Updates to the Microsoft Tech Community- September 10th,2020

by Scott Muniz | Sep 10, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

Over the last couple of months, we have been making some changes to the Microsoft Tech Community to improve page load times and user experience. We are pleased to share with you the next update. 

In this update we have made changes to: 

• My Dashboard 
• Community Hubs 
• Community Banners 
• Primary Search 
• Microsoft Verified Answer 

My Dashboard 

The old “My Home”, though much loved by community super users, MVPs and Employees was originally designed when the community was less than a 10th of size it is today and was not fit for purpose for our community. 

With this in mind, we have completely re-skinned both the shortcut and the My Dashboard view and added some new features we hope you will like. 

My Shortcuts 

My Shortcuts used to be access using the heart symbol in the top right, next to the notification bell. 

The new My Shortcuts is accessed using a list icon that is in the same location as the old heart icon: 

We have tried to focus on getting you to the content we know you are most interested in as quickly as possible, and so My Shortcuts is powered by Discussion Spaces, Blogs, Knowledge Bases, Ideas that you have followed. 

Recently Visited stores the last 5 placed you have visited in the Microsoft Tech Community so you can get back to where you left off from, even if it’s not a Space you have previously followed. 

My Dashboard 

The old My Dashboard was looking a little tired and so within the new My Dashboard you can: 

• Manage the communities you have joined. 
• Follow and un-follow spaces. 
• See your most recent posts, replies, best responses and blog articles. 
• Review the 3 newest, most popular, and unanswered questions from the spaces you follow. 

• See the 3 latest blog articles from blogs you have followed. 
• If there is a question within one of the boards, you follow that has not been answered then there is a component that will ask if you can help answer this. (*) 

* Currently this is asking if you can help answer unanswered questions in popular boards but we will be changing this behaviour shortly to use the boards you have followed 

In this update we have tried to put you and the content you care the most about front and center and so a new feature we have added to My Dashboard, is the ability to set it as your homepage. When enabled it means the community homepage will always by your dashboard.  

Community Hubs 

Continuing with the theme in this update of getting you to the content you are looking for as quickly as possible, we redesigned the community hubs page. You will now see all the hubs you have joined by default and have the option to view all hubs on the second tab. 

We made the search in Community Hubs more powerful, so that when you search by a keyword it not only shows you Hubs that match your keyword but also any spaces. You can Join or leave any hub right from the Community Hubs page, as well as follow or un-follow any spaces. 

You can also expand a Community Hub card and see the most recently active spaces for that hub. 

By default, the hubs are sorted by most recent activity but can also be sorted by: 

• A to Z 
• Z to A 
• Newly Added 

Community Banners 

We took the opportunity to redesign the Microsoft Tech Community banners so that we could make better use of this hero space to not only communicate where you are in the Microsoft Tech Community, but also the activity in the community hub you are currently viewing. A key part of this design change was to also make the header more accessible and work across screen sizes. For communities that do not have a custom banner this is what the new community banner looks like. 

For communities that have custom banners we have tried to balance this customization with the need to make the site feel consistent.  

Primary Search 

In an effort to give search a little more prominence, when a user clicks our search button it now overlays over our primary navigation to give a much larger space for quick results to display.  This also helps provide a more consistent search experience across all screen sizes. 

We are currently working on an update which will also make the size of the quick results drop down take advantage of this extra space. 

Microsoft Verified Answer 

Working in a similar way to the Best Solutions system we already provide today, but managed by Microsoft Employees, the purpose of this is to give us a way to highlight answers that are provided in the community that align with Microsoft’s policies, guidelines or best practices. 

 Have questions or feedback? Feel free to post them in the comments below. 

September 2020 – M365 US Public Sector Roadmap Newsletter

by Scott Muniz | Sep 10, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap
This link is filtered to show GCC, GCC High and DOD specific items.  For more general information uncheck these boxes under “Cloud Instance”.

New to filtering the roadmap for GCC specific changes? Try this:

Stay on top of Office 365 changes
Here are a few ways that you can stay on top of the Office 365 updates in your organization.

Microsoft Tech Community for Public Sector
Your community for discussion surrounding the public sector, local and state governments.

Microsoft 365 for US Government Service Descriptions

• Office 365 Platform (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• NEW! –  Office 365 U.S. Government GCC High endpoints
• NEW! –  Office 365 U.S. Government DoD endpoints

• Compliance (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• Enterprise Mobility & Security (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• Microsoft Defender ATP (GCCH)
• Microsoft Cloud App Security (GCCH)
• Azure ATP (GCCH)
• Azure Information Protection Premium

• Exchange Online (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• SharePoint  (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• OneDrive (GCC, GCCH, DoD) 
• Teams (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

• Office ProPlus (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• PowerApps (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• Flow (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• Power BI (GCC, GCCH)
• Planner (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• Outlook Mobile (GCC, GCCH, DoD)
• My Analytics (GCCH, DoD)
• Dynamics 365 US Government

Teams for Government Training Series

Live training accessible via Teams Live Event aka.ms/learnTeamsforGov

Also available: VOD options of past events 

Microsoft Lists in Microsoft Teams is now generally available in GCC

Microsoft US Sovereign Cloud Myth Busters – CUI Effectively Requires Data Sovereignty

Secure isolation guidance for Azure and Azure Government

Insider Risk Management and Communication Compliance solutions rolling out to GCC and GCC High cloud environments

Insider Risk Management in Microsoft 365 – Road Map ID: 64187

Communication compliance in Microsoft 365 – Road Map ID: 67112

Extended Offline Access for Microsoft 365 Apps coming to GCC, GCC High, and DOD on October 1, 2020

Extended offline access enables devices running Microsoft 365 Apps to stay activated for up to 180 days without the need to connect to the internet to validate the license and install updates.

SMTP Plus Addressing is now rolling out

Plus Address support allows users to add a suffix to the local-part of their email address to create a secondary address which they can then use as an email address.

App permissions, consent and install in Teams admin center (GA Sep/Oct)

Teams admin center is receiving new features on App Permissions, Consent and Install.

Sideloading and Custom apps are now available in Teams GCC

Power App integration in Teams GCC

Pop Out Chat live in Teams GCC

Teams supports Citrix VDI in Teams GCC

Teams background images in non-optimized VDI environments

Updated Teams meeting experience when joining via meeting URL

Surface Hub Certified for use with Teams GCC

Praise app in Teams (Sep)

Recognize and appreciate work that Teams users do by using praise badges in Microsoft Teams. 

Teams templates (Aug/Sep)

Teams templates are pre-built definitions of a team’s structure designed around a business need or project. 

Multi-window calling and meetings in Teams

Users can choose to have their Teams calls and meetings pop-out into a separate window.

Org allowed accounts in Teams (GCC only)

Microsoft Teams for iOS and Android now enables administrators to manage which user accounts can sign-in to Microsoft Teams on mobile devices that are managed by Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) providers.

iOS: version 2.0.13 or later
Android: The updated app should be available in the store by the end of June.

Expiring access for external user in SharePoint and OneDrive (Oct)

Tenant admins will be able to create a policy that revokes guest access to documents and files after a set number of days. 

Microsoft Lists (GA GCC)

A new Lists home where users will be able to access from the Microsoft 365 suite navigation on the web.

Enforcing SharePoint limits (Sep/Oct)

Enforcing limits scope

• 10,000 SharePoint groups per site (site collection).
• Each SharePoint group can have up to 5,000 users.
• 5,000 role assignments per uniquely permissioned item.

Centralized management for hub permissions (Sep)

Hub permissions enable users to centralize the management of visitor access to associated sites. 

SharePoint admin center classic pages retirement

The following pages in the classic SharePoint admin center have been replaced by pages in the new SharePoint admin center and will be removed/retired: “Site Collections”, “Sharing”, “Access control”, and “Geo locations”.

[Guest Blog] How To pass from 0 to 1: Introduction to Programming World

by Scott Muniz | Sep 10, 2020 | Uncategorized

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

This article was written by Humans of IT Community member Leslie Nicole Ramirez as part of our Guest Bloggers series. The world of programming is filled with 0’s and 1’s – read on to discover how to be a 1 and find your path in the amazing development world. What will allow us to move from Padawan to Jedi? Leslie shares a series of good practices and steps that everyone who wants to be a good programmer should know and put into practice when aspiring to be a good software developer.

When I was writing this article, I remembered the challenging start of my programming experience. I asked some friends why they choose to be a programmer – the opinions varied by person but all of them match with “the start is the hardest part of the path”. However, what makes it so hard is not so much the complexity of concepts; rather, the most common problem starts with the following questions:

• Which programming language should I choose?
• What’s the necessary skill to be a good programmer?
• How can I pass from 0 to 1?

There is a set of good practices that everyone who wants to be a good programmer should know and employ if he aspires to be a good software developer.

Through this blog post, I’d like provide a panorama view of the world of programming. Not specific to a language or tool, but to show you the general steps that you can follow to getting started in the programming world and what are the steps that will take them from 0 to 1.

Remember, we all start off as a 0 in the world of Programming, but you can learn how to be a 1 and find your path in this amazing development world. That said, let’s tackle the first question that is commonly asked, i.e Which programming language should I learn first?

Firstly, ask yourself, what do you want to do as a programmer? There are many great options, for example:

• If you wanna do game development, C# and C++ are good options to consider
• If you wanna create enterprise applications, C# also is a good option
• If you want to get started somewhere, focus on the languages that are somewhat easier to learn, for example, Python

Before you choose your language, think about the following questions:

• How’s the community that supports that development ecosystem?

• Is there enough material to get started without a mentor? (By the way, if you DO need a tech mentor, consider joining the free Microsoft Community Mentors app platform where many MVPs/RDs currently volunteer as mentors!)  

• Are you planning to start a career as a developer?

 Unicorn tips and answers

1. If there’s no supportive community in that ecosystem, you will get less information on issues, and questions on what you are learning. And most of the time that ecosystem tends to disappear because it never hooks with the public.
2. The reality is, most programmers learn by themselves via online courses, YouTube channels or some free online courses. If you’re not able to find good options for doing so in your learning path, maybe reconsider your choice and pick another language to delve into.
3. If you are planning to get started in the programming world for starting a career and offer your services to big tech companies or maybe as a freelancer, consider looking for jobs offered in different popular platforms such as LinkedIn or Stack Overflow, just to have a grounded opinion of what the companies require of programmers, and from there, work backwards to determine where you should start.

My personal experience

Keeping this in mind, I’ll tell you about my own experience. When I finished school, I already knew that I wanted to study computer science, so I started with a two-year college degree at Technologic of the Americas Institute (ITLA) in the Dominican Republic. In that time, I learned about Java, Pascal, and C#. I fell in love with the last one, because I felt really comfortable with the environment and when I was searching for online resources I found tons of free online courses, tutorials and documentation to start with. After my two years at ITLA, I decided that I wanted to get a job as a programmer. Thankfully, it was relatively easy given that C# and .NET developers are in highly demand worldwide. 

Fast forward to now, I still have no regrets choosing C#. The community is truly amazing and there are a lot of people sharing their knowledge and offering support to others. Many of them inspired me to start blogging about C# in Spanish (my native language) via my blog called www.Dominiotic.com where I share my knowledge and experience in the programming world. 

I am fortunate to have had a really good experience in the programming world. Of course, there were bumps along the way, but I loved the journey. 

Based on my personal experience, here’s my advice for how to pass from 0 to 1:

1. Start doing: Do not spend all your time thinking of what you can do. Instead, learn and choose your path! 
2.  🧗 Challenge yourself and learn new things. 
3. 🙋 Get involved in community activities: Your community can make all the difference in your experience. Write a blog. Ask questions in a forum. Think about how you can network with others. Even when you are starting out, your content will be really useful for others that may struggle with similar questions. 

Though general, these steps are what will make all of the difference to kick off learning programming. For more specific technical skills, here are a few more resources that I recommend:

1. Git for version of control
2. Programming logic: In this case I choose C# but It’s up to you
3. Working with and types with C#

Find your bright path through the programming world – you’ve got this! Another great (and FREE!) resource is Microsoft Learn – you will be surprised by the depth of content you will find there. From beginner to advanced levels, MS Learn is a great place to learn at all levels.

My last piece of advice to you is, never give up. As cliché as it may sound, it’s truly important to remember that you will face challenges in your career. Everyone does. You don’t have to know everything, and neither do you need to get all the concepts at once. Do it at your own rhythm. Wish you the best, and hope you enjoyed reading this article as much as I enjoyed writing it.  (♥ω♥ ) ~♪

#0to1programming 

#Programming101 

#HumansofIT

#CommunityPower