Category: Microsoft
Category Archives: Microsoft
MAPS Excessive Price Increase
I just renewed my MAPS subscription. As a background I’m a one person organisation.
For many years the price was A$440 inc GST.
This year, the price was over A$710 inc GST. Which is a price increase of over 75%.
I was told this was because now all pricing is based on USD so I’m paying the equivalent of US$400, and that it’s not a price increase.
I’m posting this to raise my objection to the exhorbitant price increase, and find out if other people have also been similarly effected.
I just renewed my MAPS subscription. As a background I’m a one person organisation. For many years the price was A$440 inc GST. This year, the price was over A$710 inc GST. Which is a price increase of over 75%. I was told this was because now all pricing is based on USD so I’m paying the equivalent of US$400, and that it’s not a price increase. I’m posting this to raise my objection to the exhorbitant price increase, and find out if other people have also been similarly effected. Read More
Need a formula
Please help
I need a formula for the following
PM =8 and N =8 this needs to be calculated then taken off the value of 70
How do i do this?
Please helpI need a formula for the followingPM =8 and N =8 this needs to be calculated then taken off the value of 70 How do i do this? Read More
Error inserting – as an object – TXT or PDF file into Word (for MacOs)
Error when inserting – as an object – TXT or PDF file in Word (for MacOs)
When trying to insert a TXT file as an object, to be displayed as an icon (Insert-> Object -> From File (Display as icon) in Word for MacOS, the application gives the following error message:
“Server application, source file, or item not found.
Verify that the application is correctly installed and has not been deleted, moved, renamed, or blocked by policy.”
Inserting as a file (Insert->File…) works correctly.
When trying to insert a PDF file as an object, I only inserted the first page as a picture.
I contacted Microsoft 365 support who advised me to post the issue in this forum.
Thank you for any and all help.
Error when inserting – as an object – TXT or PDF file in Word (for MacOs) When trying to insert a TXT file as an object, to be displayed as an icon (Insert-> Object -> From File (Display as icon) in Word for MacOS, the application gives the following error message:”Server application, source file, or item not found.Verify that the application is correctly installed and has not been deleted, moved, renamed, or blocked by policy.” Inserting as a file (Insert->File…) works correctly.When trying to insert a PDF file as an object, I only inserted the first page as a picture.I contacted Microsoft 365 support who advised me to post the issue in this forum.Thank you for any and all help. Read More
The Evolution of GenAI Application Deployment Strategy: From MVP to Production
Now that you are familiar with moving from a POC to MVP, the next key transition is moving from MVP to production rollout. This is where the focus must be put on the requirements and setup involved in a production deployment with considerations for the requirements of the end user.
Before a single line of code is deployed, start a collaboration across technical and business stakeholders. Ask these critical questions:
MVP outcome: Did the user feedback regarding the MVP and its results meet the desired expectations? Did the rollout of the MVP successfully fulfill and support the business objectives and achieve the intended outcome?
LLM Model outcomes: Can the selected LLM models meet and accomplish the goals
End Users: Is this solution for internal teams or external customers? Security, access controls, and user experience needs will differ significantly.
Data Segregation: Are there multi-tenant concerns, or is a need for strict boundaries around data access for different teams? Azure provides tools to enforce this, including Azure Active Directory (Azure identity & access security best practices | Microsoft Learn) and RBAC (What is Azure role-based access control (Azure RBAC)? | Microsoft Learn).
Security: How sensitive is the data? Outline your encryption, authentication, and compliance strategy early on.
Scalability: Estimate requests per minute (RPM) and transactions per month (TPM). Design for surges of traffic based on historic data or expected upcoming peaks.
Token Requirements: Does your model need to handle larger volumes of text or code than standard OpenAI allowances? Does solution require caching support for enhanced and efficient outcome?
Cost Allocation: Will internal teams need to be cross-charged? Can solution track the token usage to manage the cost and apply any quota within business units?
Before deploying your Azure OpenAI solution into production, carefully consider your target audience, as this will dictate security protocols, access controls, and user experience design. Prioritize data security by planning encryption and authentication, especially for sensitive information. If multiple teams or customers will use the system, create secure boundaries to protect each entity’s data. For smooth operation and cost management, estimate potential traffic and ensure the chosen model can handle your expected workload.
After evaluating above criteria, the next step is to reduce risk and increase success during the production rollout. A good rollout is like a solid base for your Azure OpenAI solution. Let’s look at three main elements: the gradual approach, deployment checklists, and preparing contingency plans.
Before there is any production rollout, let’s consult with a deployment checklist. This will heavily depend on your individual business needs, but many are likely to cross over across all use-cases.
Infrastructure Readiness: Ensure that Azure resources (compute, storage, networking, availability region) are provisioned and configured correctly. See the Azure OpenAI landing zone reference architecture: Azure OpenAI Landing Zone reference architecture (microsoft.com)
Model Deployment: Automate the process of deploying your OpenAI model, including its configuration and any pre/post-processing steps (https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/ai-services/openai/quickstart?tabs=command-line%2Cpython-new).
Integration Verification: Thoroughly test how your solution interacts with existing systems and data sources. How will the frontend app need to connect to the OpenAI model?
Security Checkpoints: Double-check user authentication, data encryption, and any compliance requirements.
Monitoring Setup: Make sure that you have logging and alerting systems ready as you approach go-live. What metrics will you use to measure the model’s performance? Do you plan to do continuous training on the model to enhance it over time?
The reference design above from MVP to Production and has basic foundational components and essential elements for a live deployment.
Once the readiness has been confirmed, then begins the rollout. There are many ways to conduct a rollout, one of the safest and most recommended is a phased approach. A phased approach involves breaking down your Azure OpenAI deployment into smaller, manageable stages. Instead of launching the entire solution at once, you roll it out incrementally, starting with a pilot group or a limited set of features. This allows you to gather real-world feedback and identify potential issues, and refine your solution before expanding to a wider audience. With a phased approach, you minimize disruption, control risk, and ensure a smoother, more successful transition into production.
Characteristics and benefits of a phased approach:
Real-World Testing: Deploying to a smaller pilot group allows you to closely observe how your solution handles real-world data and user interactions in a controlled environment.
Iterative Improvement: The valuable feedback you collect from your pilot users enables you to polish the model, modify interfaces, and change security settings before expanding to a larger audience. This is where LLMOps assists you.
Gradual Scalability: A phased approach lets you monitor infrastructure performance under growing load and adjust resources (redundant, multi region) as needed, preventing costly overprovisioning or unexpected downtime.
Minimized Disruption: Issues discovered during a test deployment with a limited group are far less disruptive than those surfacing after a full-scale launch.
How might a phased rollout look in practise? It might look like this….
Internal Pilot: Start with a select group of users within your organization, providing clear guidance on how to provide feedback.
Iterative Improvement: Use that pilot feedback to refine the model, address UI issues, and solidify integration with your document management system.
Expansion: Gradually increase the pilot group size, monitoring performance and scalability.
Full Rollout: Confident in your solution, release it to the entire organization with comprehensive training materials.
Remember: A phased approach gives you the agility to learn, adapt, and ensure a successful, well-received Azure OpenAI deployment.
Monitoring is essential for a smooth and successful Azure OpenAI deployment. Real-time visibility into your solution’s performance enables proactive problem-solving, allowing you to address issues before they become major disruptions. Monitoring data also guides optimization efforts, revealing opportunities to refine your model, scale resources appropriately, or improve the user experience based on observed patterns. Reliable monitoring and well-defined alerts foster user trust, demonstrating your commitment to a robust and well-maintained solution. Azure provides robust monitoring tools to ensure your OpenAI solution runs smoothly. Utilize Azure Monitor to track key performance metrics, logs, and set up alerts for potential issues. For deeper application-level insights, leverage Application Insights to track performance, errors, and how your users interact with the solution. For detailed guidance, refer to Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI monitoring documentation: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/azure/cognitive-services/openai/how-to/monitoring
Some other considerations for deployment include:
Business continuity: If your application critical, be sure to ensure business continuity through cross region deployment: Enable disaster recovery across Azure regions across the globe – Azure Site Recovery | Microsoft Learn
Consider including our GenAI Gateway capabilities in APIM : Introducing GenAI Gateway Capabilities in Azure API Management – Microsoft Community Hub
Scaling using PTU & PAYG: Azure OpenAI Service Provisioned Throughput Units (PTU) onboarding – Azure AI services | Microsoft Learn
Responsible AI: In order to mitigate risks, please follow Microsoft’s Responsible AI guidance: Responsible and trusted AI – Cloud Adoption Framework | Microsoft Learn
While it isn’t without its challenges, careful preparation, strategic rollouts, and continuous improvement are the keys to unlocking the full potential in the deployment. By approaching your deployment thoughtfully, you won’t simply implement a powerful piece of technology; you’ll create a scalable, secure, and user-centric solution that delivers tangible value to your organization or customers. Remember, your deployment journey is about more than the technology itself – it’s about harnessing AI to drive innovation.
References:
Progressively expose your releases using deployment rings – Azure DevOps | Microsoft Learn
Staged rollout management for Graph connectors is generally available – Microsoft Community Hub
How-to: Create and deploy an Azure OpenAI Service resource – Azure OpenAI | Microsoft Learn
@Paolo Colecchia @Taonga_Banda @renbafa @arung Morgan Gladwell
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
New Blog | General availability of Azure WAF Bot Manager1.1 Ruleset
Today, we are launching the general availability of Bot Manager1.1 ruleset in Azure WAF integrated with Azure Front Door.
Bot Manager1.1 extends all the rules in the existing Bot Manager1.0 ruleset and adds multiple new rules to provide comprehensive bot management capabilities to web applications. The new capabilities introduced in this ruleset include new Goodbots rules and a new Badbots rule.
The main value prop of the new ruleset is to reduce false positives in good bot detections and increase true positives in malicious bot detections.
Benefits of the new rules in the Goodbots rule group:
Improving SEO rankings due to good bots crawling websites and reducing FP (false positive) seen by customers.
Customer websites are crawled by good bots which results in increased SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. With Bot Manager 1.1 ruleset, a comprehensive set of rules are added to the Goodbots rule group which allows a larger set of legitimate published bots. Examples of such Goodbots include Googlebot, Bingbot etc.
As a real-life scenario, we encountered an issue with the Bot Manager1.0 ruleset where certain Goodbots were absent, leading to blocked requests to web applications. For example, a valid Google crawler bot was getting blocked by the Bot Manager1.0 100200 rule, which resulted in lower SEO rankings for the customer and eventually disappearing from the SEO rankings. As a workaround, the customer disabled rule 100200 which brought their SEO rankings up but resulted in lowered protection from true malicious bots that have falsified their identities. Prior to implementing the Bot Manager1.1 ruleset, the only other alternative to allow legitimate crawlers was to add custom rules to allowlist their IP addresses. However, this approach posed challenges due to the dynamic nature of crawler IPs, which change frequently.
With the new updates to Bot Manager1.1, a comprehensive list of good bot IPs is added to the existing rule 200100 which results in lower false positive detections by the Bot Manager ruleset. The 200100 rule from Bot Manager1.0 ruleset is now revamped to only include good bots in the search engine crawler category.
Bringing clarity to the Goodbots rule group
With Bot Manager 1.1 ruleset, many new verified good bot rules have been added that target different categories of good bots. These new rules include the link checker, social media, content fetchers, feed fetcher and advertising bots. Additional bots that don’t fit into any particular category are added to 200200 as verified miscellaneous bots. This empowers customers to have granular control over their WAF policy. For example, if a customer does not wish to have social media bots crawling their sites, they can achieve this by changing the action associated with the social media rule.
Benefits of the new rule in the Badbots rule group:
Today customers see malicious bots perpetuating many malicious attacks. Examples includes:
Scraping websites and spreading dis-information, executing targeted phishing attacks and social engineering attacks.
Spamming customer websites with form submission pages.
Manipulating rankings of content tooling websites’ analytics pages.
Launching denial-of-inventory attacks.
and many others.
The new Bot Manager1.1 ruleset incorporates a novel rule, Bot100300, complemented by the existing rules in the Badbots rule group rules, effectively mitigates malicious bot attacks.
Let’s take a closer look at the Bot Manager1.1 ruleset:
Goodbots rule group
The following screenshot describes the new good bot rules added to the new ruleset
Read the full post here: General availability of Azure WAF Bot Manager1.1 Ruleset
By Sowmya Mahadevaiah
Today, we are launching the general availability of Bot Manager1.1 ruleset in Azure WAF integrated with Azure Front Door.
Bot Manager1.1 extends all the rules in the existing Bot Manager1.0 ruleset and adds multiple new rules to provide comprehensive bot management capabilities to web applications. The new capabilities introduced in this ruleset include new Goodbots rules and a new Badbots rule.
The main value prop of the new ruleset is to reduce false positives in good bot detections and increase true positives in malicious bot detections.
Benefits of the new rules in the Goodbots rule group:
Improving SEO rankings due to good bots crawling websites and reducing FP (false positive) seen by customers.
Customer websites are crawled by good bots which results in increased SEO (search engine optimization) rankings. With Bot Manager 1.1 ruleset, a comprehensive set of rules are added to the Goodbots rule group which allows a larger set of legitimate published bots. Examples of such Goodbots include Googlebot, Bingbot etc.
As a real-life scenario, we encountered an issue with the Bot Manager1.0 ruleset where certain Goodbots were absent, leading to blocked requests to web applications. For example, a valid Google crawler bot was getting blocked by the Bot Manager1.0 100200 rule, which resulted in lower SEO rankings for the customer and eventually disappearing from the SEO rankings. As a workaround, the customer disabled rule 100200 which brought their SEO rankings up but resulted in lowered protection from true malicious bots that have falsified their identities. Prior to implementing the Bot Manager1.1 ruleset, the only other alternative to allow legitimate crawlers was to add custom rules to allowlist their IP addresses. However, this approach posed challenges due to the dynamic nature of crawler IPs, which change frequently.
With the new updates to Bot Manager1.1, a comprehensive list of good bot IPs is added to the existing rule 200100 which results in lower false positive detections by the Bot Manager ruleset. The 200100 rule from Bot Manager1.0 ruleset is now revamped to only include good bots in the search engine crawler category.
Bringing clarity to the Goodbots rule group
With Bot Manager 1.1 ruleset, many new verified good bot rules have been added that target different categories of good bots. These new rules include the link checker, social media, content fetchers, feed fetcher and advertising bots. Additional bots that don’t fit into any particular category are added to 200200 as verified miscellaneous bots. This empowers customers to have granular control over their WAF policy. For example, if a customer does not wish to have social media bots crawling their sites, they can achieve this by changing the action associated with the social media rule.
Benefits of the new rule in the Badbots rule group:
Today customers see malicious bots perpetuating many malicious attacks. Examples includes:
Scraping websites and spreading dis-information, executing targeted phishing attacks and social engineering attacks.
Spamming customer websites with form submission pages.
Manipulating rankings of content tooling websites’ analytics pages.
Launching denial-of-inventory attacks.
and many others.
The new Bot Manager1.1 ruleset incorporates a novel rule, Bot100300, complemented by the existing rules in the Badbots rule group rules, effectively mitigates malicious bot attacks.
Let’s take a closer look at the Bot Manager1.1 ruleset:
Goodbots rule group
The following screenshot describes the new good bot rules added to the new ruleset
Read the full post here: General availability of Azure WAF Bot Manager1.1 Ruleset Read More
Microsoft Edge TTS refuses to read .pdf files
Hi there,
[Reposting this here on the suggestion of an ‘Independent Advisor’ on the Microsoft Community forums.]
I think the native MS Edge TTS is one of the best on the market, but it currently fails to initiate when I try and get it to read .pdf documents (even when opened in the browser and when the text is super-clear so OCR should be working). I have done everything from clearing my cache to reinstalling MS Edge and not importing anything or signing in, so that it’s a completely fresh version, but the problem persists.
I have also tried on Beta, Developer and Canary as well, with no luck.
After a quick search online, I can see I’m not the only one with this problem – are there any fixes on the horizon? This is a real challenge from an accessibility standpoint.
Kind Regards,
Kristian
Hi there, [Reposting this here on the suggestion of an ‘Independent Advisor’ on the Microsoft Community forums.] I think the native MS Edge TTS is one of the best on the market, but it currently fails to initiate when I try and get it to read .pdf documents (even when opened in the browser and when the text is super-clear so OCR should be working). I have done everything from clearing my cache to reinstalling MS Edge and not importing anything or signing in, so that it’s a completely fresh version, but the problem persists. I have also tried on Beta, Developer and Canary as well, with no luck. After a quick search online, I can see I’m not the only one with this problem – are there any fixes on the horizon? This is a real challenge from an accessibility standpoint. Kind Regards,Kristian Read More
Welcome to the Copilot for Microsoft 365 community 😊!
We’re thrilled to have you here and are excited about this forum where we can come together to exchange ideas, collaborate, and delve into all aspects of Microsoft 365 Copilot. We want you to be an active participant in this community! We’d like for you to ask questions, answer others’ questions, and participate in discussion.
Expect digital events, like Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA), engagements with Microsoft experts and engineers, vibrant discussions with fellow Microsoft 365 users, advice from pros, and the latest news on updates and releases for Copilot.
Below are some tips on how to best use this community:
Join the Community: Make sure to click the “join” button on the top right of our community home page so that you can officially become a member of our community!
Get the Latest Blog Posts: Stay informed by following and subscribing to our blog space. You’ll receive email updates whenever we post new articles.
Keep Up with Our Events: Don’t miss out on our monthly Ask Me Anything (AMA) events. Subscribe and RSVP to let us know you’re attending and add the event to your calendar, so you won’t miss it.
We are excited to see the great things you’ll achieve with Microsoft 365 Copilot and look forward to your active participation in this community. Welcome aboard!
We’re thrilled to have you here and are excited about this forum where we can come together to exchange ideas, collaborate, and delve into all aspects of Microsoft 365 Copilot. We want you to be an active participant in this community! We’d like for you to ask questions, answer others’ questions, and participate in discussion.
Expect digital events, like Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA), engagements with Microsoft experts and engineers, vibrant discussions with fellow Microsoft 365 users, advice from pros, and the latest news on updates and releases for Copilot.
Below are some tips on how to best use this community:
Join the Community: Make sure to click the “join” button on the top right of our community home page so that you can officially become a member of our community!
Get the Latest Blog Posts: Stay informed by following and subscribing to our blog space. You’ll receive email updates whenever we post new articles.
Keep Up with Our Events: Don’t miss out on our monthly Ask Me Anything (AMA) events. Subscribe and RSVP to let us know you’re attending and add the event to your calendar, so you won’t miss it.
We are excited to see the great things you’ll achieve with Microsoft 365 Copilot and look forward to your active participation in this community. Welcome aboard!
Read More
Ctrl v not working
Whenever i try to copy and paste anything, instead of the text i copied this address appears: C:UsersfooniAppDataLocalTempPRODUCT_NAME_UNKNOWN_CrashDumpPRODUCT_VERSION_MAJOR_UNKNOWN-PRODUCT_VERSION_MINOR_UNKNOWN-2024-06-12–01-30-12_.dmp
I have tried changing the input language but it didn’t work.
Whenever i try to copy and paste anything, instead of the text i copied this address appears: C:UsersfooniAppDataLocalTempPRODUCT_NAME_UNKNOWN_CrashDumpPRODUCT_VERSION_MAJOR_UNKNOWN-PRODUCT_VERSION_MINOR_UNKNOWN-2024-06-12–01-30-12_.dmp I have tried changing the input language but it didn’t work. Read More
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant Blueprint Opportunity
Microsoft is updating a certification for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant, and we need your input through our exam blueprinting survey.
The blueprint determines how many questions each skill in the exam will be assigned. Please complete the online survey by June 25th, 2024. Please also feel free to forward the survey to any colleagues you consider subject matter experts for this certification. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Rohan Mahadevan rmahadevan@microsoft.com or John Sowles at josowles@microsoft.com.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant blueprint survey link:
https://microsoftlearning.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bIpTEIVOe3NH2XY
Microsoft is updating a certification for Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant, and we need your input through our exam blueprinting survey.
The blueprint determines how many questions each skill in the exam will be assigned. Please complete the online survey by June 25th, 2024. Please also feel free to forward the survey to any colleagues you consider subject matter experts for this certification. If you have any questions, feel free to contact Rohan Mahadevan rmahadevan@microsoft.com or John Sowles at josowles@microsoft.com.
Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service Functional Consultant blueprint survey link:
https://microsoftlearning.co1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_bIpTEIVOe3NH2XY Read More
Expanding Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP) support to new devices and form factors
Earlier this year at Enterprise Connect, we announced new silicon and OEM partnerships for meeting room devices built on the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform (MDEP). Since then, we have collaborated closely with our partners to make MDEP more widely available.
Today, we are excited to announce that MDEP now provides native support for Microsoft Teams Desk Phones and Microsoft Teams Panels. This expansion, achieved through close collaboration with Microsoft Teams, enables our device partners to rapidly adopt MDEP across the breadth of Teams’ Android-based devices.
“We are thrilled to bring the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform to Teams Phones and Teams Panels. This integration represents a significant step forward in our mission to deliver seamless, intelligent communication experiences across all devices“, Says Ilya Bukshteyn, VP Teams Calling & Devices.
“The growing ecosystem of Teams Devices on Android is transforming the way businesses operate. From Teams Rooms to Teams Phones and Panels, these devices are designed to deliver high-quality audio and video, intuitive interfaces, and seamless integration with the broader Microsoft 365 suite.”
We are happy to share that our partner Yealink, a global leader in unified communication and collaboration solutions, has announced they are set to release their first series of Teams Desk Phones built on Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform later this year. On the same day, Yealink also introduced their all-in-one dual-camera video bar, the new MeetingBar A40, accompanied by the CTP25 Touch Panel – both built on MDEP and slated for release later this year.
The new Yealink MeetingBar A40, built on MDEP
New partnerships
We are proud to announce a new partnership with Barco, a global leader in innovative visualization and collaboration solutions. Juha Kuosmanen, Head of MDEP at Microsoft, expressed our shared vision: “Microsoft and Barco share a common emphasis on designing solutions with enhanced privacy, accessibility, and manageability excellence. We are thrilled to welcome Barco to the Microsoft Device Ecosystem Platform and confident that its future developments will be a catalyst for their continuous success“.
Barco plans to leverage MDEP for its next-generation ClickShare solutions, enhancing their unique user experience. Jan van Houtte, EVP Meeting Experience at Barco, emphasized their commitment: “ClickShare remains focused on bringing a simple, premium experience to meeting spaces. We will continue to create innovative experiences, leveraging Microsoft’s expertise in security, manageability, and AI capabilities“.
Doubling down on security
We designed MDEP with a focus on security, reliability, and enhanced manageability. This year, we are increasing our investment in security to align with Microsoft’s Security Future Initiative (SFI). Collaborating with device manufacturers, we are launching a suite of security features in 2024 to protect device integrity and user data throughout the device’s lifecycle.
Application integrity: bridging cloud and device security
MDEP’s Device Attestation feature enables applications to verify the security state of the device before enabling any services. Leveraging Microsoft’s PKI and certificate chain, this framework establishes a baseline of trust. To address potential threats, we introduce Application Integrity, securely including package information (ID and signature) backed by hardware attestation, allowing cloud services to trust the device confidently.
MDEP provides a platform API for apps and services to leverage this integrity layer, with OEMs now able to utilize Microsoft Azure Attestation services to validate the secure state of the device.
Secure monitoring
MDEP addresses the need for continuous monitoring through a secure monitoring service. This agent constantly assesses the device’s security posture, detects threats, and reports incidents. In extreme cases, the service can trigger a lockdown mode to protect both device and data.
MDEP offers APIs that MDM agents can utilize, empowering IT administrators.
Silicon diversity and frictionless provisioning
MDEP now supports PKI provisioning and hardware attestation across a range of silicon vendors, including Qualcomm, MTK, Rockchip, and NXP. Our modular software assets allow seamless portability to any OEM’s custom TrustZone architecture, reducing integration friction for Microsoft PKI adoption. To expedite time-to-market, we are developing sample Trusted Applications (TAs) that enable OEMs to maintain robust security standards.
Dig into our documentation and learn more about MDEP: https://aka.ms/mdep
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Likert question on excel
I made a survey for school using forms. I like the graphs provided after the surveys are done and I’m trying to use those graphs in excel, to be exact the likert graph but I cant seem to find out how to do it on excel. When ever I try to do the stacked bar graph it doesn’t add up how it has it on forms. The title of the question is the only variable that comes on on everything like my x-axis, y-axis and key variables. Any way I can copy and paste the graphs already provided in forms onto excel? Or does anyone know the trick to use that specific formula in excel to do it?
I made a survey for school using forms. I like the graphs provided after the surveys are done and I’m trying to use those graphs in excel, to be exact the likert graph but I cant seem to find out how to do it on excel. When ever I try to do the stacked bar graph it doesn’t add up how it has it on forms. The title of the question is the only variable that comes on on everything like my x-axis, y-axis and key variables. Any way I can copy and paste the graphs already provided in forms onto excel? Or does anyone know the trick to use that specific formula in excel to do it? Read More
Time Off Slots Not Showing Properly In Outlook/Teams
Time off slots are not showing properly on Outlook… Maybe Teams as well.
It seems there is a maximum of 3 slots that appear at once while using the Outlook app (dark mode image below) when Teams is capable of up to 5 slots (light mode image below). Beyond 5, Teams only shows 4.
How do I get Bookings to increase the number of time off slots that are visible in Outlook and Teams? Or at least give me a (+2 more) so I can see that there is additional information? There is no settings section to change font size, number of slots, or additional information options.
Time off slots are not showing properly on Outlook… Maybe Teams as well.It seems there is a maximum of 3 slots that appear at once while using the Outlook app (dark mode image below) when Teams is capable of up to 5 slots (light mode image below). Beyond 5, Teams only shows 4. How do I get Bookings to increase the number of time off slots that are visible in Outlook and Teams? Or at least give me a (+2 more) so I can see that there is additional information? There is no settings section to change font size, number of slots, or additional information options. Read More
Capturing exact text from an image – possible?
If you craft the wording of the prompt just right, is there a way for Copilot to extract text from an image verbatim? (No reinterpretation; no missing words – just exactly as it reads?)
We’re having mixed success with this. Less complex images with minimal text seems to work pretty well. But once the text becomes lengthier and more complex, Copilot changes the wording.
Is that simply the nature of AI that it will always do that, or is there a way to word the prompt (maybe over the duration of a conversation) that would capture it exactly?
If you craft the wording of the prompt just right, is there a way for Copilot to extract text from an image verbatim? (No reinterpretation; no missing words – just exactly as it reads?)
We’re having mixed success with this. Less complex images with minimal text seems to work pretty well. But once the text becomes lengthier and more complex, Copilot changes the wording.
Is that simply the nature of AI that it will always do that, or is there a way to word the prompt (maybe over the duration of a conversation) that would capture it exactly? Read More
Search-AdminAuditLog – ObjectModified, Blank
Hey Guys,
I am trying to figure out when a users mailbox had OOF enabled. I am searching through the admin audit log and am seeing entries, however all results return with an ObjectModified that is blank.
Is this expected? Why would that value be blank? If a user set his/her own AutoReply that persons object modified value is display correctly.
set-searchadminauditlog -startdate “04/03/2024” -enddate “04/19/2024” -cmdlets set-mailboxautoreplyconfiguration
When searching for other cmdlets like set-mailbox, or new-mailbox etc those return a value for ObjectModified.
So i dont get it.
Hey Guys, I am trying to figure out when a users mailbox had OOF enabled. I am searching through the admin audit log and am seeing entries, however all results return with an ObjectModified that is blank. Is this expected? Why would that value be blank? If a user set his/her own AutoReply that persons object modified value is display correctly. set-searchadminauditlog -startdate “04/03/2024” -enddate “04/19/2024” -cmdlets set-mailboxautoreplyconfiguration When searching for other cmdlets like set-mailbox, or new-mailbox etc those return a value for ObjectModified. So i dont get it. Read More
Tab Privacy in Excel
Hi, hoping you might be able to help with this query as I cannot find an answer anywhere.
I need to have multiple tabs in the same spreadsheet for example, called Claire, Des, Laura, Malcolm, Martin, Jackie but I need to make each tab private to all users except to that persons own tab and the main admin who can access them all. Is this possible?
I know you can protect information within each tab from being altered but I need each tab not to been seen by specific users.
Thanks in advance,
Laura
Hi, hoping you might be able to help with this query as I cannot find an answer anywhere.I need to have multiple tabs in the same spreadsheet for example, called Claire, Des, Laura, Malcolm, Martin, Jackie but I need to make each tab private to all users except to that persons own tab and the main admin who can access them all. Is this possible?I know you can protect information within each tab from being altered but I need each tab not to been seen by specific users.Thanks in advance,Laura Read More
International Global trade framework and wifi dualtrade organisation made by Microsoft
Helllo, I was trying to complete my next one new project.
It is about new Organisations for trading business. And Global Cebter for trade and new partners with Google premium and Keta Trad org.
Aproved by FOIA and FINRA
Now I have letter of authority, but I need someone to send me back details about that and business contract
Helllo, I was trying to complete my next one new project.It is about new Organisations for trading business. And Global Cebter for trade and new partners with Google premium and Keta Trad org.Aproved by FOIA and FINRANow I have letter of authority, but I need someone to send me back details about that and business contract Read More
when i open Outlook 2016 Windows security window opens
I can insert my MS mail password as many as eight times before it goes away.
How can i fix this annoyance?
I can insert my MS mail password as many as eight times before it goes away.How can i fix this annoyance? Read More
Pricing Update: Token Based Billing for Fine Tuning Training 🎉
We’re updating our billing for fine tuning with the Azure OpenAI Service to bill based on the number of tokens in your training file – instead of the total elapsed training time.
Model
Previous Price
New Price
Babbage-002
$34 / hour
$0.0004/1K tokens
Davinci-002
$40 / hour
$0.006/1K tokens
GPT-35-Turbo (4k)
$45 / hour
$0.008/1K tokens
GPT-35-Turbo (16K)
$68 / hour
$0.008/1K tokens
GPT-4
$102 / hour
$0.080/1K tokens
Why make this change? If you’ve fine-tuned before – or thought about it and decided against it – you may have struggled to estimate the cost. While it’s easy to guess relative time (longer files, more epochs take longer) there’s was no easy way to estimate an exact time. Now, it’s simple: count the number of tokens in your file, multiply that by the per token price, and the number of epochs and you’ve got a decent estimate for the overall costs. Note: the raw token count for your file may be higher than the actual token counts you’ll be charged for, so this is an estimate, not the actual value you will be billed.
In practice, this change will be a substantial discount for some training runs. For example, I recently fine-tuned GPT-35-Turbo 0613 with a small (45k token) dataset over 3 epochs. With hourly billing, this job took 1.5 hours and cost me $67.50 — but with the switch to token based billing, it costs just $1.08! The price difference isn’t quite as big for large files: I trained GPT-35-Turbo 0125 with a large file (2.2M tokens) for one epoch, taking 1 hour and 15 minutes, at a price of $85 when billed hourly – or ~$18 when based on tokens.
Not sure how to count up the tokens in your file? Tools like OpenAI’s tiktoken library make it super simple to specify your model and write a short script to count tokens in your training data. Alternatively, many IDEs support plug-ins to provide token counts right in your status bar.
With these updates, experimenting with fine tuning should be easier than ever: you can easily estimate costs, and with lower and more transparent pricing you can train more models. More training runs allows you to assess the impact of different parameter combinations, data sets and more – and hopefully, create the best custom models for your use case.
With these updates, experimenting with fine tuning should be easier than ever: you can easily estimate costs, and with lower and more transparent pricing you can train more models. More training runs allows you to assess the impact of different parameter combinations, data sets and more – and hopefully, create the best custom models for your use case.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Upcoming June 2024 Microsoft 365 Champion Community Call
Join us for our next community call on June 25, 2024, where we’ll showcase how you can maximize your AI transformation with Copilot investments and enable your admins, adoption managers, and senior leaders to drive user enablement, satisfaction, and impact.
We will be starting the call at 5 minutes past the hour for both of our sessions (at 8:05 AM and 5:05 PM PT), and it will still end at the top of the hour (9:00 AM and 6:00 PM PT, respectively).
If you have not yet joined our Champion community, sign up here to get access to the calendar invites, program assets, and previous call recordings.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
