants. Microsoft 365 enables seamless cross-tenant calendar sharing for better collaboration between organizations. You can share free/busy availability through organization relationships or grant full calendar access with external sharing enabled. Setting this up requires admin permissions, the Exchange Admin Center, and possibly PowerShell commands. While free/busy is tenant-wide, full sharing is user-specific, offering flexibility for various business needs.
Share Pages Across Workspaces in Loop: What to Know. You can now share Microsoft Loop pages across multiple workspaces without duplicating them. The original page remains in its “master” workspace, while linked versions appear in others. Changes sync across all instances, ensuring collaboration is seamless. Just remember to check permissions so everyone involved has access to the shared page. VIDEO
☁️Copilot & AI
Copilot webinar: How to use Microsoft Copilot Voice and Vision on mobile and desktop. Microsoft Copilot’s voice and vision features make tasks effortless. Use voice to ask questions, get real-time answers, or even hear recipes while cooking. Vision lets you snap photos to identify objects, analyze images, or get help navigating your screen. Whether you’re planning a dinner or troubleshooting tech, these tools provide intuitive, hands-free support across devices. VIDEO
Unofficial Guide to Microsoft’s Control Plane for AI Agents. Agent 365 offers a centralized platform for your organization to manage AI agents effectively. It allows IT and security teams to register, monitor, and secure these agents while maintaining governance over their actions, data access, and decision-making. As AI agents increasingly function like digital employees, this tool ensures they remain compliant and under control.
Governing Microsoft 365 Copilot: How to Mitigate Oversharing Risks? Oversharing in Microsoft 365 Copilot can expose sensitive information through misconfigurations like broad sharing or missing labels. Address this risk with a structured governance approach using SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) and Microsoft Purview. SAM audits and restricts SharePoint access, while Purview enforces data protection across apps. Together, they ensure Copilot surfaces relevant information securely, safeguarding both collaboration and compliance.
☁️Sysadmin Stuff
Microsoft Mechanics Podcast: Replace your VPN – Global Secure Access in Microsoft Entra. You can connect users to on-premises resources securely without VPNs using Microsoft Entra’s Secure Access Service Edge. It enforces Conditional Access, including MFA, while routing authentication through the cloud.
Prevent Users from Adding Personal Email Accounts to Outlook. You can block users from adding personal email accounts in Outlook for Windows using Exchange Online PowerShell. By setting the ‘PersonalAccountsEnabled’ and ‘PersonalAccountsCalendarEnabled’ parameters to false in the OwaMailboxPolicy, new personal accounts can be restricted. Note that this won’t affect previously added accounts, though Microsoft is working on addressing that limitation.
Essential Microsoft 365 Differences Every Admin Should Know. Navigating Microsoft 365 can be challenging with overlapping features. From external users vs. guest users to SharePoint vs. OneDrive, understanding these distinctions helps you make informed decisions for security, productivity, and collaboration.
☁️Security & Data Governance
Passwordless Authentication Might Have Some Bumps. Microsoft is introducing synced passkeys in preview, enabling passwordless authentication across devices via trusted providers like Apple or Google. This approach is significantly faster and phishing-resistant compared to traditional methods.
How to Protect Employee Personal Data in Corporate. Protecting employee personal data requires a proactive, layered security approach. Key steps include limiting access with least privilege, encrypting data, securing devices, and controlling sharing and internet use. Regular patching, clear security policies, and an incident response plan are essential. Equally important is fostering a security-aware workforce through ongoing training and collaboration. These measures collectively strengthen data protection.
Best Practices to Strengthen Microsoft Teams Governance. Effective governance in Microsoft Teams helps you maintain a secure, organized, and productive workspace. It includes strategies like structured naming, automated lifecycle policies, security measures, and usage monitoring.
☁️Noteworthy (long)reads
Microsoft drops AI sales targets in half after salespeople miss their quotas. Microsoft has halved its AI sales growth targets after many salespeople failed to meet quotas, reflecting enterprise hesitation toward AI agent tools like Microsoft 365 Copilot. Challenges include competition from ChatGPT, high costs, and the unreliability of current AI systems for autonomous tasks. While Microsoft invests heavily in AI infrastructure, adoption lags behind the company’s ambitious expectations.
AI Companionship, and What It Cannot Replace. AI companions can offer comfort and a sense of being heard, but they lack genuine emotional reciprocity. While they may help articulate feelings or reflect patterns, they cannot replace messy, authentic human connections. Over-reliance on them can deepen loneliness and hinder relational growth. Balance is key—use AI as a tool, not a substitute for meaningful relationships or professional support.
☁️On a Less Serious Note
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