Showing posts with label Exchange. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Exchange. Show all posts

Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Outlook App erstatter mail på mobil og nettbrett

Det finnes omtrent like mange applikasjoner for epost som det finnes tre i en middels norsk barskog. De adresserer alle et område som for mange oppfattes som personlig og hvor de fleste har forskjellige arbeidsvaner. For få år siden var det utenkelig at Microsoft skulle slippe Outlook for Android og iOS. Kan det nå tenkes at dette i dag er eneste riktige standard for jobbmail?

Epost applikasjoner er en morsom liten greie. På samme måte som nettlesere har vi benyttet de i alle evighet. Likevel er kravene og behovene annerledes i dag enn i 1999. Teknologien er mye lik, men brukeropplevelsen og kravet til sikkerhet har utviklet seg enormt.

Outlook uavhengig av plattform
I bedriftsammenheng har Microsoft Exchange vært dominerende som epost løsning, og gjennom Exchange Active Sync har vi lenge fått epost, kalender og kontakter inn på smarttelefonen. Dette har utviklet seg stadig. Serverplattformen har for de fleste etterhvert flyttet ut i Microsoft sin skyløsning, samtidig som de ansatte i større grad enn før ønsker tilgang fra personlige enheter. Dette øker nødvendigheten av sikkerhet rundt løsningen, noe som igjen setter premisser for hvilke epost applikasjoner som er fornuftig å benytte. Her seiler Microsoft Outlook opp som den beste og sikreste klienten for Android og iOS.

Ved hjelp av mekanismer i Microsoft sin skyløsning kan nå bedriften og brukernes kommunikasjon og data sikres. Dette krever dog at det er Microsoft sine egne applikasjoner som benyttes også på mobiler og nettbrett. Sikkerheten kan da ivaretas mellom Outlook, Word, Excel, OneDrive for Business, OneNote, Teams og andre applikasjoner fra Microsoft. Tilgangen mellom klient og server sikres da samtidig som dataene i applikasjone også sikres at de ikke kommer på avveie. Inntil nylig var epostadresse og passord det eneste man trengte for å sette opp epost på mobiltelefonen. Nå kan og vil det settes strengere krav for tilgangen til bedriftens data - dersom du vil ha epost på din telefon må reglene følges.

Outlook App tilpassinger

Outlook App på Android og iOS er relativt fersk, spesielt sammenlignet med Outlook på PC som ble lansert i 1997. I starten var Outlook app svært mangelfull, men den har nå utviklet seg til å bli den beste applikasjonen man kan ha for å betjene epost og kalender på mobiltelefonen. I utgangspunktet er Outlook App god. Jeg har likevel funnet at den krever noen enkle tilpasninger for å bli perfekt for meg. Heldigvis lar den seg tilpasse, og her kommer en liste over de endringer jeg har satt opp for meg selv:

Tilpassingene gjøres fra Settings menyen inne i Outlook.
Trykk oppe i venstre hjørne av Outlook for å få opp mappelisten med snarvei til Settings.
Bildene her er fra Android, men finnes også for iOS.
(trykk for større bilde)

Jeg pleier å tilpasse alternativene for å sveipe i Innboksen til min behov.
(trykk for større bilde)

Kan her velge hva som skjer når man sveiper til høgre og venstre.
Jeg har valgt at markere som lest/ulest ved sveiping til høgre.
Til venstre har jeg valgt å slette eposter.
(Trykk for større bilde)

Jeg har ellers satt opp en personlig autosignatur i Outlook App omtrent som i Outlook på PC.
Les forøvrig egen artikkel rundt autosignatur i Outlook på PC.
(Trykk for større bilde)

Autosignatur kopierte jeg med meg fra en mail sendt fra PC funnet i sendte elementer.
Den er noe tilpasset ettersom jeg ikke har rik tekstformatering her.
(Trykk for større bilde)


Organisering og visning av eposter oppleves bedre om man fjerner haken for "Organiser etter tråd". Dette gjelder spesielt opplevelsen ved å svare på epost.
(Trykk for større bilde)


Under Innstillinger - Kalender kan du sette på visning av ukenumre i Outlook kalenderen.


For å få med kontakter fra Outlook og inn i telefonens kontakter må selve kontoen tilpasses.
Dette forutsetter at denne muligheten ikke er låst ned sentralt.
(Trykk for større bilde)

Velg nå å synkronisere kontakter fra Outlook og inn på enheten. Ved bruk av Android Work Profile vil disse kontaktene nå legges i kontakter tilhørende den profilen. Dialoger fra disse kontaktene (sms etc) vil da bli markert som jobbdialoger.
(Trykk for større bilde)

På iOS har jeg valgt å legge inn Outlook, Teams og OneNote som valg under dele-knappen.
Dette settes enkelt opp med siste knappen på linjen.
(Trykk for større bilde)
Det kan være hensiktsmessig å fjerne visning av Outlook elementer på låstskjermen.
Her er eksempel fra iOS hvor man under Innstillinger - Varslinger - Outlook fjerne hake for å vise varsler på låst skjerm.
(Trykk for større bilde)

Kalenderbruk

Etter innføringen av Intune for administrasjon av mobile enheter og sikring av bedrifters data er det mange som mister kalenderinnslagene fra Outlook Kalender inn mot den innebygde kalenderen i iOS og Android. Dette kommer i tilfelle som en følge av at Intune er satt opp til å begrense Exchange synkronisering kun mot applikasjoner som lar seg administrere. Appen Microsoft Outlook er et eksempel på dette. Kalenderinnslagene fra bedriftskalenderen vil derfor kun være tilgjengelig gjennom applikasjonen Microsoft Outlook.

Det kan derfor være like greit å venne seg til å benytte kalenderen i Microsoft Outlook ved innføring av Intune. Bruk kalenderen til å opprette nye avtaler og følge opp agendaen din på jobb. Husk du kan tilpasse visningen.
Velg Kalenderdelen av Outlook Appen og tilpass visningen.
Prøv også kalenderen på nettbrettet i liggende visning.
(Trykk for større bilde)

Private kalendere inn i Outlook Kalender

Det har nå kommet mulighet for å legge de private kalenderne inne i Outlook appen (Google kalender, iTunes kalender og øvrige kalendere som er definert opp på enheten). Dette gjør at man da får en samlet visning over avtaler på jobb og privat direkte i Outlook kalender. Når aktuelle kalendere er lagt inn, kan man enklet velg hvilke som skal vises i menyen. Det blir da også mulig å opprette nye avtaler i de private kalenderne gjennom Outlook appen. Med denne utvidelsen har jeg nå min jobb og privat kalender tilgjengelig i Outlook. Jeg har tilgang til interessante delte kalendere på jobb og jeg har tilgang til familiens private Gmail kalendere direkte i Outlook kalender.
Trykk på "+" knappen inne på menyen i Outlook Kalender og du får tilgang til å legge til andre kalendere på enheten, delte kalendere fra Exchange, Gmail kalendere, iCloud kalendere med mere.


Jeg håper du finner noen av disse tipsene interessante. Har du andre tilpasninger du selv pleier å gjøre er jeg glad om du tipser meg om disse - legg gjerne igjen en kommentar under her. Ønsker du hjelp til å få kontroll over bedriftens data som bor ute på de ansattes mobiltelefoner kan vi i Serit bistå med dette - ta gjerne kontakt for å høre mer om mulighetene som finnes for å sikre at brukerne har riktige verktøy på sine mobiler og at dataene i verktøyene forblir sikre.

Monday, July 10, 2017

Corporate Headshots - Social Media for Business

First impressions will always be important, but now that we conduct so many of our initial interactions online, virtual personal branding has become as important as the firm handshake once was in introducing yourself to the world. Hence a corporate headshot is an opportunity to portray a brand image to potential customers.

In business we spend a lot of money on branding across logos, websites, literature, packaging and premises. Is the photographic representation of you and your coworkers the place to scrimp on branding? Probably not. Whether you are posting your headshot on you Companys website, or want to post it on social media pages, you are always representing your business in one way or another. A professional headshot will put confidence into you business and make your clients more willing to deal with you.

Think about it for a moment - if you were searching for a new supplier and found that a certain company was a very viable supplier, but the corporate headshots had an unprofessional style - would you be willing to deal with this company? If you want to get the most out of your digital presence, a professional corporate headshot will allow you and your colleges to achieve a good appearance.

Getting the most from your head shot

If you decide to make corporate headshots of you and your company, you will have to deal with a lot of questions related to dress codes, style of the images etc. You need to book a photographer and put up a schedule for your co-workers to get photographed.
Me doing corporate headshots of  a company

Pictures received - now what?

Once the photo session is finished you will receive a portfolio of pictures from the photographer. Now you need a plan how to distribute and use these pictures in order to give the best return of Investment.
Corporate Headshost received - time to distribute and use the pictures
Social Media has been a large consumer of headshots for a long time. We have also seen headshots as impersonators in corporate software for a while. The challenge now will be to utilize the new portfolio of headshots over the wide array of software og systems supporting personal portraits.

Active Directory, Exchange and Skype for Business

Portraits can be added to each user account in Active Directory as a thumbnail. There are several tools available for this operation out on the wild internet. We have preferred a PowerShell script to deal with this operation. Pictures are being adjusted and exported to a folder in the format of sAMAccountName.jpg. The Powershell script will then add the corporate headshot to the correct person in Active Directory. The debut of Exchange 2010 and Outlook 2010 made the portrait from AD available in Exchange Global Address list. All out of sudden the new headshots are available in the Outlook clients to all employees in the company.
Corporate Headshots available in Exchange and Outlook
The thumbnails uploaded to Active Directory will also be visible for colleagues in Skype for Business:
Corporate Headshots as viewed in Skype for Business
AD-integrated thumbnails in Skype for Business will only be visible to internal users. Federated users will not have read access to the picture stored in Active Directory. In order to make your thumbnail portrait visible to federated partners you need to tweak your Skype for Business to allow pictures from a website. With this option available we can pick a portrait available on the Internet as a thumbnail photo in Skype for Business.
In order to have a streamlined distribution of the corporate headshots, we have created a website on the Skype for Business server with all headshots available in correct format. The website is populated with images from the same Powershell script populating AD with thumbnail photos. This will give all users a Skype for Business uniform corporate portrait visible to everyone - internally and externally!
Example of Skype for Business meeting where pictures of federated users are missing

3rd party systems

The Powershell script used for distribution of the corporate headshots can easily be customized to distribute pictures to other 3rd party systems. The following list contains examples of 3rd party systems where the powershell script has been used for picture distribution.

Trio Enterprise

Trio Enterprise has options to have corporate headshots for each individual person registered in Company Directory. Company Directory can be set to synchronize with Active Directory, but the thumbnail photo from AD can't be directly synced to Company Directory. By customizing the PowerShell script for distributing the corporate headshots, we have managed to incorporate Trio Enterprise into the automated picture distribution. Here are some examples of pictures as they appear in Trio Enterprise:
Corporate Headshot in Trio Enterprise Attendant

Corporate Headshot in Trio Enterprise Web Assistant

Corporate Headshot in Trio Enterprise Web Assistant

Web based solutions

The pictures has also been distributed to 3rd party web based solutions with information based on AD giving phone lists, employee lists, organization charts, doorsigns etc. These are handy tools for new coworkers in the company to match names and faces. Some screenshots just as an example:

Organization Chart with headshots

Department list with headshots

Title list with headshots

User information with headshot

Doorsign template with headshot

Contact Card VCF file

The best way to distribute your contact card in a digital way, is by use of VCF Contact Cards. These cards can in fact also contain a portrait. This will effectively distribute the new portraits and updated personal details to your contact persons outlook and mobile phones. The PowerShell script used to distribute the Corporate Headshots can also distribute pictures to be used in a VCF Contact Card routine. I have earlier described a routine for setting the Outlook Auto Signature based on details in AD. This has in some circumstances been extended to give a shortcut to an downloadable VCF file with appropriate updated contact details - included a fresh user portrait!.
Outlook AutoSignature with shortcut to updated VCF file


VCF file with updated details and corporate headshot

Windows 10 Profile Picture

Some fantasy and creative use of PowerShell and Group Policy can also automatically distribute the Corporate Headshots from AD as profile picture in Microsoft Windows 10.
Corporate Headshot as profile picture in Windows 10. ScreenLock background is also centrally managed.

Corporate Headshot picture in Windows 10

Office365

Microsoft Office 365 has Corporate Headshots heavily integrated in all services and modules. We have expanded the Powershell script to distribute the corporate headshots also to this platform. This gives the platform an extra social profile.
An example of corporate headshots in Delve from Microsoft Office 365

Corporate Headshots and other graphical branding through scripting

Scripting and customization of your standard products used by your employees on a day to day basis can take your branding interests to a higher level. This blog post has focused on corporate headshots. It could have been considerable longer if I did include other graphical branding possibilities available in your standard products in use at the office. 

A security concern!

Please do remember - these are small steps helping you increase your security since it will give your services a branded look which differs from standard solutions!

I would love to help you with these concerns! Please comment if you have a good story, some needs or experience related to this topic!




Thursday, September 29, 2016

MSIgnite 2016, Day3

Three days has passed at MSIgnite 2016. Still two more to go, but first a wrap up of some notes to my self from this day stuffed with exciting sessions.

After breakfast I found time to do a spark portrait. As usual I had a sharp eye on the technology. Pretty interesting to see and even hear all the shutters released at the same time for a photo nerd like me. The result:


Session number one was the "Troubleshoot new Skype for Business offerings" held by Jason Collier and Ricardo Garcia. This was a really good deep dive into how to troubleshoot the new SfB offerings. The experienced speakers did share a wealth of information from the nuts and bolts of the most common scenarios. They did also show helpfull tips and tricks through the tools of troubleshooting SfB. A much appreciated session stuffed with valuable technical information. The slide deck will be studied and the session replayed more than once.
Jason, Ricardo and Bryan from yesterdays SOF session
Start with a structured approach for troubleshooting
Gather as much details as possible from the error situation
Classify the issue from the details
Common causes to problems. Note that the Client also needs patching to keep up with the pace of the Cloud
Session number two this wednesday was by William L. Looney: "Troubleshoot Operations with Skype Call Quality Management". Unfortunately he had some demo syndroms, but the essence of the topic was good - this topic has also been mentioned in other sessions so far during this Ignite week.
William Looney on stage

Tool overview for Call Quality management
As my third session today I did choose the "Migrate to Exchange Online via Exchange Hybrid" held by Timothy Heeney and Michael Van Horenbeeck. It's a pleassure to experience such highly related sessions according to my current running projects held by such vital and knowledgeable people. This session did answer quite a few questions. It was a thrill listening to Timothys stories from development spiced with sweet humor. Both speakers had a good flow and high speed. Appreciated!
Thomas Murphy Ballroom was a great arena for som superior speakers

With help of Twitter I got noticed to join the "Plan for Cloud PBX deployment" session held by Jamie Stark. This was also a really good session held by an inspiring and captivating speaker with mint presentation skills, knowledge to the subject and superb flow. The session did cover an overview of all the features of Cloud PBX - from administration capabilities to interoperability to end-user features. Jamie did also have a good live demo of the Cloud PBX admin interfaces.
Jamie Stark getting ready to start his session

Cloud UC presented as the fourth communication era in a credible way (listen to the session on-demand!)
As a final session this day I did enjoy Thomas Poett at the MVP Hub Talk where he gave a good session related to "moving forward with Office 365 and Skype for Business". A dedicated speaker describing some techy SfB stuff from projects.
Poett describes large voice enabled O365 implementations with several SBCs in different parts of the world


It is hard to put one session up against another in order to say if one is better than another. The speakers at Ignite are the best available within their subject. As long as I pick sessions with subjects of my interests, they tend to fit like a glove.

On the Expo floor today I explored more new technologies surrounding Skype for Business and got a chance to tamper with some cool stuff like phones from Yealink, the new meeting room experience from Logitech Smart Dock, Attendant Pro from Landis etc. I even got a chance to explore the Nano server through a pair of Microsoft Hololense!

Yealink T48G. They will come with a T49 with cam as well(!)
 


So far during my Ignite journey I have tended to attend mainly at UC sessions. Seems like my planned schedule for the rest of my week at Ignite will have even more UC sessions. Oh what a joy!

Today was a special good day at Ignite whit a lot of knowledge captured that will become handy already at Monday. I even got myself a lunch today!



Wednesday, September 28, 2016

MSIgnite 2016, Day2

I am back at the hotel room after day two at Microsoft Ignite 2016 in Atlanta. Better knowledge to the buildings and a looser schedule gave a lower number on the pedometer related to day one. A day full of impressions deserves some notes along with my "photographic" memory.

It was crowdy in the hallways after breakfast. Some people was smart enough to take the outside promenade between the buildings. Unfortunately I was stuck in the queue for a while.

Nice weather and noe queue outside... but I was walking inside today
I had picked several sessions for this morning that collided in time. The choice felt on the panel discussion "Improve Office 365 Adoption: top 10 ways" since I recognized one of the speakers from a session on day 1. The discussion gave some good ideas which I hope can be useful in coming projects.
Panel discussion about top 10 ways to improve Office 365 adoption
My second session was "Dive into Project Rigel and the Skype for Business Meeting Device Portfolio" by Group Manager for Skype for Meeting Devices in Microsoft - Ilya Bukshteyn. This was a very interesting session on the new possibilities in the Skype Meeting Experience. We got the historical backdrop for the project, a detailed walkthrough of the process towards the new system and presentation of all partners involved in the project. There was performed a live demo of the impressive and intuitive system (one-click-join experience, attached presentations in meeting invite added to presentation bucket, connect local computer to present or project, easy to start adhoc meetings/calls etc) I hope to be able to see and work with a lot of these technologies in the meeting rooms in the near future - from small huddle rooms all the way to large conference rooms.

Ilya had a huge number of equipment on stage for his live demo
 
My third session today was called "Migrate to the Cloud - Skype for Business Online". The presenters Sean Wilson and William Haberkon did cover workloads to move, how to connect an on-premises deployment to the cloud and new features in moving to the cloud like meeting migrations or managing tenants that span multiple regions to ensure the highest media quality.
Migration paths to Skype for Business Online covered in this session.
Skype for Business online now supports the new Multi-Region enabled state
set-msoluser -PreferredDataLocation was demonstrated live in the session
My fourth session at Ignite 2016 Day 2 was named "Introduce Windows Server 2016 into your environment" held by Jeffrey Woolsey. A level 200 session that rushed through many of the new features spanning from better Time Server, more secure DNS, improved sign-on experience, stronger authentication, stronger ID protection, shielded VMs, Containers, Nano servers, software defined networking/storage and even more. A nice overview of the new server from an inspiring speaker.

More details from Microsoft on the new server can be found here.

Jeffrey Woolsey talking about the new Windows Server 2016
TimeSync - a small, but important component in multi-site/national companies
A phased approach related to Time Server when implementing WinServer 2016
Remember to sync the Time server with a trusted source
Containers was presented in different scenes and variations
My last session for the day was named "Dig into the Skype Operations Framwork". This session was held by Bryan Nyce, a great speaker. SOF is a comprehensive guide and toolset for implementing and managing a reliable and cost-effective communication service based on Skype for Business. The framework is pretty fresh (presented at WPC earlier this year), but are continuously evolving. I can't wait to start study the SOF from microSOFt.
One main quotation from this presentation
During the day I got notified through twitter that I had missed a great Skype for Business session held by Andrew Bybee on the topic "Build native cloud apps for Skype for Business: Skype Developer platform overview". It is not directly related to my operations, but there was given interesting information and demonstrations on the new Trusted Application API for the cloud. I guess this means that third party applications providers pretty soon can start develop their solutions for cloud pbx integrations (callcenter and switchboard providers like Trio Enterprise, Competela and likewise). These inputs combined with other inputs so far in this conference (day 2:5) makes a clear picture on where things should be run in the future. Thanks to Matt Landis for twittering the news from this session!

At the end of the day I had some time in the large EXPO hall where I did consult some expertise related to ongoing projects. It is really appreciated that Microsoft puts people with knowledge, experience and influence into their showcase area! Today I got precise and accurate answers to a couple of projects of mine involving hybrid configurations between on premises installations and cloud. I even got a pretty interesting talk with D'Arcy Salzmann from the Hololens strategy and product team which described a pretty interesting use of the Hololens together with Skype that would have been fun to test with a customer.
Polycom PTZ camera and Control screen (prototype) for the Skype Room System
Crestron Control screen (prototype) for the Skype Room System
Exploring the Surface Hub. Would love to have these for a huddle room at work...
...even though I am a mobile worker.


My phone did decharge pretty quick today as well. I had a powerbank, but that didn't last long. Long time experienced surviver made me improvise with the stuff I had and found that my Surface did provide power through the USB port even though it wasn't running. This gave me the following hack of my Microsoft Ignite bag:
Charge cable through headphone port of the Microsoft bag made the surface a giant UPS for my phone.

No giveaways today - only pure knowledge!
And by the way - I did remember lunch today, but it was to late - they were empty...

Now it's time to catchup with the mailbox with my dual-monitor-hotel-room-system based on Surface, iPad and duet display!