We are big proponents of using the right tool for the job and when it comes to migrations from file shares and on-premises SharePoint we often recommend the Sharegate Desktop application. Just head over to your favorite search engine and type “lift and shift SharePoint migration” to see why we like to use utilities to avoid the lift and shift approach. Migration best practices aside, as the title of this post suggests there was something a little wonky going on with one of our customers migrations. One of the other reasons we like Sharegate so much is its ease of use as it allows the customer to perform many of the tasks without our assistance which saves them consulting dollars but when issues arise, we are usually able to solve them quickly, this was no exception. Continue reading “Sharegate Desktop: An unexpected error occurred: This file is currently not available for use on the computer”
New Licensing Options for PowerApps and Flow
Yep, you read that correctly. Microsoft is at it again – changing the licensing for PowerApps and Flow. Even though they just changed the licensing in February of 2019, they are making significant changes that will be launching in October. These changes come on the heels of the launch of PowerApps Portals, which are low-code websites for external users. Although I understand the need to add new/different levels of licensing for this new feature, it seems like overkill to change all the licensing just 5 months after a major overhaul. Furthermore, the changes could have significant financial implications for some, and the announcement has left the community up in arms.
Continue reading “New Licensing Options for PowerApps and Flow”
What’s New In Office 365 (August 2019)
After receiving numerous requests, we are bringing back the what’s new in Office 365 series. If you were not aware Microsoft has been running a bi-weekly podcast called The Intrazone that sort of “stole our thunder” a bit when they added the “Roadmap Pitstop” segment. The pitstop usually covers much of the same content we provided in this series. However, we have had quite a few requests to bring the series back as many folks that were exclusively using SharePoint are starting to use more Office 365 applications. As Microsoft continues to expand its offerings and functionality more organizations are adopting these technologies which is a good thing, we hope😉. Continue reading “What’s New In Office 365 (August 2019)”
Azure Virtual Day Camp Review
I attended the Azure Virtual Day Camp put on by the Power Platform Users Group earlier this week. I registered for sessions from two different tracks (Developer and Architect); but in the end, they only registered me for 3 sessions in the Architect track (some of which were sessions for which I had not even registered). I was a bit disappointed, because I really wanted to attend the Developer sessions. The saving grace is that they sent me the recordings from the Developer sessions. Hopefully, I can find some time to watch them.
Session Reviews
Developing with PowerApps, Flow and Azure Cognitive Services
My first session by Mariano Gomez was the most interesting. Mariano walked us through developing a Conference Badge Scanner App. The app scans a badge, converts the data to text, and sends an email to the badge owner. This same technology could easily be used to scan business cards and send them to a contacts list/data base. The App uses PowerApps, Flow and the Computer Vision API. Mariano demontrated building the app during the 45-minute session. That is how easy it is to leverage the power of the power platform. Continue reading “Azure Virtual Day Camp Review”
There are no sites to show right now…but there are!
Recently we had a customer report an issue with their Office products (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) where there were not seeing their frequently accessed sites for SharePoint Online.
I remembered reading something about this on a post in Tech Community Blog but thought it was related to Modern Authentication which the customer wouldn’t have touched. At least I hoped that to be the case and ultimately it was. So, I reached out to the user experiencing the issue and did all the typical account reset “stuff”: Signed out of Office, cleared the Credentials Manager and removed/add the Microsoft Account. No joy, but in speaking with the user it was discovered that the issue cropped up when they moved her mailbox to Exchange Online and courtesy of a Teams screen sharing session I was able to see that the account name for the SharePoint sites as JDoe@contoso.com and the OneDrive was jdoe@contoso.com. Continue reading “There are no sites to show right now…but there are!”
An Overview of Microsoft Teams
Microsoft Teams is a unified communications platform that combines workplace chat, video conferencing, file storage and a host of application integration abilities. Teams launched in the fall of 2017 and a free version of the platform was made available the following year, helping Microsoft surpass their competitor Slack in total number of active users. Here we will take a look at some of Team’s most prominent features to understand why it’s become the preferred choice in workplace collaboration.
Intelligent Communications Continue reading “An Overview of Microsoft Teams”
Using SendGrid with Azure Functions to Send Email
I’ve been working on a solution for a customer that utilizes SharePoint Online lists and libraries, PowerApps, Logic Apps, and Azure Functions. The solution works something like this: Project documents are stored and updated in a SharePoint Library by office staff. The shop floor needs to access the documents and know at a glance when documents have been updated. The PowerApp displays a count of the most recently updated documents by project and document type, and also displays the documents. A SharePoint List is used to store the counts of the most recently updated documents. The Logic App and Azure Function work together to update the SharePoint List with the counts from the SharePoint Library.
As part of the solution, we wanted a way to be notified if the Azure Function threw an error. This is where SendGrid comes in. SendGrid is a third-party email delivery service. Azure Functions support an output binding for SendGrid, which makes it very easy to integrate into your solution.Here is a grand overview of how my solution (just the Azure Function and SendGrid piece) will work – If my Azure Function throws an error, it will send the error message to Azure Queue Storage. The error message will be stored in Azure Queue Storage until another Azure Function (2) comes and picks it up. Azure Function (2) will use SendGrid to send an email containing the error message. Easy-peasy. You can use SendGrid to send emails for all kinds of reasons – when a customer places an order, you can send a confirmation email with the details of the order; when someone clicks a button on your site to request information, you can send an email with the requested information; the options are endless.
Continue reading “Using SendGrid with Azure Functions to Send Email”
