• Note:  If you are communicating with a client and you see the word ‘(Guest)’ next to their name, it means that they must sign into your organization’s tenant in order to receive your messages. 

• If you see ‘(External)’ or nothing next to their name, it means they can communicate with you from their own tenant.

• There are multiple ways to chat, but chat capability will be limited by the settings of the client tenant.  Use options 1-3 if your IT department is unable to update the client’s settings.  

• Option 4 is the best interface for you and your client but will require them to update their settings.

Short term client – Client Tenant Teams is locked down (cannot update Teams settings or highly restrictive):

Option 1 – Start and pin a group chat 

The benefit of this option is that both users will be able to view the chat in their own tenant. However, it doesn’t allow for threaded conversations.

On the chat page in teams, click on the pencil edit icon to start a new chat and enter the client’s email address. 

If their settings allow for communication, Teams will find the user and display ‘(External)’ next to their name so you can start a chat which allows both of you to stay within your own tenant. 

If you need to add multiple team members you can include members from other organizations. Teams will notify everyone in the group when you send a chat depending on their settings.  Pin the chat by clicking on the 3 dots and selecting ‘Pin’.

Option 2 – Invite your client to a Team in your Tenant

This requires your organization’s tenant to allow external users. The benefit of this option is that you can share project documents and other content as needed and have threaded conversations in Microsoft 365. But users will be required to switch from their own tenant to yours, which is an inconvenience. This can be accomplished by switching tenants with the drop-down next to your name in the Teams interface, or by opening Teams in a private browser session.  Make sure you have permissions accounted for before taking this step to ensure that clients only have access to content you want them to have access to.

Create a Team by clicking on the left icon from the project’s SharePoint site and invite them as a guest to your tenant.

Once your team is created, click on the ‘…’ next to the team name, select ‘Add Member’, and type in the client’s email address.

Option 3 – Be invited as a guest to their tenant’s Team

This option is simplest for clients but requires you to sign into their tenant. You will be required to switch between tenants for meetings or communication with other clients. 

When entering a Teams meeting while using the client tenant on your desktop, the app will treat you as an external user and client permission will be required to enter meeting rooms. The client’s settings will need to allow for this, but once admitted, you will have a shared collaboration space. 

Tip: Use Teams in an incognito browser to simultaneously keep both tenants open without having to switch back and forth for Teams Meetings. 

Long term client, can update Teams setting to allow for collaboration.

Option 4 – Create a Shared Channel 

This option is the best for all parties, as you can each work in your own tenant. It gives you access to threaded conversations, ​shared documents, and content without having to worry about permissions. This method only provides access to content in one specific channel and creates a separate space for documents, but it requires the client’s IT to update their tenant to allow collaboration with your domain. 

Step 3 – Create the Teams team ​as shown in Option 2 above.

Step 4 – Create a new channel in the Team and use the shared channel option.  Add the email addresses of your clients once step 1 has been completed (this will take a few hours to take effect).  If the settings are not correct, you will not be allowed to invite them.

 Whether it’s real-time messaging, virtual meetings, file sharing, or integrated project management, Microsoft Teams empowers you to collaborate seamlessly with those outside of your organization. 

DMC is a Microsoft Solutions Partner. Learn more about our Microsoft Teams expertise and contact us for your next project.

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Templates

Both tools have templates available out of the box to get you started.

SharePoint:

Monday:

You can choose to work from a template or start with a blank list with either tool. Let’s go over some basic features that you might be looking for:

Adding/Modifying a Column

You can easily add a column directly from either user interface. Previous iterations of SharePoint required configuration knowledge to set up a SharePoint list. With the modern list, a lot of settings are easily found on the user interface. You can also move around columns and change the size of them in both tools easily.

SharePoint:

Monday:

Adding Comments

Both tools allow you to easily thread comments regarding a specific item and tag users; however, in SharePoint Lists, since your users are already present in the Office 365 suite, they will be more likely to have the ability to access your list. The SharePoint user experience did notify us that Natalie did not have access and allowed me to grant it to her.

SharePoint:

Monday:

Version History

This is used if you want the ability to see how the item has changed, who changed it, and when you would utilize the version history.

SharePoint:

Monday:

Many other features have parity between the two:

• Custom permissions levels and access for internal and external users per board
• No code is required for automations (send emails on triggers, update items)
• No code forms for inputting data
• Data visualization within a click of a button
• Creating views with filters, sorting, and summing
• Bulk or Batching Editing
• Attachments

When you complete your board, you will have a professional-looking board that you can use for a variety of purposes.

SharePoint:

Monday:

So, Why Choose SharePoint?

SharePoint is a great software tool to use for integration with other Microsoft platforms. You are already in Office 365, so you can easily integrate your data, documents, and users right into the boards without additional configuration. For example, Microsoft Teams integrates with Microsoft Lists seamlessly so you can keep the conversation and the items in the same user interface.

You can hover over an individual and automatically pull in their photo, contact information, title, and other important information right from Active Directory without advanced configuration since we are in the Office 365 suite.

Depending on how many columns you have, you might need to display them in a way that is more digestible to your users.  For example, here is an example of an onboarding process that is used to see where a new client is within the stages using advanced formatting.

Once you need SharePoint for advanced configurations that are beyond the scope of what an individual can do, DMC can help!

Customization possibilities are endless in SharePoint. Using either advanced configuration or complete custom application development, with SharePoint, anything is possible. DMC is a leading expert in SharePoint and can help with these advanced needs like creating advanced custom forms, implementing complex workflow management, and complicated data analytics.

One of the most overwhelming differences between SharePoint and Monday is the price. Following the trial period, the price of Monday significantly increases as they use a tiered, per-user pricing method. This can become especially expensive for larger companies. Monday may start free, but it does not stay free if you want to use the platform for your business.

Regardless of how you are using either tool, you want to keep permissions in mind and think about your governance. To prevent people from editing your lists or making other changes, you should create a plan for how you are going to maintain your content moving forward.

Microsoft is always working to update the platform and keep it modern, and the added feature in Modern SharePoint Lists has brought it to the next level.

As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, we pride ourselves in our SharePoint expertise and want to help you organize your company’s information in the best way possible.

Learn more about DMC’s SharePoint expertise and contact us today for your next project.

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Microsoft Teams Business Voice  

Microsoft Teams Business Voice is a single per user/per month license that allows Microsoft 365 customers with less than 300 users to completely replace their current VoIP phone system with one that is integrated directly into Microsoft Teams.

Microsoft 365 Business Voice has all the features of a traditional telephony system: a dedicated phone number for each user, toll free numbers, caller ID, call menus, voicemail, shared phone lines, and emergency calling. All of these features can be utilized from specific office phones, an app on your cell, meeting room devices, or directly from your desktop Teams app.

Each licensed user will receive 3,000 domestic minutes per month that are pooled together. International calling minutes can be added with an additional license.

One feature that separates Microsoft 365 Teams Voice from a traditional telephony system is the inclusion of audio-conferencing capabilities. Users will be able to schedule conference call with both licensed users and non-Teams users. 

Pricing and Implementation

Microsoft 365 Business Voice is normally $20 a user a month for supported Microsoft 365 users, but Microsoft is currently offering the license for $15 a user a month for 12 months. International calling is a $12 a user a month add on.

Transferring from a traditional VoIP system to Microsoft Teams is a fairly simple process, but DMC's Digital Workplace Solutions teams can assist our clients with these migrations with minimal effort. 
 
If you are interested in hearing more about Microsoft 365 Teams Voice and how DMC can help implement it for your team, please feel free to reach out to us at sales@dmcinfo.com. 

Learn more about DMC's Microsoft Teams solutions.
 

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Our webinar covers Microsoft 365 tools readily available to you:

• Microsoft 365 Overview
  • SharePoint (view at 4:29)
  • Power BI (11:54)
  • Power Automate (21:22)
  • Power Apps (27:37)
  • Additional M365 Apps: Stream, Planner, OneDrive, Forms (32:25)
  • Teams (38:38)
• M365 Licensing (55:43)

Watch the webinar and learn how to implement the Microsoft 365 tools that can enhance your digital workplace environment!

Learn more about DMC’s partnership with Microsoft. 

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Maximize Benefits from Your Microsoft 365 Tools

Most organizations already own a component of Microsoft 365, yet many people aren’t aware of all the tools available as part of their subscription. Our Microsoft Gold-certified experts will explain how you can take full advantage of the Microsoft 365 tools that you already own. We’ll review the easy-to-implement tools that can enhance your digital workplace environment. Join this webinar and learn how to maximize the benefits from the Microsoft 365 tools readily available to you. 

Agenda

• Microsoft 365 Overview
  • SharePoint
  • Power BI
  • Power Automate
  • Power Apps
  • Additional M365 Apps: Stream, Planner, OneDrive, Forms
  • Teams 
• M365 Licensing 
• Q & A 

DMC and Microsoft

For over a decade, DMC has achieved Microsoft Gold Certified Partner status which is the highest level of competence and expertise with Microsoft technologies. We’ve earned special recognition for success in delivering Information Worker Solutions for SharePoint, Custom Development Solutions, Business Intelligence, and Data Management Solutions.

Learn more about DMC’s partnership with Microsoft. 

The post Webinar: Maximize Benefits from Your Microsoft 365 Tools appeared first on DMC, Inc..

For many organizations, the need to adapt quickly during the pandemic prevented them from taking a thoughtful approach to introducing users to these new applications. We are now seeing many clients reach out to DMC for assistance with re-thinking and trying to optimize their Office 365 platform.  As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, DMC is ready to help your team redesign and apply best practices to your Office 365 solutions. To encourage adoption and facilitate the transition, DMC also provides training for many of the Office 365 applications.

Below you will find descriptions of the apps and tools that are included with most Microsoft Office 365 Licenses:

SharePoint

Organizations can use SharePoint to create a secure intranet to store, organize, share, and collaborate on files and other information. Files and other content saved to SharePoint is securely stored with a version history that captures each edit made to the content. You can even revert to a previous version of a file or quickly recover a file that you accidentally deleted. From asset lists to standard operating procedures, SharePoint stores information and then makes searching for something as simple as typing key phrases into its search bar. In addition to collaboration capabilities, SharePoint also makes it easy to create and update intranet sites for top-down messaging. This is great for keeping your organization updated on internal news.

OneDrive

OneDrive is the Office 365 tool that allows users to securely store files in the Microsoft cloud and provides access to these files from multiple devices (e.g. PC, tablet, mobile phone, etc.). Like Dropbox, OneDrive is a place to store your personal work files that probably won’t need to be accessed by a larger group of people (though OneDrive does provide the ability to share files with others inside and outside your organization).  This is in contrast to SharePoint which is designed for team, department, and companywide storage and sharing (and potentially with external users as well). Think of OneDrive as your personal file storage tool that can be accessed from multiple devices.

Teams

Organizations can keep their conversations going with Teams. Through Microsoft Teams, you can take a text-based chat with other individuals or a group of people and seamlessly transition the conversation to a virtual meeting with the click of a button. The integration with other tools like SharePoint, Planner, Power Automate, and Calendar makes Teams a top choice if you were to select only one Microsoft 365 application to get started with. Files stored in Teams actually use SharePoint features to make collaborating on a shared document easy for anyone in the group. A team can set up their workspace with integrated apps to show Power BI dashboards, SharePoint lists, OneNote notebooks, and much more. Teams facilitates communication both internally and externally, making it the ideal communication hub.

OneNote

This free-form note-taking platform allows for a team to easily capture information, make drawings, and save screenshots or audio commentary in a collaborative notebook. These notebooks can then be linked to a project site, Teams group, recurring meeting, or stand alone within a personal OneDrive.

Planner

Using the Kanban method to manage tasks, Microsoft Planner allows users to arrange tasks in a block formation. These boards use checklists, labels, and more to make the board content-rich and user-friendly with drag and drop options for collaboration.

Power BI

Power BI visualizes data analytics with dashboards. It can link data with over 200 other connectors like CRM, Salesforce, SQL databases, ERP, marketing analytics, and SharePoint to display visual representations of the data.

Power Automate

An organization can create automated processes for business workflows using Power Automate. These workflows can vary from onboarding workflows, time off approvals, document approvals, and creating storage locations in a structured way.

Power Apps

This tool allows a user to create no-code/low-code applications in minutes. It connects to hundreds of data sources and has step-by-step tours to teach users how to make simple apps for an organization’s needs, such as creating digital forms to capture data from others. Power Apps data is stored securely and requires authentication to access its forms and data.  Power Apps forms are often paired with Power Automate workflows to streamline business processes.

Forms

To very quickly and easily collect survey data from participants internally or outside of the organization, Forms allows either authenticated or unauthenticated users to respond to requests for information.  The responses can be captured either anonymously or not. Forms allows the captured data to be viewed in a variety of ways, including Excel file format, web form, or visually represented in charts. Like Power Apps, Forms can be supplemented with Power Automate workflows.

With Microsoft’s intuitive Office 365 platform, users can easily adopt its applications and tools into their daily work routine. As use of these tools grows within an organization, the more important it is to design and plan the processes and best practices that govern use of this powerful platform. Without understanding how all of these applications and tools fit together within the Office 365 platform, an organization is likely to face problems with efficacy, user adoption, governance, security, and solution redundancies.

How Can DMC Help?

DMC can help customers at all levels of the Office 365 experience. If your company is just starting to use Office 365, DMC can construct a future-proof architecture to set up your department and/or your entire organization for success. Or, if you have been using Office 365 and are learning that something has not been designed properly or not optimally structured, we are well-versed in finding and resolving these types of issues.

At DMC, we start with a Discovery phase. During this phase, we work with the client to learn how the company currently uses or wants to use each of the tools. Once we learn about the organization’s needs and methods of use, we create a tailored approach to address the challenges the client is facing. Our team of subject matter experts will architect a solution for the future that can grow as your organization’s adoption of Office 365 grows.

When we’ve finished helping to optimize the organization’s Office 365 platform, we can provide various trainings to help your users adopt best practices when using these tools. Keep an eye out for some of our webinars in the future!

Learn more about DMC’s Microsoft 365 Solutions and contact us to start your next project. 

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DMC has been in “work from home preferred” mode since March of 2020, and similarly to Microsoft, we want to return to the energy and comradery of our offices across the US. We have learned so much over the last year and have found ways to effectively work with our team members remotely while keeping productivity and client satisfaction high. A key component of our success in the last 14 months has been our heavy usage of Microsoft’s cloud-based tools and applications.

An IT Perspective on Hybrid Workplace Solutions

I wanted to demonstrate a real-world example of how a Microsoft Solutions Partner is planning for a hybrid future with the help of Microsoft technology. So, I sat down with our IT Manager, Tim Johnson, and we discussed DMC’s challenges in 2020 and our plans for 2021 and beyond.

Jimmy Brady: Tim, what are your responsibilities as the IT Manager at DMC?
Tim Johnson: Internally, I manage the IT infrastructure for all eight DMC offices, both on-premise and in the cloud. As a Microsoft Solutions Partner, we are a Microsoft shop when it comes to our IT environment. Externally, I work with clients on Azure infrastructure projects, on-prem licensing consulting, server migrations, server upgrades, and long-term server maintenance. We are also in the early stages of assisting customers with Azure Security Center and how it can safeguard your Azure workloads.

What Microsoft licenses do we use internally at DMC?
Our main Office 365 bundles are the E3 and E5 enterprise licenses. For our CRM we use Dynamics 365. We are also taking advantage of the EMS E3 security bundle that includes Azure Active Directory Premium P1 and Azure Information Protection P1.

What unique challenges has our IT Department faced since we started working from home in March 2020?
Fortunately, we had already invested a lot of time and effort into IT security and remote accessibility before the pandemic, but we still had to make some changes starting in March of 2020. Right away, we needed to expand our VPN and telephone capacity. I was already planning to implement a new VPN Solution that offered split router capabilities and more robust security and it was up and running in early May of 2020. I also had to set up a Remote Desktop Services (RDS) solution for the Accounting Department to access QuickBooks more easily from home. We also decided to move more of our business-critical workloads to the cloud and centralized our access so that the whole environment is much easier to run remotely.

What Microsoft tools and applications did we use to meet these challenges?
Azure Active Directory P1, Azure Information Protection P1, Remote Desktop Services, Intune, and Azure.

What do you think the new workplace dynamic will be and how will that affect the IT department?
Even before the pandemic, we had the option to work from home one day a week and quite a few people at DMC were already taking advantage of that perk. We do not have the details ironed out yet, but we will definitely have a more robust IT environment that allows our team members the flexibility of working from both the office and at home while also keeping a high standard of security.

How do you plan on using Microsoft’s tools to meet the new needs of our company moving forward?
We’ve always had a strong focus on security without an IT environment, but we are now rolling out even more tools to help us manage our team member’s identities, data, and devices.

What long-term IT goals do you want to accomplish with Microsoft’s tools?
I am excited to try out the new AutoPilot program from Microsoft. We have team members who work all over the world, and we can now have Dell overnight a new full image laptop anytime we have a hardware malfunction. Beyond that, I think the new capabilities of Windows Virtual Desktop are compelling. Dell now offers full support through their Dell Wyse ThinOS9.1 so the user experience will be quite similar to their current Windows PC environment.

I hope this insight into DMC’s IT environment was a useful guide for utilizing the different Microsoft tools and applications for 2021 and beyond. If you would like to talk to DMC about ways in which we can help your company more fully utilize the tools in your Microsoft 365 environment, please feel free to contact the Digital Workplace Solutions Team.

Learn more about DMC’s Digital Workplace Solutions and contact us for your next project.

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Flexible Work Environments

It was not always an easy process for companies to adjust to the sudden shift in work environments, but many have found that their team members have come to appreciate the flexibility that remote work affords them and are no longer interested in commuting to an office five days a week. These companies are now making plans for remote and hybrid work far beyond 2021.

IT Challenges

The flexibility of hybrid and remote work can be great for individual team members, but also a huge headache for the IT department. These IT departments now have vastly more complex security and compliance requirements.

Safeguard Devices and Data

In response,  Microsoft has added a ton of features and functionality to their Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses. The M365 Business Premium license is designed to give SMB customers the ability to safeguard their devices and data with one easy-to-manage license.

These additional security features include:

• Azure AD P1 – IT departments can use Conditional Access to control “where, when and who” connects to Office 365
• Windows Virtual Desktop – Companies can deliver a highly scalable multi-session Windows 10 experience
• Advanced Threat Protection – Protects against malicious links in email or Teams with real-time scanning using ATP Safe Links
• Azure Information Protection – Controls whether an email or document can be forwarded, printed, or viewed by non-employees
• Cloud App Discovery – Discovers cloud app usage to understand shadow IT risk
• Intune – Robust mobile device and mobile application management
• AutoPilot – Drop-ship management-ready devices
• Windows 10 Pro upgrade – Upgrade rights to Windows 10 Pro for Win 7/8.1 Pro licenses
• Advanced Email Compliance – Unlimited archiving, eDiscovery, and Litigation Hold

I will be going into more detail for each of these applications throughout the rest of this blog series. If you think the new and improved Microsoft 365 Business Premium license is the right fit for your company, please feel free to reach out to me at jimmyb@dmcinfo.com.

Learn more about DMC’s Microsoft licensing expertise.

The post Microsoft 365 Business Premium: Best SMB License for Secure Remote Work appeared first on DMC, Inc..

You may have heard the news on July 6, 2020, that SharePoint 2010 workflows are being retired this year, and likely have a lot of questions. If you are hearing this news for the first time, below is an excerpt from Microsoft’s official announcement.

• Starting August 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2010 workflows will be turned off for newly created tenants.
• Starting November 1st, 2020, Microsoft will begin to remove the ability to run or create SharePoint 2010 workflows from existing tenants.
• Starting November 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2013 workflows will be turned off for newly created tenants.

If you are not familiar with SharePoint Online tenants and how they work, you may have some questions.

What do these dates mean?

If you are currently using SharePoint Online (Office 365), starting on November 1st, 2020, SharePoint 2010 workflows will stop working. While it may not happen on the first of the month, all tenants will be affected eventually. Microsoft rolls these changes out gradually rather than all at once, and eventually, all tenants are affected, regardless of size.

If you are using SharePoint on-premises, you will not be affected. However, if you are considering migrating your on-premises SharePoint implementation to Office 365, or implementing SharePoint Online for the first time, any tenants created on or after August 1st, 2020, will not have the ability to create or run 2010 workflows. If you are migrating to SharePoint Online and have SharePoint 2010 workflows, you will need to replace them.

Will this affect my SharePoint Sites?

To answer this you must answer two questions.

1. Are you using SharePoint Online or SharePoint on-premises?
   If you are using SharePoint on-premises, then you will not be affected by this change, although you should still consider a migration plan, as what is implemented in SharePoint Online will inevitably follow to the on-premises versions of SharePoint. If you are using SharePoint Online, you may be affected by future changes.
2. Do you have any SharePoint 2010 workflows?
   If you aren’t familiar with what type of workflows you use, you can check using Microsoft’s SharePoint Modernization Scanner. It will scan your SharePoint sites and detect the usage of any legacy workflows, including both SharePoint 2010 and 2013 workflows.

If you are using SharePoint Online and are running any SharePoint 2010 Workflows, you will be affected by this change.

I have 2010 workflows on SharePoint Online what should I do?

The short answer is that you will have to replace them.

The preferred platform to replace SharePoint workflows is Microsoft’s Power Automate. This offers a variety of benefits over using SharePoint workflows and can replace all the default functionality of SharePoint workflows. If you have extended SharePoint’s functionality with custom actions, you should review the available actions in Power Automate to duplicate these actions.

What about my SharePoint 2013 workflows?

As of right now, these workflows will continue to work as intended. They are considered “supported” but are also considered “deprecated”, which means no new features are going to be added to this service. In addition, any tenants created on or after November 1st will not have 2013 workflows as an option. This can be turned on using PowerShell if required.

How can DMC help?

This process can be daunting. Developing a plan of action and relying on experts with Power Automate experience will be invaluable in this time of transition. Our team will:

• Analyze your SharePoint site and prioritize workflows that must be rebuilt
• Determine if the processes that your 2010 workflows support should be rethought or redesigned
• Architect and design your workflows 
• (Re)Build workflows using Power Automate (a.k.a. Flow) 

DMC has a wealth of experience with migrating and building new Flows in Power Automate to manage, automate, and streamline business processes. Please contact us if you need assistance migrating your existing workflows or building new workflows to improve your business processes.

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With so many tools available, we recommend that our clients plan their project management approach in advance. We help them discuss your internal and external needs and think through how to best utilize the Office 365 offering. 

In this video, I cover the pros and cons of the various ways to store project documents in Microsoft's Office 365 cloud platform. I compare Microsoft Teams vs. SharePoint and using libraries vs. metadata. I will also review some best practices and pro tips for planning project management tools effectively.

Learn more about using Teams and SharePoint for project management. 

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