Forfatter: reistad

Outlook Calendar OVERLAY , search and you will find ..

From the birth of collaboration tools there has been the question … HOW DO I GET ALL MEETINGS IN MY CALENDAR.  In the early  days some tools had  synchronization between group calendars and private calendars. Resulting in dramatic consequences for all when something failed.

Most of us have solved this by tiling different calendars next to each other … But then comes teams around , and it’s not any longer one calendar , but it can be a large number of calendars due to beeing a member of a large number of teams. So you buy a bigger screen ? Nope . Solution is simple .

As with all Microsoft tools , when you feel left alone and the tools are just so unusable , ask yourself: are you using the tools correctly ? And my finding was that I didn’t.   I selected view… in calendar … and the overlay .

Every team calendar is then given a colour , and appointments are … well yes overlayed. …. so you have one old fashioned calendar , week , workweek or whatever , and all different teams , and different accounts , show up in one view… as overlayed .

Functionality isn’t new. It has been around for 6 years. But for me it hasn’t been required to manage 2 digit numbers of calendars . Teams has  made that a necessity, and sure Outlook managed it .

So  this is really not about overlays,  its about always looking for alternative solutions within the tool. Thinking , this must be a problem not only for me. And the googleit , search for it , look for it , OR hire someone to do that for you . So feel welcome to come forward with your pain points, where you feel tool sis strangling you … there might be a way out of pain for you …

Nett meeting, sametime , webex ,Skype eller TEAMS?

TEAMS sier nå jeg. Alltid vært gøy å dra på tjeneste reise for å møte partnere og kunder ?  Muligens ikke så mye nå.

En lisens på Office365 , årlig kost 1200 – 3000 pr år for 3-5 brukere ,  gir deg anledning til å ha møter med ca 5-10 eksterne personer i TEAMs. (Samt office lisens , samt lagring i skya og MYE mer, men det er en annen historie.)

Office lisensene kommer for så lite som 99 kroner pr mnd pr bruker. Da er alle verktøy wen verktøy, og en ChromeBook til 3000 kroner er helt god nok for å gjøre det meste.

Telenor 

For øyeblikket er Teams lisenser i markedsførings fase … så de koster ikke noe.

Jeg har lang erfaring med alle disse verktøyene , og har det siste året innført TEAMS i  flere stor Europeiske organisasjoner.

Du er klar over at Skype ikke lengre er supportert etter 2021 Q1 ? Så du kan like gjerne bytte nå.

Om du har office eller ei , tak kontakt for å diskutere hvordan jeg kan bidra for å løse dine behov , raskt og enkelt .

Kurs i hvordan å holde nettmøter , TEAMS 101 , 102 , 201 …

Alle kurs tilpasses dine behov.

Konfigurere Teams for eksternt samarbeide på din løsning .

Og mere til !

 

Thomas

 

ps :

OG : Skal hilse fra MICROSOFT SUPPORT Washington , de har så mange henvendelser på hjelp nå , fra folk som vil ha hjelp med teams at de aldri har opplevd tilsvarende…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Skype for Business Online avvikles

Microsoft Teams har blitt den sentrale kommunikasjonsklienten for Office 365, og derfor avvikles Skype for Business Online 31. juli 2021. Etter denne datoen vil ikke Skype for Business Online lenger være tilgjengelig. Kundestøtten for tjenesten avvikles også. Les blogginnlegget for å få flere opplysninger og ressurser som hjelper deg med å oppgradere til Teams.

Benytt anledningen frem til juli 2021 , til ikke å bytte fra Skype til Teams , men gå i SKYA helt og fult. Med sky løsning på hos Microsoft , får du Teams, du får mail, og du får all den word og excel du trenger , enten som web klienter eller som nedlastbare lokale klienter.

Men går du for rene webløsninger, så vil du også ha store besparelser i lisenser og maskiner og utstyr. Du kan bruke Chromebooks , di kan få teams på mobil, du får full integrasjon.

Bruker med Mobil , på Android plattform/Chromebook .

Blandet domene med billig hosted webløsning, og webbasert email for de fleste, fulle MS lisenspakker kun til de få som trenger dette.

Og Teams… det er den enkle bakdøren til SharePoint og fil lagring.

Så har du Power Automate for enkel AI . Og du tenker … Min bedrift trenger ikke AI ? Å joda…  tenk bare på å få varsel 3 mnd før en skal følge opp års kontrakter med kunde. Sånt noe er bygget inn i SharePoint ..

Så ta kontakt , uforpliktende … no cure ? NO PAY ! Så sikker er jeg på at dette er veien for mangen !

 

 

 

Microsoft FLOW , best practice?

having used FLOW for some period now , I would like to share my experience , to save others my frustrations !!

Before I start creating flows, I create a FLOW user. flow@domain.xxx  . All updates done to data , is then clearly stamped with : UPDATED by flow. Not all users like to see names of users they feel are outside the process.  It also only have permissions required for objects to be included in flow.

The first step, is a trigger as it has to be, it can be a scheduled trigger , or an event .

MY FIRST MANDATORY STEP , is a check to see who triggered the flow .  You might want to do different things , based on who triggered. Also in some cases with multiple updates in one flow (NO NO !!) You might by accident trigger the flow from the flow…

Strangely it seems to work without re triggers on short flows, but as they take longer time, they re trigger.. So if  Modified by eq flow@domain.xxx  , then terminate. 

MY SECOND MANDATORY STEP , is to define the variables  for what we would call arguments in old fashion procedures.

Each  variable is set to their default value, it is the unchanged input value from the trigger. This means that if code to come can change , or leave as if ased on logic in that code.

MY  THIRD MANDATORY STEP , is the SWITCH. In each item in SharePoint eg. , I have a SWITCH variable that  normally  is «Ok» , but that end user can set to other values to trigger actions from the flow.

On new item typically it would be «new-fix» or something.  The switch then  routes to code required .

In each block in the switch I save files , update in other tables etc etc , but never updates in the item that triggered the flow. Procedure is to  the variables from the second step.

The fourth step, is the to update record in trigger item .  it might not bee needed , but at least it should rewrite SWITCH variable back to ok .

So… some last word : I insert send mail statements, as I would have done with break points. I use create CSV table to send myself a full  csv file of input data . I might even include a «DEBUG» variable, so that I can turn debug on or off without having to modify code.

Flow is not for the inexperience.. but 80% of functionality that you would use flow to create , is type of reminders. When is the certificate no longer valid, when should the HMS report be completed …  and so on..

For simplicity there is a fourth (first of fourth)   selection on the flow button… IF your list , or library contains a date field .  Its «SET A REMINDER» . You are asked for which variable to use, who to remind (email) , and the flow is then generated. EASY entry point , and nice .

 

 

 

 

Why is Microsoft Flow combined with FTP so SLOW !!

A very simple flow. Get some items , create a csv file Send as an email, and use standard FTP to post to a publishing server running LAMP. This is part of my attempt to make simple integrations between Office365 and both Joomle, WordPress and other web solutions using simple methods and old NETSCAPE portal thinking.. sort of …

Took me 10 minutes to get flow up and running, and 3 days to make it work… To transfear 2 Kb of updates , it used more than 38 minutes ! When I looked at the file it was oscillating between 0 and 2 KB . Sometimes it was almost ok, mostly not.

Connectors in Flow , can be configured as connectors under settings on flow dashboard, what took me so long was that the specific settings used on each operation are stored in that operation itself .

«Large messages may be split up into many smaller requests to the connector to allow large message upload and download. Details can be found at http://aka.ms/logicapps-chunk.»

And the limit before this should trigger is 50 MB , but that is not true…

It chunked my file all the time, and crashed transfer, and restartet … again… and again…

Turning CHUNKING of , reduced upload time from 38 minutes o 12 seconds…

 

 

Excel metadata, og SharePoint

I bibliotek med godkjenning og styrende dokumenter , er word som hånd i hanske med SharePoint. Fra Quick Parts setter en inn dokument informasjon i headers så lett som bare det. At en må benytte flow eller workflow for å beregne neste hovedversjon i kladder , er en annen sak.

Men EXCEL… I GAAMLE dager benyttet en bare en liten MACRO, og litt vsb kode og det var lett som en plett det også… Men nå skammer Microsoft seg så mye over alle blemmer med vsb og macro virus, at en nesten ikke får skrudd på developer…

 

Men svaret er enkelt, bruk word som en mappe for EXCEL.  Da får en det beste av alle verktøy.. Svaret ligger under INSERT TABLE .

Her har en nå EXCEL SHEET , og ja før hadde en insert object, show as icon , embed etc etc , men denne , den er enklere !!

Det betyr at det er lett å lage tabeller som beregner ting… INNE I WORD , og som da har styrning som word dokumentet.

Det er ikke bare ett sheet som settes inn, en kan ha flere sheets , en kan ha menyer , og det hele…..Savner en toolbar p excel arket er det bare å velge tabellen , og høyreklikke , og velge WORKSHET OBJECT , da får en open in excel, og kan jobbe som en bare vil.

Selvsagt ikke den helt store oppdagelsen…. men … en omgår da problemer med å se dokument metadata for excel arket, men å se dokument metadata I excel, se det er fortsatt uløst …

 

 

 

Office 365 Sharepoint.com User Hierarchy and recommended licenses

My recommendations, small to very small business…  10 to 300 users.

  1. Office 365 Business Premium
  • One needed. If local PC instalation is a must for more than one user  is needed .
  • 1 working email address
  • Large number of group and team email boxes , 1 user can read shared mailboxes
  • Full SharePoint Online, and ability to invite others , also unlisenced users.
  • 1TB of storage to share
  • Possible to download full office software to PC/MAC/MOBILE
  • Full Skype for business can host secure  meetings

To be used by Company secretary, head of sales , CFO.. only a few.

2. Office 365 Business Essentials

Alternative to option 1. Can host secure meetings, but all work is online, no offline lisens.

  • 1 working email address pr lisens
  •  email boxes , can read shared mailboxes
  • Full SharePoint Online, and ability to invite others , also unlisenced users.
  • 1TB of storage to share , adds to existing storage .
  • Can edit all office documents online.
  • NOT Possible to download full office software to PC/MAC/MOBILE
  • Full Skype for business: can host secure meetings

3. Exchange Online (Plan 1)

Working email address , Can read shared mailboxes

Can edit all office documents online.

NOT Possible to download full office software to PC/MAC/MOBILE

NOT Full Skype for business: can not host secure meetings, but can attend.

 

 

4.  Unlicensed users For FREE

Based on creating a domain user , the domain user can read and edit, can have roles like helpdesk, password admin etc etc .  But mail Andress used as login cant be used as an email.

Guest users : Any external user can be added .

The problem with Unlicensed users not beeing able to read email, can be solved by putting all O365 users in a sub domain, and all root domain users on a Apache server.

In my company : Thomas.Reistad@msky.okbase.com is via exchange , and Thomas.Reistad@okbase.com is pop directly from mail server.

 

30 to 60 euro per month , should then be enough to bring a small business into the cload.

Announcing Microsoft Support and Recovery Assistant for Office 365

https://www.testconnectivity.microsoft.com/?testid=o365lyncdns

Good news : «Support and Recovery Assistant is a new tool that helps users troubleshoot and fix issues with various Office 365 apps and services. The app diagnoses common Outlook issues like account setup, connectivity issues, password issues, or Outlook stops responding or crashes. To identify the root cause of these issues, the app runs checks such as:

  • Checks licenses
  • Verifying users’ credentials and that Office 365 servers are reachable
  • Checks for updates to Outlook clients
  • Checks authentication
  • Network checks
  • Protocol checks»

Kjør testen, og når den sier at den ikke finner eg _sipfederationtls._tcp.msky.okbase.com  kopier det inn i din lokale DNS . Svinaktig vanskelig å få det der helt rett første gang

Tar også tid fra en gjør endring i DNS , til den er ute … så dette krever tålmodighet. Gå gjerne i ett DOS prompt ..

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.17134.471]
(c) 2018 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Users\thoma_000>nslookup
Default Server:  UnKnown
Address:  192.168.0.1

> set type=al <enter>
unknown query type: al

Okbase.com <enter>

okbase.com      nameserver = ns1.cpanel.guru
okbase.com      nameserver = ns2.cpanel.guru

> sip.msky.okbase.com <enter>
Server:  UnKnown
Address:  192.168.0.1

ja etc etc …

Det er fed som i federation … ikke feed som feed me..

Det er LYNC ikke LYNCH…

Hvor er den kunstige inteligensen , når en trenger den…

 

Men ok… sånn går no dagane…