This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Windows updates keep you protected and productive in different ways, and we continue to optimize the update experience. Whether you’re an IT administrator or a general user, Windows monthly updates provide you with the security fixes to help keep your devices protected—as well as enhancements based on your feedback. Monthly updates are cumulative and include all previously released fixes to guard against fragmentation of the operating system (OS). This contributes to the reliability and quality of the Windows platform.
This post summarizes the different types of monthly updates and shares insights on how we’ve optimized our approach to Windows servicing and delivery.
Monthly security update release
For many of you, Update Tuesday (also referred to as “Patch Tuesday”) is a regular part of Windows servicing. Published on the second Tuesday of each month, our security update releases are cumulative. That is, they include both new and previously released security fixes along with non-security content introduced in the prior month’s optional non-security preview release (see below). These updates help keep Windows devices secure and compliant by deploying stability fixes and addressing security vulnerabilities.
Note: People tend to use “B release,” quality update, security update, and LCU interchangeably.
Monthly security updates are mandatory and are available through our standard channels, which include Windows Update, Windows Update for Business, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Configuration Manager, Windows Server Update Services (WSUS), and the Microsoft Update Catalog.
Optional non-security preview release
You’ve got options with optional non-security preview releases. Available the fourth week of the month, these production-quality updates are released ahead of the planned security update release for the following month. In addition, new features, like Search highlights, may initially be deployed in the prior month’s optional non-security preview release, then ship broadly in the following month’s security release.
Note: The term “optional non-security preview release” now replaces what we used to call either a “C” or “D” release to align with the current process.
Optional non-security preview releases are also cumulative and are only offered for the most recent supported versions of Windows.
Starting in April 2023, we now target optional non-security preview releases for the fourth week of the month. We have found this to be the optimal time for us to publish and for you to consume these updates. That’s two weeks after your latest monthly security update and about two weeks before you’ll see these features become part of the next mandatory cumulative update. We’re excited for this improvement as it is meant to optimize the validation of payloads, improve consistency, and enhance the predictability of your testing, update, and upgrade experience.
To access optional non-security preview releases, navigate to Settings > Windows Update > Advanced options > Optional updates, select from the available updates, and click Download and install.
Out-of-band releases
Out-of-band (OOB) releases may be provided to fix a recently identified issue or vulnerability. They are used in atypical cases, such as security vulnerabilities or a quality issue, when devices should be updated immediately instead of waiting for the next monthly quality update release. Out-of-band releases are cumulative, meaning that they include the updates from the previous security and/or non-security release, as well as the additional fix.
Continuous innovation in Windows 11
Beginning with Windows 11, version 22H2, new features and enhancements are delivered to the most recently released in-market version of Windows 11 more frequently using servicing technology. As with all updates, we utilize a phased and measured approach in rolling out continuous innovation to the Windows 11 ecosystem.
Experiences may be introduced in an optional non-security preview release prior to being made available broadly via a monthly security update or via Controlled Feature Rollout (CFR) technology. For more information on how to control when select features introduced via servicing are released to the devices you manage, see Commercial control for continuous innovation.
Recommendations
As a general practice, we recommend that you update your devices as soon as possible, whether you’re a general user or an IT professional. For IT admins, we also recommend taking advantage of the optional non-security preview releases to internally validate releases ahead of the following month’s security update release.
To help manage updates across your organization, bookmark these resources:
Windows release health on Microsoft Learn (also available in the Microsoft 365 admin center)
These pages are available in multiple languages and refer to each release by a unique KB number.
IT admins may validate fixes and features in a preview release by leveraging the Windows Insider Program for Business or via the Microsoft Update Catalog.
If you are a Microsoft Partner or registered commercial customer, you can also take advantage of the Security Update Validation Program (SUVP). It’s a quality assurance testing program designed for the monthly security update release. As a SUVP partner, you can start testing these security updates three weeks prior to Update Tuesday and provide us with feedback regarding usability, bug reports, test reports, etc.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Viva Topics in Engage doubles the impact and access of your knowledge at your fingertips – and how you pay it forward to others.
On today’s episode, we hear from Raj Jain (Principal product manager – Viva Engage and Answers team at Microsoft) about all things topical about Viva Topics, specifically – the role of Viva Topics within your Viva Engage community discussions, questions, and announcements posts. The real value gives you a built-in knowledge management system that balances and refines the length of your internal communications without sacrificing the depth you pay forward to each person that reads your comm.
Be sure to visit our show page to hear all 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 or suggestions from our listeners and SharePoint users (TheIntrazone@microsoft.com).
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
OpenAI’s GPT-3 AI applications have become a buzzword in the industry. If you’re looking to boost your business operations and maximize productivity but are encountering technical barriers and resource limitations, the app highlighted in this article may be your answer. It smoothly integrates Azure OpenAI into various business workflows, showcasing a spectrum of AI-powered demos. This demo highlight the technology’s capabilities and can help streamline your business operations while optimizing productivity.
It has many variables for multiple prompts at once and save insights from one conversation in SharePoint List.
Build the entire flow according to your requirements.
When a new email arrives-Choose email trigger if email’s conversation you want to use as a source to gain insights. Else you can use any other trigger depends upon where your conversations stores. e.g. Teams chat, SharePoint, blob storage or any other storage solution.
HtmlToText-Get email body as a plain text using html to text connector.
Get items– SharePoint Connector to get the prompts list to run on your email text to gain additional insights
Initialize Variables-# of variables are initialized based on number of prompts
initialize a variable called summary to store output.
Apply to each -OPEN AI step loop through each prompt question on original conversation text to get the insight and save the result via case statement in the initialized variable. HTTP Connector
ParseOpenAIOutput-Parse the response from OpenAI HTTP output. Click Generate from sample in Parse step and paste the below sample json to parse the response from HTTP output
{ “body”: { “id”: “cmpl-xxxxxxx”, “object”: “text_completion”, “created”: 1678909613, “model”: “text-davinci-003”, “choices”: [ { “text”: “nThe main reason of the conversation is to give credit to travel company for their gracious refund of the cost of the no-show.”, “index”: 0, “finish_reason”: “stop”, “logprobs”: null } ], “usage”: { “completion_tokens”: 27, “prompt_tokens”: 91, “total_tokens”: 118 } } }
After parsing we need to loop the array and assign the text to the variable Apply to each action. Select Choices from parse step output as the array property. Set Output – variable “Summary”
Switch: It has 6 case actions based on number of prompts to set the each variable based on each HTTP Post call.
end of Apply to each -OPEN AI step #11 (loop through each prompt question and call OpenAI endpoint to get insights. Parse the response and save it in each prompt related variable)
Create Item – Once all the variables are set then create an entry in the SharePoint Conversation insights list with original text and additional insights
How to utilize insights into a process PowerApps can be created with SharePoint list to create a business process around insights generated by OpenAI on each customer conversation. Dashboard->Details screen-> Process each conversation with Insights https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/power-apps/maker/canvas-apps/app-from-sharepoint
Dashboard – Vertical galley in PowerApps with SharePoint list ‘Conversation Insights’ as a Data Source
Item details page with OpenAI insights to accelerate the customer service – Display form in PowerApps
Stay tuned for more exciting blog content as we explore various potential scenarios. Effortlessly extract text from documents, audio, and video files to generate valuable insights.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
Create, customize, and deploy your own portfolio website in minutes without installing any tools. All you needis a GitHub account and a few minutes to get started. We will use GitHub Codespaces and Blazor to build the website and Azure Static Web Apps or GitHub Pages to deploy it.
Now, with GitHub Codespaces you can create your own portfolio website in minutes without any extra tools or lengthy environment setup! All you need is a GitHub account.Follow these instructions to create your free GitHub account.
GitHub Codespaces is a development environment that is hosted in the cloud. This means that you can get started coding right away in your browser – we set everything up for you ahead of time! You do not need to worry about setting up the right coding editor or tools.
.NET Portfolio Site with GitHub Codespaces
With the .NET Blazor Portfolio Site project template, all you need to do is launch your Codespace then follow the README instructions to customize your website. The goal is to give you a template you can immediately utilize to create your own website through GitHub Codespaces.
This template shows you how to build your website using Blazor. Blazor is a UI Framework that lets you build frontend web applications with C#. The template is within the GitHub Student Developer pack, but anyone can access and use it!
Who is this for?Anyone looking to create a portfolio site, learn web development, or test out Codespaces.
How much experience do you need?Zero. You decide how much you want to customize based on your experience, and time available.
Tools needed:None. No need to install anything! All you need is a GitHub account and web browser.
Prerequisites:None. This template includes your development environment and deployable web app for you to create your own site.
Get Started with the .NET Portfolio Website Template
This project is built to be easily customizable. Each section of the site is a separate component, and your information needs to be set in only one spot. For each step, open the project in Codespaces, then you can make and commit your changes while within your Codespaces.
This article is contributed. See the original author and article here.
When a Project Manager develops a resource-loaded work-back structure (WBS), the linear distribution of effort between resources is typically acceptable as a starting point to estimate effort and costs. However, there are scenarios where a PM will need to be more granular in the definition of effort within a given time span for each resource (day, week, month) to reflect how the work will be accurately executed.
This precision influences two key components of the project planning: Resource Requirements and Financial estimates – which can be achieved with assignments tab. To access the contour editing grid, the project manager first selects the Tasks tab on the project main page and then selects the Assignments tab.
When the grid is initially rendered, it starts at the earliest assignment contour. If your schedule doesn’t contain any assignments that have effort, the grid will be blank and won’t render anything. The minimum value of a resource contour is zero, and the maximum value permitted is 9,999,999.
How to access?
Once you have created a new project and assigned the tasks to team members, Click on the three dots, “…” -> Assignments.
Unlike in the Grid view, columns aren’t configurable. The only visible columns are: Assigned To, Task Name, Assignment Start and Finish date.
Supports two methods for grouping: Group by Resource and Group by Task.
Two views to update the efforts required: Weekly and Daily.
How to update task effort assigned to resources:
By default, when resources are assigned to a task in the schedule, their effort is linearly distributed to each resource, based upon that resource’s working hours and the project’s schedule mode.
A project manager can use the resource assignment grid to refine the effort estimates of each resource that’s assigned to one or many tasks across the different time scales. This feature helps project managers produce more accurate cost and sales estimates, which are driven by the resource assignment contours that are generated when a resource is assigned to a task. Additionally, project managers can easily reflect the resource demand that’s required to build the demand in a resource requirement.
View effort distribution of a resource across tasks and timeline (Grouped by Resource)
Updating efforts required for a task (Grouped by Task)
Resource calendars
The ability to edit a contour for a specific day is governed by the resource’s working days, as reflected in their calendar. If a cell is disabled for a given resource, that resource doesn’t have working days during that period.
A resource’s contours can extend beyond the assigned task’s current start and end dates. If a contour is updated so that it’s after the latest end date of a task or the earliest start date of a task, the task’s end date or start date will be changed as appropriate. However, if a contour is updated so that it’s earlier than the start date of a task that’s linked to a predecessor, the update will fail because the assignment will trigger the task to start before its predecessor is completed, and that behavior isn’t currently supported.
Co-authoring
Changes to the resource assignment grid are automatically reflected in any associated views, including the Chart, Timeline, Board, and Grid views. If multiple users are reviewing the project at the same time, any changes that one user makes will be reflected in the grid. Conversely, any changes that are made in the resource assignment grid will be shown to all other users who are viewing the project in the same session.
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