Introducing Microsoft Places: Turn your spaces into places

Introducing Microsoft Places: Turn your spaces into places

by | Oct 12, 2022 | Business, Microsoft 365, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Reimagining the workplace to support true flexibility will require technology to bridge the physical and digital divide. That’s why I’m excited to introduce Microsoft Places, our new connected workplace platform that reimagines places for hybrid and in-person work.

The post Introducing Microsoft Places: Turn your spaces into places appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Live from Microsoft Ignite 2022: Introducing new AI, automation, and collaboration capabilities for Dynamics 365  

Live from Microsoft Ignite 2022: Introducing new AI, automation, and collaboration capabilities for Dynamics 365  

by | Oct 12, 2022 | Dynamics 365, Microsoft 365, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

At Microsoft Ignite 2022, we are showcasing new AI, automation, and collaborative solutions that help your business be more efficient, engage better across teams and departments, and deliver more breakthrough customer experiences. By helping your business better connect people, data, and processes, you can be more agile and reduce complexity, so you can do more with less.

In a special Into Focus session, we will showcase these and other new investments introduced in our second biannual release wave, release wave 2, to help you adapt to change, innovate, and modernize your processes across the organizationfrom sales to service to supply chain and finance.

Product updates at a glance

Be more efficient with new AI and automation updates:

  • Empower sellers to focus on closing deals with Microsoft Viva Sales, the new seller experience application is now generally available.
  • Make every sales conversation more useful and engaging with conversation intelligence, available for no extra charge in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Viva Sales.
  • Create more consistent sales processes with sequencing for sales in Dynamics 365 Sales.
  • Enable service agents to better serve customers with AI-generated conversation summaries in Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

Collaborate in the flow of work with new integrations between Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Dynamics 365:

  • Solve complex service cases faster by easily collaborating with subject matter experts over Teams, right within Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service.
  • Enable Teams users to access Dynamics 365 Business Central dataeven without a Dynamics 365 license.

Improve employee and customer experiences with AI and automation

We continue to infuse AI and automation into business processes, driving more effective customer journeys. The updates we are introducing will help marketers, sellers, and service agents to hyper-personalize customer experiences.

Introducing unlimited conversation intelligence for Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Viva Sales

Sellers can take advantage of new AI capabilities that help them prioritize their work and surface in-context collaboration experiences so that they can reclaim time to engage more authentically and efficiently.

Now generally available, Viva Sales is a new seller experience application that brings together any customer relationship management (CRM) system, Microsoft 365, and Teams to provide a more streamlined and AI-powered selling experience. Viva Sales captures customer insights and deal insights from Microsoft 365including Outlook emails and Teams chatsand then populates it within any CRM system, eliminating manual data entry and freeing time to focus on selling.

Additionally, while meeting with customers in a Teams call, sellers can record and transcribe the meeting to get a rich summary using conversation intelligence. The meeting summary helps sellers understand the overall sentiment of the call and tracks helpful conversation key performance indicators (KPIs), such as a seller’s talk-to-listen ratio.

We are confident that conversation intelligence will change the way sellers engage with customers, and we want to make it available to as many sellers as possible. That’s why we are announcing that users of both Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales Enterprise and Viva Sales will have full access to conversation intelligence capabilities at no extra charge.

In addition, we are announcing several feature updates, coming to preview early next year, for sales conversation intelligence, including:

  • Real-time, in-conversation content suggestions: As sellers engage customers on a Teams call or meeting, they will be guided with content to share or help inform the conversation, such as product and pricing details and competitive battle cardsall surfaced in real time as they chat.
  • Recommended resources and insights: Content such as talking points, important mentions, customer sentiment, and conversation stylehelp provide a deeper understanding of what comprises winning sales strategies and how sellers’ behaviors directly correlate to business results.
  • Email intelligence: This supports sellers suggesting prompts for updates needed in your CRM.

Learn more about conversation intelligence in this detailed blog post. Also, read more about what’s possible with Viva Sales.

Enable sales journey orchestration with new sequencing for sales features

We are also introducing new AI-powered sequencingfor sales capabilities for Dynamics 365 Sales that help create consistent step-by-step activities for sellers to perform in the selling process, giving them a better understanding of what to do next. With sequencing for sales, sellers are empowered to build similar customer journeys ensuring the best experiences for their customers and their sellers.

All of these updates join a host of new features for Dynamics 365 Sales and Dynamics 365 Marketing, which introduce moments-based marketing with real-time journey orchestration, using AI to market at scale and achieve higher levels of marketing maturity.

Watch 2022 release wave 2 release highlights for Dynamics 365 Sales.

Empower service agents to always exceed customer expectations

As a frontline for customer satisfaction and retention, service agents need modern tools to scale the personalized support customers need. In the 2022 release wave 2, our focus is on enriching contact centers with AI and automation across every engagement channel.

Earlier this year, we introduced the Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform, an open, extensible, and collaborative contact center solution. The platform is powered by Dynamics 365, Teams, Microsoft Power Platform, and Nuancedelivering best-in-class AI that powers self-service experiences, live customer engagements, collaborative agent experiences, business process automation, advanced telephony, and fraud prevention capabilities.   

We are introducing the ability to automate an AI-generated conversation summary in Dynamics 365 Customer Service when an agent uses the embedded Teams capabilities. This accelerates issue resolution with an auto-generated structured conversation summary that shares context, including the summary of the customer issue and the result of the resolution tried by the agent. In addition, agents can review a customer’s previous chat history to get visibility and context to conversations. This is especially helpful in scenarios where a customer service agent has a case transferred to them.

The feature is in preview as part of Dynamics 365 Customer Service and is expected to be generally available in October 2022.

Watch 2022 release wave 2 release highlights for Dynamics 365 Customer Service.

More ways to collaborate in the flow of work with Teams and Dynamics 365

At last year’s Microsoft Ignite, we introduced Context IQ, a set of capabilities for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft 365 that enables business users to access documents and records, colleagues across the organization, and conversations in the flow of work, whether from within Dynamics 365 or Microsoft 365 applications.

We’ve already embedded Teams within Dynamics 365 Sales, helping sellers to team up with other sellers and subject matter experts to close deals faster. Now, we’re extending the integrated Teams experience to other Dynamics 365 applications.

Now in preview and slated for general availability in October 2022, service agents can engage with colleagues over Teams chat right from within Dynamics 365 Customer Service. This enables agents to solve complex service cases faster by easily collaborating with subject matter experts within the organization, such as agents from other departments, supervisors, customer service peers, or support experts. Chats over Teams will be linked directly to customer service records, enabling a contextual experience.

For small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs), 2022 release wave 2 updates for Dynamics 365 Business Central include new ways to collaborate and share data over Teams. Starting November 4, 2022, Teams users will have access to Business Central data from within the collaboration app, regardless of whether they have a Dynamics 365 license. Admins will be able to set permission and access rules to restrict access to business records. Business Central users can invite people from across the organization to connect and collaborate in the flow of work, no matter where they work.

With Business Central embedded in Teams, people can collaborate on critical initiatives and projects directly where they connect. SMBs can now ensure that all team members are empowered with Context IQaccess to the right information and insights contextually, wherever, and however they work.

Learn more

These updates are just a few of the hundreds of new and updated capabilities in the 2022 release wave 2. We invite you to virtually attend our Microsoft Ignite Into Focus session on Wednesday, October 12, streaming live at 3:00 PM Pacific Time, then on-demand, for a first look at the new innovations coming to market. In addition to overviews of new innovations in release wave 2, we will spotlight customers using these new technologies to drive better operational outcomes and customer success.

Be sure to also check out our roadmap for detailed release plans for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform. 

The post Live from Microsoft Ignite 2022: Introducing new AI, automation, and collaboration capabilities for Dynamics 365   appeared first on Microsoft Dynamics 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Introducing Microsoft Places: Turn your spaces into places

New tools from Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing bridge the gap between productivity and creativity

by | Oct 12, 2022 | Business, Hybrid Work, Microsoft 365, Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

I’m thrilled to announce new consumer tools in Microsoft 365, Microsoft Edge, and Bing designed to help all of us ignite our imagination and express ourselves. Everything begins with an idea but getting started and capturing your individuality isn’t always easy. For anyone who is trying to create, we aimed to solve a few key challenges with creating and sharing content.

The post New tools from Microsoft 365, Edge, and Bing bridge the gap between productivity and creativity appeared first on Microsoft 365 Blog.

Brought to you by Dr. Ware, Microsoft Office 365 Silver Partner, Charleston SC.

Released: October 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates

Released: October 2022 Exchange Server Security Updates

by | Oct 11, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

Microsoft has released Security Updates (SUs) for vulnerabilities found in:



  • Exchange Server 2013

  • Exchange Server 2016

  • Exchange Server 2019


SUs are available in a self-extracting auto-elevating .exe package, as well as the original update packages (.msp files), which can be downloaded from the Microsoft Update Catalog.


The October 2022 SUs are available for the following specific versions of Exchange Server:



The SUs address vulnerabilities responsibly reported to Microsoft by security partners and found through Microsoft’s internal processes. Our recommendation is to immediately install these updates to protect your environment.


These vulnerabilities affect Exchange Server. Exchange Online customers are already protected from the vulnerabilities addressed in these SUs and do not need to take any action other than updating any Exchange servers in their environment.


NOTE   The October 2022 SUs do not contain fixes for the zero-day vulnerabilities reported publicly on September 29, 2022 (CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082). Please see this blog post to apply mitigations for those vulnerabilities. We will release updates for CVE-2022-41040 and CVE-2022-41082 when they are ready.


Also note that we have re-released some CVEs published in August 2022, to highlight the resolution of known issue. More details about specific CVEs can be found in the Security Update Guide (filter on Exchange Server under Product Family).


Enable Windows Extended Protection


Starting with the August 2022 SUs, Exchange Server supports the Windows Extended Protection (EP) feature, which can help you protect your environments from authentication relay or “man in the middle” (MitM) attacks. If you have not yet enabled EP in your environment, please install the October SUs which address a known issue in Exchange EP support (see below). Then, review the information in the Manual Enablement of Extended Protection section of our August announcement for more details.


Customers who have already installed the August 2022 SUs and have enabled EP do not need to re-run the EP script after installing the October SUs.


Update installation


The following update paths are available:


Oct2022SUPath.png



Known issues with this release


We are not aware of any known issues with this release.


Issues resolved by this release



  • In Exchange 2013, Exchange 2016, and Exchange 2019 various Outlook and compliance-related monitoring probes show as Failed once EP is enabled.


FAQs


My organization is in Hybrid mode with Exchange Online. Do I need to do anything?
Exchange Online is already protected, but the October 2022 SUs need to be installed on your Exchange servers, even if they are used only for management purposes. You do not need to re-run the Hybrid Configuration Wizard after installing these updates.


Do I need to install the updates on ‘Exchange Management Tools only’ workstations?
Servers and workstations running only the Management tools role (no Exchange services) do not need these updates.


This post might receive future updates; they will be listed here (if available).


The Exchange Server Team

Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse: Skill up on security by design

by | Oct 10, 2022 | Technology

This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.

During Cybersecurity Awareness Month, it’s important to focus not only on the dangers of data breaches but also on how to build with products like Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse—products that are designed to help keep your organization’s data protected. Use the resources on Microsoft Learn to explore ways to support security in your organization, whether you’re a traditional solution architect, a business user, or an IT pro. April Dunnam, Power Platform Cloud Advocate, notes that anyone building a low-code solution should have a security-first mindset. She explains, “Your solution will be better designed, and then it’s going to be long-standing.” 


 


Dataverse and Microsoft Power Platform—better together 


Dataverse is a critical and foundational component of Microsoft Power Platform. It’s what the platform runs on, and it’s secure by design. You can configure many layers of security in Dataverse. As April points out, “You can use the [Microsoft Power Platform] admin center to define different data loss prevention policies to determine which connectors you can and can’t use, all the way down to a really granular level.” She recommends checking out the new managed environments that apply to both Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse, which make it easier to manage some of the out-of-the box security features. For every solution, you can configure additional security capabilities. For more information, go to the Microsoft Learn module Create and manage environments in Dataverse.  


 


As part of your cybersecurity strategy, April also recommends setting up a Center of Excellence and using the toolkit, because, as she observes, “[It] augments the capabilities of Microsoft Power Platform and fosters an internal community who can think ahead and put together best practices to enable secure low-code solutions.” To learn more, explore the Microsoft Learn module Get started with Microsoft Power Platform Center of Excellence. 


 


April is all for using Microsoft Power Platform tools “right out of the box” for building security solutions. She observes, “These intuitive, user-friendly tools guide us through making sure that the applications and solutions we build are secure. So, with just a little bit of work and a little bit of reading some of the Microsoft Learn material to get a good understanding, you’re ready to come up to speed on making sure that the solutions that you build are secure.” For details, check out the Microsoft Learn module Introduction to Microsoft Power Platform security and governance. 


 


Use a collection to discover more security content 


April encourages the use of Microsoft Learn resources, saying, “Learning paths and modules are so helpful for getting a basic understanding of security to help you set your department up for success. Later, you can transition to more advanced content as you strategize for your organization in a role like solution architect.” April recommends the Cybersecurity Awareness – Microsoft Power Platform collection, which offers a basic understanding of Dataverse security capabilities. Plus, it explores fundamental Microsoft Power Platform security concepts. 


 


Earn a Microsoft Certification  


People who follow April know that she’s a passionate Microsoft Power Platform advocate with many certifications. She observes, “People are always asking me, ‘What should I do next on my path?’” April has a couple of recommendations for validating your skills by earning an industry-recognized Microsoft Certification. She says, “If you’re building some secure applications for your team, then look into earning a Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Functional Consultant Associate certification. [Pass Exam PL-200.] If you’re at a senior level, doing things like deploying scalable applications and managing security across the environment for an organization, then explore earning a Microsoft Certified: Power Platform Solution Architect Expert certification. [Pass Exam-PL-600 and a prerequisite.]” 


 


Keep learning with April Dunnam 


Now that you’ve gotten some key tips on how to handle security issues, it’s time to dive deep into Microsoft Power Platform and Dataverse on April Dunnam’s YouTube channel. Watch for her upcoming video “Why SharePoint Experts are using Dataverse”, and be sure to check out her show—The Low Code Revolution—to build apps efficiently and expand your skill set.