You need just 5 minutes to create Synapse workspace and run your first Data Lake query!!!

by Contributed | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

Azure Synapse workspace is easy to create service that enables you to analyze data on Azure Data Lake storage, Azure CosmosDB, and other data sources that contain valuable data. You don’t need to pre-provision compute, create databases or ETL your data in order to start analyzing information. You just need to provision very lightweight workspace that included serverless SQL query endpoint and start querying your data on Data Lake.

In this article you will discover the easiest way to get started with Synapse workspace and run your first query on Data Lake.

Deploy workspace (ETA <5min)

Azure Synapse workspace can be deployed using portal , Azure CLI, and Deployment Templates. The easiest way to create new workspace is to use this Deploy to Azure button that will show you preconfigured form where you can send your deployment request:

You will see a form where you need to enter some basic info like subscription, region, workspace name and username/password. Probably you will need less than a minute to fill-in and submit the form

Once you enter all data this template will deploy Azure Data Lake storage account and Synapse workspace. The total deployment time for template and breakdown for individual components is shown in the following figure (taken from one of my experiments):

In total you need less than 4.5min to create your fully functional workspace.

Run the query 

Once you provision the resource you will see the button that will lead you to resource group and Synapse workspace on Azure Portal. Now you need to Launch Synapse Studio by following the link on top right corner:

When you open your Synapse Studio just follow New -> SQL query option and paste the following query:

select top 10 *
from openrowset(bulk 'https://pandemicdatalake.blob.core.windows.net/public/curated/covid-19/ecdc_cases/latest/ecdc_cases.parquet',
format='parquet') as a

This query uses publicly available parquet file on that contains ECDC data about COVID cases recorded worldwide. If you run this query, in a couple of seconds you will get the results from this PARQUET file.

Yu can easily create more complex queries and visualize results using built-in Synapse Studio charting functionality. 

In total you will probably spend around 5 minutes to get started with synapse analytics and start analyzing data.

If you want to follow the steps described in this article you can see the actions in the following video:

The Intrazone, partner edition: “Creospark” with customer, Special Olympics Canada

by Contributed | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

The Intrazone continues to spotlight Microsoft partners, the people and companies who deliver solutions and services to empower our customers to achieve more. In our fifth partner episode, we talk with Noorez Khamis (VP of Technology and Co-founder | Creospark) and his customer, Denise Strong (Director of Information | Special Olympics Canada).

Special Olympics Canada provides opportunities for all athletes in the movement to have input into and access decision-making processes. They strive to enrich the lives of Canadians with an intellectual disability through sport – beautifully summed up in their motto: “An inclusion movement powered by sport.”

Creospark aims to transform your workplace into an enthusiastic environment for your people to work better, faster, and smarter. And their process is grounded with compassion, to facilitate the right change to support people and to give back.

In this episode, our discussion centers around Special Olympics need to further centralize and organize in a single, digital location. We focus on their extranet, moving away from Dropbox, and streamlining content and conversation from headquarters to branch office – and back.

OK, Partner (edition), on with the show…

Subscribe to The Intrazone podcast! Listen this partner episode on Creospark now + show links and more below.

Left-to-right: Noorez Khamis (VP of Technology and Co-founder | Creospark) and Denise Strong (Director of Information | Special Olympics Canada [The Intrazone guests]

Link to articles mentioned in the show:  

• Hosts and guests
  • Mark Kashman | @mkashman
  • Chris McNulty|@cmcnulty2000
  • Noorez Khamis | Twitter | LinkedIn
    • Creospark | Twitter | LinkedIn
  • Denise Strong | LinkedIn
    • Special Olympics Canada | Twitter
  • SharePoint Facebook | @SharePoint | SharePoint Community Blog | UserVoice
  • OneDrive Facebook | @OneDrive | OneDrive Community Blog | UserVoice
• Articles and sites
  • Marathon of Sport
  • Microsoft Stories *new* Microsoft podcast
  • Microsoft 365 Content Services Partner Program
  • Microsoft Partner Network
  • Microsoft Tech Community Home
  • Stay on top of Office 365 changes
  • Get started with Office Online in Office 365
  • Listen and subscribe to other Microsoft podcasts: https://aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts  
• Events

• SharePoint Fest Virtual Workshops (ongoing; “Working with Microsoft Lists (Nov.4.2020)
• Teamsfest (Oct.7.2020)
• European SharePoint Conference – Online (Oct.14-16.2020)
• GlobalCon4 (Dec.1-4.2020)
• SharePoint Saturdays

Subscribe today!

Listen to the show! If you like what you hear, we’d love for you to Subscribe, Rate and Review it on iTunes or wherever you get your podcasts.

Be sure to visit our show page to hear all the episodes, access the show notes, and get bonus content. And stay connected to the SharePoint community blog where we’ll share more information per episode, guest insights, and take any questions from our listeners and SharePoint users (TheIntrazone@microsoft.com). We, too, welcome your ideas for future episodes topics and segments. Keep the discussion going in comments below; we’re hear to listen and grow.

Subscribe to The Intrazone podcast! And listen this partner episode on Creospark now.

Thanks for listening!

The SharePoint team wants you to unleash your creativity and productivity. And we will do this, together, one partner at a time.

The Intrazone links

• Show Page: https://aka.ms/TheIntrazone
• Apple Podcasts
• Google Play
• Spotify
• Pandora
• Amazon Music
• Stitcher
• TuneIn
• Overcast
• RadioPublic
• iHeart
• RSS
• + Listen to other Microsoft podcasts at aka.ms/microsoft/podcasts.

Left to right [The Intrazone co-hosts]: Chris McNulty, director PMM (SharePoint, #ProjectCortex – Microsoft) and Mark Kashman, senior product manager (SharePoint – Microsoft).

The Intrazone – a show about the Microsoft 365 intelligent intranet (https://aka.ms/TheIntrazone)

Microsoft 365 All Tenants list is rolling out

by Contributed | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

Did you know that more than one-third of admins that use the Microsoft 365 admin center manage multiple tenants. This applies to two-thirds of enterprise customers and the majority of partners that manage Microsoft 365 tenants for their customers. Historically, the Microsoft 365 admin center was built for single-tenant admins, but recently we began creating experiences for admins who manage multiple tenants.

We’re thrilled to announce that a new multi-tenant management experience called All tenants is now rolling out to Microsoft 365 customers. The All tenants list is specifically for admins that manage two or more Microsoft 365 tenants, including:

• Partners who manage on behalf of
• Merger and acquisition scenarios
• Separate test and production environments
• Regulatory requirements for multiple tenants

We have created a unified form of management that allows admins the ability to manage multiple tenants from a single pane of glass, helping them to save time every single day; in fact, the more tenants they manage, the more time they’ll save. We’re also extending support of our multi-tenant management features to include Azure Active Directory B2B In the coming months. Our goal is to help admins and partners with multiple tenants spend less time juggling, and more time doing.

The experiences we have built enable admins with multiple tenants to:

• move quickly between tenants using the Organization Switcher (also called the Tenant Switcher);
• assess service health, service requests, products, and billing across multiple tenants; and
• understand admin setup task activity across multiple tenants.

All tenants provides insights about tenants which need your attention:

 Along with the tenant switcher, the multi-tenant management experience adds the ability to switch between tenants efficiently.

The All tenants list is rolling out now, and once available, you will need to log in with a partner admin account and soon will include admin accounts that have been invited to manage multiple tenants through Azure B2B.

We will continue to work on scenarios and experiences specifically for admins that manage multiple tenants. You can learn more about why we’re investing in these experiences in our recent video, Multi-tenant management in the Microsoft 365 admin center​.

Let us know what you think of the new experience using the feedback button in the Microsoft 365 admin center, and let us know what else we can do for you.

From Digital Distraction to Digital Enablement with the Modern Collaboration Architecture

by Contributed | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

How often do you end work thinking ‘this was a great, productive and effective day’? Hopefully you have many of those, but perhaps you also recognize the feeling where you end your day thinking, ‘I was busy, but I didn’t do the things I wanted to do’. We feel disappointed, perhaps anxious and yet as tomorrow comes, we remain busy.

This social norm of busyness doesn’t necessarily equal valuable work. And while technology should facilitate our work, often it can feel like a burden, as we grapple to keep on top of our inbox, messages, and calendar. When we are bounce from message to meeting and back again, zipping through those to-dos, managing mails, and switching between documents and devices, we are constantly chipping away at our attention. Keeping on top of all this noise can feel like an end in itself; but it´s exhausting, ineffective and unlikely to feel meaningful.

Technology, in itself, does not lead to productivity. Our digital tools are amazing, but they are not enough. Unless they are harnessed to the power of human attention, digital technology can lead as much to distraction as it can enablement. Or, as Tony Crabbe, business psychologist specialized in attention summarizes it, “Technology x Attention = Productivity”.

So, what makes the difference between a great day and a distracted, draining day? What does it mean to enable attention through technology, and how can we support our people, and ourselves, to move from busyness to digital productivity? These should be central questions for all of us to grapple with if we want to truly unlock the enabling power of technology.

What are we missing in our approach to productivity and the digital workplace? We’ve certainly got the tools, but have we got the right attention and the right habits? Great days, when we feel productive and make an impact on the problems that matter, have three consistent elements: Purpose, People and Progress (the 3Ps).

Purpose: Recent research showed that employees spend only 44% of their day working on their primary job activities and 40% of their working time is responding to internal emails that they admit add no value to their business¹. Yet, when we have a sense of purpose, we can see the clear value of our work, we lean in. We engage. In fact, 25% of performance can be attributed to our sense of meaning in our work.

People: According to one study, there has been a 50% increase in collaboration over the last decade, with people spending 85% of their day in collaborative activities². Consistent studies find one of the greatest drivers of impact, but also motivation, is the quality of collaboration.

Progress: Teresa Amabile’s research³ shows that one of the greatest motivators is a sense of progress on the projects and tasks that really matter to us on a daily basis. Yet, on our busy days, how many of us leave work exhausted but underwhelmed by our progress on what matters.

Our goal is to help you build holistic strategies for your digital workplaces. Strategies that encompass the scenarios that will add value to your organization, its employees, and encourage new ways of working that facilitate the 3Ps. So how can you plan a your workplace strategy and a technology adoption approach for the continuously evolving digital workplace in a way that harnesses employee attention and leverages the digital workplace as a change agent to catalyze the forming of new digital cultural norms, adapted to today’s work environment?

The Modern Collaboration Architecture (MOCA) came about to try to solve for this challenge. It offers best practices and guidance to help you develop your digital workplace strategy, understand scenarios that will add value, and provide best practices to support individuals in your organization to harness their attention.

Starting with the purpose we looked at what the specific needs of individuals in the workplace are. What are the common things employees are trying to achieve with technology and what kind of work is the technology designed to facilitate?

When it comes to the people aspect we thought through the different contexts of productivity and attention. We looked from individual work to more collaborative and community-based work. In the MOCA model, the organization plays a facilitation role to enable all individuals, teams, and communities.

Progress is incorporated when we think about the digital cultural norms that we can encourage to facilitate getting work done and the conditions to harness attention. How can we leverage technology and science to learn to facilitate Flow for example, a key factor in employee engagement⁴ and general well-being⁵ because it builds this feeling of progress?

Talking about progress, our most collaborative employees are often also the most disengaged³. As teams we rarely discuss our “rules of engagement” that will make the most of people’s time, talents, passions, and attention as we embark on a task. It is time to start.

The intent of the MOCA framework is not to predict ‘THE BEST way to organize your work’, but to act as a guide. As you look at the MOCA, think about the different needs, scenarios, and contexts your employees work in. Does it fit or do you need to adapt based on your organization’s goals? What other tools are end-users using that need to fit in?

Leverage the “MOCA on a page” as a starting point to spark discussions as you consider priority needs and scenarios that will add value to your organization and employees. How you will enable those scenarios based on the evolving technology landscape? And what digital culture norms you want to encourage as you continue the digital workplace journey? If you are that individual who is overloaded or needs to re-take control of your time, do it and think about how you can leverage technology to facilitate that.

You might find yourself asking why ‘how work gets done,’ and ‘how we facilitate employees to harness their attention are so important to business’? Tune in next week for the next blog in the series, “The business case for attention management” from guest blogger Tony Crabbe.

References:
^1. Nick Atkin (2012) 40% of staff time is wasted on reading internal emails. The Guardian, Dec 17th
^2. Rob Cross, Reb Rebele and Adam Grant (2016) Collaborative overload. Harvard Business Review Jan – Feb
^3. Teresa Amabile (2011) The power of small wins. HBR Article
^4. Microsoft and London Business School (2019), Work Reworked
^5. M. Csikszentmihalyi, Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention. New York: Harper Perennials, 1997

Emma Stephen
Emma a Customer Success Manager at Microsoft and is passionate about bringing the human element into the workplace. She believes technology both enables change and can catalyze wider change efforts if introduced in the right way. Emma is based in Zurich and currently studying for her Masters in Applied Positive Psychology and Coaching Psychology with a hope to leverage this in the organizational context.

@Emma_Stephen 

Claudia van der Velden
Claudia a Customer Success Manager at Microsoft and enjoys exploring organizational cultures from an eco-system perspective. In a complex puzzle where all is interconnected, small changes can have a large impact. She believes in the importance of considering all elements for the eco-system to thrive, stay well balanced, and perhaps most importantly, letting go of control and trusting the natural course to find its way. Claudia is based in the Netherlands and studies for her Masters in Applied Psychology, Leadership Development.

@Claudia van der Velden 

Tony Crabbe
Tony Crabbe is a Business Psychologist who supports Microsoft on global projects as well as a number of other multinationals. As a psychologist he focuses on how people think, feel and behave at work. Whether working with leaders, teams or organizations, at its core his work is all about harnessing attention to create behavioral change.

His first book, the international best-seller ’Busy’ was published around the world and translated to thirteen languages. In 2016 it was listed as being in the top 3 leadership books, globally. His new book, ‘Busy@Home’ explores how to thrive through the uncertainties and challenges of Covid; and move positively into the hybrid world.

Tony is a regular media commentator around the world, as well as appearances on RTL, the BBC and the Oprah Winfrey Network.

Secure Score by Groups Workbook

by Contributed | Oct 6, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

Secure Score by Groups Workbook

Scenario

The Azure Resource Graph security baseline for Azure Security and the power of Azure Monitor bring you infinite possibilities to custom Azure Security Center information. Consider a scenario where you want to have visibility of the Secure Score for different subscriptions that are in different regions in a single dashboard. This article explains how to leverage Azure Monitor workbooks to create that. The workbook is available in our GitHub community page and the result looks like this:

Figure 1: workbook visualization

The queries

This workbook has two queries created using Azure Resource Graph:

• One for obtaining the Overall Secure Score of the selected subscriptions
• The other obtains the individual Secure Score

To obtain the individual score, use the sample query below:

securityresources
| where type == "microsoft.security/securescores"
| extend subscriptionSecureScore = round(100 * ((todouble(properties.score.current))/ todouble(properties.score.max)))
| project subscriptionSecureScore, subscriptionId
| order by subscriptionSecureScore asc

When you run the query in ARG, you will get a similar result to this:

Figure 2: individual secure score query result

Behind the scenes, each security control Current Score and Maximum Score is found here:

Figure 3: current score and maximum score in ASC

Query: overall secure score – multiple subscriptions

To get the overall secure score of more than one subscription, you can use the next query:

securityresources
| where type == "microsoft.security/securescores"
| extend subscriptionScore = todouble(properties.score.current)/todouble(properties.score.max)
| extend subScoreXsubWeight = todouble(subscriptionScore)*todouble(properties.weight)
| summarize upperValue = sum(subScoreXsubWeight), underValue = sum(todouble(properties.weight))
| extend overallScore = round(100*((upperValue)/(underValue)))

The result would be similar to this:

Figure 4: overall secure score query result

Follow this blog post to see the formulas used for Azure Security Center Secure Score.

The Workbook Visualization

The workbook will show by default four groups. Each group has five variables: group, title, subscription picker, overall secure score, secure score per subscription.

Figure 5: workbook single group

To modify the workbook, start by clicking the Edit button:

Figure 6: edit workbook

Modify Group Name

1. Select the group you want to modify and click the Edit button.Figure 7: edit group
2. At the top, click on Advanced Settings, change the Group title, and click the button Done Editing.Figure 8: change group title

Modify Title

1. Go to the title and click Edit:Figure 9: modify title
2. Type the title you want in a Markdown syntax, and click the button Done Editing.Figure 10: type the title

Create More Groups

1. Go to any group
2. Click on the three dots and select CloneFigure 11: clone the group

    

Pin It to Your Azure Dashboard

1. Your workbook must be in Edit mode, then click the Pin button.Figure 12: pin it

    

2. Click on Pin All to send each component of your groups to the dashboard.Figure 13: pin all

    

3. Click either on Existing or Create New and choose your Dashboard Name. Then click Create And Pin.Figure 14: pin to dashboard

    

4. You will see a message saying it was successfully pinned. Click on that and start customizing your dashboard.Figure 15: successful message

    

    

5. Customize your dashboard by clicking the Edit button and moving the information squares.Figure 16: edit dashboard

    

    Figure 17: done customizing dashboard

    

    

    

Next Steps

Try it out and share your experience. The workbook is published here in the Azure Security Center GitHub repository.

References

• Azure Monitor Workbooks
• Azure Resource Graph Queries
• Azure Security Center Secure Score

Reviewers

Miri Landau, Senior PM, ASC Engineering

Yuri Diogenes, Principal PM, CxE Security ASC