This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Intellectual property (IP) theft can wreak havoc on the supply chain and defense, stripping away an organization’s, or nation’s, competitive advantage. Hackers don’t necessarily pose the biggest threat to IP. Insider threats from employees, contractors and partners pose just as big a threat (some might argue bigger) from both accidental and deliberate data loss. While IP comes in many common forms, such as documents and spreadsheets, but images and CAD files pose just as big a risk and are more difficult to protect with traditional security tools. It is possible to protect and watermark CAD files stored and shared in Microsoft 365 applications to help prevent data loss and IP theft and meet Defense compliance requirements such as CMMC. Read on to learn more.
WHAT ARE CAD FILES?
If you’re not familiar with them, computer-aided design (CAD) files are used for designing models or architecture plans in a 2D or 3D rendering. CAD files are used for creating architectural designs, building plans, floor plans, electrical schematics, mechanical drawings, technical drawings, blueprints, or for special effects in movies. They are used by every organization related to any type of manufacturing or construction, including those who manufacture tools and equipment for other manufacturers.
2D CAD files are drawings that mimic ‘old school’ drafting work. Most often these still exist as blueprints for structures where the height isn’t as critical for the design or is a standard dimension, however the layout within that 2-dimensional space is critical. For example, how do we fit our desks, chairs, tables, etc., into that space? The problem with portraying complicated 3-dimensional objects like machine parts in only 2 dimensions is that they need to be rendered from multiple angles so that all critical dimensions are portrayed properly. This used to result in a lot of drawings of the same part, but from different angles.
3D files on the other hand can be portrayed in 3 dimensions and can be rotated in space and even ‘assembled’ with other parts. This can help Engineers discover issues (such as a pipe or shaft that has been accidentally routed through another part) much more quickly so they can be resolved long before production begins.
Much like image files, there are several types of CAD file extensions (.DWG, .DXF, .DGN, .STL) and the file type is dependent on the brand of software used to create them.
CHALLENGES TO CAD FILE PROTECTION
Since most CAD files contain intellectual property or IP, protecting them is critical to protect competitive advantage, avoid malicious theft/corporate espionage and stop sharing with unauthorized audiences. Depending on the industry, different regulations and protection policies may also need to be applied to protect CAD files. For example, in the defense industry, file that contain controlled unclassified information (CUI) must be classified and labelled as CUI under CMMC 2.0, NIST 800-17, and NIST 800-53 regulations.
Out of the box tools are often limited in their ability to classify and tag CAD files to meet the stringent requirements. Additionally, CAD files are often shared and collaborated on using file shares or even file sharing and collaboration tools like SharePoint, and Teams. Without the ability to properly classify and tag information Defense suppliers are at risk of losing valuable Government and Defense contracts to accidental sharing or malicious users.
5 TIPS TO PROTECT CAD FILES IN M365
Protecting CAD files is no different to protecting any other sensitive documents in your care. We recommend you:
Identify Sensitive CAD Files – The first step to any data protection strategy is knowing where your sensitive CAD files exist. If you don’t, you should consider using a scanning tool to find any files and apply appropriate protections.
Restrict Access – Ensure only users and partners who require access sensitive CAD are authorized to do so. Then follow tip #3.
Restrict Actions Authorized Users Can Take – Just because a user should be able to access a document, should they have carte blanche? For example, should they be able to edit it, download it or share it? Should they be able to access it on a public Wi-Fi or at an airport? You need to be able to apply fine grain access and usage controls to prevent data misuse and loss.
Digitally Watermark files to provide a visual reminder of the sensitivity level of files and add information about the user for tracking purposes in the event of a leak. For Defense applications you’ll want to add CUI markings to your watermark such as a CUI Designation Indicator.
Track Access – Keep an audit log of access and actions authorized users have taken with sensitive CAD files (print, save, download, email, etc.) and have a process in place to identify any suspicious activity (multiple downloads, access in the middle of the night, from a suspicious IP address, etc.).
DYNAMICALLYCLASSIFY, PROTECT AND WATERMARK CAD FILES WITH NC PROTECT
NC Protect from Microsoft Partner and MISA member, archTIS, provides advanced data-centric security across Microsoft applications to enhance information protection for cloud, on-premises and hybrid environments. The platform empowers enterprises to automatically find, classify and secure sensitive data, and determine how it can be accessed, used and shared with granular control using attribute-based access control (ABAC) and security policies.
NC Protect offers a range of unique capabilities to restrict access to, protect and watermark CAD files, as well as other documents, in Microsoft’s document management and collaboration application. Capabilities include:
Classification
NC Protect automatically applies Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels based on the contents of the file.
Apply additional meta data or classification as required. For example, tag files as CUI.
Encryption
NC Protect leverages Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) sensitivity labels and Rights Management System (RMS) to encrypt CAD and other files.
Encrypt files at rest or in motion (e.g., email attachments)
Watermarking
Watermark CAD files with any attributes such as user name, date, time, etc. to deter photographing and remind users of the sensitivity of the file.
Automatically embed CUI Designator data into a 2D or 3 D CAD file as a secure digital watermark including: Name, Controlled BY, Category, Distribution/Limited Dissemination Control, and POC.
Add CUI designator markings.
Restrict Access & Actions
Protected CAD files can only be opened and modified by authorized users based on predefined policies.
Force read-only access for internal and guest users with a built-in Secure Viewer to prevent Copy, Paste, Print, Save As and Download capabilities.
Policies can also control if and who protected CAD files can be shared with.
Hide sensitive CAD files from the document view of unauthorized users in file sharing applications.
Tracking
Track access to all protected files as well as actions users have taken with the file.
Export user actions and logs to Microsoft Sentinel, Splunk or a CSV file for further analysis and upstream actions.
Supported Platforms & File types:
Protects CAD file across all Microsoft 365 applications: SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Exchange email, Office 365, as well as SharePoint Server and Windows file shares.
EASY TO CONFIGURE ACCESS, PROTECTION AND WATERMARK POLICES
Applying these policies and controls with NC Protect from archTIS is easy to do using the product’s built-in policy builder.
EASY TO CONFIGURE ACCESS, PROTECTION AND WATERMARK POLICES
For example, the policy below allows NC Protect to deny any guests users the ability to see that CAD files even exist within the network. With this policy activated, a guest will not see a dwg file – even if it resides in a container or Team that they have full access to. Consider how easy it is to share access to SharePoint, OneDrive and Teams with external users and how critical collaboration with external vendors can be for the business.
Users often place sensitive data into places that they don’t realize are accessible by people outside of the organization. This policy allows NC Protect to apply a blanket restriction on guests and mitigate the potential loss of sensitive intellectual property.
For more granular protection, the policy below forces any users who are not part of the Engineering Department to be limited to read only access to CAD files. Even if someone from the Engineering group gives them access to these files, if their department is not Engineering NC Protect will automatically invoke the Secure Reader when they try to open them. In this case the department attribute is being used, but NC Protect can use any attribute such as existing group memberships, title or any other custom attribute to determine how users can interact with these files.
NC Protect’s built-in Secure Reader enforces ‘true read only’ access. Users can’t download, copy or even print a protected file. NC Protect can also watermark the CAD file (or any other type of file) so if a user screenshots the drawing, the photo will contain their name, date and ‘CONFIDENTIAL’ as seen in the image below.
About the author
Irena Mroz, Chief Marketing Officer, archTIS
As CMO, Irena Mroz is responsible for leading archTIS’ product marketing, branding, demand generation and public relations programs. A technical cybersecurity marketer, Mroz has spent her 25+ year career empowering start-ups and public software companies to exceed growth objectives through successful product positioning, demand generation, high profile events and product evangelism. Mroz holds a Bachelor of Science in Mass Communications from Boston University’s College of Communication.
About archTIS
archTIS is a global provider of innovative software solutions for the secure collaboration of sensitive information. The company’s award-winning data-centric information security solutions protect the world’s most sensitive content in government, defense, supply chain, enterprises and regulated industries through attribute-based access and control (ABAC) policies. archTIS’ complementary NC Protect software enhances Microsoft security capabilities with fine-grain, dynamic ABAC policies to control access to and add unique data protection capabilities to secure sensitive data across Microsoft 365 apps, SharePoint on-premises and Windows file shares. The company is a Microsoft Partner and a member of the Microsoft Intelligent Security Association. For more information, visit archtis.com or follow @arch_tis.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
At Microsoft Inspire 2023, we announced that we are bringing together Microsoft Dynamics 365 Marketing and Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Insights into one offer, enabling organizations to unify and enrich their customer data to deliver personalized, connected, end-to-end customer journeys across sales, marketing, and service. We are retaining the existing “Dynamics 365 Customer Insights” name to encompass this new offer of both applications. Today, we’re excited to share that the new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights is now generally available for purchase.
For our existing Dynamics 365 Marketing and Dynamics 365 Customer Insights customers, this change signals an acceleration into our “better together” story, where we’ll continue to invest in new capabilities that will enable stronger, insights-based marketing, making it easier for marketers and data analysts to glean insights from customer data. Beginning September 1, 2023, customers who had the previous license for Marketing and/or Customer Insights will only see a product name change in the product; there will be no changes to the core product functionality due to the consolidation of the two products.
The new Customer Insights offers your organization flexibility to meet your business needs, with access to both the customer data platform (Customer Insights—Data) and real-time marketing with customer journey orchestration (Customer Insights—Journeys). The new pricing enables customers to unlock access to both applications and then buy the capacity they need. This gives you, our customers, the power of choice—where you can start with one or both applications and further invest in the capabilities that you’d like to scale. If you’re an existing customer of Microsoft Dynamics 365 Sales or Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, you can use Customer Insights as the foundation of your customer experience (CX) stack by achieving greater customer understanding and orchestrating contextual customer journeys across every touchpoint of the business.
Achieve greater personalization with Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
With the Customer Insights customer data platform, you can gain a holistic view of your customers, anticipate needs, and discover growth opportunities. And with real-time marketing and journey orchestration, you can deliver personalized, in-the-moment customer-triggered engagements that are relevant and contextual. With Copilot in Customer Insights, you can save time by using natural language to create or enhance target segments. You can also nurture creativity by turning topics into suggested copy, helping marketers move from concept to completion faster.
With the power of Copilot in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, included at no additional cost, your data analysts and marketers can be more productive and increase their focus on personalizing the customer journey.
Our latest investments in copilot capabilities include the ability to:
Get help with content development by providing a short list of key points, and tailor with a tone of voice that matches your brand and campaign. Utilize the generated content suggestions as-is or build upon them in email, social posts, and more.
Customer success with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights: Lynk & Co
Let’s take a look at an organization that is using Dynamics 365 Customer Insights today.
Lynk & Co is a Sweden-based company that is transforming the way people use cars by offering a simple and flexible experience where customers can choose to buy, borrow, or subscribe to a vehicle. With ambitions to disrupt the automobile industry and launch its business in seven markets in less than two years, Lynk & Co needed to quickly build an infrastructure that could support multi-channel customer engagement and drive highly personalized experiences. The company chose Microsoft Dynamics 365 for its out-of-the-box and customizable tools and the ability it provided to build in modules to create unique processes and prioritize specific customer experiences. Within 18 months, Lynk & Co was able to ramp up a significant digital presence in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden, as well as open social clubs designed to bring the company’s online brand to life through community-focused events.
The company uses Dynamics 365 Customer Insights to capture actionable customer data and link it with operational data within its cars. This is helping the company create seamless, highly personalized experiences for every customer from their first engagement to every time they use the app, drive a car, have service, or visit a club. It also makes it easy to support customers if they want to move from simply borrowing a car, to a monthly subscription, or to a car purchase.
With the customer journey orchestration features in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, customers get personalized messaging and image content. Beyond that, the system sends right-timed information on specific-to-the-customer club event invitations. These events vary from country to country but have included everything from unplugged live music nights and art openings to meet-ups for running and cycling groups, community talks on social issues, or workshops on how to upcycle old sneakers.
Engagement data from these events feeds back into the platform to further personalize member experiences across all lines of business, across all communication channels—and helps Lynk & Co learn and iterate.
Learn more and get started today with Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
To learn more about Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, take the guided tour or start a free 30-day trial. If you have questions about the merging of Dynamics 365 Marketing and the previous Dynamics 365 Customer Insights, including pricing, please reference the FAQ on Microsoft Learn. If you missed Inspire 2023, you can watch the session by Emily He (Corporate Vice President, Business Applications Marketing), on demand, to see the announcements for Business Applications, including the latest innovations in Dynamics 365 Customer Insights.
The new Dynamics 365 Customer Insights
We’re bringing together Marketing and Customer Insights into one offer.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Introduction
Supply Chain Management lets you manage, track, and verify compliance with export control restrictions prior to confirming, picking, packing, shipping, and invoicing sales orders. The new advanced export control functionality allows you to manage your export control policies using a native Microsoft Dataverse solution that interfaces directly with your Supply Chain Management instance. Supply Chain Management then enforces compliance with international trade regulations by consulting your export-control policies in real time.
The export control dataverse solution allows you to keep track of the many different rules and policies, expressing these rules, including complex ones, using formulas similar to those in Microsoft excel. The fact that it is a dataverse-based solution also allows your other systems to access your export control rules thanks to the hundreds of connectors available for Dataverse.
The solution implements five primary concepts:
Jurisdictions
A jurisdiction is a set of codes, categories, restrictions, exceptions and licenses. It represents a set of configurations that apply to incoming requests. Like the US International Traffic in Arms Regulation (ITAR), US Export Administration Regulations (EAR) or EU Dual Use.
You can create as well your own jurisdiction for your companies internal policies.
Codes and categories
The codes that make up a jurisdiction are often referred to as Export Control Classification Numbers (ECCNs).
An example of an export control classification number is 7A994, which is defined by the United States Export Administration Regulations (US EAR) export control jurisdiction. This classification number applied to “Other navigation direction finding equipment, airborne communication equipment, all aircraft inertial navigation systems not controlled under 7A003 or 7A103, and other avionic equipment, including parts and components.” According to the US EAR, ECCN 7A994 is a part of the *Anti Terrorism (AT)* control category.
Restrictions
Each export control jurisdiction defined a set of restrictions under which export control actions should be disallowed unless an exception exists.
Exceptions
Exceptions allow an action even though a restriction would otherwise block it. Common types of exceptions include licenses, blanket exemptions, and corporate policies.
Exceptions are defined the same way as restrictions, but also provide extra requirements that apply when the exception is used, such as the need to display a message to the user o to print text and licenses on documents.
Licenses
Licenses are the specific permissions to be able to trade an item or set of items in a given context. It is common that the authorities are the ones providing the licenses.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Microsoft Learn has a passionate and inspiring community to support your learning journey wherever it may take you. Here we highlight a few of our global learners who have shared their stories about making successful career changes using Microsoft Learn. Our learners inspire us with their perseverance, ingenuity, and the courage to reinvent themselves (Zoologist to Functional Consultant!). Many had to make a significant career change due to the pandemic, proving to us all that if they could make a switch during such a challenging time, we can all be successful with the right learning path and helpful resources in place. Each career changer started by identifying their goal and strategically working toward it–and you can do the same.
Here are a few of their stories:
Introducing Manoj Bora: Hospitality industry to IT Pro
Photo of Manoj Bora
Manoj came to Microsoft Learn from 20 years in the hospitality industry. When the pandemic struck, he lost his job, and the peace of mind that comes with a stable career. In March 2020, he was forced to start over, finding odd jobs and doing manual labor to provide for his family. At that point, Manoj decided to turn to the tech industry to take advantage of the many career opportunities he found available. He explored careers as a developer, software testing, SAP, and Oracle, but it was Microsoft Dynamics 365 which appealed to him most as he had transferable skills. He dove deep into Dynamics 365 but quickly realized he needed structured and practical training – this led him to Microsoft Learn. Gradually with the help of self-paced learning content, community discussion forums, user groups, and Microsoft organized events, Manoj was able to establish his new career in IT. Today, he works as a Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Functional Consultant.
“Even if you do not have a computer science degree or any IT expertise,” Manoj points out, “if you put your focus on learning something new, you can achieve it with amazing Microsoft Learn content, the helpful Microsoft community, and the evolution of low-code, no-code Power Platform.”
Key insight from Manoj:His advice to other learners is to identify your learning goals ahead of time and pursue all possibilities because Microsoft Learn offers so many resources and learning paths.
Introducing Ikenna Udeani: Student to Data Analyst
Photo of Ikenna Udeani
Ikenna was fresh out of college when he discovered Microsoft Learn. Our platform played a crucial role in helping Ikenna secure his first job immediately after graduation. Microsoft Learn was instrumental in preparing him to earn the Microsoft Certified: Azure Data Fundamentals certification, which he showcased on his LinkedIn profile. This caught the attention of hiring managers, and as a result, he was offered a job—but he didn’t stop there. Ikenna went on to earn six additional certifications, while also working towards two more new certifications.
“I can’t overstate the impact that Microsoft Learn has had on my professional growth and development,” says Ikenna. “I would highly recommend it to anyone looking to enhance their skills and advance their career in the tech industry.”
Key insight from Ikenna: His favorite feature on Microsoft Learn is the sandbox environment, which allowed him to get interactive experience using various Azure features for free and to practice his skills.
Introducing Nikhil More: Zoology college educator to Functional Consultant
Photo of Nikhil More
Our learners come to Microsoft Learn with diverse backgrounds—Nikhil’s includes a master’s degree in zoology and experience in ecological research and teaching. Like many others, the pandemic brought unexpected changes to his life, and he lost his job as a college teacher. That’s when he discovered Microsoft Learn, and quickly realized that the platform had a well-structured approach aligned with the job he aspired to achieve. The continuous learning opportunities provided by Microsoft Learn ensure that he’s always at the forefront of industry trends and equipped to deliver exceptional results.
“It has empowered me to bridge the gap between my biology background and a thriving career in technology,” says Nikhil. “The platform has not only provided me with the knowledge I needed but also bolstered my sense of confidence and purpose. With Microsoft Learn as my guide, I am excited to see where my Dynamics 365 career takes me next.”
Key insight from Nikhil: One of his favorite aspects of Microsoft Learn is that it provides a structured learning path, offering modules and courses that gradually build your knowledge. It feels like you’re embarking on an exciting journey, with each module representing a new stop along the way.
Has Microsoft Learn helped you on your journey to building skills and achieving your goals? Fill out our form for a chance to have your story featured. We can’t wait to hear from you!
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
This week, we launched a new playlist on the Microsoft Azure YouTube channel that includes all episodes of our interview series, Microsoft SaaS Stories: Learn from Software Experts. This series highlights partners at various stages of their software as a service (SaaS) journey and their unique experiences building, publishing, and growing on the Microsoft commercial marketplace.
In my role as an Engineering Manager at Microsoft, I’ve seen our software partners take a variety of approaches to SaaS. The most successful companies were the ones that spent the time to understand the scope and steps within the journey to SaaS, both on the business and technical sides. As my team helped companies through this journey to build resilient, scalable, secure applications, they each learned unique insights that enabled their success. I saw a significant opportunity to connect companies at different stages in this journey so that they could share and learn from others to be some of the most successful on our platform and in the market.
Here is a summary of each episode we’ve produced so far:
Episode 1: Basis Theory. CTO Brandon Weber shares how they built confidence with customers by creating an easy-to-use SaaS platform that scales while remaining reliable and secure. Learn the challenges they encountered running a 24/7 service while evolving the service and handling customer growth.
Episode 2: Zammo. In this episode with Zammo’s Stacey Kyler and Nicholas Spagnola, we learn about their significant growth in business and much faster time to close based on having their products in the marketplace. They share their experience building for Azure and running a No-Code Conversational AI Software SaaS platform.
Episode 3: Wolfpack. In this episode with Wolfpack’s Koen den Hollander, we learn how they built their SaaS application for retail customers, and how connecting engineers directly to customers enables them to deliver value at scale.
Episode 4: Vocean. In this episode, we explore how Vocean built their SaaS application that changes the way organizations make decisions. They share the importance of taking time to plan, learn, and listen to experts around you before rushing to build features.
Episode 5: Access Infinity. In this episode, we talk to Access Infinity’s Managing Director, Keshav Nagaraja and explore how Access Infinity saw an opportunity in their consulting business to create platforms that help their customers at scale, and how they came up with a pricing model that drives positive user behaviors.
Episode 6: Sage. In this episode, we learn how Sage embraced the opportunities to shift their application to SaaS, how they used SaaS as an opportunity to simplify their pricing model, and how they use a simple set of principles to guide complex changes.
Are you a partner with a SaaS solution on marketplace who is interested in sharing your SaaS story? Comment below and our team will reach out to learn more about your story!
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Copilot AI is reshaping customer service just like it’s changing every other aspect of business operations. Before now, customer service managers had no way to gauge the results of their efforts to incorporate AI in their practices. Copilot analytics in Dynamics 365 Customer Service fills that gap, offering deep insights into the operational impact of an organization’s investment in AI-enhanced customer service.
Key metrics and insights
To view Copilot analytics, go to Customer Service historical analytics and select the Copilot tab. Here, comprehensive metrics and insights provide a holistic perspective on the value that Copilot adds to your customer service operations.
Usage metrics
Daily Active Users: The number of individual agents who engaged with Copilot at least once in a day over the specified date range
Total Copilot AI Responses: The aggregate number of responses that Copilot provided in a day over the specified date range
Number of Responses Used: The number of Copilot responses from which an agent copied text
Percentage of Copilot AI Responses Used: The proportion of Copilot responses from which agents copied text
Productivity metrics: Cases
Total Cases Resolved: The aggregate number of cases that agents resolved while Copilot was available
Number of Cases Resolved Using Copilot AI: The number of cases that agents resolved with Copilot’s help
Percentage of Cases Resolved Using Copilot AI: The proportion of cases that agents resolved with Copilot’s help
Average Days to Close for Cases: The average number of days it took agents to resolve cases, with and without Copilot’s help
Case Throughput: The average number of cases that agents resolved per day, with and without Copilot’s help
Productivity metrics: Conversations
Total Conversations: The aggregate number of agent-customer interactions that involved Copilot
Number of Conversations Using Copilot AI: The number of completed conversations in which Copilot played a role
Percentage of Conversations Using Copilot AI: The proportion of conversations in which Copilot played a role
Average Conversation Handle Time: The average duration of conversations in which Copilot played a role
Conversation Throughput: The average number of completed conversations (excluding emails and voice interactions) per day in which Copilot played a role
Satisfaction metrics
Agent Ratings: Agents’ ratings of Copilot’s responses, both positive and negative
The potential of Copilot analytics
Copilot analytics gives leaders of organizations that use Dynamics 365 Customer Service a comprehensive toolset to assess the impact of Copilot on their customer support functions. By analyzing key metrics, supervisors and managers can make informed decisions, optimize processes, and elevate levels of customer satisfaction.
It’s important to recognize that Copilot analytics is a transformative asset for customer service organizations. As you explore its capabilities, you’ll find that its insights have the potential to drive improvements in the productivity of your customer service teams.
AI solutions built responsibly
Enterprise grade data privacy at its core. Azure OpenAI offers a range of privacy features, including data encryption and secure storage. It allows users to control access to their data and provides detailed auditing and monitoring capabilities. Copilot is built on Azure OpenAI, so enterprises can rest assured that it offers the same level of data privacy and protection.
Responsible AI by design. We are committed to creating responsible AI by design. Our work is guided by a core set of principles: fairness, reliability and safety, privacy and security, inclusiveness, transparency, and accountability. We are putting those principles into practice across the company to develop and deploy AI that will have a positive impact on society.
Learn more about Copilot analytics
Watch a video to learn how copilot AI searches company knowledge sources and generates optimized responses in a single click.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
We are excited to announce that we are currently rolling out a new feature called SharePoint News for Email. This feature enables you to convert your SharePoint News Posts intro distributions that can be read fully in email inboxes. You can now engage your audience directly in their inbox and track their mail reads.
Four pictures – showing the news article in SharePoint – sending email feature – news in the email client – statistics for the view
To create a News post for email, select a “Made for email” template from the news template picker:
Selection of the templates for new news article – showing the email ready templates.
When you are finished authoring, you can now post your news and send it fully to email in one step.
SharePoint News visible in the SharePoint portal and in the email client.
Sending a page as an email will not change existing site permissions, and sending a page as an email will not give your recipients access to the original page if they don’t already have it. You can think of sending mail by email as making someone a photocopy of a page in a book. They can read that page, but nothing else in the book.
Live video demo on the feature.
Frequently asked questions
When will this happen?
This update will roll out to Targeted Release customers starting August 2023, and to all customers by the end of September.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
On July 11, 2023, we introduced Microsoft’s identity-centric security service edge (SSE) solution and two new services: Microsoft Entra Private Access and Microsoft Entra Internet Access, which are now in public preview. In this blog, we take a deeper look into Microsoft
Entra Private Access.
Figure 1: Traditional network security stacks and legacy VPNs are no longer sufficient
Microsoft Entra Private Access
Traditional network security approaches that use legacy VPNs simply cannot scale to modern demands. Once your remote users connect to your corporate network through VPN, they are granted excessive access to your entire network, all it takes is a single compromised user account, infected device, or open port for an attacker to gain entry, move laterally, and access your most critical assets.
Microsoft Entra Private Access, an identity-centric Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA), reduces the operational complexity and cost of legacy VPNs, while eliminating excessive access and preventing lateral movement. It modernizes access to private applications and resources,helping users quickly and easily connect to private applications from any device and any network, whether they’re at home, remote, or in their corporate office.
What makes Private Access unique
As part of Microsoft’s SSE solution, Private Access is built on Zero Trust principles. It verifies every user and enforces least privilege, giving users access only to the private applications and resources they need.Private Access significantly expands Entra ID Application Proxy capabilities in Microsoft Entra to a complete ZTNA solution that shares the same connectors but offers so much more, it helps you simplify and secure access to any private resource on any port, and protocol.You can apply policies that enable secure, segmented, and granular access to all your private applications in your corporate network, on-premises, or in the cloud. For customers already using Application Proxy, they can seamlessly transition to Private Access – all existing use-cases and access to existing private web applications would continue to work with no disruption.
You can create and enforce per-app, least privilege access controls based on the granular Conditional Access policies that are enriched with context about users, devices, and their locations. You can also terminate ongoing sessions in response to anomalies or changes in user context or device health. For example, if a user connects from one part of the world and then immediately connects from another part of the world (what we call “impossible travel”), you can enforce re-authorization or step up to a stronger authentication method.
Private Access enables secure access to any application, on-premises or cloud-based, and it works across any port or protocol, including RDP, SSH, SMB, FTP, and anything else that uses TCP or UDP. In addition, you can enable single sign-on (SSO) using SAML or http headers or even legacy Kerberos authentication for both web and non-web applications, without making any changes to those applications.
With Private Access delivered from one of the largest global private networks, Microsoft global network, your private applications are not only more secure, but your employees can also access them faster compared to legacy VPNs. The unmatched scale and vast global network edge presence enables you to optimally connect your users and devices to private resources, especially those who work in a hybrid or remote work environment.
Figure 2: Secure access to all private applications, for users anywhere, with an identity-centric Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA).
Private Access key capabilities
Microsoft Entra Private Access can help you enable secure access to all your private applications and resources. Key capabilities include:
Fast and easy migration from legacy VPNs with Quick Access. Replacing legacy VPNs with an identity-centric ZTNA minimizes the risk of implicit trust and lateral movement. Using Quick Access, you can easily configure broad private IP ranges and fully qualified domain names (FQDNs) to quickly enable identity-centric, Zero-Trust-based access to all private resources.
Figure 3: Fast and easy migration from legacy VPNs with Quick Access
Enhanced identity-centric security controls for all private applications. With Private Access, you can create Conditional Access policies and multi-factor authentication (MFA) that require modern authentication for accessing any private application, even those using legacy protocols such as Kerberos and NT LAN Manager (NTLM). This brings policies based on the sensitivity of the application, level of user risk, network compliance, and so forth to legacy applications. For example, you can easily require multi-factor authentication (MFA) and device compliance checks for users trying to access remote desktop (RDP), secure shell (SSH) or SMB applications.
Figure 4: Enhanced identity-centric security controls for all private applications
Automatic private application discovery and onboarding.You candiscover private applications, including existing App Proxy private web applications, whether the applications are hosted locally in a private network, in an on-premises data center, or in the cloud. You can then onboard them to Microsoft Entra ID, group them, and define granular access policies.
Figure 5: Automatic private application discovery and onboarding
Granular segmented applicationaccess. Instead of granting remote users access to your entire network, as traditional VPNs do, you can define granular segmented access policies for each application or group of applications based on user, device, or processes running on the endpoint.
Figure 6: Granular segmented application access
Intelligent local access. Employees need a consistent security posture whether they’re accessing private applications remotely or on-premises. The intelligent local access capability enables fast and seamless ZTNA for users, whether they’re within the corporate network or connecting remotely from anywhere outside corporate network boundaries. For example, a user while on the corporate network can connect to on-premises private applications such as RDP or SMB while CA policies such as MFA are still enforced, and application traffic remains local on the corporate network.
Figure 7: Intelligent local access
Getting started with Entra Private Access
Global Secure Access (preview) is the centralized location in the Microsoft Entra admin center where you can configure and manage Microsoft Entra Private Access. Remote workers don’t need to use a VPN to access these resources if they have the Global Secure Access Client installed. The client quietly and seamlessly connects them with the resources they need. The most current version of the client can be downloaded from the Microsoft Entra admin center. You can install the client interactively, silently with the /quiet switch, or use mobile device management platforms like Microsoft Intune to deploy it to their devices.
QuickAccess makes it very easy to get started with a minimum configuration for Private Access, especially when you are planning to move from legacy VPN to ZTNA. After completing initial configurations, and once you deploy a connector agent on-premises, to enable quick access all you need to do is specify the IP address, IP address range, or FQDN and port number. You can then assign specific conditional access policies, which QuickAccess applies to ALL app segments you configured. For example, you can create a “myRDP app” and assign it an IP address-based app segment. You only need to provide a name for the private app, then select the connector you wish to use with the app, and then specify the IP address/range and port number. You can then access your destination by simply launching an RDP session from your remote client machine.
Figure 8: Configure Quick Access to an RDP application
To learn about different use cases and scenarios, configuration prerequisites and how to enable secure access to your private network resources through the client, remote network connectivity, Quick Access, and more, go to the Global Secure Access documentation page.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Summary
Data in ADX (aka Kusto aka RTA in Fabric) almost always has columns that contain datetime values like 2023-08-01 16:45 and sometimes timespan values like 2 hours or 36 minutes.
In this article I’ll describe how these values are represented in ADX in Power Query and in Power BI.
Notice that I don’t just say Power BI because timespan values have different types in Power Query and in Power BI.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
When building an application, one of the things we have to work alongside with is business requirements but we mostly forget about the users, “Is this application accessible to the users?”
User’s Interaction and accessibility are many of the factors that needs to be discussed when building an application. It’s important to consider how efficient your application is to your users.
Check out this Podcast Episode on A Girl in Love with Tech Podcast where I and Microsoft Snr Program Manager Ilya Fainberg who role is researching market trends and understanding customer needs to formulate product strategy. Helping customers succeed in their journey to the Microsoft Cloud by advising on best practices and product discussed about the importance of User’s Experience in Microsoft Power Platform
In this article, we would learn about simple user’s needs we can easily work on when building a Power apps application but first, let us understand what Power Apps is
What is Microsoft Power Apps?
Microsoft Power Apps is a low-code or no- code tool in the Microsoft Power Platform ecosystem that is used in building business applications with or without the use of programming languages. Microsoft has been able to bridge that gap, where both developers and non-developers have free rays in building solutions. What this means is that, the platform can be extended by code making it a pro code platform for professional developers.
What to look at for
1. Simple icons: it is advisable to use icons in place to help increase space and avoid distractions. Make use of icons that are understandable on what it does.
2. Consistency: When building an application, especially when you have many screens in the application. It’s important to consider the consistency of the controls in your screen especially the width and height.
3. Colours: How well you use your colours is very important, especially to the users, it has to be accessible, not contrasting the other, the colour should not be too dull. These are the few examples to consider when working with colours
The font colour and background colour of your screen should be accessible. Check the Colour contrast checker to see which colour works best.
When using an image in the screen the colour in the background of the image should not contradict the background colour of your screen.
Use primary colours to point out the main objective. A good example of not working well with colors is using a green colour for the delete icon.
4. Avoiding distractions: Application should always be easy to use. A user should not need a manual to use your application.
5. Performance: Improving how users interact with your applications should be met. A few examples to consider when working in an application:
Application should not take too long to load or respond to an action.
When a user clicks on a button they expect that something will happen. Button controls should not be used as a text control.
6. Size: The font type and size should be readable and accessible. Check here and learn more about accessible fonts.
7.Responsive: Building an application, always think about the use of your application on different devices. When building an application one of the mistakes we make is not having an idea or design of how the application layout will look like on different types of screens.
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