Category: Microsoft
Category Archives: Microsoft
Introducing Dashboards Base Queries: Enhancing Productivity and Consistency
At the heart of data visualization and analytics lies the quest for efficiency and consistency. Picture this scenario: you’re crafting a dashboard, meticulously arranging tiles to present insightful data. However, as you delve deeper, you realize that many tiles share commonalities in their underlying queries. How do you streamline this process without sacrificing precision?
Introducing Dashboards Base Queries
Imagine a dashboard where numerous tiles draw insights from the same tables and parameters. Traditionally, each tile’s query starts from scratch, redundantly repeating query snippets. Not only is this process time-consuming, but it also invites inconsistencies across tiles.
With Base Queries, you can create query snippets and define them as foundational elements within the context of a single dashboard.
Let’s break down the essence of Base Queries
Enhanced Productivity: By centralizing common query segments, Base Queries amplify your productivity. No longer do you need to retype or copy-paste redundant snippets across multiple tiles. With a simple reference to the Base Query, you streamline your workflow and focus on deriving meaningful insights.
Consistency Across Tiles: Base Queries ensure uniformity in your dashboard design by standardizing query segments. Whether you’re analyzing sales data, monitoring performance metrics, or tracking user engagement, each tile benefits from a cohesive foundation, fostering clarity and reliability in your visualizations.
Tailored Flexibility: Base Queries adapt to your unique dashboard requirements. Crafted within the context of a single dashboard, they provide the flexibility to fine-tune queries according to specific data sets and visualization needs. From dynamic parameters to evolving datasets, Base Queries offer agility without compromising on precision.
Getting Started
Ready to harness the power of Base Queries? Getting started is a breeze:
Define Your Base Query: Identify recurring query segments within your dashboard.
Create a Base Query: Craft a query snippet encapsulating common elements.
Apply to Your Tiles: Seamlessly integrate Base Queries into individual tiles, amplifying efficiency and consistency.
Create a new Base Query
Enter a Variable name to be used as reference to this base query
Explore the full potential of Base Queries and learn more here.
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A Glimpse into the Future: The Sidecar Pattern on Linux App Service
At Microsoft Ignite 2023, we unveiled our ongoing work on implementing a Sidecar pattern for Linux App Service. While the complete implementation is still in progress, we want to provide you with a sneak peek into this upcoming feature. Moreover, we’ll guide you on how to start using it immediately (with certain restrictions) on Linux App Service. In this blog post, we’ll delve into the Sidecar pattern, its significance, and practical ways to leverage it for your applications.
What is the Sidecar Pattern
Applications and services often require related functionality, such as monitoring, logging, configuration, and networking services. These peripheral tasks can be implemented as separate components or services, built using different languages and technologies.
The Sidecar pattern allows you to co-locate a cohesive set of tasks with the primary application but place them inside their own process or container. This container is attached as a supplementary container (the ‘sidecar’) to the main application container. The sidecar container runs alongside the primary application, providing additional functionalities, such as logging, monitoring, security, or other auxiliary services.
A Step-by-step guide to creating a Sidecar enabled site for Linux App Service
While we’re diligently refining the portal experience for the Sidecar pattern on Linux App Service, you can already start experimenting with this exciting feature using ARM Templates.
Currently, it’s only available in West Central US. More regions will be available soon.
In this section, we’ll guide you through the steps of creating an application on Linux App Service, leveraging the Sidecar pattern.
Prerequisites:
Before we dive into the implementation, make sure you have Azure CLI installed. If not, you can install it by following the instructions here.
The application code, including the ARM template, for this example is available on here. Feel free to clone and explore the codebase to understand the integration of main and sidecar containers.
Sidecar example:
In this scenario, we’ll run a main app powered by NGINX, which will be supplemented by three sidecar containers executing Dotnet, Python, and Node.js applications. This example demonstrates how to create sidecars running different language stacks for your application.
This is our application architecture.
Let’s discuss the ARM template before we get started.
We are creating a Linux app service with the linuxFxVersion property set to ‘sitecontainers’.
Now we can add a collection of sitecontainers. Each sitecontainer has 3 properties.
image – The container image that we want to use.
isMain – Only one of the containers in the collection should be marked as Main. This is the container which would be getting all HTTP requests.
targetPort – The port used for communication. For the main container, this should be 80, i.e., the HTTP port.
The complete ARM template is here.
To create the site, you can follow these steps.
Open a command prompt and type in these commands –
git clone https://github.com/Azure-Samples/appservice-linux-sidecar.git
cd appservice-linux-sidecar/nginx-sample/
az login
az group create –name <RESOURCE-GROUP> –location “<AZURE-REGION>”
az deployment group create –resource-group <RESOURCE-GROUP> –parameters webAppName=<WEB-APP-NAME> sku=P0v3 –template-file armtemplatemultictr.json
Note:
This feature is only available in West Central US for the moment. We will update the document with more regions as our deployment progresses.
Substitute the values for <SUBSCRIPTION-ID>, <RESOURCE-GROUP>, <AZURE-REGION> and <WEB-APP-NAME>.
You can use the ARM template here and chose an appropriate SKU. This document lists all the available SKUs for App Service App Service plans – Azure App Service | Microsoft Learn
Feel free to adapt the parameters and configurations based on your specific requirements. The setup will take a couple of minutes to complete.
The site might take 1-3 minutes to start. Once the site has started, you can test it out by using these endpoints –
<APP_URL>: Shows up Nginx home page from main Nginx container.
<APP_URL>/dotnetcore: Shows up welcome page from dotnet sidecar container.
<APP_URL>/python: Shows up welcome page from python sidecar container.
<APP_URL>/nodejs : Shows up welcome page from nodejs sidecar container.
In conclusion, the Sidecar pattern for Linux App Service opens a world of possibilities for enhancing your application’s capabilities. Don’t hesitate to experiment with deploying your custom or publicly available containers as sidecars, tailoring your setup to suit your specific needs.
As we continue refining and expanding this feature, stay tuned for updates! We are actively working on adding more regions and ensuring a smoother user experience.
Your feedback is invaluable in shaping the future of the Sidecar pattern on Linux App Service Stay up to date on new features and innovations on Azure App Service via Azure Updates (App Service) as well as the Azure App Service (@AzAppService) / Twitter feed. There is always a steady stream of great deep-dive technical articles across the breadth of developer focused Azure services over on the Apps on Azure blog. And lastly drop by the Azure Developers Community YouTube channel for developer focused content about tooling, languages and services running in the cloud!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Invoking REST APIs with SQLCLR and Newtonsoft’s Json.NET
In the previous article we discussed the process of importing 3rd party libraries into Azure SQL Managed Instance. Now we are going to cover the process of building a CLR User-defined Function (UDF) that relies on usage of REST API and Newtonsoft’s Json.NET library to fetch and parse the output. Our how-to example will be based on building a function that provides a currency exchange conversion.
For the sake of clarity, let’s start first by discussing the end-result and what we’d like to achieve.
The end-result
Let’s create the User-defined Function that does the currency conversion. This example should be simple enough to follow, while providing the opportunity to discuss some important aspects that need to be taken care of (setting proper permission sets, adding required libraries, etc.). You can find the source code at the end of this article.
Here is how’d like to invoke this function from SQL Managed I instance:
— Convert $50 USD to EUR
SELECT ConvertCurrency(50, ‘USD’, ‘EUR’)
Pretty simple, right? You can also use it against the data in your table:
SELECT
amount as OriginalAmount,
currency as OriginalCurrency,
ConvertCurrency (amount, currency, ‘EUR’) as “Amount in EUR”
FROM sample_values
Do note that as a prerequisite to this, we need to import the Newtosonft’s Json.NET library first. As a reminder, you can find the detailed explanation on how to do this in the previous article.
Importing our CLR UDF
Here is the C# code for the UDF function that we’d like to create:
using System;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlTypes;
using System.IO;
using System.Net;
using Newtonsoft.Json;
using Newtonsoft.Json.Linq;
using Microsoft.SqlServer.Server;
public class CurrencyConverter
{
[SqlFunction(DataAccess = DataAccessKind.Read)]
public static SqlDouble Convert(SqlDouble amount, SqlString fromCurrency, SqlString toCurrency)
{
// Output contains list of currency parities
string jsonResponse = GetCurrencyParities(fromCurrency.ToString());
JObject parities = JObject.Parse(jsonResponse);
SqlDouble parity = SqlDouble.Parse(parities[toCurrency].ToString());
return amount * parity;
}
/// <summary>
/// Returns parities for specified currency.
/// Invokes a fictional Currency API that takes currency name as an input
/// and returns dictionary where keys represent target currencies, and
/// values represent the parities to source Currency.
/// </summary>
/// <remarks>
/// For example, for GetCurrencyParities(“EUR”), the response would be:
/// { “USD”: 1.2, “CAD”: 1.46, “CHF”: 0.96 }
/// </remarks>
private static string GetCurrencyParities(string fromCurrency)
{
string url = String.Format(“https://example-api.com/currency/{0}.json”, fromCurrency);
HttpWebRequest request = (HttpWebRequest)WebRequest.Create(url);
HttpWebResponse response = (HttpWebResponse)request.GetResponse();
StreamReader reader = new StreamReader(response.GetResponseStream());
string responseData = reader.ReadToEnd();
return responseData;
}
}
Keep in mind that this code has been simplified as it is aimed at showcasing the example, rather than being production-ready. It purposefully omits any validations whatsoever.
Once you have the code compiled into a DLL, the next step is to have it imported into your SQL Managed Instance. One difference to previously imported libraries is that our code can be imported with EXTERNAL_ACCESS permission set, so that it can execute Network operations.
# Execute the following in Powershell:
$assembly = “C:pathtoYourRestApiClient.dll”
(Format-Hex $assembly | Select-Object -Expand Bytes | ForEach-Object { ‘{0:x2}’ -f $_ }) -join ” | Set-Clipboard # Execute the following on SQL MI instance: CREATE ASSEMBLY Currency_converter FROM 0x(paste the content of your clipboard here) WITH PERMISSION_SET = EXTERNAL_ACCESS;
Your DLL should now be imported without issues. Time to celebrate!
The next step is to have the UDF created. Here’s how to do it:
# Execute the following on SQL MI instance:
CREATE FUNCTION ConvertCurrency (
@amount FLOAT,
@fromCurrency NVARCHAR(3),
@toCurrency NVARCHAR(3)
)
RETURNS FLOAT AS EXTERNAL NAME [Currency_converter].[CurrencyConverter].[Convert];
And that’s all! Assuming that the API you are calling works properly, the following function should yield the actual results:
Congratulations!
NOTE: If you have custom Network Security Groups (NSGs) configured on the subnet where your MI instance is, do make sure that the outbound traffic to API’s destination is allowed. Failing to do so will result in network error.
Further reading
Here are some of the additional resources you might find useful:
Embed C# in the heart of the SQL Query Engine
Importing .NET FX and 3rd party DLLs into Azure SQL MI
Importing .NET FX and 3rd party DLLs into Azure SQL MI (YouTube video)
Azure SQL Database External REST Endpoints Integration Public Preview
Common Language Runtime Integration
Architecture of CLR Integration
CLR Integration Code Access Security
We’d love to hear your feedback! If you’ve enjoyed this article, or think there might be some improvements to be made, please leave your comment below. Thanks for reading!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
New on Microsoft AppSource: January 19-25, 2024
We continue to expand the Microsoft AppSource ecosystem. For this volume, 138 new offers successfully met the onboarding criteria and went live. See details of the new offers below:
Get it now in our marketplace
Brilliance Financial Technology – DPX Pricing: Brilliance Financial Technology offers DPX, a cloud-native platform that combines pricing, rates, and profitability management to help banks improve profits, ensure regulatory compliance, and deliver pricing transparency. DPXesg, the environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) component, empowers banks to evaluate ESG risks and manage the transition to net zero.
CopilotBuilder by Stratus Innovations Group: This platform simplifies the creation of OpenAI generative AI-based copilots for any organization and business workflow. It includes a collection of large language models (LLMs), in-house developed plugins, and tools for extending LLMs to use custom data. The platform guides users through the process of deployment and offers professional services for on-site assistance.
CRM for Poll Campaign Management: Pollshark is an AI-driven CRM for election campaigns that offers public engagement, advanced analytics, and multi-channel marketing. It helps widen voter base communication, enhance party positioning, and deliver real-time campaign insights. Pollshark’s AI integration aids in identifying influencers, creating content, and optimizing campaigns.
DeeSha Customer Helpdesk System V1: DeeSha Customer Helpdesk is a user-friendly and cost-effective app for businesses seeking an efficient customer support system. It offers ticket management, real-time notifications, customizable workflows, an integrated knowledge base, and performance analytics. The app enhances customer satisfaction, improves operational efficiency, and ensures data security and compliance.
DeDupeD: Detect, Prevent, and Merge Duplicate Records in Dynamics 365: DeDupeD from Inogic is a powerful data-cleansing app made for Microsoft Dynamics 365. Use it to swiftly identify and manage duplicate CRM data. DeDupeD ensures data accuracy and quality by effortlessly detecting, preventing, and merging duplicate records within any out-of-the-box or custom entity.
Emission Sentri: Emission Sentri is an enterprise platform that uses data and AI to drive emissions reduction through employee engagement, capacity building, and behavioral change. It integrates with carbon accounting data, automates engagement with employees, and offers insights in Microsoft Teams. The platform also provides generative AI recommendations, awareness training, and gamification.
Epson Bridge for Universal Print at Home: Epson Connect allows printing to home printers while connected to a VPN, with encrypted communications to prevent information leaks. Administrators can remotely monitor employee printing status, and setup is easy without changing network settings or installing drivers. Epson network-capable printers and multifunction printers released in 2011 or later support Epson Connect.
FieldOS as SaaS: FieldOS is a SaaS solution that streamlines field operations and interaction. Its mobile app allows for real-time management of requests, tasks, assets, and locations, while its embedded AI engine and machine learning algorithms can automatically schedule and dispatch workers. The platform also offers customizable work orders, digital evidence tracking, document generation, checklists, IoT integration, and customizable dashboards and reports.
Finastra Payments to Go: Finastra Payments to Go is a SaaS payment hub that offers end-to-end processing for all payment types. It provides visibility and traceability of payment flows, maintains compliance with payment scheme requirements, and offers analytics capabilities to unlock operational and business insights. The platform is scalable on demand, with a simple subscription pricing model based on the number of clearings and payment volumes.
IDOS Digital CFO: IDOS is a platform that automates accounting and financial transactions, providing accurate, reliable, and compliant data for liquidity optimization. It empowers businesses with powerful reporting capabilities and real-time analysis, enabling growth and profitability.
iTOMS: Infyz’s iTOMS is a software solution that streamlines and optimizes terminal operations, providing real-time visibility, workflow optimization, and seamless integration capabilities. It emphasizes data-driven decision-making, cost reduction through automation, and scalability.
iyarn App: iyarn is a digital platform that allows people in schools and workplaces to check in about their well-being and manage issues such as stress, sleep, fitness, and mental health. It provides fast, simple check-ins that are designed to be repeated on a weekly, fortnightly, or monthly basis. The platform has been operating in schools and organizations across Australia since 2018.
Manage Worker Compliance: RiskKarma.io offers an automated compliance monitoring platform for up to four users from compliance, risk management, or human resources departments. The platform identifies key risk indicators from existing data to prevent injuries and claims resulting from noncompliance, reducing the risk of negligent hiring lawsuits.
MySafeDrive: MySafeDrive helps businesses achieve decarbonization and safety goals by monitoring and measuring scope 1 and 3 emissions, sustainability objectives, and ESG targets. It also measures driver safety, which can result in additional benefits like reducing engine wear and tear and lowering insurance costs. The platform uses advanced data science and OEM data to generate metrics and classifications based on driving behavior and journey type.
Opinum Data Hub EMS – SaaS: Opinum Data Hub EMS is a comprehensive solution for energy service companies that offers advanced data visualization, algorithms for application enhancement, comprehensive data integration, customizable reports and alerts, and an accessible API for development.
Playground by Elqano: Playground is an enterprise-grade business chat tool for Microsoft Teams that assists with daily tasks like content creation, article summarization, and paragraph translation. It finds internal and external information through its intelligent search feature, which connects to Microsoft SharePoint.
Project Changes Tracker: Advaiya’s app, designed for Microsoft Project, allows users to track and record changes in project metadata and schedules. This can provide valuable insights into project progress and identify any problems early in the process. The app also helps with scope management, risk assessment, and contingency planning.
Races Sales Hub: Races Sales Hub is a customizable solution built on Microsoft Dynamics 365 for sales and after-sales needs. It’s intended for service industries, manufacturing companies, and the trading sector. The solution tracks every ticket and service call, provides customer insights, and can be integrated with other Redactor Cloud products from Races Solutions.
Surveys by Udyamo: Surveys by Udyamo is a SaaS solution that allows users to create and conduct surveys within Microsoft Teams. The app offers intuitive survey creation, instant insights, advanced analytics, secure data protection, and customizable templates. It aims to enhance communication, teamwork, and decision-making.
Go further with workshops, proofs of concept, and implementations
10-Day Deployment and Training for Microsoft Surface Go for Frontline Workers: Stark Solution will set up Surface devices and install Microsoft 365 F3 for your frontline workers so they can use tools like Teams, Excel, and Outlook. The devices come with case holders for use in cars or lorries, and workers will be trained on the Walkie Talkie app and on finding shift plans.
Avanade Process Mining MVP FY24: Avanade’s MVP offers end-to-end process mining of source data for one business process, creating a process data model and map with default value drivers. Avanade will provide an introductory workshop to help organizations gain buy-in for investment in Microsoft Power Automate Process Mining.
Axians Premier CSM Service (12 Months): Axians offers professional services to help clients start using Microsoft 365 or expand their use of it. Monthly hours will be dedicated to supervision, problem-solving, and clarifications. Personalized training, continuous technical support, and automatic updates are available. This offer is available in Portuguese.
Bechtle’s Explore Microsoft 365 Copilot AI Workshop: This AI training program helps organizations understand and integrate AI into their workplace. It covers generative AI, Copilot Pro, and Microsoft 365 Copilot features, as well as creating scenarios for productivity and creativity. The program includes a consultant-led workshop, presentation materials, and a road map for implementing Microsoft 365 Copilot. This offer is available in French.
COE for Power Platform: 1-Week Workshop: In this workshop, Celebal Technologies will focus on Microsoft Power Platform governance and operations controls for long-term support. Services in adoption and change management and in citizen and developer enablement are also available.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 Adoption and Change Management: 2-Week Implementation: ProServeIT offers guidance for adopting Copilot for Microsoft 365, an AI-powered digital assistant that automates tasks, provides insights, and enhances productivity. The adoption and change management engagement includes customized awareness and benefits campaigns, onboarding support, and a flexible training plan.
Copilot for Microsoft 365: 3-Day Workshop: CANCOM offers an end-to-end journey for implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365, including an ideation workshop, a readiness check, technical delivery, and a user adoption assessment. In this workshop, CANCOM will analyze your existing infrastructure and provide recommendations and a cost estimate. This offer is available in German.
Copilot for Microsoft 365: 5-Day Workshop: CANCOM offers an end-to-end journey for implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365, including an ideation workshop, a readiness check, technical delivery, and a user adoption assessment. In this workshop, CANCOM will execute recommendations, create privacy and governance policies, integrate Copilot into existing IT infrastructure, and prepare data and processes. This offer is available in German.
Copilot for Microsoft 365 User Adoption Assessment: CANCOM offers an end-to-end journey for implementing Copilot for Microsoft 365, including an ideation workshop, a readiness check, technical delivery, and a user adoption assessment. The user adoption assessment will ensure effective integration into employees’ work routines. This offer is available in German.
Copilot Studio Accelerate: 8-Hour Proof of Concept: Fusion5 Limited will showcase the potential of Microsoft Copilot Studio and its ability to create and deploy conversational agents using natural language understanding and generative AI answers. The proof of concept will involve building custom copilots, setting up generative answers, and presenting a demonstration of a specific use case within eight hours.
Cybersecurity Assessment: 3-Week Workshop: Exelegent will evaluate your cybersecurity posture and use Microsoft 365 security products to reduce your risk exposure. This will include vulnerability and data security assessments. The engagement will be delivered in your production environment.
Dynamics 365 Customer Service: 4-Month to 5-Month Implementation: Digia will implement Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service so you can offer personalized customer service experiences, resolve issues quicker, and improve satisfaction by providing a unified view of customer interactions across channels. Digia has more than 20 years of experience in delivering Microsoft CRM solutions and a team of nearly 100 experts ready to help.
Future of Work Copilot: 2-Hour Workshop: In this workshop, you’ll learn about Wipro’s Future of Work Copilot, powered by Wipro Live Workspace. The AI-powered solution provides professionals with intelligent digital assistants, and it combines the advanced capabilities of Copilot and Azure OpenAI with a three-phase methodology to help businesses develop sophisticated AI strategies.
Google Drive to OneDrive for Business Migration: 4-Week Implementation: Penthara offers data migration services from Google Drive Enterprise to OneDrive for Business. Penthara will ensure data integrity, security, and minimal downtime during the migration process. Customers will need a valid Microsoft 365 subscription and license. They will also need to ensure that the total volume of data to be migrated does not exceed 500 GB.
Governance and Security on Microsoft Power Platform: 4-Week Workshop: In this workshop, Celebal Technologies will discuss best practices, security, and governance for Microsoft Power Platform. A knowledge transfer, administrator training, and a readiness assessment of current assets and strategies will be included.
Initial Consulting/Discovery Session: IT Partner’s consultation will help you take your first steps in cloud services. The session will include a Q&A about Microsoft cloud solutions and possible deployment scenarios. The session will be most effective if you prepare in advance a list of the issues and challenges your company is currently facing.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Consulting and Deployment Service: CloudCan’s AI experts will assess your environment to identify your business requirements and data mapping needs, then create a plan to reach your desired state, including plans for environment readiness, remediation, and Microsoft 365 Copilot implementation.
Microsoft 365 Copilot Readiness: This workshop from Big Cloud Consultants will help organizations prepare for Microsoft Copilot by reviewing data governance policies and configurations. Recommendations will be supplied for configuring Microsoft security technologies to meet data governance requirements, resulting in a documented plan for deployment.
Microsoft 365 Copilot: Readiness Workshop: Noest’s four-week program will prepare organizations for a successful implementation and adoption of Copilot. Participants will gain an understanding of governance principles, integration, use cases, and adoption.
Microsoft 365 Governance (4 Weeks): Noest will help your organization establish effective governance strategies for Microsoft 365. Participants will gain insight into best practices for managing and securing their Microsoft 365 environment, including user and group management, data classification and protection, compliance, and policy enforcement.
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365: Workshop by CloudEdge: This workshop from CloudEdge will teach the core features of Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Participants will also learn time-saving techniques for document creation and explore case studies. Interactive group exercises will strengthen teamwork.
Microsoft Power Platform Governance (4 Weeks): In a series of workshops, Noest will introduce participants to the Microsoft Power Platform and its capabilities. This instruction will equip participants with the skills to build custom solutions within a well-defined framework of agreements and best practices. Power Apps, Power Automate, Power BI, Power Virtual Agents, and Power Pages will be covered.
Power BI: 5-Day Implementation: In this engagement, Radiante will help you visualize data using the DAX and M languages. Radiante will assist in designing a governance model for Microsoft Power BI reports, as well as creating reports. Other consulting services are also available.
Process Mining Discovery and Optimization in 8 Weeks: Capgemini will help your organization identify, analyze, and optimize business processes through its envisioning and discovery workshops. Data-driven insights from these workshops will enable you to boost customer satisfaction, increase productivity, streamline workflows, improve accuracy, and save money.
SharePoint Intranet Implementation: Transform your team’s communication and collaboration with this SharePoint implementation service from Big Cloud Consultants. The service includes a customized design, a data migration, a governance plan, integration with Microsoft 365 tools, and training.
Contact our partners
Advanced Item Availability for Production Scheduler
Anveo EDI Connect: External EDI Service Provider
Auto E-Invoicing: India TaxSync Suite
Avanade Migration Service for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Brainbow: Automated Valuation Models for Residential Properties in Mexico
Copilot for Microsoft 365: 6-Week Technical Readiness Assessment
COSMO Analytics for Manufacturing, Made for Microsoft Dynamics 365
COSMO Analytics for Projects, Made for Microsoft Dynamics 365
DocEndorse for Microsoft Outlook
Dynamics 365 Business Central: 2-Hour Discovery Session
Ecodel Exclusive: Boligflow Integration
Edge and Cloud Business Support from Fujitsu
Elgin Tarot Resolutions for Microsoft Azure Virtual Machines
Elgin Tarot Resolutions for Microsoft Teams
GROW – SAP S/4HANA Public Cloud
HCL/IBM Connections Migration to Microsoft 365
Infinion Briefing (PVA with ChatGPT)
Jive to Microsoft 365 Migration: 2-Hour Briefing
LOCKTERA SHARE: Secure File Sharing
Maia: AI Coach for the Leadrly App for Microsoft Teams
MetaOPT – Optimization as a Service
mfloow Task Management for the Employment Cycle
Microsoft Power Platform: 5-Day Technical and Process Assessment
Microsoft Power Platform Assessment
Multilingual (Language Packs) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Multilingual (Language Packs) for Microsoft Dynamics 365
Multilingual (Language Packs) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
Multilingual Localization for Web Applications
Paradigm WBC Energy: Web Auction Solution for Energy Purchases or Negotiations
Progressus for Binary Stream MEM
Sales Insights for Sage 300 by ZILLIONe
ShareDo – Case Management SaaS Platform
SmartBOL Shipping Documentation System for Dynamics 365 Business Central
STARC Timesheet Solution (Basic Package)
Swirl Metasearch 2.0 Contact Me
Symity Consulting Service for Copilot for Microsoft 365
TANSS X: Create and Assign Tickets from Emails
Taxxon Enhacement Pack for Inflation Adjustment
Torpedo’s Newsletter Web Part for SharePoint Online
Torpedo’s Profile Web Part for SharePoint Online
Uniserve Reach Digital Engagement Software
Welsh Language Pack for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Business Central
Welsh Language Pack for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Finance
This content was generated by Microsoft Azure OpenAI and then revised by human editors.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: January 2024
What a great start to 2024 – tantalizing tech for everyone.
In this episode, we focus on everything that landed this past month: Microsoft 365 Backup (Public Preview), SharePoint Premium: Document translation, new image and video experiences in Viva Engage, Community Campaigns in Viva Engage, SharePoint “News for email” custom tab, Microsoft Search: ServiceNow Tickets connector GA, Teams: Discover Feed in Channels, and more.
You’ll find full details and screenshots below – keep on a’scrollin’ along, including our audible companion: The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop: January 2024 podcast episode – all to help answer, “What’s rolling out now for SharePoint and related technologies into Microsoft 365?”
This month, we covered numerous Viva Engage updates. So many, we decided to include a short primer on what Engage is and how it supports community engagement with your organization. To the roadmap!
All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of January 2024 (possibly early February 2023).
Inform and engage with dynamic employee experiences
Build your intelligent intranet on SharePoint in Microsoft 365 and get the benefits of investing in business outcomes – reducing IT and development costs, increasing business speed and agility, and up-leveling the dynamic, personalized, and welcoming nature of your intranet.
Microsoft 365 Backup (Public Preview)
Microsoft 365 Backup is currently in preview and will begin rolling out to customers in early 2024. This is your in-place backup solution with lightning-fast restorability from Microsoft to ensure business continuity; Your data is kept in its native format, encrypted, geographically distributed, and secured within Microsoft 365.
To set up Microsoft 365 Backup, first select which application you’d like to create the backup policy for: OneDrive, Exchange, and SharePoint.
Microsoft 365 Backup delivers peace of mind by providing performance and reliability.
Fast backup and restore within hours.
Full SharePoint site and OneDrive account restore fidelity.
Full Exchange mailbox item restores or granular item restores using search.
NOTE | This is a paid public preview: A list price is $0.15USD/GB/mo of protected content. Once Microsoft 365 Backup has been deployed and is available for use in your tenant, you will see it in the Microsoft 365 admin center page under Settings. During this preview period, performance and speed of web interfaces, initial configuration, and restores might be slower than expected as we scale up our infrastructure to remove undesirable latency from our system. Backup for other Microsoft 365 sources, such as Teams chat and other Microsoft 365 services, and granular file-level recovery are on our post-GA roadmap, but not yet a part of this public preview.
Learn more + Microsoft 365 Backup on adoption.microsoft.com + Pricing model (includes a pricing calculator), and Sign up for ongoing information about Microsoft 365 Backup and the rest of our content management solutions management solutions.
SharePoint Premium: Document translation
Get ready to easily create a translated copy of a selected file or a set of files in a SharePoint document library. You can translate a file while preserving the original format and structure of the file. This feature lets you translate files of different types either manually or automatically by creating a rule. You can use custom glossaries and models to improve the quality and consistency of your translations.
SharePoint Premium lets you easily create a translated copy of a selected file or a set of files in a SharePoint document library.
You can also use the translation feature for translating video transcripts and closed captioning files. And the good news is that document translation is available for all supported languages and dialects. Consider translating a file or two hundred… it’s meant to support you at scale with content services that are “at your service.”
NOTE: Through June 2024, you can try out document translation and other selected Syntex services at no cost if you have pay-as-you-go billing set up. For information and limitations, see Try out SharePoint Premium and explore its services.
Four Microsoft Viva Engage updates…
1 | New experiences for video and images in Viva Engage
The team is simplifying the experience so that all users can add videos and images into the existing feed, instead of in a separate area called “Stories” – this change come from a lot of great feedback from our community.
Add images and videos inline to your Viva Engage posts.
With these integrations, we will no longer refer to stories as a discrete experience. We will instead make the media look great, through all Viva Engage experiences. That means in Viva Engage posts, across Outlook, Teams, and Viva Connections—anywhere Viva Engage posts appear — images and videos will be more integrated and streamlined, with less context switching.
2 | Improved copy + paste link experience in Viva Engage web/browser
Viva Engage is improving the copy link experience when in a browser. When you copy and paste a link using the “Copy Link” button on a conversation card, it renders a short summary of the content. This resembles a lot of the great work you’ve seen with document link previews, news post previews — and now, Engage post previews. All common preview experiences make consuming content a breeze – visual peeks ahead with enough information to commit to clicking, or not.
3 | Community Campaigns in Viva Engage
It’s time to boost engagement within your community. Now, community admins can create campaigns directly within their community. Click the plus button, and fill in campaign details like #hashtag, description, and default publisher.
Select Campaigns on the Feature management tab to access the campaign dashboard within Viva Engage.
Campaigns start as drafts, allowing admins to upload cover photos, set goals, and pin links before hitting the publish button. Admins and regular users can view all community campaigns by clicking “View all campaigns” in the right rail of the community space.
Fill in the fields according to your campaign goals.
Community members are automatically followers of the campaign, and using the community campaign hashtag in posts will display them in the campaign’s feed. Conveniently, when typing “#” in the community, a dropdown suggests relevant community campaigns.
4 | Viva Engage: Answers in Communities
They got questions – you’ve got answers. Answered questions make an organization strong – strong in their knowledge management game – especially if you can bring in the knowledge from the right people with little-to-no overhead.
On the Feature management tab, select the Answers button to open the Answers configuration options in Viva Engage.
Answers in Microsoft Viva lets people learn from each other by asking and answering questions. Now, if you have a premium license, you can use Answers in your Viva Engage communities. This new feature lets you:
See related questions to avoid duplicates and save time.
Ask questions with separate titles and details for easy scanning.
Earn badges for answering questions in communities.
Track question activity in communities with Answers Analytics and Global Answers Analytics.
Reach more people with your questions through Answers feeds and digests.
Overall, the user interface makes it easy to tell that it’s a question, with smarts behind it to find the right subject matter experts and make it easy for them to respond and engage.
Learn more.
Roadmap ID 152480 + “What is” Viva Engage (video)
Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams
Microsoft 365 is designed to be a universal toolkit for teamwork – to give you the right tools for the right task, along with common services to help you seamlessly work across applications. SharePoint is the intelligent content service that powers teamwork – to better collaborate on proposals, projects, and campaigns throughout your organization – with integration across Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, Planner and much more.
SharePoint news for email now supports custom template tab settings
The broader “News post to email” feature has been a real hit. Not only does it make your email news content look nice – especially looking as intended – it’s proving to increase your readership – minimizing fall off of people clicking an email teaser and going out to SharePoint. And you can track email read metrics to truly understand the impact of your news posts. Now there is no “going out to SharePoint” for news post in email. Just read it right there, in your inbox – in its entirety.
To create a News post for email, select a “Made for email” template from the news template picker.
As a site admin, when you set a custom Email news template as your site default, the “Saved on this site” tab will open first in the News template picker and your templates will appear before the built-in templates from Microsoft. You put work into custom templates, as we want to honor being able to highlight your custom work first.
Learn more + information about “News for email” templates.
Microsoft Search | ServiceNow Tickets connector is generally available
We are excited to announce the launch of the Microsoft Graph connector for ServiceNow Tickets. Now you can index tickets from ServiceNow, and people can search for these tickets in Microsoft Search and Copilot.
ServiceNow Tickets takes all service requests and converts them into a single point of contact.
Tickets is a system provided by ServiceNow for enterprises to manage and resolve IT issues efficiently. A ticket is a special document or record that captures details about incidents and requests. It is generated by employees or automated systems, which are then assigned to IT agents for resolution.
Refer to the ServiceNow Tickets documentation, to learn more about configuring the ServiceNow Tickets Graph connector.
Head to Search & Intelligence section in the Microsoft 365 admin center to get started.
Also, check out documentation for Microsoft Graph connectors for ServiceNow Knowledge and Catalog.
ServiceNow Catalog Microsoft Graph connector
ServiceNow Knowledge Microsoft Graph connector
FYI | SharePoint Add-In retirement in Microsoft 365
Since the release of SharePoint Add-Ins in 2013, Microsoft has evolved SharePoint extensibility using the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) enabling you to write applications that can be used in Microsoft SharePoint, Viva Connections and Microsoft Teams. With our continued investment in SharePoint Framework, Microsoft is retiring SharePoint Add-Ins.
Starting July 1st, 2024, SharePoint Add-Ins cannot be installed from the public marketplace, also referred to as store by existing tenants. Installation from a private tenant catalogue remains possible. Starting November 1st, 2024, new tenants will not be able use SharePoint Add-Ins, regardless of their origin (public marketplace, private tenant catalog). And then, starting April 2nd, 2026, Microsoft will remove the ability to use SharePoint Add-Ins for existing tenants.
If your organization still uses SharePoint Add-Ins, they will no longer function after April 2nd, 2026. Our SharePoint development team recommends porting customizations to the SharePoint Framework (SPFx) and/or ask your solution vendors for updated solutions. Use the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool to scan your tenants for SharePoint Add-In usage. Review the guidance for migrating from SharePoint Add-Ins to SharePoint Framework. There will not be an option to extend SharePoint Add-Ins beyond April 2nd, 2026.
Related technology
Microsoft Teams: Discover Feed in Channels
The Teams team is bringing you a personalized channel feed filled with people and topics you care about. You get context, too. You’ll see why a specific channel post is being shown in your feed, and you can customize feed preferences by selecting things like “Do not show post from X person or X channel”. You can also give direct feedback on whether a post seen on the feed is useful or not. This helps refine your feed over time – to feed you in the most relevant of ways.
The customizable Discover feed in Microsoft Teams.
It’s an easy, relevant, personalized way to get caught up – without as much hunting and scrolling up and down a channel.
Roadmap ID 187084
New promotional offer | SharePoint Premium
At its core, SharePoint Premium enriches, organizes, and secures content to improve Copilot experiences through services like document tagging to extract metadata from images and documents, manage and secure SharePoint sites and libraries, and protect and archive information across Microsoft 365, and more.
To help you get started with pay-as-you-services as part of SharePoint Premium, we’re excited to share a new promotional offer that provides monthly free capacity for select SharePoint Premium services including:
Unstructured and structured document processing
Content assembly
Image tagging
Translation
eSignature
This promo is available to customers now through June 30, 2024. To get started, you’ll need your Azure subscription ID to configure pay-as-you-go billing.
We’re excited to begin to move beyond SharePoint Premium disclosure, into real use and feedback in these early days. Take us up on the promo, try all that you can, and let us know what resonates.
Stream (Classic) retires on April 15, 2024, and all unmigrated videos will be deleted
Microsoft will retire Stream (Classic) on April 15, 2024, and all videos on Stream (Classic) will be deleted after the retirement date. All your existing Stream (Classic) videos can be transferred to Stream (on SharePoint) to take advantage of Stream’s rich integration within Microsoft 365.
To support your move to Stream (on SharePoint) we have created a migration tool that allows you to transfer your videos to SharePoint while also bringing over metadata, links and permissions associated with your videos. To begin using the migration tool please refer to our Stream migration guide.
Additional resources:
Stream retirement and timeline overview and migration tool details.
IT admin overview of Stream (on SharePoint)
2024 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform
Microsoft published a compilation of new capabilities planned to be released between April 2024 and September 2024. This first release wave of the year offers hundreds of new features and improvements, set to fuel your digital transformation — both customers and partners.
“2024 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available” by Mo Osborne (Corporate Vice President & Chief Operating Office Business Applications & Platform).
Here are five items from Microsoft CVP Mo Osborne’s post to whet your appetite, and encourage you to read his blog for full details:
Microsoft Copilot for Sales is set to deliver cutting-edge, generative AI capabilities for sellers by enriching the Copilot in Microsoft 365 capabilities with sales specific skills, data, and actions.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Project Operations focuses on usability, performance, and scalability in key areas such as project planning, invoicing, time entry, and core transaction processing.
Microsoft Power Pages will add interactive Copilot to support every step of site building to create intelligent website design, page layouts, content editing, data binding, learning, chatbot, accessibility checking, and AI-guidance to securing the site.
Microsoft Power Automate is bringing Copilot capabilities across cloud flows, desktop flows, and process mining.
Microsoft Copilot Studio will bring native capabilities for extending Copilot, general availability for generative actions, and geo-expansions to the United Arab Emirates, Germany, Norway, Korea, South America, and South Africa. We’re also introducing rich capabilities to integrate with OpenAI GPT models, along with new channels such as WhatsApp, and software lifecycle capabilities such as topic level import/export and role-based access control.
If you like tracking what the Power Platform and Dynamics 365 have in store for the future, read Mo’s full post, “2024 release wave 1 plans for Microsoft Dynamics 365 and Power Platform now available.”
February 2024 teasers
Psst, still here? Still scrolling the page looking for more roadmap goodness? If so, here is a few teasers of what’s to come to production next month…
Teaser #1: Microsoft Copilot Dashboard for Viva Insights [Roadmap ID: 185698]
Teaser #2: Microsoft Lists: Add ratings, Drag/drop images, Collaborate in real-time [Roadmap ID: 124867]
… shhh, tell everyone.
Helpful, ongoing change management resources
“Stay on top of Office 365 changes“
“Message center in Office 365“
Install the Office 365 admin app; view Message Center posts and stay current with push notifications.
Microsoft 365 public roadmap + pre-filtered URL for SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer and Stream roadmap items.
SharePoint Facebook | Twitter | SharePoint Community Blog | Feedback
Follow me to catch news and interesting SharePoint things: @mkashman; warning, occasional bad puns may fly in a tweet or two here and there.
Thanks for tuning in and/or reading this episode/blog of the Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – January 2024. We are open to your feedback in comments below to hear how both the Roadmap Pitstop podcast episodes and blogs can be improved over time.
Engage with us. Ask those questions that haunt you. Push us where you want and need to get the best information and insights. We are here to put both our and your best change management foot forward.
Stay safe out there on the road’map ahead. And thanks for listening and reading.
Thanks for your time,
Mark Kashman – senior product manager (SharePoint/Lists) | Microsoft)
The Intrazone Roadmap Pitstop – January 2024 graphic showing some of the highlighted release features.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Master Generative AI with Azure OpenAI Service: A Comprehensive Guide for Students
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Unlock the Power of Video at Work and School: 6 Features to Use in Microsoft Stream
Microsoft Stream is a powerful video platform that allows you to create, share, and view videos securely at work or school. What’s more, Stream powers the video experience across Microsoft 365, letting you add or view videos directly in the apps you use every day. With features such as sharing, captions, transcriptions, translations, chapters, search, and comments, and embedded forms Stream makes it easy to quickly convey or extract information from video.
There are many ways that organizations use Stream. For example, schools use Stream to share orientation information or for lecture capture, while businesses use it to create and share leadership updates, how-to videos, and onboarding videos. Your journey with video begins at the Stream start page where you can view, search, or create videos. However you use video in your organization, it’s always good to know some of the fundamental features that make working with video simple and productive. Here are six tips for using video at work or school:
Share videos with anyone
Whether you just created a video or viewed one on the Stream start page, you can share it with people both inside and outside your organization. To share internally, simply tap the share button, copy the link and drop it into an email or Teams chat. If your organization has external file sharing enabled, you can change your link type to “anyone with the link” and send the link to anyone. The sharing feature makes it easy to send videos or communicate on a personal level inside and outside of your organization.
Know what’s working with video analytics
Once you have created and shared a video you may want to understand how well it’s performing. Using video analytics you can see visitors over time, trends in views, and even which parts of the video are hot spots. Analytics can also show you which type of content performs best within your organization. To view analytics for videos you own, or have edit access to, open the video and select the Analytics tab in the right-hand pane. This feature helps you understand how your audience is engaging with your video content. Learn more.
Find video content with Microsoft Search
Finding a video within your organization is simple. Just go to office.com, enter your terms in the top search bar, then select Videos in the refinement bar under the search bar. This will return all the video content in your organization that matches the search terms and that you have access to. You can also search on the Stream start page or anywhere else across Microsoft 365. This feature makes it easy to find and access the videos you need. Learn more.
Use chapters to help viewers navigate within videos
With Stream, you can add chapters to your videos to help viewers easily see a breakdown of the content in the video and navigate to the parts they want to view. Adding chapters to a video also helps your video to show up in search for the specific terms used in your chapter names. Chapters are simple and they help your viewers quickly get the information they need from your video. Learn more.
Create playlists to organize and share video collections
Creating video playlists at work has two significant benefits. First, it lets you organize video content into categories or groups making it easier for you and viewers to see related content in one place. Second, it increases the discoverability of the videos in the playlist. And just like you can with individual videos, you can share playlists or embed them into SharePoint pages. This feature helps you organize and share related video content. Learn more.
Add video content to your docs, files, chat and emails
Did you know that you can copy and paste a video in many of the Microsoft 365 apps you use every day, including: Teams, Loop, OneNote, PowerPoint, Word, Viva Engage, SharePoint, and Whiteboard? Just copy the link to the video and paste it into your file. It’s that simple. Additionally, you can send video messages to people directly using Teams video clip and soon you’ll be able to record video messages directly in Outlook while composing an email. These features put video into the flow of everyday work, allowing you to create and view video directly in the files and apps you’re working in.
These are just six of the many ways you can use video at work and school to improve your productivity and collaboration. Interested in creating your first video on Stream? Watch How to make a video using Microsoft Stream.
Feedback
We welcome your feedback. Jump in and join the community:
• Add feature suggestions, ideas, and votes: https://aka.ms/StreamIdeas
• Get questions answered and connect with other in the community in our forum: https://aka.ms/StreamForum
• Sign up for Stream Insiders for opportunities to participate in user research about video in M365: https://ux.microsoft.com/Panel/StreamInsiders
• Sign up for customer office hours to ask questions to Stream product team: https://aka.ms/StreamConnect
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Why Azure Image Builder – Getting Started
You might be familiar with building golden images or templates for use on-premises. Back in the olden days we used to “ghost” machines and now you may use a VM template with sysprep. Azure offers the managed service Azure Image Builder so you can configure your image as a template for reuse within your cloud. Golden or base images are usually built upon governance, standards and best practices within your organization. These images especially come into play if you have immutable infrastructure, servers or virtual machines that will not be modified after deployment. To ensure consistency and speed up deployment, you can create golden images or templates.
Azure Image Builder lets you transfer your image customization pipeline to Azure without changing your scripts, commands, and processes. VM Image Builder works with any base operating system image from the Azure Marketplace and uses an automation config for the build process. Your VM image build artifacts are stored as Azure resources. This feature eliminates the need for offline definitions and the risk of environment drifts due to accidental deletions or updates.
Side note – Azure Image Builder is based on Packer, so you can reuse your existing Packer shell provisioner scripts with it.
Resource: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/virtual-machines/image-builder-overview?tabs=azure-powershell
Scenarios
Build, tailor and update “Base” virtual machine images and distribute them globally.
Image creation for Azure Virtual Desktop.
Access files in an Azure storage account or scripts from GitHub
Have your build pipeline trigger automatic image creation based on specific criteria.
Create images for both Azure and Azure Stack.
Integrate with existing build pipelines using Azure VM Image Builder DevOps Task.
Optimize Windows and Linux VM images.
Deploy your image building pipeline on Azure faster by connecting to existing virtual networks that have configuration servers (DSC, Puppet, Chef), file shares, or any other servers or services that can be routed.
Many of these scenarios have code and quickstarts to get you going on the AZ VM Image builder Github repository.
I encourage you to check it out and you can contribute as well.
What’s New
Auto-Image Creation, also known as “triggers”, is a feature that enhances developer productivity by automatically initiating image builds for new base images. This feature allows customers to streamline their image building process by setting up ‘triggers’ for the images they want to update automatically. Azure Image Builder also helps internal teams to ensure the security of their images through automation, reducing the manual work required to patch 1P images.
Isolated Image Builds. A feature of Azure Image Builder (AIB) is the ability to customize and validate VM images using dedicated Azure Container Instances (ACI) resources in your subscription. This provides compute and network isolation from shared infrastructure.
Azure VM Image Builder service DevOps task (preview). Create a virtual machine (VM) image with your application and operating system installed and configured, using the build artifacts.
Azure Portal. Users have been using CLI/PowerShell to create Azure Image templates but now that availability is in the Azure Portal.
The Azure Image Builder portal functionality allows the customer to explore the features of Azure Image Builder easily, without spending time on learning how to make a JSON template from the documentation. You can create an Azure Image from Bicep or an ARM template using JSON
Getting Started
Permissions
No matter which route you take, using the Portal or using command line you have to grant permissions for the service to work. The VM Image Builder service needs permissions to create, manage, and delete a staging resource group, which has the prefix IT_*. This resource group contains any resources that the image build requires. You can add these resources after you register for the service successfully. The service creates a service principal name in your subscription when you register.
To distribute images to either the managed images or Compute Gallery, you must create an Azure user-assigned identity that can read and write images. To access Azure Storage, you need permissions to read both private and public containers.
Register providers
If you haven’t already done so, register the following resource providers to use with your Azure subscription:
Microsoft.Compute
Microsoft.KeyVault
Microsoft.Storage
Microsoft.Network
Microsoft.VirtualMachineImages
Microsoft.ManagedIdentity
Microsoft.ContainerInstance
I’ll go over registering the providers and granting permissions in this first video below.
PowerShell Scripts I used:
#Set Subscription
Set-AzContext -SubscriptionId “Your Subscription”
#Register Providers
Get-AzResourceProvider -ProviderNamespace Microsoft.Compute, Microsoft.KeyVault, Microsoft.Storage, Microsoft.VirtualMachineImages, Microsoft.Network, Microsoft.ManagedIdentity |
Where-Object RegistrationState -ne Registered |
Register-AzResourceProvider
# Destination image resource group name
$imageResourceGroup = ‘myWinImgBuilderRG’
# Azure region
$location = ‘WestUS2’
# Name of the image to be created
$imageTemplateName = ‘myWinImage’
# Distribution properties of the managed image upon completion
$runOutputName = ‘myDistResults’
# Your Azure Subscription ID
$subscriptionID = (Get-AzContext).Subscription.Id
Write-Output $subscriptionID
##Create Resource Group
New-AzResourceGroup -Name $imageResourceGroup -Location $location
#Create variables for the role definition and identity names. These values must be unique.
[int]$timeInt = $(Get-Date -UFormat ‘%s’)
$imageRoleDefName = “Azure Image Builder Image Def $timeInt”
$identityName = “myIdentity$timeInt”
#Create a user identity
New-AzUserAssignedIdentity -ResourceGroupName $imageResourceGroup -Name $identityName -Location $location
#Store the identity resource and principal IDs in variables
$identityNameResourceId = (Get-AzUserAssignedIdentity -ResourceGroupName $imageResourceGroup -Name $identityName).Id
$identityNamePrincipalId = (Get-AzUserAssignedIdentity -ResourceGroupName $imageResourceGroup -Name $identityName).PrincipalId
#Downlaod JSON config file to assign permissions to the identity
$myRoleImageCreationUrl = ‘https://raw.githubusercontent.com/azure/azvmimagebuilder/master/solutions/12_Creating_AIB_Security_Roles/aibRoleImageCreation.json’
$myRoleImageCreationPath = “myRoleImageCreation.json”
Invoke-WebRequest -Uri $myRoleImageCreationUrl -OutFile $myRoleImageCreationPath -UseBasicParsing
#update role definition template
$Content = Get-Content -Path $myRoleImageCreationPath -Raw
$Content = $Content -replace ‘<subscriptionID>’, $subscriptionID
$Content = $Content -replace ‘<rgName>’, $imageResourceGroup
$Content = $Content -replace ‘Azure Image Builder Service Image Creation Role’, $imageRoleDefName
$Content | Out-File -FilePath $myRoleImageCreationPath -Force
#Create role definition
New-AzRoleDefinition -InputFile $myRoleImageCreationPath
#Grant the role definition to the VM Image Builder service principal
$RoleAssignParams = @{
ObjectId = $identityNamePrincipalId
RoleDefinitionName = $imageRoleDefName
Scope = “/subscriptions/$subscriptionID/resourceGroups/$imageResourceGroup”
}
New-AzRoleAssignment @RoleAssignParams
In the next post we will go over using the Azure portal to build a golden image and build from it.
Thanks for reading and feel free to comment with any questions.
Amy Colyer
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Learn more about LinkedIn Smart Link Phish Campaigns
Microsoft Defender for Office 365 security research team has observed a rise in the LinkedIn Smart Link phishing campaign. LinkedIn Smart Links are used by LinkedIn business accounts to deliver content and track user content engagements through the LinkedIn Sales Navigator. A typical Smart Link uses the LinkedIn domain followed by a ‘code’ parameter with an eight-alphanumeric character ID that may contain underscores and dashes.
However, malicious Smart Links can include other parts of information, such as obfuscated victim emails. Smart Links have proven to bypass security email gateways (SEGs) and other email security suites due to the link using a trusted domain. Threat actors are actively using Slinks in a new form of campaigns identified by Microsoft Defender for 365 Security Research team.
It is important to note that slinks are not inherently malicious. They are a legitimate feature used by LinkedIn business accounts to track user engagement with content. However, as with any feature, they can be abused by threat actors to carry out phishing campaigns.
Let us learn more on TPT (Tactics, Techniques and Procedure) behind these LinkedIn Smart link phishing campaigns.
Following is the standard Slink format provided by the LinkedIn Sales Navigator.
https://www.linkedin.com/slink
From our LinkedIn Smart link campaign investigation, we observed that the smart links, instead of “scode” parameter containing alphanumeric characters, were containing obfuscated target emails. Upon clicking the malicious LinkedIn Smart Link, the user will be sent directly or through a series of redirects to the phishing website. The phishing kit will read the victim’s email from the Smart Link to autofill the malicious form, adding to the illusion of legitimacy that the victim has landed on the legitimate Microsoft sign-in page.
Following are some of the popular brands that were impersonated by the LinkedIn Smart Link campaigns.
DocuSign Campaign template
Microsoft Impersonation Template
SharePoint Campaign template
The observed pattern from these Smart Link Campaigns are outlined below.
Emails employ a generic subject line to mimic benign behaviour
Email body features a single image with a LinkedIn Smart Link embedding.
Multiple redirections are employed before presenting the Phishing page to evade detection systems.
Following are the insights the research team observed from the Smart Links campaign data from Nov ‘23 to Dec ‘23.
Recommendations
It is important to be vigilant and cautious while opening emails, especially those that contain links. It is advisable to verify the authenticity of the email and the sender before clicking on any links or downloading any attachments. Especially when commonly used brands are part of email body that triggers the uses to click on the URLs, the users need to pay extra attention on the logo, content, redirection and the final landing URL legitimacy.
Organizations are highly recommended to use email security gateways like Microsoft Defender for Office 365 to reduce the exposure of such campaigns to their employees. Security teams are also recommended to train their users to stay resistant to such vulnerable emails by deploying advanced Simulation trainings through MDO attack and simulation capabilities.
If you are already using MDO, we encourage your SOC/Security teams to report any such suspicious emails landing in the inboxes of your employees so that we can investigate in case of any policy overrides or sophisticated scenarios used by the threat actors.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
How to get ready for Copilot for Microsoft 365 | Updates for 2024
Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now available for organizations of all sizes with Microsoft 365 and Office 365 — without a minimum license count.
In this video, Jeremy Chapman from the Microsoft 365 team demonstrates new security, compliance, and privacy updates in the experience. You’ll also see what’s possible to achieve the right level of file permissions for Zero Trust, just enough access search across Microsoft 365 and with Copilot information retrieval. Beyond data security, we explain prerequisites, administrative controls in the Microsoft 365 admin center, the wizard-based Copilot for Microsoft 365 setup guide, and tools to drive adoption.
Get ready for Copilot.
See how security and privacy with Copilot for Microsoft 365 works.
Protect data with sensitivity labels and policies.
Get the most from Copilot for Microsoft 365. Check it out.
Fine-tune policy and configuration settings for Copilot.
Manage license assignments, configure settings, and review user activity and feedback in the Microsoft 365 admin center. Get started.
Watch our video here:
QUICK LINKS:
00:00 What is Copilot for Microsoft 365 and how does it work?
01:09 What are the data security controls for Microsoft Copilot?
03:06 How to set up data protections for Microsoft Copilot
05:47 Are Microsoft Copilot activities logged and auditable?
06:27 Microsoft Copilot data residency and where it’s processed
07:11 Admin configurations for Copilot in the Microsoft 365 admin center
08:10 Microsoft Copilot prerequisites, setup, and licensing
09:16 How to drive Microsoft Copilot readiness and adoption with end users
Link References:
Find the full Microsoft Copilot playlist at https://aka.ms/M365CopilotMechanics
For more information about Copilot adoption, check out https://adoption.microsoft.com/copilot
Use the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center configure a monthly update channel for Copilot features to light up, go to https://config.office.com
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Video Transcript:
-How is your data protected when using Microsoft Copilot, and how do you get ready for it? Well, in the next few minutes, with Copilot for Microsoft 365, now more broadly available to organizations of all sizes, I’ll unpack how you can securely take advantage of generative AI across Microsoft 365 app experiences.
-And I’ll also go through the steps and resources to deploy it at scale. Now, if you’re new to Copilot for Microsoft 365, it lets you use natural language prompts to interact with your organization’s data and generate personalized content and responses with relevant insights that are unique to your work context.
-While you only see the generated response in your original prompt, behind the scenes Copilot for Microsoft 365 interprets your request, and if necessary, will find information you have access to within your organization from your work files sitting in SharePoint and OneDrive, as well as email and calendar via the Microsoft Graph. And it presents this information as additional context along with your original prompt to the large language model to generate a personalized and informed response.
-And even though none of this information is retained by the large language model, to securely take full advantage of generative AI, you can and should protect data at every stage from the information contained in the user prompt to the information retrieved based on user access permissions, and the generated response itself so that sensitive data is not inadvertently exposed when it shouldn’t be.
-And the good news is controls for security and privacy over your data exist at every stage, and will leverage the sensitivity labels and the corresponding policies that you’ve already got in place.
-Now, I’ll start by showing you a couple of examples of the benefits of these data protection controls in action, and then I’ll show you how to configure them yourself as an admin.
-In this case, I’m using Copilot in microsoft365.com. I’ll prompt it to list the key points from the Contoso purchase agreement, and the information that was retrieved shows the sensitive label for the document that it referenced. Now to be clear, this is a file that I have explicit access to. And if I move over to the source document itself, you can also see the confidential sensitivity label was previously applied to it.
-So you saw how Copilot was able to inform me of the sensitivity of the document that it retrieved all as part of its response. Now, let’s see how it works for content generation using Microsoft Word. So here I’m going to prompt Copilot in Word to generate a confirmation letter that’s based on the same purchase agreement with the sensitivity label that we saw before.
-And right after I referenced that protected document, you’ll see that with this shield icon here, it immediately recognizes this as a sensitive file. So now I’m going to hit generate, and it will author a draft confirmation letter for the purchase agreement.
-Notice that when it’s completed the confirmation letter, because the originating document has a confidential label, that same label is automatically applied to the generated file as shown in the information bar above the document.
-So the protection is inherited from the labeled source material. So as an admin, what are the steps then it takes to protect your data? Well, it all starts by looking at your data access permissions and applying the principles of just enough access as well as least privileged for information across your entire data estate.
-And one of the first recommended steps that you can take as a Microsoft 365 administrator is to review SharePoint site access, prioritizing the sites containing the most sensitive information. Now, here you can start by looking for sites that have their privacy set to public, which means that all employees can discover and access them.
-And from there, you can require that site owners verify ownership as well as who should be members or visitors of these sites to limit access. Then for content classification and labeling, one of the simplest controls to put in place is to classify files automatically saved to sensitive locations, as you can see here with the site owner controls for this document library.
-Now, that means that any content created in that location will get the label applied automatically and corresponding policies can lock files down to the right people. Then for another easy test to see you can use Search and Microsoft 365 you can use Search and Microsoft 365 even before you deploy Copilot to evaluate whether different users can discover and access sites or files that they should not have access to.
-The labels and classifications applied in those locations are configured and managed using Microsoft Purview. In fact, let me show you those controls as well as additional more advanced controls to protect your data using its auto labeling and data loss prevention capabilities. The labels you apply in Microsoft Purview can automatically help you discover, limit the sharing radius, and apply encryption directly using policies.
-These can also be applied based on the content within the documents using data loss prevention or DLP policies with sensitive information types. So here for example, I’ve started a DLP policy for personally identifiable information, and I’ve added a few sensitive information types already. And I can add even more with over 300 options here for things like banking numbers, addresses, identification types, tax information, and more.
-Additionally, using trainable classifiers, there are dozens of built-in document types that I can choose from, including source code, healthcare, HR, and more to auto apply labels. Then moving on to device restrictions, I can also set up endpoint DLP policies to prevent users from copying sensitive data to their clipboards and then, for example, into unapproved AI assistance sites.
-Next, beyond data protection policies, let me explain how Copilot for Microsoft 365 activities can all be audited. Using content search in Microsoft Purview, all activity from Copilot for Microsoft 365 is discoverable as you can see here. Retention policies can also be used to retain content and prompts and responses, and then retained based on your requirements. E-discovery is also supported for Copilot interactions as you can see here with this case example.
-And communication and compliance will likewise flag any content with established policy matches like the one you see here for codename Obsidian. Of course, another important consideration is how data is processed and where it resides when using Microsoft Copilot services. Microsoft hosts and operates large language model instances in Microsoft data centers and will never use your data to train large language models.
-And data residency with Microsoft Copilot is consistent with Microsoft 365 and the locations where your data is already stored and processed today. Which means that if your organization is based in the European Union, Copilot data is likewise stored and processed within the EU data boundary like the rest of your data.
-Additionally, the Microsoft Copilot copyright commitment means that content generated using Copilot also comes with legal protections for Microsoft. Now, let’s move on to how you can fine tune policy settings and configurations for Copilot as an admin. And for that, we’ve added new controls in Microsoft 365’s admin center, including links to many of the tools and concepts I’ve shown today.
-So here you can see the status of your Copilot assignments as well as the latest information on Copilot. Under settings, you can find what you need to manage Microsoft Copilot experiences found in Bing, the Edge browser, and in Windows, as well as deep links to many of the data security and compliance controls.
-Next, admin controls to submit feedback about Copilot for Microsoft 365 services on behalf of users, then configurations for plugins and their permissions from the integrated apps page, as well as tenant wide controls to allow the public web to be used as grounding data in Copilot for Microsoft 365 and more. Now, with the right protections and configurations in place, you can take full advantage of generative AI and start deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 services at scale.
-Now, this starts with ensuring that you’ve got the right Microsoft 365 services in place. And recently this was expanded to organizations of all sizes with Microsoft 365 Business and Enterprise Suites, as well as faculty members for Microsoft 365 Academic suites.
-Next, for Copilot capabilities to light up in Microsoft 365 apps, using the Microsoft 365 apps admin center at config.office.com, you’ll want to deploy either monthly enterprise, current channel, or current channel preview. From there, from the Microsoft 365 admin center under setup, you can use the “Get ready for Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365” setup guide to configure any remaining items, and it walks you through many of the steps I just presented to prepare your organization.
-From here, you can even assign Copilot licenses to users and groups in scope for your deployment and send a welcome email to help them get started with Copilot. And with services deployed, a best practice for driving and improving adoption is to establish an internal community of Microsoft Copilot users. And the Copilot hub at adoption.microsoft.com/copilot gives you additional resources by role to help users learn about and get the most from Copilot.
-So that was an overview of how security and privacy with Copilot for Microsoft 365 works, and how you can get ready for Copilot in your organization. For more deep dives on other Microsoft Copilot tech, checkout aka.ms/M365CopilotMechanics, And keep checking back for the latest AI updates Thanks for watching.
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Healio – Healthcare Chatbot using C# Semantic Kernel, planner and Azure OpenAI
Healio – Healthcare Chatbot: Access information from different data sources and create its own plan using C# Semantic Kernel, planner and Azure OpenAI
In this article we will go through a business use case of developing Healio – Healthcare Chatbot: Access information from different data sources and create its own plan using C# Semantic Kernel, planner and Azure OpenAI. You might be familiar with the fact that Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) pattern is an easy and efficient way to allow Azure OpenAI to “talk to your data”. This pattern lets you query your data with Azure Cognitive Search (a search engine), find pertinent pieces of information from your data, then include that extra information to your prompts to the Azure OpenAI service to reply in a natural language.
This isn’t always enough
However, the RAG pattern has some limitations when you examine how it is implemented. It relies on a single data source (Cognitive Search). Cognitive Search can index many kinds of data sources (PDFs, Word docs, etc). It excels at searching unstructured data. Also, I need to copy the results from the Cognitive Search and add them to the prompt by myself in code. I had to process the results of Cognitive Search by myself in code.
This leads to several questions:
What if I want to use multiple data sources to retrieve the data necessary to answer the user’s question?
What if I don’t know or don’t want to hard-code the order of operation for calling multiple data sources?
What if I don’t want to write the parsing code for calling multiple data sources with disparate data formats?
How can I let AI “orchestrate” the API calls to answer questions & pull together data that I couldn’t predict beforehand?
To solve these more complex issues, I need more than the RAG pattern.
More complex example
Pretend that you are building the healthcare chatbot to help answer common customer support questions about health-related information, advice, and support to patients, visitors, and staff. They can also help with booking appointments, checking symptoms, and accessing medical records. Here are some common data sources that customer support uses to answer customer questions.
Administrative data: This data is generated from claims, encounter, enrollment, and providers systems. It includes information such as type of service, diagnosis and procedure codes, location of service, and amount billed and reimbursed. This data can be used to answer questions about billing, insurance, and utilization of services.
Patient medical records: This data is documentation of a patient’s medical history and care. It contains rich clinical detail such as diagnoses, treatments, medications, lab results, and outcomes. This data can be used to answer questions about a patient’s health condition, treatment plan, and progress.
Patient surveys: This data is collected from survey instruments that capture self-reported information from patients about their health care experiences. It covers aspects such as satisfaction, quality, access, and outcomes of care. This data can be used to answer questions about a patient’s feedback, preferences, and expectations.
Hospital databases: This data is available from various sources, such as individual hospitals, Doctor’s schedule, hospital associations, state and regional data organizations, health departments, and federal agencies,. It includes information such as hospital characteristics, performance measures, quality indicators, and patient outcomes. This data can be used to answer questions about a hospital’s reputation, accreditation, services, and achievements.
Complex user questions could be answered by combining these data sources. These data sources could be used in different systems, each with varying authorization needs, varying languages, varying protocols, etc.
We have to tell the OpenAI service when it should use our external data sources, what type of input data to give them & what type of data to get back. These instructions need to be in terms that humans can understand, since that is what the big language model is using.
Example complex user query
“How can I schedule an appointment with Dr. Smith, who performed my surgery last month, for a follow-up checkup next week and look availability of doctor in nearest hospital in my network?”
Let’s break this question down.
We need to know the availability of Dr. Smith. Just looking the past record of patient (as a simple RAG implementation would do) couldn’t answer this question and there is no guarantee that Dr. Smith is still working in same shift or with same hospital. We need to look the hospital’s database and check his schedule and availability.
Next, we have to find out the patient’s previous medical history. We already checked the doctor’s schedule, so we have the patient and doctor information.
In this case, we want to know the type of care service, cost, billing and which hospital for next week. A good chatbot would ask for more information about where “exactly” the user was planning to visit e.g. nearest hospital in network.
The next step is to make AI come up with a plan to access the different data sources that we mentioned above. It has to access them in the correct order (connected all the dots), interpret the output (because each API will give different data and is not aware of the other APIs) and finally create a response.
Enter Semantic Kernel
Semantic Kernel is a free SDK (C#, Java, Python, JavaScript) that can help you integrate the Azure OpenAI service into your application. It lets you access the Azure OpenAI endpoints for “chat” and “embedding” functions. With Semantic Kernel, you can avoid making direct REST API calls to the service.
To go further, the Semantic Kernel SDK has a feature called a “planner”. The planner coordinates multiple calls to the Azure OpenAI service to create a plan to answer the user’s questions. You can then follow the plan.
With Semantic Kernel, you can also make “plugins“, which are ways to invoke native code. These native plugins can perform mathematical calculations, read/write files or make API calls.
A lot of the effort in creating this kind of application will be in the “prompt engineering” of trying to tell the Semantic Kernel when to use your plugin and what arguments to give it.
In part 2, I will explain how I built a sample app that does this and implement our use case to develop Healthcare Chatbot – Healio.
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