Tag Archives: microsoft
How to fix Quick-Books scheduled backup not working after update?
Hi everyone, I’ve been having trouble with Quick-Books scheduled backups. Despite setting everything up correctly, the backup isn’t executing at the scheduled times. I’ve tried reconfiguring the schedule and restarting Quick-Books, but no luck. Any advice or solutions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks!
Hi everyone, I’ve been having trouble with Quick-Books scheduled backups. Despite setting everything up correctly, the backup isn’t executing at the scheduled times. I’ve tried reconfiguring the schedule and restarting Quick-Books, but no luck. Any advice or solutions would be greatly appreciated! Thanks! Read More
How to Fix Quick-Books Web Connector Error QBWC1085 after update?
I’m encountering Quick-Books Web Connector Error QBWC1085 every time I try to sync my data. The error message states that the Web Connector failed to initialize. I’ve tried restarting my computer and reinstalling the Web Connector, but the problem persists. Can anyone help?
I’m encountering Quick-Books Web Connector Error QBWC1085 every time I try to sync my data. The error message states that the Web Connector failed to initialize. I’ve tried restarting my computer and reinstalling the Web Connector, but the problem persists. Can anyone help? Read More
The Curiously Unfinished Outlook Settings API
The Outlook settings API is a unfinished Graph API that can read and update some but not all mailbox settings. It’s a pity that the API is incomplete because it would be nice to have a comprehensive API that supported every mailbox setting, including some of the more recently introduced tweaks seen in OWA. The current state of the Outlook settings API is usable but not for much, but at least it can update mailbox auto-reply settings.
https://office365itpros.com/2024/06/26/outlook-settings-api/
The Outlook settings API is a unfinished Graph API that can read and update some but not all mailbox settings. It’s a pity that the API is incomplete because it would be nice to have a comprehensive API that supported every mailbox setting, including some of the more recently introduced tweaks seen in OWA. The current state of the Outlook settings API is usable but not for much, but at least it can update mailbox auto-reply settings.
https://office365itpros.com/2024/06/26/outlook-settings-api/ Read More
How to Resolve Quick-Books Web Connector has stopped working after update?
Hello,
I’m having trouble with the Quick-Books Web Connector—it has suddenly stopped working. I can’t sync my third-party applications, and it’s disrupting my workflow. Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions on how to fix it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Hello,I’m having trouble with the Quick-Books Web Connector—it has suddenly stopped working. I can’t sync my third-party applications, and it’s disrupting my workflow. Has anyone else experienced this? Any suggestions on how to fix it would be greatly appreciated!Thanks, Read More
Using Copilot for Quality Assessment
Hi,
I have an end user that trying to use Copilot for M365 to perform a regular and detailed assessment of incoming policy documents against a set of company guidelines and framework for what makes for a quality written policy document.
I have tried to use a clever combination of prompts in both Word and Chat, linking to both the framework document and document for assessment and of course beginning by asking Copilot to digest the guidelines then provide a comprehensive report on it’s findings. However every attempt just produces inconsistent and inadequate results and I don’t know if it’s the way I’m doing it or if Copilot is just not up to the challenge.
Has anyone got any experience trying the same and if so, what method worked for you?
Hi,I have an end user that trying to use Copilot for M365 to perform a regular and detailed assessment of incoming policy documents against a set of company guidelines and framework for what makes for a quality written policy document.I have tried to use a clever combination of prompts in both Word and Chat, linking to both the framework document and document for assessment and of course beginning by asking Copilot to digest the guidelines then provide a comprehensive report on it’s findings. However every attempt just produces inconsistent and inadequate results and I don’t know if it’s the way I’m doing it or if Copilot is just not up to the challenge.Has anyone got any experience trying the same and if so, what method worked for you? Read More
Azure VMs migration from one tenant to another
Hi Community,
I have a task to move/migrate Azure VMs from subscription on one Azure tenant to subscription on another Azure tenant. Moving the subscription is not an option. I think I can treat the VMs as “Physical or other” and use Azure Migrate with an appliance. Is there any another way? Can I treat is as Hyper-V to Azure Migration? Will I need an appliance server for discovery and replication?
Regards
Venelin
Hi Community,I have a task to move/migrate Azure VMs from subscription on one Azure tenant to subscription on another Azure tenant. Moving the subscription is not an option. I think I can treat the VMs as “Physical or other” and use Azure Migrate with an appliance. Is there any another way? Can I treat is as Hyper-V to Azure Migration? Will I need an appliance server for discovery and replication? RegardsVenelin Read More
Can’t copy and paste data from Excel into SharePoint
Hi,
I am trying to copy and paste data from Excel into SharePoint. I used to just click edit in grid view and it would say add new item at the bottom so I could just copy and paste the information in. SharePoint seems to have updated and now when I click edit in grid view this is not happening. If I try and scroll to the bottom of the list, it just loads more data and there are too many items to scroll to the bottom so I can’t add any new items. It only seems to be happening with some of the lists, others are working how they used to. Does anyone know why this might be happening and how I can resolve it?
Thanks,
Lucy
Hi, I am trying to copy and paste data from Excel into SharePoint. I used to just click edit in grid view and it would say add new item at the bottom so I could just copy and paste the information in. SharePoint seems to have updated and now when I click edit in grid view this is not happening. If I try and scroll to the bottom of the list, it just loads more data and there are too many items to scroll to the bottom so I can’t add any new items. It only seems to be happening with some of the lists, others are working how they used to. Does anyone know why this might be happening and how I can resolve it? Thanks,Lucy Read More
What is best Viewer and Import Enhancements for Microsoft Photos on Windows 11?
I’m looking for the best viewer and import enhancements for Microsoft Photos on Windows 11. I’ve been using the default viewer in Microsoft Photos, but I’m not satisfied with its performance and features. I’d like to find a better way to view and manage my photos, especially when it comes to importing new ones from my camera. I’d like to know what are the most popular and highly-rated viewers that can handle importing and organizing my photos efficiently, as well as provide additional features such as editing, tagging, and sharing options.
I’m looking for the best viewer and import enhancements for Microsoft Photos on Windows 11. I’ve been using the default viewer in Microsoft Photos, but I’m not satisfied with its performance and features. I’d like to find a better way to view and manage my photos, especially when it comes to importing new ones from my camera. I’d like to know what are the most popular and highly-rated viewers that can handle importing and organizing my photos efficiently, as well as provide additional features such as editing, tagging, and sharing options. Read More
How do I remove Microsoft Edge View Runtime on computer?
I’m going to remove Microsoft Edge View Runtime from my Windows 11 computer. It’s taking up valuable space in my Taskbar and I’d like to get rid of it. I’ve tried right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Close” or “Unpin from taskbar”, but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ve also checked the Taskbar settings and removed other icons without issue, but this one stubbornly remains. Does anyone know a way to permanently remove Microsoft Edge View Runtime from my Taskbar?
I’m going to remove Microsoft Edge View Runtime from my Windows 11 computer. It’s taking up valuable space in my Taskbar and I’d like to get rid of it. I’ve tried right-clicking on the icon and selecting “Close” or “Unpin from taskbar”, but it doesn’t seem to work. I’ve also checked the Taskbar settings and removed other icons without issue, but this one stubbornly remains. Does anyone know a way to permanently remove Microsoft Edge View Runtime from my Taskbar? Read More
Unable to Login to BOT
Iam trying to login to the bot that I have created. When I click on Login It goes to next page and gives an OTP
Again when I paste the otp in chat window it throws the same issue saying to Sign In again. Can any one help on this.
Also we are putting the correct client secret ID.
Iam trying to login to the bot that I have created. When I click on Login It goes to next page and gives an OTP Again when I paste the otp in chat window it throws the same issue saying to Sign In again. Can any one help on this. Also we are putting the correct client secret ID. Read More
New Outlook
Hello, I am being forced to use new outlook, which to me is a pain. I have tried everything I can find to stop the messages poping up as a new screen, only to be cancelled to read the message on the main screen. As an older gen user I hope I have described correctly and ask for any help to rid this problem
Hello, I am being forced to use new outlook, which to me is a pain. I have tried everything I can find to stop the messages poping up as a new screen, only to be cancelled to read the message on the main screen. As an older gen user I hope I have described correctly and ask for any help to rid this problem Read More
OneDrive Bug – Sync in endless loop
Hi,
I’ve encountered a strange issue with OneDrive recently.
Our company uses SharePoint as main cloud storage for all kinds of data (images, files, …). We have around 4 TB of data in total.
Users synchronize all folders they need with OneDrive and it works pretty good, even with bigger folders that have up to 1 TB of data.
Now, a strange sync issue appeared out of nowhere:
When starting to sync a folder, OneDrive gets stuck at “[NUMBER] changes are being processed” – this number is ever increasing, it even went up to 2 MILLION changes even if the folder that was selected only had a handfull of files in it.
This is what it looks like:
What I’ve tried to fix this:
Reset OneDriveLog out of OneDriveReinstall OneDriveStop sync for all foldersDeactivate OneDrive backup
This issue happend on multiple devices (Windows 10 and 11), for different users, different folders and storage locations on SharePoint.
Has anyone noticed similar issues recently? I couldn’t find anything online. MS Support told me to just wipe the device and reinstall Windows.
What do you think? I’d really appreciate any help, comments or ideas!
Hi,I’ve encountered a strange issue with OneDrive recently.Our company uses SharePoint as main cloud storage for all kinds of data (images, files, …). We have around 4 TB of data in total.Users synchronize all folders they need with OneDrive and it works pretty good, even with bigger folders that have up to 1 TB of data. Now, a strange sync issue appeared out of nowhere:When starting to sync a folder, OneDrive gets stuck at “[NUMBER] changes are being processed” – this number is ever increasing, it even went up to 2 MILLION changes even if the folder that was selected only had a handfull of files in it. This is what it looks like: What I’ve tried to fix this: Reset OneDriveLog out of OneDriveReinstall OneDriveStop sync for all foldersDeactivate OneDrive backup This issue happend on multiple devices (Windows 10 and 11), for different users, different folders and storage locations on SharePoint. Has anyone noticed similar issues recently? I couldn’t find anything online. MS Support told me to just wipe the device and reinstall Windows.What do you think? I’d really appreciate any help, comments or ideas! Read More
Bug in MS Word
Whenever I type CNA in MS word, it automtaically turns in CAN & goes unnoticed.
Please rectify the bug as it has caused untentional mistakes in the critical documents.
Whenever I type CNA in MS word, it automtaically turns in CAN & goes unnoticed. Please rectify the bug as it has caused untentional mistakes in the critical documents. Read More
Are the cloud PC’s able to receive incoming ping (ICMP) when using ANC?
From my observations, traffic passes through the firewall from an on-premises server but fails to reach the cloud PCs. All core network ICMP rules are enabled both in the local firewall on the cloud PCs and in our Network Security Group (NSG) in Azure.
I am currently using an Enterprise license and have set up several cloud PCs using Azure Network Connection. I’ve read on various forums that others have experienced issues with outgoing pings from cloud PCs and noted that Windows 365 does not support this functionality. However, it remains unclear whether this limitation applies specifically to Microsoft Hosted Network or if it is a general restriction. From my observations, traffic passes through the firewall from an on-premises server but fails to reach the cloud PCs. All core network ICMP rules are enabled both in the local firewall on the cloud PCs and in our Network Security Group (NSG) in Azure. Read More
Duke Kunshan & Microsoft: Boosting AI Startups through Ecosystem Engagement
To enhance Microsoft technology integration within overseas educational institutions in China, partnering with Duke Kunshan University was a pivotal starting point. This initiative is a direct response to the current trends and challenges in domestic technology outreach in the academic sector. The strategic approach aims to position Microsoft technologies as integral to global educational frameworks, aligning with our overarching business strategy of expanding our global footprint. Many overseas universities have branches in China, where we engage with faculty and career departments to ensure the promotion of the Microsoft Student Ambassador and the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub and to foster interest and capabilities in Generative AI across universities.
In March 2024, we hosted a tutorial event and successfully engaged 52 international students from the fields of computer science, data science, and electrical engineering at Duke Kunshan University in Microsoft Research Center Asia (MSRA) Shanghai. During this 1st phase, the collaboration of Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) with experience in building startups and women from the Student Ambassador program, shared their experiences with startups using Microsoft AI technology in the Microsoft for Startups Founders Hub.
Duke KunShang Students are listening
Yuyue Liu, a Student Ambassador described her experience being part of this collaboration. “Participating as a speaker in this event was an enriching experience. I gained valuable insights into structured communication and diverse perspectives on AI development. It was an honor to receive recognition from both the MVP and Duke students, who appreciated my ideas and amazed how I managed time. I emphasized the importance of sharing learning journeys like Student Ambassador and MVP, encouraging individual brainstorming, and promoting teamwork.”
Bin Dong, a Microsoft MVP, shared his experience with the community, reflecting on the impact of this partnership towards our future leaders. Bin says, “participating in this event as an MVP, startup owner and member of the Founders Hub, was incredibly rewarding and insightful. Sharing my career and startup journey with university students for the first time, I was impressed by their knowledge and interest in AI. Duke University provides an excellent environment, bridging academic theories with practical industry applications. Key learnings included the importance of engaging with a broader audience beyond the developer community based on the overwhelmingly positive feedback from students. Inspiring students and potentially influencing their career paths was a new and fulfilling experience. As a new Microsoft MVP, receiving acknowledgment from senior members was encouraging and motivating me to share more within the community. I plan to continue empowering students by participating in more sessions and leveraging platforms like Student Ambassadors.
Building on the success of the phase one event as above, a GitHub Copilot Empower Data Science workshop was held at Duke Kunshan University Campus on April 25 with Microsoft Cloud Advocate, Kinfey Lo. This workshop attracted 35 students who were eager to learn the capabilities of GitHub Copilot and to develop applications using this tool.
Students who attended the workshop found it an enlightening experience as it opened their eyes to the possibilities of AI in coding. One student commented saying it was an opportunity to “gain insights into the real-world applications of AI and cloud technologies, which was both inspiring and motivating.” Another student said that they were impressed by the depth of resources available through the Student Ambassador program, which proved to be an exciting opportunity to get more involved with Microsoft technologies.
Hackathon in Duke with Cloud Advocate Kinfey Lo
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Build specialized AI assistants with RAG
The term retrieval augmented generation, or RAG for short, has emerged as a hot topic in AI discussions. Let’s dive into what RAG is and learn how you can leverage it with just a few lines of code or clicks to effortlessly create powerful AI apps.
RAG uses information from additional sources to enhance the output of a large language model (LLM). If you’ve used LLMs like ChatGPT or Microsoft Copilot, you’ve probably gotten your fair share of hallucinations, responses that are wrong, often to the point of silliness. In fact, Microsoft Copilot comes with a warning: “Copilot uses AI. Check for mistakes.” RAG grounds the responses in authoritative external knowledge making them more accurate and useful.
Understanding RAG
At its core, RAG is a straightforward concept. The technique involves retrieving relevant information from additional data sources and incorporating it into the prompt alongside your query. RAG grounds your model resulting in more useful responses. A business might use its product catalog, FAQ, or shipping policy as additional information for a customer service assistant. Here’s an example of fictional company Fuzzy Friends of Endor. A customer bought one too many Ewogs – but what’s the return policy? By augmenting Fuzzy Friends’ customer support assistant with their FAQs, it gives the correct answer.
Expanding the Horizons of RAG
RAG works with small data sources like the above FAQ, but it can handle large documents just as well. It can work with PDFs, text documents, images, databases and even web APIs. Fuzzy Friends could ground their assistant with real time tracking information by giving it access to the USPS tracking API.
RAG in Practice
In Microsoft Copilot, you can upload documents alongside your prompt, sort of building an instant RAG. It’s what I used for the examples above. If you’re building AI apps with Azure OpenAI, follow the prompts in Azure OpenAI Studio to use RAG. Click “Bring your own data” in the Azure OpenAI Studio and select your choice in the drop-down menu.
To use this data source for RAG in your app, you need to add a few lines of code. You can find the full Python code for Semantic Kernel, an AI Orchestration SDK, on my GitHub.
from semantic_kernel.connectors.memory.azure_cognitive_search.azure_ai_search_settings import AzureAISearchSettings
azure_ai_search_settings = AzureAISearchSettings(
endpoint=”…”,
index_name=”…”,
api_key=”…”)
az_source = AzureAISearchDataSource.from_azure_ai_search_settings(azure_ai_search_settings=azure_ai_search_settings)
extra = ExtraBody(data_sources=[az_source])
Simply adding a SearchDataSource to the code gives my app almost magical powers, it now knows information specific to its job like the company’s FAQs – turning it into a helpful customer support assistant.
main $ python fuzzy_friends.py
Welcome to Fuzzy Friends customer support!
How may I help you?
User:> Can I return my Ewog?
Fuzzy Friends customer service:> Yes, you can return your Ewog. Fuzzy Friends of Endor offers a
full refund or exchange if you are not satisfied within the first 30 days of adoption [doc1].
Gone are the days when creating a specialized AI assistant required the expertise of highly trained professionals. Today, with the advent of modern tools, anyone can build one with just a few clicks or lines of code. This democratization of technology is set to expand the horizons of AI’s capabilities and revolutionize our relationship with technology. I’m thrilled about the potential changes this shift will bring to our everyday lives. Please share how you use RAG!
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Azure API Center: Centralizing API Management for Enhanced Discovery and Governance
Have you ever thought about having a single place to manage all your APIs? It could make it easier to find and control your services. Azure API Center is a solution that will help you do this. It offers a single platform for creating, publishing, managing, and monitoring APIs. In this article, we will learn more about this service, its features, benefits, and how it can help you.
New Free Training Course on Microsoft Learn: Introduction to Azure API Center!
Before we get started, we just had to share some great news! There’s a new free training course on Microsoft Learn about the Azure API Center. It’s a great way to get started with this service.
Once you’ve finished the course, you will get a certificate of completion you can share on social media and even on your resume or LinkedIn profile. Check it out!
What is Azure API Center?
The Azure API Center lets organizations develop and maintain a structured and organized inventory of their APIs, no matter what type, lifecycle stage or deployment location. This centralized hub helps stakeholders – like API Producers, API Consumers, and API Platform Engineers – discover, reuse, and govern APIs more efficiently. By providing version details, API definition files, and common metadata, Azure API Center ensures that APIs are easily accessible and manageable.
What are the main advantages of this service? Let’s dive in and take a look at a few of them.
Azure API Center Benefits
Create and Maintain an Organizational API Inventory: Azure API Center makes it easy to create a complete inventory of all the APIs in an organization. Plus, you can get API Producers, API Consumers, and API Platform Engineers working together to make APIs better, safer, and more productive for everyone involved, especially developers.
Organization API Governance: Azure API Center lets you see all the APIs your company is using, and how they are being used. It’s also worth mentioning that you can define custom metadata. This helps ensure the API definitions align with the company’s standards.
Easy API Discovery: This service also lets you promote the reuse of APIs to help developers work more efficiently and helps API Producers, API Consumers, and API Platform Engineers find APIs using embedded and customized metadata.
Accelerate API Consumption: And last but not least, time is money. With Azure API Center, you can help API Producers, API Consumers, and API Platform Engineers get their work done faster and more securely by making sure they are using APIs in line with your company’s standards.
What are its main capabilities? Let’s find out more.
Azure API Center Main Capabilities
Azure API Center also offers a bunch of handy features that make managing APIs a lot easier, like:
API Inventory Management: This lets you register all the organization’s APIs in one place.
Real API Representation: Add real information about each API, including OpenAPI versions and definitions. You can also list the different places your APIs are used and link them to the environments they are running in.
API Governance: Organize and filter APIs using embedded and customized metadata. Configure linting and analysis to ensure API definition quality.
API Discovery and Reuse: Use the Azure Portal, the API Center Portal, and Visual Studio Code integrated development tools like the Azure API Center Extension. This extension lets you create, discover, explore, and consume APIs directly from Visual Studio Code.
Region Availability and Prices
You can get the Azure API Center in several Azure regions, including:
Australia East
Central India
East US
UK South
West Europe
And also, Azure API Center is offered in Free and Standard plans.
There are many other interesting aspects of Azure API Center that you can learn more about. We’ll leave you with a video by Julia Kasper – Program API Platform Engineers at Microsoft made during Microsoft Build 2024 talking more about the service.
Next Steps
Azure API Center is a powerful tool for centralizing and managing APIs within an organization. With all its great features and future improvements, it’s going to make it easier to manage APIs, give developers a better experience, and help you keep on top of things.
So, we encourage you to check out the Azure API Center. It can help your company manage APIs more easily.
Additional Resources
If you want to learn more about Azure API Center, check out the official Azure documentation and other resources below:
Azure API Center Official Documentation
Tutorial: Define custom metadata
Tutorial: Register APIs in your API inventory
Tutorial: Add environments and deployments for APIs
Samples, labs, and templates for Azure API Center
Here are some blogs published by Microsoft Cloud Advocates and Product Managers about Azure API Center:
Azure API Center: The First Look by Justin Yoo
Azure API Center: Your Comprehensive API Inventory and Governance Solution by Julia Kasper
Universal API Center – a truly comprehensive API catalog that warmly welcomes all your APIs! by Alexandre Vieira
Examples and References
The APIC (Azure API Center) Portal, as shown in the image below, uses the following technologies:
.NET SDK 8.0
Node.js v.18x
API Center extension
Azure Developer CLI
Azure CLI
Link to the GitHub repository with examples of using Azure API Center with .NET and Javascript: API Center Reference
If you like to learn through videos, we recommend this video series on Azure API Center:
We hope you enjoyed this article and found it useful. If you have any questions or comments, feel free to share them with us.
And, until the next article.
Microsoft Tech Community – Latest Blogs –Read More
Graph API with console app
Want to write console application in vsc to search the documents which are modified in last1 day.
Want to write console application in vsc to search the documents which are modified in last1 day. Read More
Sequential subtraction using criteria and a starting amount
Hi,
I’m having trouble creating a formula for this. I need it to sequentially subtract if equal to the selected date and if not then leave blank regardless if any value is entered. Need this to output as a horizontal spilled range and not use volatile functions (as my workbook is already fairly big)
Ex: Sum only if equal to value in today cell using the starting value in amount cell
today2024-01-27 amount500 Dates2024-01-272024-01-272024-02-272024-03-252024-04-14values1000.00800.00 750.00 output as spilled range-500-800
My thanks in advance.
Hi, I’m having trouble creating a formula for this. I need it to sequentially subtract if equal to the selected date and if not then leave blank regardless if any value is entered. Need this to output as a horizontal spilled range and not use volatile functions (as my workbook is already fairly big) Ex: Sum only if equal to value in today cell using the starting value in amount celltoday2024-01-27 amount500 Dates2024-01-272024-01-272024-02-272024-03-252024-04-14values1000.00800.00 750.00 output as spilled range-500-800 My thanks in advance. Read More