Improve DNS security by using Domain Name Label Scope

by Contributed | Mar 27, 2024 | Technology

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

The reuse of DNS names is a common requirement for cloud customers, as applications and services may need to be upgraded or migrated while still having the ability to deploy using the same DNS name as a pointer. The danger of this practice is that it can leave you vulnerable to a security threat known as a subdomain takeover. This can happen when a DNS name record does not point to a provisioned Azure resource, which means any domain associated with the DNS entry is now considered “dangling”. A malicious actor could take control of the dangling domain by creating a new resource with the same DNS name that points to different resources as shown below:

In the past, Azure has recommended multiple ways to remediate this type of threat by using products like Microsoft Defender for App service or Azure DNS alias records, along with practicing “good DNS hygiene”. Today, we are excited to announce a new capability for Azure public IP address that can prevent this type of subdomain takeover while still allowing for re-use of DNS names. We have introduced a new parameter called Domain Name Label Scope will have an additional, hashed string in between the domainnamelabel and location fields. 

The value of the Domain Name Label Scope can be set to four different values:

Let’s say you have a single Azure subscription and want to create a website for your Contoso Coffee business while preventing others from reusing your DNS name records. You would:

• Select SubscriptionReuse as the option when deploying a public IP address with DNS, generating a domain name label of contoso.fjdng2acavhkevd8.westus.cloudapp.Azure.com


• Create a DNS zone for your domain name in Azure DNS for contoso.com and then assign a CNAME (canonical name) record in your DNS zone with the subdomain contosocofee.contoso.com that points to your domain name


• Delegate your domain name to the Azure DNS name servers at your domain name registrar
  Note the second and third steps could be done at any DNS provider, inclusive of Azure DNS.

If you delete and redeploy a public IP address using the same template as before, the domain name label will remain the same.  However, if another customer deploys a public IP address using this same template under a different subscription, the provided domain name label will change (e.g. contoso.c9ghbqhhbxevhzg9.westus.cloudapp.Azure.com), even if the public IP resource with the domain name above was removed.  This would prevent any other subscription from being able to takeover the subdomain.

The feature to secure your domain name label records using Domain Name Label Scope is available in all regions. For more information on Azure DNS or Azure Public IP Services, you can review the documentation below.

Azure DNS documentation | Microsoft Learn

Azure Virtual Network IP Services Documentation | Microsoft Learn

What’s New in Excel (March 2024)

by Contributed | Mar 26, 2024 | Technology

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

Welcome to our March 2024 update. 

This month, export to CSV and show details in PivotTables are now available in Excel for the web. Also, creating Power BI-connected tables is available in Excel for Windows users, and Office Scripts for Office 365 E1 and F3 licenses.

Excel for Web:

1. Export to CSV


2. Show Details in PivotTables #FIA

Excel for Windows:

1. Create Power BI Connected Tables in Excel


2. Office Scripts for Office 365 E1 and F3 Licenses

Excel for Web

1. Export to CSV

The ability to export to CSV is now available to all Web users. This experience was already supported for Windows, and Mac users and we’ve now expanded this service to all Web users. Take advantage of this lightweight file format in Excel for the Web to exchange and use data between apps and across platforms. Read more here >
Export to CSV

2. Show Details in PivotTables
We’ve added a new button on the ribbon under the ‘PivotTable Analyze’ tab called Show Details, this button allows you to drill into your PivotTables. Previously, you were able to double-click a value cell in the PivotTable and create a new table to further analyze the details for that value. This button makes this existing capability easier to find and use. This functionality was already available for Web users. 

Excel for Windows

1. Create Power BI Connected Tables in Excel
A new Insert Table option is now available for the Power BI Datasets pane in Excel. It enables users to create a connected table directly in Excel. This streamlines the workflow of adding data and is friendlier to more Excel users. This is now available for all Windows and Web users. Read more here >

Power BI Connected Tables

2. Office Scripts for Office 365 E1 and F3 Licenses
Starting today you can find the Office Scripts feature set in the Automate tab on the Excel ribbon. Office Scripts is an automation platform in Excel that allows users with all levels of programming experience to automate their repetitive workflows. To get started, use the Action Recorder to record the actions you take in Excel. These actions are then translated into a script that you can run at any time. No programming experience required! Read more here >
Office Scripts

Your feedback helps shape the future of Excel. Please let us know how you like a particular feature and what we can improve upon—“Give a compliment” or “Make a suggestion”..  You can also submit new ideas or vote for other ideas via Microsoft Feedback.

Subscribe to our Excel Blog and the Insiders Blog to get the latest updates. Stay connected with us and other Excel fans around the world – join our Excel Community and follow us on X, formerly Twitter.

Special thanks to our Excel MVPs David Benaim and Bill Jelen for their contribution to this month’s What’s New in Excel article. David publishes weekly YouTube videos and regular LinkedIn posts about the latest innovations in Excel and more. Bill is the founder and host of MrExcel.com and the author of several books about Excel.

MGDC for SharePoint FAQ: How can I filter rows on a dataset?

by Contributed | Mar 25, 2024 | Technology

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

1. Overview

When gathering SharePoint data through Microsoft Graph Data Connect in a large tenant, you might be pulling many thousands, millions or even billions of objects. If you want to get just a subset of the results, there is a mechanism to filter the results at the source.

A common example is to pull the data just for one site (filtering for the site id) to get started with a large tenant. This way your results will be smaller, cheaper, and easier to handle. You can also use this to get just specific types of sites, like OneDrive or Communication sites.

In this blog, we’ll investigate how you can apply a filter to a dataset in Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint.

2. What is filtering?

When you request data from the Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint, you get the full dataset. For instance, if you request the Sites dataset, you get all the sites in the tenant. This is described in the yellow paths below.

If you provide a filter with the request, you can get a partial dataset based on a filter expression. You could, for instance, request all sites with a template id of 21 (that means a OneDrive). This is shown by the green paths above.

In short, filtering delivers a partial dataset based on a filter expression specified in the request. Only objects that meet the criteria are delivered.

The main uses for filtering include:

• Reducing the size of the transfers


• Excluding sensitive data from the results

Filtering is available only in these specific SharePoint datasets:

• SharePoint Sites


• SharePoint Permissions


• SharePoint Group


• SharePoint Files (coming soon)


• SharePoint File Actions (coming soon)

Note: Microsoft Graph Data Connect also offers an option to exclude specific columns from the results, which is another mechanism to protect sensitive data.

3. Datasets and Columns

This filtering feature applies only to the SharePoint datasets listed below. You can filter by Site Id in all SharePoint datasets. You can also filter by Template Id in the Sites, Files and File Actions   datasets:

For WebTemplateId, refer to this blog post for details on the codes used:
https://barreto.home.blog/2023/04/17/sharepoint-on-mgdc-faq-is-onedrive-included/

If you’re interested in filtering for additional SharePoint dataset columns, please let us know in the comments.

4. Expressions and Operators

Filters are specified using an expression. The expression usually includes a column (as described in the previous section), an operator and a constant.

The main operators supported include:

Here are a few sample expressions you could use:

The expression language is patterned after the Microsoft Graph filter query parameter.  You can read more about it at https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/graph/filter-query-parameter.

5. Including the Filter expression in the request

To add a filter to your request, you must specify a DataFilter property in the JSON representation of the request. Start by selecting the Copy Data task you are using and going to the “Source” tab of the Copy Task properties.

Click on the “{ }” button on the top right (indicated above with a red arrow), which brings up the JSON definition for the request.

In the JSON definition, find the “source” section under “typeProperties”, where you can find the “dateFilterColumn”, the “startTime” and the “endTime” properties. Add a new “DataFilter” property with the expression you want to apply. Save the changes to the JSON and make sure to publish the pipeline to apply the changes.

In the screenshot above, you see the definition indicated by the red arrow:
acitvity >> typeProperties >> source >> DataFilter >> RootWeb.WebTemplateId eq 21

Be very careful. If you specify the filtering expression in the wrong place in the JSON, the request may fail, or it could just run without filtering anything from the dataset. If you’re running this in a large production tenant, it is recommended to try this first in a small test or dev tenant.

6. More Request Metadata

As a result of this extra property in your request, the results will be filtered, and you will see fewer rows/objects in your output. Another way to see this is looking at the metadata file that is produced with any Microsoft Graph Data Connect run. Look for a folder called “metadata” in the same place you assigned to receive the data (your Azure account container and folder).

In the job metadata file associated with this request, you will see a few additional properties:

• IsFilterApplied – Shows true if the request included a filter expression.


• Filter – The expression passed by in the DataFilter property.


• NumberOfRowsExtracted – Shows the number of rows after the filter was applied.

Here’s a sample of a job metadata file:

{
    "CopyActivityId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "JobSubmissionTime": "2024-01-10T21:27:18Z",
    "JobCompletionTime": "2024-01-10T21:32:44Z",
    "RequestStartDate": "2024-01-06T00:00:00Z",
    "RequestEndDate": "2024-01-06T00:00:00Z",
    "ColumnsRequested":"ptenant, Id, Url, RootWeb, WebCount, StorageQuota, StorageUsed, StorageMetrics, GroupId, GeoLocation, IsInRecycleBin, IsTeamsConnectedSite, IsTeamsChannelSite, TeamsChannelType, IsHubSite, HubSiteId, BlockAccessFromUnmanagedDevices, BlockDownloadOfAllFilesOnUnmanagedDevices, BlockDownloadOfViewableFilesOnUnmanagedDevices, ShareByEmailEnabled, ShareByLinkEnabled, SensitivityLabelInfo, Classification, IBMode, IBSegments, Owner, SecondaryContact, ReadLocked, ReadOnly, CreatedTime, LastSecurityModifiedDate, Operation, SnapshotDate",
    "ExtractionMode": "Full",
    "IsFilterApplied": true,
    "Filter": "RootWeb.WebTemplateId eq 21",
    "NumberOfRowsExtracted": 4,
    "TableName": "BasicDataSet_v0.SharePointSites_v1",
    "ApplicationId": "00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000",
    "OfficeGeo": "NAM",
    "DataFactoryName": "mgdc-synapse"
}

7. Combining Filters with Deltas

It is possible to combine the filtering and the delta features of the SharePoint datasets in Microsoft Graph Data Connect.

When you specify a filtering expression and two different dates, the dataset will be first filtered and then the differences between the two dates will be calculated.

For more details about Delta datasets, see this blog post:
MGDC for SharePoint FAQ: How can I use Delta State Datasets? 

8. Filtering Errors

 If you pass an expression for filtering and there is a problem with it, Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint will fail the request and no data will be returned. An error message will be returned so you can understand what happened.

Here are some of the common error conditions:

• Cannot filter and sample at the same time. If you specify both a DataFilter and the Top properties, you will get an error like this:

Operation on target Copy_Sites failed: 
ErrorCode=UserErrorOffice365DataLoaderError,
'Type=Microsoft.DataTransfer.Common.Shared.HybridDeliveryException,
Message=Office365 data loading failed to execute. 
office365LoadErrorType: PermanentError. 
Not Supported: Both DataFilter and AdditionalDataSetProperties with 'top' can not be specified at the same time,
Source=Microsoft.DataTransfer.ClientLibrary,'

• You specified a column name that is not one the columns supported for that dataset. If you specify a non-existent or unsupported column, you will get an error like this:

Operation on target Copy_Sites failed: 
ErrorCode=UserErrorOffice365DataLoaderError,
'Type=Microsoft.DataTransfer.Common.Shared.HybridDeliveryException,
Message=Office365 data loading failed to execute. 
office365LoadErrorType: PermanentError. 
[1]: Invalid schema specified in filters. 
Only few columns are supported for filters. 
Supported Columns: ['Id', 'RootWeb.WebTemplateId']. 
Usage Example: Id eq '00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000' 
or RootWeb.WebTemplateId eq 21'
,Source=Microsoft.DataTransfer.ClientLibrary,'

• You specified a bad expression. If you specify a malformed expression in your DataFilter expression, you will get an error.

9. Conclusion

I hope this blog post will help you get started with Filtering. For more information about Microsoft Graph Data Connect for SharePoint, please visit the collection of links I keep at Links about SharePoint on Microsoft Graph Data Connect.

Professional Journal PDF to Word to PowerPoint – HLS Copilot Snacks

by Contributed | Mar 23, 2024 | Technology

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

HLS Copilot Snacks are the perfect way to learn how to use Copilot to boost your productivity and reduce your workload.

In this snackable you will learn how to quickly take a professional journal publication in PDF format and convert it to Microsoft Word where you can use Copilot to query and summarize the contents. Then you will learn how to turn that professional journal publication and leverage Copilot to create a PowerPoint presentation in order to present its contents to colleagues and staff.

To see all HLS Copilot Snacks video click here.

Resources:

• Prompt – “Summarize this doc” and “Create a presentation from file…” – *Prompts and videos are for informational purposes only.


• Copilot in Word help & learning (microsoft.com)


• Copilot in PowerPoint help & learning (microsoft.com)


• Prepare your presentation with Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Microsoft Support


• Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Microsoft Adoption


• Your path to value with Copilot for Microsoft 365 – Microsoft Community Hub

Have questions you would like to have us address in a snackable? Let us know! 

Thanks for visiting – Michael Gannotti LinkedIn