Slides from this month’s webinar are at:
July 2021 Microsoft 365 Need to Know Webinar
If you are not a CIAOPS patron you want to view or download a full copy of the video from the session you can do so here:
http://www.ciaopsacademy.com.au/p/need-to-know-webinars
Watch out for next month’s webinar.
Windows Defender Application Control (WDAC) is the more modern approach to application white listing on a windows 10 device when compared to AppLocker. It is however, just as easy to deploy using Intune as this video shows:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2cZrV-mRlo
You firstly need to create your WDAC policy as an XML file. Then you use the PowerShell command:
ConvertFrom-CIPolicy
to ‘compile’ it into a .bin file. You upload this .bin file into an Intune device configuration policy and apply that to all the desired machine.
Remember, unlike AppLocker, WDAC applies to the whole machine, not individual users of that machine.
Remember, WDAC is already part of Windows 10 so there is no additional cost and using Intune, it will work with both Windows 10 Enterprise and Professional to help you secure your environment.
One of the great things about deploying Windows AppLocker via Microsoft Intune is that it supports both Windows 10 Enterprise and Professional. It is also quite straight forward to deploy as I hope the video conveys.
Once you have your base policies, you create a custom Windows 10 device Configuration policy with Intune and deploy it to your device fleet. Once that process is complete you’ll have the same application control you had on a single device but now across as many machines as you wish.
Remember, that Windows AppLocker is free with Windows 10 and easily deployed to machined from the cloud using Microsoft Intune.
I am please to announce the inaugural product release from the CIAOPS Patron Power Platform Community:
Power Automate Drink Ordering System
This is a PDF document that takes your step by step through creating an automated process for bulk ordering of drinks. This solution was developed to solve the challenge or ordering many drinks at events, however it could be used for much more mundane things such as preparing complimentary drinks when guests attend a business.
This project can also be seen as a great way to start learning the Microsoft Power Platform by creating a real world process using Power Automate (Microsoft Flow). The information provided run to over 130 pages and includes screen shots and easy to follow instructions.
To celebrate the release of this inaugural product, it is being offered at a special 75% discount which you can take advantage of here:
https://directorcia.gumroad.com/l/lDekX/foundation
This special offer is available for the first 25 purchases! So if you are interested in getting your hands dirty with the Microsoft Power Platform, here’s a great opportunity to get started.
Look out for more projects coming soon from the CIAOPS Patron Power Platform Community.
In the face of continued COVID uncertainty locally I have decided to move the whole Secwerks 1 event online. The event will now be conducted fully using Microsoft Teams. Registrations are still open for the event starting on August the 5th, but now spread over 4 half day sessions to lower fatigue levels. You can register now and find a link to more details at:
The event times will be during Thursday and Friday afternoons here in east coast Australia (GMT+10) and may not suit other locations. However, every business that registers will receive a copy of the recordings as well as the training materials. Registration is also now per business not per individual.
The Secwerks event is focused on giving you actionable information around Microsoft 365 as well as best practices, automations and understandings about how to improve the security of these environments. If you manage an Office 365 or Microsoft 365 environment, this, now, virtual event is for you.
I am working hard to add some unique sessions to the agenda and will be confirming those soon. Thanks to those who have already registered for being so accommodating in the face of this unexpected pivot but I look forward to seeing you at the event from the 5th of August 2021.
I wrote and article about:
Creating unique file permissions with Microsoft Teams
but I thought I’d also do a video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13BifpwKTt4
as I do get this question a lot about having a different set of file permissions for users inside a Microsoft Team. Best practice is NOT to alter any of the existing permissions that are provisioned by channel creation. Instead, create a separate area, with the permissions you want, and then link that back into your team.
That provides a lot more flexibility and doesn’t ‘break’ any of the standard settings.
Recently, I wrote the following article:
Syncing M365 Message Center to Microsoft Planner
which took you through the process of getting Message Center information into Microsoft Planner. as good as that it is, the best place for that information should really be in Teams. The reason? With Teams people can ‘chat’ about the topics which adds far more value for an organisation in my opinion.
The good news is that it is very easy to not only sync messages with Microsoft Planner but also have them displayed in Microsoft Teams. It is all accomplished using Power Automate.
Create a new Flow and use the When a new task is created trigger as shown above. You’ll then need to configure this trigger action to point to the same Microsoft Plan into which you have already set up to sync with the Microsoft Message Center.
The next action should Get task details as shown above. You’ll need this to actually read the notes from each task, which contains the details of each item from the Message Center.
In my case, I save the Description field from the task into a string variable using the Initialize variable action as shown. I then use a number of separate Compose actions to search and replace text inside that variable to tidy up and format the Description field for posting into a Teams chat.
For example I remove the /r/n characters and replace them with the HTML line feed tag </br> using the following expression:
replace(variables(‘description’),decodeUriComponent(‘%0D%0A’),'</br>’)
Once I have the Description field formatted the way I want it then I use the Post a message (V3) action as seen above. The Title of the new task from Planner is the subject of the thread and the body is my now nicely formatted Description field, which is the data from the Message Center item.
You can see the result in a channel in Microsoft Teams above. Now others can easily add their reactions, comments and generally collaborate far easier than within Microsoft Planner.
I think having the Message center information delivered to Microsoft Teams make a lot of sense since it is a place more people will be spending more of their time generally. However, getting the Message Center information into Microsoft Teams still requires the sync configuration to a Plan first. However, once that is done, Power Automate allows you to achieve just about anything!
Join me for this episode with Microsoft MVP James Arber who’ll spend some time with us talk about Teams Voice. In short, he’ll help us demystify what it takes to get Microsoft Teams connected to the plain old telephone system. Microsoft’s world wide partner conference, Inspire is this week, and I’ll be tuning in to catch all the announcements from the event. I’ll bring you all those in the next episode, but not to be be outdone, I have a few handy links and news from the Microsoft Cloud to tide you over till then.
This episode was recorded using Microsoft Teams and produced with Camtasia 2020.
Brought to you by www.ciaopspatron.com
Take a listen and let us know what you think – feedback@needtoknow.cloud
You can listen directly to this episode at:
https://ciaops.podbean.com/e/episode-270-james-arber/
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https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/ciaops-need-to-know-podcasts/id406891445?mt=2
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http://www.stitcher.com/podcast/ciaops/need-to-know-podcast?refid=stpr
Don’t forget to give the show a rating as well as send us any feedback or suggestions you may have for the show.
Resources
James Arber – Twitter, Linkedin
Teams and Skype for Business tools
Getting started with Microsoft Endpoint Manager
Three new voice features for Outlook mobile—now on iOS, and coming soon to Android
What’s new for admins in Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise – June 2021
Enabling automation with Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
