Everything you need to know about Office 365 – January 2019

Microsoft.com

As I sit here in the frozen tundra that is Ohio I decided to go super diverse with this month’s article. We cover O365 alerts, the clients, Stream, PowerApps, and encryption. So, no real theme. The big win for you? I don’t think I included any of my usual snark either. Nope, I was too cold to be funny (or not funny as you often tell me in the comments) so enjoy the pure bliss of just the facts.

Office 365 Alerts being configured for Role-based access

If you have lots of different people helping to manage Office 365 then one issue you may have noticed is all of them see all of the alerts. Which is great for awareness but kind of annoying for people who can’t do anything about the alert. Mail administrators aren’t fixing SharePoint alerts so why clutter their feed with the alerts. Not for much longer, starting February 19th new role-based alerts will begin to role out. If your company is like mine, where I do everything, then not a big deal, but if you have multiple people in various roles this will be great. Maybe I can use this to justify getting an intern to push some of these roles out to?

Office Clients getting Save to the Cloud

Ever since I did a project where I had to explain the difference (there is a lot) between Office 365 and Office 2016 clients I have been obsessed. There are just so many cool little things that keep rolling out monthly to the O365 clients. This month the announcement that interested me most was a change to the Save dialog. By default, it is going to push you to save content to one of your Online locations. Which is great, because then Autosave just takes over. I am not sure why anyone would save files to their desktop anymore. Check out this feature and all of the other great O365 features. You will not be sorry.

Also make sure to check out what Tony has covered this month as well, including a vulnerability in Exchange.

Forms Integration with Stream

As a guy who makes a lot of YouTube content, I have been very dismissive of Microsoft Stream. I am certain that is going to come back to bite me later. Stream just keeps quietly gaining momentum and adding really awesome features. They, unlike YouTube, are focused on being the video platform for internal content. To that end, they announced the integration of Microsoft Forms into Stream. Allowing you to add quizzes, forms, and polling right into the experience. If you need a video platform for hosting things like company training, this just crushes that other site. If your company has any video needs I encourage you to go kick the tires on Stream, it is shaping up to be just what many companies are looking for.

What Are PowerApps and how to get started

Like all good technology people, I follow @PetriFeed on Twitter and recently they tweeted a link to an article on getting started with PowerApps. It is an article from early last year that helps you better understand what are these PowerApps things you keep hearing about. If you have gone this long without diving into PowerApps you are missing out. You can use them to build stand along mobile apps, web apps, and even make a better SharePoint or Teams experience all with a no-code solution. I love them! If after reading that article you want to get deeper then check out my PowerApps Training Class. You even get a 10% off discount if follow PetriFeed on Twitter and put that in the registration comments. PowerApps and the rest of the Power Platform are no longer the future, they are the now. Are you ready?

Encryption in Office 365

Sometimes I am guilty of not thinking about the big picture with Office 365. For example, as a SharePoint guy, this “connect everything to Teams and Groups” trend is annoying. But in the grand scheme of things Teams is becoming the epicenter so I should be happy SharePoint plugs in. (Seriously, embrace Teams people) To that end, I thought Tony had a great piece this month on Encryption becoming more common in Office 365 and the ramifications. I think we can all agree more encryption is a good thing, that is unless we are an ISV (3rd party vendor) or a developer who makes products that comb through Office 365 data to add functionality. I am not smart enough to have a solid opinion but Tony is, so give it a read and a ponder. Are you pro or anti more encryption? Bet it depends on what your role is.