This unique blog post has a guest blogger. You may have heard of them before … Welcome ChatGPT! As my readers may remember, I recently posted a blog article about my thoughts on Grammarly. So what does ChatGPT think about Grammarly?

The focus of my discussion with ChatGPT was to see how his responses would fare when being asked to write a blog post. The first request I asked was to “Write a blog post about Grammarly in the style of Cameron Fuller from Catapult Systems.” The second was a variation of the first but used a different (much more prominent) literary figure. The second request I asked was to “Write a blog post about Grammarly in the style of William Shakespeare”

Request #1 response: (Grammarly in my writing style)

As a language model, I am trained to understand the intricacies of grammar, spelling, and syntax. But, as much as I have been programmed to understand these things, I still make mistakes. This is where Grammarly comes in – an AI-powered writing assistant that helps you write better, clearer, and more confidently.

Grammarly is a cloud-based service that uses advanced algorithms to check your writing for grammatical errors, spelling mistakes, and punctuation errors. It’s like having a virtual writing coach that’s always with you, no matter where you write.

One of the key features of Grammarly is its ability to provide contextual suggestions. Unlike basic spellcheckers, Grammarly takes into account the context in which a word is used and suggests alternative words or phrasing that might be more appropriate.

For example, if you write the sentence “Their going to the store,” Grammarly will not only catch the spelling error but will also suggest the correct form of the verb “to be,” making the sentence “They’re going to the store.”

Another great feature of Grammarly is its ability to check for plagiarism. With the increasing prevalence of online content, it’s never been more important to ensure that your writing is original. Grammarly’s plagiarism checker helps you avoid accidental plagiarism by checking your work against billions of web pages, academic papers, and other sources.

Finally, Grammarly provides detailed reports on your writing, including a list of the most frequent errors you make, along with suggestions for how to improve. These reports can be particularly helpful for those looking to improve their writing skills, as they provide a clear picture of where you need to focus your efforts.

In conclusion, Grammarly is a must-have tool for anyone who wants to write better. Whether you’re a professional writer, a student, or just someone who wants to communicate more effectively, Grammarly is the perfect solution. With its advanced AI technology, Grammarly makes writing easy, accurate, and effortless. Give it a try today, and start writing with confidence!

Request #1 analysis:

The blog content above is really well done. It’s focused on the question that was posed, and is well written. It is however written from ChatGTP’s perspective, not the perspective that was requested but the author style was obviously far from mainstream.

Request #2 response: (Grammarly in William Shakespeare’s writing style)

“O Grammarly, thou art a tool most wondrous, Thou mak’st the written word most fair and bright. Inscribed with grace and clarity, doth guide us From errors that make our words seem quite a fright.

In days of old, when scribes did use a quill, And ink that oft would blot and smudge, did spill, The woes of grammatical mistakes did fill The minds of those who wrote with heart’s free will.

But now, with thee, O Grammarly, at hand, These woes have vanished, and our writing stands, With pride and confidence, like a stately band, Of words that flow like music, pure and grand.

From sentence structure to the choice of words, Thou art the master of our written horde, And in the end, with effortless afford, A work of art, most wondrous, is outpoured.

So let us raise our voices high, and sing The praises of this tool, our grammar king, And let us write with hearts most free and light, With Grammarly to guide us, day and night.”

Request #2 analysis:

I am far from a Shakespeare subject matter expert, but the change in form and style is evident compared to the initial request. The content is still well-written and meets the request’s requirements.

My thoughts:

Overall, I am impressed with what ChatGPT brings to the table. While I don’t believe it’s ready to become a mainstream blog author, it can take a single line of explanation and put together a very relevant answer to the question posed to it.

In this blog post, we will discuss Grammarly. Grammarly is a third-party solution to help with providing more effective written communication. The previous blog post introduced the Speaker Coach functionality available in Teams. A coworker recommended I check out Grammarly (thank you, Greg!).

Grammarly helps with written communications by providing recommendations for changes in your written communication. It integrates with Windows (including apps like Outlook and Word) and has iPhone/iPad and Android solutions. For example, figure 1 shows how Grammarly provided recommendations for changes even while I was writing this blog post!

Figure 1 : Grammarly in Microsoft Word

It helps provide additional clarity for areas that may need rephrasing (Figure 2) and a lot of other good tips.

Figure 2 : Grammarly helping to point out a potential rephrase

It integrates with Outlook, making emails more readable and professional (Figure 3).

Figure 3 : Grammarly integrated with Outlook

It also helps to teach you what common mistakes you are making so your communications improve over time. Email communications like the one shown in Figure 4 help to point out what’s going well and where areas for improvement exist.

Figure 4 : Grammarly email sample

The free version provides excellent basic functionality, so I would recommend that to anyone who communicates regularly. However, I use the professional version and have been very happy with its additional functionality (no, I am not a paid spokesman for Grammarly).

Summary: I have found it to be an invaluable tool for written communication. If you aren’t already using Grammarly, I could not recommend it more highly. The next blog post in this series introduces a unique content contributor on this same topic.

This three-part blog series will introduce three tools I have been using that can significantly increase how well we communicate. The first is the feature in Teams called “Speaker Coach.” Speaker Coach is turned on while you are in a meeting by opening More options and choosing “Turn on Speaker Coach” as shown below.

Figure 1: Turning on Speaker Coach

When you activate Speaker Coach in Microsoft Teams, it makes two noticeable changes to your Teams experience:

1. When you are on a call, the Teams UI will provide you with real-time feedback as you are speaking.
2. After you finish the Teams call, Speaker Coach provides a report that is just available to you, providing feedback on the call.

This blog post will provide more details on the real-time feedback available in the Speaker Coach for Teams, details on what is in the Speaker Coach report for Teams, things to be aware of in Speaker Coach, and my thoughts on where Speaker Coach for Teams could improve.

Real-time feedback from the Speaker Coach for Teams:

When you are on a Teams call, and Speaker Coach is enabled, small messages appear when relevant at the top of your Teams window.

Figure 2: Examples of real-time feedback in Teams meetings

Examples:

• “you guys” might be offensive or non-inclusive in some cases.
• Good pitch variation! Keep it up!
• Try varying your pitch and adding emphasis to keywords.

Examples I have seen are indications when I speak too quickly, when I use a term that may not be inclusive or positive feedback when my tone is adjusting well throughout the meeting.

The Speaker Coach report:

An example of a recent Speaker Coach report is shown below in Figure 3. Figures 4-6 show examples of drilling into details on various pieces of feedback from the speaker coach in Teams.

Figure 3: Teams Speaker Coach report

Each section can be drilled into to provide more detail, such as the example below for repetitive language shown in Figure 4. The graphic indicates when it occurred during the discussion and what specific words were identified as redundant. For example, figure 5 shows examples of pace, and Figure 6 shows examples of filler words.

Figure 4: Teams Speaker Coach Repetitive Language

From using Speaker Coach in Teams for a while now, I am used to the feedback below and have been working on adapting my approach to speaking accordingly. My pace is generally too fast (it’s never told me it’s too slow). So, I have been improving at slowing down during my Teams meetings.

Figure 5: Teams Speaker Coach Pace

Filler words generally indicate that the speaker needs to think before they say what they want to say. Often, we use filler words to fill those gaps when we are talking. However, there is nothing wrong with a bit of silence, and when combined with a quick pace, filler words can often make it less likely that others will be willing to interject their thoughts into the conversation.

Figure 6: Teams Speaker Coach Fillers Words

Things to be aware of while using Speaker Coach in Teams:

When you share content in a Teams meeting with Speaker Coach turned on, you will want to avoid sharing the screen with the Teams UI on it due to the real-time feedback. It’s a bit disconcerting when you are presenting to a customer, and they see the Speaker Coach telling you to slow down your pace. 😊

Areas for enhancement in Speaker Coach:

There should be an ability to set exclusions on specific items in each of the different areas that the Speaker Coach in Teams is monitoring (Repetitive Language, Filler Words, Pace, Inclusiveness, Intonation, and Monolog). For example, I have seen some instances where the inclusiveness items are not relevant when speaking to specific groups of people. Additionally, I would expect that adding to the list of things being checked could also be helpful.

Reference links:

• Teams Speaker Coach, including how to activate it: Preview: Speaker Coach in a Teams meeting – Microsoft Support
• Teams: Speaker Coach [Develop a short recording for this: Now in public preview: Speaker Coach in Microsoft Teams Meetings – Microsoft Community Hub]

Conclusion

Speaker Coach in Microsoft Teams is currently in preview, but from my perspective, it works exceptionally well. If you aren’t already using this functionality and are on Teams calls, check it out! In the next part of this blog post series, we will look at Speaker Coach in PowerPoint!

This is the third post in a series introducing the Product Owner Advocate as a beneficial role on a project using Scrum.  Especially if your product owner doesn’t have the time to commit to scrum. Here is how we defined the role briefly:

The product owner advocate is a role that allows a business analyst to provide the TIME necessary to support a Scrum team while keeping the AUTHORITY with the product owner. This BA represents the interests of the product owner to the Scrum team and ‘advocates’ for the product. They are committed to the product and are invested in spending time with the product owner, to understand their priorities, desires, biases, etc., as well as the scrum team where they represent the product owner.

In today’s post let’s look at the third and fourth in a series of responsibilities and see how the product owner advocate would work with the product owner and the scrum team.

• Prioritizing and assigning business value to the backlog
• Defining the backlog
• Explaining the backlog to the scrum team for estimating
• Providing clarification and detail during sprint planning and the sprint
• Participating is sprint reviews
• Participating in sprint retrospectives
• Representing the product to the organization

Explaining the backlog to the Scrum team for estimating

There is an ongoing responsibility in Scrum that the team should ‘scrub the backlog’.  This allows the team to understand the backlog items that are not in the current sprint, and to estimate those items so that planning future sprints is simpler.  The advocate would be the primary resource for the team as they are scrubbing the backlog. The time the advocate has spent with the product owner to prioritize and define the backlog could then be translated to the team during the scrubbing exercises. Many questions the team may have regarding the backlog could be handled by the advocate. The product owner could then be consulted on more serious or difficult questions rather than have to work through the minutiae.

Providing clarification and detail during sprint planning and the sprint

As with backlog scrubbing, the advocate could be the primary resource for the team during planning and especially during the sprint. Quick questions could be asked and basic decisions made allowing the team to focus on the product. Difficult questions could then be taken to the product owner for feedback by the advocate.

Some may argue that this is breaking the rhythm of scrum and that the product owner would need to be available to make a decision or answer a question right away, and that having to go ask will just delay the activity.  I would argue that anything that the advocate would need to take to the product owner would probably need thought and discussion with others to resolve and the product owner would probably need time to consider the question even if they were fully engaged. 

Again, we are assuming that the product owner has limited time to spend as product owner but still has product owner authority.

In the next post we’ll look at:

• Participating is sprint reviews
• Participating in sprint retrospectives
• Representing the product to the organization

It’s August, time for summer to be on its way out and fall preparations to begin.  This month we have a lot of exciting announcements in the Modern Work realm! Take a look below for the latest Microsoft 365 Roadmap updates:

(Updated) Private drafts for SharePoint pages and news

This update will roll out to Targeted Release customers starting early August and to all customers by mid-September.

Microsoft is adding the ability to create private drafts for pages and news posts. A private draft is visible only to the page author, the people the author chooses to share it with, and site admins. It’s great for creating and editing content that’s not ready for others to see except the people you want to collaborate with. See more from Microsoft support.

SharePoint: New Site Templates for Team Sites

Three new teams site templates will be available in August (Targeted Release) and September (Standard Release).

• Crisis communication team – Centralize crisis communication, resources, and best practices
• IT help desk – Resolve technical requests, track devices, and share training materials
• New employee onboarding team – Guide new employees through your team’s onboarding process

To apply a template to an existing site: users can choose to browse site templates and can apply a template to an existing site at any time by accessing the template gallery from Site Settings and then select Apply a site template.

Speaking of templates…

(Updated) Select Lists templates include Power Automate flows

Lists ready-made templates are getting a boost. As part of our efforts to evolve Lists and enable more users to take advantage of automations, you now have the option to install pre-created Power Automate flows whenever you create a list from select list templates. The following templates will have reminder flows available to provision after you create your list: Work progress tracker, Content scheduler, and Recruitment tracker.

List creators who create a list from the Work progress tracker template, Content scheduler template, or Recruitment tracker template will see a modal prompting them to install the included Power Automate flow after their list has been created. The reminder flow is an automated flow that runs on a schedule in the background, so it does not appear in the Lists menu.

Users with a Microsoft 365 E3 license, Microsoft E5 license, or Power Automate per-user plan can create and use the reminder flow that is included with select ready-made Lists templates.

• Users without either of the above licenses may sign up for a 30-day free trial of Power Apps in order to access the feature.

Helpful links from Microsoft to help with List templates and Flow creation:

• Create a business application from a list template
• Manage a flow that was created from a list template
• Overview of solution-aware flows
• Power Platform solution concepts

Enforcement of Site Limits for SharePoint Lists, Libraries, and Subsites

SharePoint recommends a maximum of 2,000 lists and libraries per site, and 2,000 subsites per site. These have been long standing limits for SharePoint but have not been formally enforced.  To ensure site performance and help customers have the best possible experience, Microsoft will implement a safeguard to prevent customers from exceeding these limits.

The enforcement of the limits will start in early November and will be completely enforced by late December.

On the API request to create a new list or document library, SharePoint will return the error code, ERROR_SHARING_BUFFER_EXCEEDED on the API request.

Libraries, lists, and subsites that have been created before the enforcement rollout and exceed the corresponding limit, will continue to function and their access will not be blocked. The change will only impact the creation of new lists, libraries or subsites outside the approved limits starting in November. These new additions will get blocked at the time of creation once the site reaches the corresponding limit.

What you need to do to prepare:

Share these limits with people who manage SharePoint sites in your organization. If the sites in your tenant are below the limits, this change will not impact you.

It is uncommon for the organic growth of site to reach these limits. However, there is a possibility that custom solutions can generate a high volume of lists and libraries. In that situation, our recommendation is to work with their solution providers to prepare an alternative solution in order to stay compliant with these limits.

Always refer to the Service Descriptions to get the most up to date limits.

(Updated) Collaborative Annotations on Presenter Shared Screen

Collaborative Annotation helps you collaborate with others while screen sharing in Teams meetings. For example, if you want to ask for feedback on a design or if you’re working with a group on a project, Collaborative Annotation helps you get work done faster and with more voices included.  This feature is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86732.

Expected rollout depends on tenant type, but should be complete in standard tenants.  See your message center for details.

How this will affect your organization:

During screenshare, meeting attendees with Presenter roles will see the Annotation button in meeting controls at the top-center of their screen.

To turn on Collaborative Annotation while you’re sharing your screen in a meeting, select the pen icon to Start annotation in meeting controls at the top-center of your screen, as shown below:

Note: You must be a Presenter role in a meeting to turn on Collaborative Annotation.

The red outline around the screenshare will turn blue, indicating Collaborative Annotation mode is on. All participants will see the Microsoft Whiteboard toolset at the top of the shared screen, as shown below. Everyone in the meeting can begin annotating right away in real-time.

Collaborative Cursors show the name of every attendee as they annotate and are turned on by default. Collaborative Cursors can be turned off by anyone attending the meeting from the Settings menu in the Collaborative Annotation toolbar.

To control who can annotate, the main Presenter can select Only I can annotate and unselect Everyone can annotate from the Settings menu in the Collaborative Annotation toolbar, as shown below:

To end the annotation session for everyone, select Stop annotation in meeting controls at the top-center area of your screen.

Collaborative Annotation is only available for full-screen sharing, not individual window sharing at this time.

Note: Annotation is powered by Microsoft Whiteboard. If Microsoft Whiteboard is disabled, it will also disable Annotations.

Learn More:

• Enable Microsoft Whiteboard for your Organization

Pre-assign Channel members to Breakout Rooms

Expect to see this in early August and complete in mid-August.  This Breakout Rooms for Channel Meetings feature enables meeting organizers to efficiently pre-assign channel members to Breakout Rooms (both auto and manual) ahead of a channel meeting start.

Please note, that Meetings with Breakout Rooms are limited to 300 participants. If the channel contains more than 300 members, pre-assignment will not be available. Meeting organizers will have the ability to assign participants to Breakout Rooms during the meeting.

For more info about breakout room management, see this article in Microsoft support.

Microsoft Teams: Start a Teams Chat with Distribution Groups, Mail-Enabled Security Groups, and O365 Groups

Expect to see this rollout happening in mid-August through late August.

You will now be able to start a Teams Chat with Distribution Groups, Mail-enabled Security Groups, and O365 Groups. This feature will respect the limits on members in a group chat, currently set to 250 members.

Organizations rely on Distribution Lists (DLs) as a tool to create groups of users that mirror organizational knowledge and workflows. Bringing this awareness to target audiences for specific content will enhance the core Teams experience. Allowing our customers to leverage DLs can increase workflow efficiency and bridge the gap between legacy knowledge of organization structure and a new Teams structure.

Viva Goals now Generally Available

There is a new Viva offering that is available now.  We had heard that OKRs were going to be included in the Viva Suite some time ago, but now there is an official name:  Viva Goals.  This goal setting framework for Objectives and Key Results, popularized at Google, Intel, and other Fortune 500 companies for alignment it naturally creates between the work teams are doing and an organization’s top business priorities. 

If you have Viva Suite licensing, this is already included in your licensing, but it can also be purchased as an individual SKU.

Viva Goals is available as an application in Microsoft Teams and as a web application. The Viva Goals web application has no prerequisites; customers can purchase and use Viva Goals with the web application without any other Microsoft product or subscription.

A Microsoft Teams product license is a prerequisite to use the Viva Goals application in Teams. Teams can be licensed with Microsoft 365 F1, F3, E3, A3, E5, A5; Office 365 F3, E1, A1, E3, A3, E5, A5; Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Business Standard, Business Premium; or Microsoft SharePoint K, Plan 1, or Plan 2 license.

For pricing details, a comprehensive list of what’s included in your existing subscription, and what’s unlocked with Viva Goals SKU or Viva suite SKU purchase, go to Microsoft Viva Goals. see this page.

For details on how to start rolling out Viva Goals in your tenant, go to our docs page for step-by-step configuration and admin guidance.

Define success by creating OKRs from scratch or using built-in templates

Whether you’re an old hand at OKRs or are using OKRs for the first time, we have features that make OKRs accessible. 

More information about Viva Goals can be found on Microsoft’s website.

Microsoft has also announced Viva Engage

Viva Engage is an app in Viva built on the foundation of Yammer.  It’s a social app for digital communities, conversations, and self-expression tools that builds on the existing capabilities of the Communities app for Teams and Microsoft 365 to connect employees and empower everybody to contribute and express themselves by meeting people where they are in Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365. And as an integral part of the Microsoft Viva suite, Viva Engage contributes to Viva Connections and Viva Topics and over time will extend community, conversation, and knowledge experiences into other areas of Viva.  See more info about Viva Engage in the announcement from Seth Patton..

Microsoft Entra Verified ID now generally available

Microsoft announced Entra Verified ID, which provides a faster, more trustworthy way to verify ID with decentralized identity management.

Here’s the announcement from Ankur Patel, who leads Growth for Identity Security at Microsoft.

The vision for Entra is:

Each of us needs a digital identity we own, one which securely and privately stores all its elements.

This self-owned identity must be easy to use and give us complete control over how our identity data is accessed and used.

Read more about Entra Verified ID here.

As we approach October, please remember Exchange Basic Authentication deprecation is coming soon.  

Microsoft is removing the ability to use Basic authentication in Exchange Online for Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), POP, IMAP, Remote PowerShell, Exchange Web Services (EWS), Offline Address Book (OAB), Outlook for Windows, and Mac.

They are also disabling SMTP AUTH in all tenants in which it’s not being used.

This decision requires customers to move from apps that use basic authentication to apps that use Modern authentication. Modern authentication (OAuth 2.0 token-based authorization) has many benefits and improvements that help mitigate the issues in basic authentication. For example, OAuth access tokens have a limited usable lifetime, and are specific to the applications and resources for which they are issued, so they cannot be reused. Enabling and enforcing multifactor authentication (MFA) is also simple with Modern authentication.

When will this change take place?

New Microsoft 365 tenants are created with Basic authentication already turned off as they have Security defaults enabled.

Beginning in early 2021, Microsoft started to disable Basic authentication for existing tenants with no reported usage.

In September 2021, Microsoft announced that effective October 1, 2022, they will begin disabling Basic authentication for Outlook, EWS, RPS, POP, IMAP, and EAS protocols in Exchange Online. SMTP Auth will also be disabled if it is not being used. See full announcement: Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – September 2021 Update.

Apple has responded with an update for their native email app in iOS version 15.6.  More info here.

This Power Automate video is a step-by-step tutorial on how to track column changes (version history) for SharePoint by using “when an item is modified trigger” in flow. We can track to see the column changes for the modified item, leverage the send an http SharePoint action to get previous values of item based on previous version & also leverage the “Get changes for an item or file” action to get the information of which columns have changed.

The video will showcase some interesting patterns to get the “Version History”. Video will have something for everyone from beginners to advanced users. Trying the CRAWL, WALK, RUN & SPRINT techniques in this video.

Video covers the following:

✅ When an item is modified trigger in flow
✅ Add trigger conditions in Power Automate
✅ Get SharePoint column changes based on Version Number in flow
✅ Get previous column values using versions SharePoint REST API
✅ Create HTML data with column change information
✅ Send email notification of SharePoint column changes tracked

#PowerAutomate #SharePoint #Versions #flow

Table of Contents:

00:00 – Introduction to Track SharePoint column changes in flow
00:41 – Run a flow when SharePoint item is modified
04:18 – Run flow based on trigger conditions when column is modified in SharePoint
10:00 – Track changes & Version History when SharePoint item is modified
28:30 – Send column changes information in HTML Format in Email
31:17 – Subscribe to Reza Dorrani channel

This blog post will show how to create a custom alert format using a combination of Kusto and Azure Automation. This process is being used to overcome a current inability to generate custom alert formats discussed in the previous blog post of this series. I previously blogged on this topic but the solution has evolved significantly since then.

The solution we are using is built from four pieces: a custom Kusto query, alert notification, Azure Automation, and LogicApps or Azure Automation with SendGrid.

This issue is discussed online here: Configure Email Template for Azure Alerts – Stack Overflow and here can we customize the body content of the Azure alert Emails from code ? – Microsoft Q&A

The previous resolution was that we provided is available here. The previous version of this will not work as Microsoft has changed the format of alert content using the “common alert schema”.

What is the benefit of customizing Azure Alerts?

In the previous blog post, I explained that the default alerting in Azure is great for integration into ticketing systems but is not very human-readable due to the amount of information in the alert (on average 3-4 pages). Through custom alert formatting, we can create an alert with only the required information such as the one below.

Figure 1: Simplified email alert

The subject itself lets you know pretty much everything you need to know: The CPU on a specific server is too high (90% in this example), and its consistently too high (100% of the time). The message contents include the same information in separate easy to read fields, and provides a link to the query to get more information. This approach also lets you fully control how you want your alerts to be formatted so you can add, remove or change anything included in the email.

How does this solution work?

The full process we are using is shown below in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Process flow for log analytics and metric based alerts.

Part 1: The Kusto query

The first part of this solution requires the creation of a Kusto query that not only identifies the condition we are looking for, it also provides the key pieces required to effectively format the alert.

In the sample query below, we define the threshold we are looking for (the CPUPercentage metric needs to be between 90-100% and it needs to be above that timeframe at least 90% of the time). This makes the alert much more actionable as it is indicating a consistently high CPU utilization, not a short spike of CPU utilization. We also use this query to develop a set of fields that will later be used to format the alert. Specifically: NotificationEmail, Subject and Body. Every alert sent via this solution must have these fields defined.

let CounterThresholdMax = 100;

let CounterThresholdMin = 90;

let CounterThresholdPct = 90;

let NotificationEmail = <emailaddress>;

AzureMetrics

| where ResourceProvider == "MICROSOFT.WEB" and MetricName == "CpuPercentage"

| summarize

    Avg = avg(Average),

    OverLimit = countif(Average >= CounterThresholdMin and Average <= CounterThresholdMax),

    PerfInstanceCount = count(Resource),

    PctOver = round(todouble(todouble(((countif(Average >= CounterThresholdMin and Average <= CounterThresholdMax) * 100)) / todouble((count(Resource))))))

    by Resource

| where PctOver > CounterThresholdPct

| extend Subject = strcat("CPU too high on ", Resource, " at an average of ", toint(Avg), "%. Above threshold ", toint(PctOver), "% of the time")

| extend Body = strcat(@"<p>Resource: ", Resource, "</p>", "<p>Average CPU: ", toint(Avg), "</p>", "<p>% CPU over Limit: ", toint(PctOver), "</p>")

| extend NotificationEmail = NotificationEmail

Part 2: Configuring alert notification

The alert needs to be configured in the following ways:

• Do not use split by dimensions. Split by dimensions It does not use split by dimensions (see Figure 3).

Figure 3: Not splitting by dimensions

• The alert logic has a threshold value of greater than 0 (see Figure 4).

Figure 4: Alert logic

• The action group which is used contains a webhook that calls the alert processing runbook in Azure Automation (see Figure 5).

Figure 5: Webhook call to runbook

Part 3: Receiving the alert and processing it (Azure Automation)

This step is accomplished via a PowerShell runbook running in Azure Automation. It is called by the webhook configured in the notification group. Details on this script will be provided in the next post in this blog series.

Part 4: Sending the alert (LogicApps or Azure Automation with SendGrid)

This step is accomplished via a LogicApp or using Azure Automation integrated with SendGrid. The details on the LogicApps option will be provided two posts later in this blog series.

Summary: If you need custom formatted alerts, this is the best method we have found to date. In the next blog post we will showcase the updated Azure Automation runbook designed to receive and process the alert.

Happy July! Get your HOT Microsoft 365 Roadmap updates here!

General Microsoft 365 Roadmap Updates

Changes for the Microsoft Feedback Portal

Are you checking the feedback portal?  You can do this in the admin center under Health and Product Feedback. This is helpful to review periodically to see what problems your users may be having that may require additional training and to monitor problems and trends.

Policies for the feedback portal can be managed in the M365 Apps Admin Center at https://config.office.com

New functionality will be incorporated in late July which will allow admins to enable users to delete their feedback regarding Microsoft Apps.

Microsoft Teams July 2022 Updates

Microsoft Communication Compliance – Gain context around machine learning model policy matches – Public Preview

Microsoft Purview Communication Compliance is an insider risk solution in Microsoft 365 that helps minimize communication risks by helping you detect, capture, and act on inappropriate messages in your organization.

Communication Compliance is available with Enterprise licensing – with either Office 365 E5 licensing or F5/A5/E5 Compliance add on licensing.

For Microsoft Teams, communication compliance helps identify the following types of inappropriate content in Teams channels, Private Teams channels, or in 1:1 and group chats:

• Offensive, profane, and harassing language
• Adult, racy, and gory images
• Sharing of sensitive information

For more information on communication compliance and how to configure policies for your organization, see communication compliance article from Microsoft.

Communication Compliance Release Date

Microsoft has an updated rollout date – the machine learning features of Communication Compliance should roll out by late July if your area currently licensed for the feature:

Availability for user-reported messages for organizations licensed and using communication compliance and Microsoft Teams started in May 2022.

This feature will be available by August 31, 2022 for all organizations licensed and using communication compliance through July 2022. For organizations starting to use communication compliance after July 2022, user-reported messages policy availability may take up to 30 days from the date of your licensing and first use of communication compliance.

Enable Q&A in Microsoft Teams Meetings via Meeting Options

Meetings organizers can soon set up a Microsoft Teams Q&A in their meetings via Meeting Options. Q&A is perfect for large or structured meetings – such as trainings, town hall, all hands and more.

This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 97020

When this will happen:

We expect to start rolling out in mid-July and expect to complete rollout by late July.

How this will affect your organization:

Meeting Organizers and Co-organizers can enable Q&A in their meetings through Meeting Options. They can toggle “Enable Q&A” to yes to enable structured conversations in their meeting. When Q&A is enabled, meeting attendees can join their Teams meeting, click the Q&A icon, and ask questions and engage in the discussion.

Microsoft Teams Q&A App

With Q&A available to enable through Meeting Options, the Q&A app in the Teams App Store will be removed in August.

Going forward, meeting organizers and co-organizers must use Meeting Options to enable Q&A in their meetings.

If there are existing meetings where Q&A was added from the Teams App Store, please remove the Q&A app and switch to using Q&A enabled through Meeting Options.

Not using Meeting Options to enable Q&A will result in two Q&A icons showing in the meeting with instructions on how to remove the Q&A app that was added from the Teams App Store.

For more information about the organizer experience – Microsoft has published instructions here.

Teams Meeting Organizer Q&A Experience

There are two types of core experiences – Unmoderated and Moderated Q&A:

• Unmoderated Q&A enables all attendee questions to be immediately posted to the Q&A feed.
• Moderated Q&A requires questions to be reviewed by a moderator (the meeting organizer, co-organizer or presenter) before being published for everyone to see and comment on.

When moderation is enabled, all inbound questions go to the “In review” Q&A tab. Here, they can be published (and moved to the Published feed for all attendees to see) or dismissed, where they will move to the Dismissed tab. If needed, they can later be restored or published.

Microsoft Teams Co-Organizer Meeting Role – Updated Rollout Date

Microsoft co-organizer role feature will begin rolling out in mid-June (previously late May) and expect the rollout to be complete by mid-July (previously late June).

Meeting organizers will soon be able to assign the co-organizer role to up to 10 specific people they invite to their meeting. Co-organizers will be granted most of the capabilities of the organizer in the meeting, including being able to access & modify the meeting options for the meeting.

Usage of the co-organizer role for a meeting will be optional. If users choose not to use the co-organizer feature, there will be no change.

This feature is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 81391.

How to Add Co-Organizers to a Meeting

Once this feature has been enabled, a “Choose co-organizers” meeting option will be available.

The default value for this option is “None.” The option operates similarly to when “Specific people” are selected as presenters for the meeting. The meeting organizer can click on the selector box to open a dropdown menu where they can choose from the list of qualified people who have been invited to the meeting.

To qualify for the co-organizer role, an invitee must be using an account that is on the same tenant as the organizer’s account. Organizers will be able to assign the co-organizer role to up to 10 people.

Co-organizers will be displayed as additional organizers on the meeting roster, and they will have most of the capabilities of an organizer in the meeting.  Microsoft may update this functionality, but currently the details are on their support site.

Microsoft SharePoint July 2022 Updates

(Updated) Video Collections Page on SharePoint

SharePoint video collection pages make it easy to gather and display all videos from a SharePoint site collection in one place. As with all SharePoint content, the videos will be security trimmed. The page will be pre-created, and if you navigate to the page in early July, it will likely by blank, but keep an eye out toward the end of the month.

In order to access this static page, please append /_Layouts/15/Video_Collections.aspx to the site url. Once this page is edited and published, it will start appearing in the site pages as well.

This feature is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93352.

(Updated) Stream on SharePoint: Inline playback of videos in Hero web part

Also Stream related, by the end of July we will also have the ability to post videos in the Hero Web Part and the videos will play inline in the page!

When users click to play a video in the Hero web part section of a SharePoint site, the video will play inline. This feature allows users to watch a video without being taken off the SharePoint page and allows users to browse or scroll through the other contents of the page while the video plays.

I hope you are having a great summer and this helps you keep up with the most important Digital Workplace news.

Reminder: Go to https://admin.microsoft.com/#/MessageCenter and make sure you sort by the Act by column periodically so you don’t miss out on important updates like Basic Auth deprecation in October 2022.

A list of previous Microsoft 365 updates

June: https://www.catapultsystems.com/blogs/june-2022-digital-workplace-roadmap-review/

May: https://www.catapultsystems.com/blogs/may-2022-digital-workplace-roadmap-review/

April: https://www.catapultsystems.com/blogs/april-2022-digital-workplace-roadmap-review/

This video is a beginner’s guide to Solutions in Power Platform. I will provide an Overview of Solutions, cover concepts of building Power Apps and Power Automate flows inside solutions, bring your existing App & flows in solutions, export & import Solutions, setup Environment Variables, connect to SharePoint & Dataverse, Managed and Unmanaged Solutions, Solution Publisher, discuss how Environments & Solutions are linked, perform application lifecycle management (ALM) & move solutions across development, test (QA) and production environments & more.

Solutions are used to transport apps and components from one environment to another or to apply a set of customizations to existing apps. A solution can contain one or more apps as well as other components such as site maps, tables, processes, web resources, choices, flows, and more.

Solutions are the mechanism for implementing application lifecycle management (ALM) in Power Apps and other Power Platform products, such as Power Automate.

Video covers the following:

• Where to build Apps and flows?
•  What are Solutions?
•  Are Solutions premium?
•  Environment Strategy
•  Default environment challenges
•  Application Lifecycle Management (ALM) in Power Platform
•  Build a Solution – with new Apps and flows
•  Build a Solution – with existing Apps and flows
•  Environment Variables
•  Export & Import Solutions
•  Solution Publisher

Over the last decade, I have known that the day would arrive when I would not be renewed as a Microsoft MVP.

I would like to say that I am not disappointed, but even knowing that something is eventually coming does not mean that you are ready for it. The truth is that being a Microsoft MVP has been the highlight of my professional career. Thank you to all the incredible folks at Microsoft and my fellow MVPs who took me in and made me a family member (you all know who you are).

I know that the MVP program is in great hands and the Microsoft MVPs, in turn, have the Microsoft community in good hands.

I plan on continuing to do what I did before I was an MVP and while I was an MVP – contributing to the community through my blog and speaking at technical conferences wherever it makes sense. So feel free to look me up on my Twitter, LinkedIn, or MVP Reconnect!