Category: Tech
What’s Microsoft Power Virtual Agents?
In this post I describe what Microsoft Power Virtual Agents are and what’s the benefit of using Power Virtual Agents.
What are Power Virtual Agents?
At Ignite 2019 I heard the first time of Power Virtual Agents.
It’s a service and it’s part of Microsoft’s Power Platform (Power Automate, Power BI, PowerApps). Currently, Power Virtual Agents are in preview.
Power Virtual Agents enables you to build bots to serve your business. It can be done with no-code, within little time and deploy it where ever you need it. For example, you can deploy the Power Virtual Agents in Teams, Skype, Facebook, any website, PowerApps etc. Just awesome!
To give you some quick overview how it looks like, some screenshots:
Advantages and benefits of Power Virtual Agents
- Part of Microsoft’s Power Platform
- No need to be a app developer
- No-coding skills required to begin with
- Easy to setup and start with
- Fast “configuration”
- Fast deployment and publishing into Teams, websites etc.
- Easy to modify
- Easy to extend (teach/train contents to give the bot more “knowledge”)
Conclusion, opinion and summary
Power Virtual Agents can deliver great benefit for your business, internally as well as externally.
You could, for example, build a bot for your web shop,
you could create a FAQ bot (if you have not already one),
you could set up a troubleshooting bot for (end user) support or any other scenario. All this might help to reduce repetitiv and boring tasks for your employees getting these questions asked and allow them to focus on what’s more important for your business success.
It’s really straightforward and it work’s like charm. I’m really excited what I’ve seen and could test in the preview of this service.
Additional resources
Audiocodes White Paper – Software-Defined Voice Networks (SDvN)
This post is about a newly released white paper by Audiocodes on software-defined voice networks to optimize network performance and reduce operational costs for communication, especially voice, solutions.
The white paper points out the challenge on managing complex (voice) networks and versatile workloads in times in which businesses have to master their digital transformation. Audiocodes emphasizes that many carriers abandon their legacy PSTN technology backbone to transition from ISDN to All-IP. This also causes a change at the enterprises. Therefore, software-defined voice networks is described as an approach to cope with the technology change by to keep voice networks manageable and cut operational costs.
The advantages of software-defined (voice) networks [SDvN] as mentioned in the white paper are:
- decoupled voice network infrastructure and voice control layer
- APIs
- overlay network
- agil and dynamic
- vendor agnostic
- centralized network and call routing management
- optimized call routing
Conclusion, opinion and summary
As I wrote in the past network reliability and performance for your communication and collaboration services (incl. voice) are essentials.
SDN can provide options to reduce operational costs and make your network more reliable and perform better. Audiocodes’ white paper outlines what SD(v)N in complex voice networking environments could offer to fulfill today’s and tomorrow’s business requirements in the digital era. SD(v)N, definitely something you should consider in case you have large and multi-national/-site (voice) network.
Additional resources
Deliver learning contents to your users with Microsoft 365 learning pathways
In this post I describe what Microsoft 365 learning pathways is and how it can help your company to increase your Microsoft 365 user adoption and productivity.
What’s Microsoft 365 learning pathways?
Learning pathways is a service by Microsoft which offers steadily updated and rich learning content delivery which you can add in your Microsoft 365 tenant. You can implemented for your tenant by using the SharePoint Online Provisioning Service. The goal is to increase your user’s productivity by showing them how to use and adopt available Microsoft 365 services.
Can I provide customized content to my users?
Yes, you can provide customized and tailored contents to be consumed on users’ demand.
How does the user get the learning contents?
By default, it’s a SharePoint Online communication site where users can access contents. Instead, you can also just manually install the Microsoft 365 learning pathways web part into a existing SharePoint Online site to integrated it there.
Can I integrate it into my Teams?
It’s a SharePoint Online site, so there are plenty of options!!!
And of course you can integrate it in Teams.
For example, you could
a) add the SharePoint Online site into a certain Teams Team as a tab or
b) add it as an app in the left navigation rail.
What about multi-language support?
Multi-language support is planned for (Jan) 2020.
What if I do not have people + time to provide customized contents for our users?
There are Microsoft partners out there which can help you to deliver what you need. Please be aware that Teams is no fixed app which never changes, on the contrary, that’s why it is significant that you or your partner updates your customized contents as needed and as Microsoft Teams changes.
Conclusion, opinion and summary
Microsoft 365 learning pathways is ideal to drive user adoption within your company. It provides your users learning contents to increase adoption and finally productivity due to knowing how things work in Microsoft 365.
Additional resources
- Ignite Live Blog: BRK2165 – Transform end user training using Microsoft Teams and Learning Pathways
- Microsoft announces general availability for Microsoft 365 learning pathways [Microsoft Driving Adoption Blog]
- Microsoft announces general availability for Microsoft 365 learning pathways [Coffee in the Cloud on YouTube]
- Adoption Overview from Microsoft Ignite [Microsoft Driving Adoption Blog]
- Microsoft 365 learning pathways [Microsoft Docs]
- Driving Adoption [Microsoft TechCommunity]
Microsoft Ignite 2019 Recap
In this post I summarize my Microsoft Ignite 2019 (user) experience and highlight some additional resources (links) regarding Microsoft 365, Office 365 and especially Teams which is ideal to read for the weekend.
Now, that Microsoft Ignite 2019 ended there was and still is a lot of information to digest. A considerable amount of announcements were made and published during the week. At the bottom of this post I provide you some cross-references to resources where you get details on product and service announcements which were made.
Erik @ Ignite 2019 Microsoft Photo Cube 
A few attendees going to their next sessions @ Ignite 2019 OCC 
Nice weather outside. Ideal to take a break between sessions @OCC 
Erik @ Ignite 2019 Hub
The conference took place from 04. – 08. November 2019 in Orlando, FL, USA in the Orange County Convention Center (OCC) and attached buildings. Before, I was told that the OCC is the second largest conference venue (in size) in the US. Before being onsite I thought, ok, well. Than, finally, being on the venue and already getting there was “wow”. The venue is really beyond XXL. My step counter displayed more than 13.000 steps each day, except on Friday/last day. Thanks to my comfortable running shoes my feet are fine and alright. 😉
I’m still impressed, of the logistics to get all people, things and services organized. It was excellent organized. It was a pleasure to attend the Microsoft Ignite 2019. Lots of valuable and rich learning content first-hand, conversations, ideas, tips & tricks, and, of course, road maps on what’s about to come for products and services in the near or “far” future. Fantastic event!
Additional resources
- Microsoft Ignite
- Microsoft Ignite Book of News
- Microsoft Teams announcements at Microsoft Ignite
- Microsoft Teams What’s new? Ignite 2019
- Microsoft & Cisco partner for meetings
- Microsoft Team Calling Ignite 2019 News
- Microsoft Teams Advanced Call Quality Dashboard
- Microsoft SharePoint Ignite 2019 News #1
- Microsoft SharePoint Ignite 2019 News #2
- Microsoft Yammer Ignite 2019 News
- From new Microsoft Teams experiences to the all-new Project Cortex—here’s what’s coming soon to Microsoft 365
- AI and Cortana in Microsoft 365 put people at the center
- Introducing new AI Builder preview models for Power Automate and Power Apps
- Get Microsoft event session information and contents
Microsoft Teams Adoption Resources
In this post I want to emphasize the importance, again, of adoption and training and point out where the central adoption hub for Microsoft Teams is.
Conclusion, opinion and summary
In my opinion and based on what I see, Microsoft invests heavily in Microsoft Teams and a required adoption practice and material. If you use or plan to use Microsoft 365/Office365 and Teams you might only know some features and capabilities. That’s why it is so important that you learn and know what you don’t use and might could use to make your job and business more valuable, e.g. discover what you can do with certain tools, services and apps might bring up ideas on new business models in the digital era. Or it just helps to digitize and automate some as-is paper-based processes to get things done faster, be more productive and forget about repeatable, boring and required tasks because you’ve just automated them. Wow, now you can focus on what’s more important at your job and drives value for your job role and business. But how?
Well, you need to know what’s there. Moreover, your co-workers need to know. That’s why you must steadily inform them on what’s there, what’s new and how it works. Long story short, adoption is key to success.
For Teams you can find lots of resources on the adoption hub “Adopt Microsoft Teams”.
Additional resources
- Adopt Microsoft Teams
- Driving Adoption [community]
- Microsoft Teams Adoption Flipbook
- Getting Started with Microsoft Teams [YouTube Playlist]
- Tasty tips for Teams [YouTube Playlist]
Microsoft Teams Adoption Flipbook
Due to the fact that you need a proper change management to rocket your Microsoft Teams adoption within your enterprise, don’t forget about to check out on available adoption material for Microsoft Teams.
Microsoft gives you a Teams Adoption Flipbook. It’s a toolkit for enabling users with Microsoft Teams in your enterprise. The goal is not to replace any existing technology with a new technology!!!
It’s about people and how Microsoft Teams can empower them to reach their targets, both, professional and personal ones. E.g. if an sales analyst needs to get his report review done on time but also has to cope with some personal things during afternoon he/she needs a solution to get this done, both, at work and at home. Therefore the flip book points you to resources how you can design a modern workplace to provide your employees with the right solution and do it the way that people adopt the solution because cause the recognize the added value it delivers to get their job done.
Remember, it’s about enabling people getting things done. We experience a cultural change, we have several generations in the workforce, different “work styles”, how we work, therefore different capabilities are needed and must be provided to satisfy the users needs. This change must not end up with employees fearing or rejecting this change, so plan for change to make a transition from legacy to new for your users as smooth as possible. The adoption resources from Microsoft support you with this but its and permanent endeavor, not just a one time investment and project, to be clear.
Additional resources
What’s new in Microsoft Teams in October 2019?
In this post I like to highlight some new and planned features for Microsoft Teams based on the latest roadmap updates by Microsoft. The last few days many updates were made to the Microsoft Teams roadmap. So exciting times and Ignite is still ahead!
So, what’s new or what planned? It’s a lot and that not all, just a few new and planned features I like to highlight:
- Teams Delegation Enhancements: Other delegates can add/remove other delegates of a user and/or change a users call forwarding. | Launched | Oct 2019
- Teams Music on Hold: Default music is played if an incoming PSTN caller is on hold. Applies for PSTN-2-Teams and PSTN-2-CallQueueAgent calls. | Launched | Oct 2019
- Teams Audio Calling for the Chrome Browser: Calling via Chrome Browser | Launched | Oct 2019
- Teams Phone System Administration Enhancements | Development | ~ Nov 2019
- Better admin experience for managing Calling Plan, especially phone number management for Calling Plan users via WebUI
- Custom dial plans via WebUI
- Dynamic Emergency Calling via WebUI
- Auto Attendants and Call Queues config enhancements via WebUI
- Teams Direct Routing (TDR) Enhancements | Wow, this is a set of things which add new capabilities and/or improve TDR | Development | ~ Nov 2019
- Media Relay Override
- Missed Call Message Surpression
- SIP Tester
- Ringback Bot
- PSTN Reporting
- Pin apps to Teams left navigation rail: User can directly pin an app to the Teams navigation bar | Development |~ Nov 2019
- Teams teams auto-renewal: In case expiration policy is set to a Team, already a “visit” of member instead of an owner avoids that the Team expires and so gets “renewed” | Development | ~ Nov 2019
- Teams Presenter and Attendee roles for Meetings: Presenters have full control in meetings and attendees permissions are limited. | Development | ~ Nov 2019
- Teams Manage discovery of private teams: Admin and owners can disable/enable this per Team to make a Team appear in the discoverable. … |Rolling out | ~ Nov 2019
Conclusion, summary and opinion
The amount of features which were/are and going to be released is massive. This is pretty impressiv because this indicates the efforts and investments which Microsoft puts into Teams and that the listen to their customers and don’t stop to make Teams (and all other services) better to finally help all to achieve more, be more productivity because you can do what you need to do.
Additional resources
- Teams Delegation Enhancements [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 55714]
- Teams Music on Hold (MoH) [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 50796]
- Teams Audio Calling for the Chrome Browser [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 51258]
- Teams Direct Routing Enhancements [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 56507]
- Pin apps to Teams left navigation rail [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 56783]
- Teams Phone System Administration Enhancements [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 56786]
- Teams teams auto-renewal [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 56784]
- Teams Presenter and Attendee roles for Meetings [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 51047]
- Teams Manage discovery of private teams [M365 Roadmap Featured ID 44370]
Microsoft Teams Voicemail User Settings Walk-through [DE]
In Microsoft Teams sind die vergangenen Tage ein paar sehr praktische Neuerungen im Hinblick auf Voicemail live gegangen, die ich in diesem Beitrag zeigen möchte. Voicemail steht seit einer Weile allen Teams Usern zur Verfügung, also nicht nur bei (PSTN) Telefonie.
Was ist neu dazu gekommen?
In den Teams Einstellungen sind ein paar sehr praktische Funktionen und Einstellungsoptionen hinzugekommen, so dass jeder Anwender einfach seinen persönlichen Anrufbeantworter bzw. Voicemail konfigurieren kann. Ich habe das mal exemplarisch folgendermaßen eingestellt, womit auch die Einstellungsmöglichkeiten ersichtlich werden.
Grundsätzlich kann ich in den obigen Einstellungen meine Voicemail auf mein Bedürfnis anpassen. Dazu muss die Voicemail in Teams auf O365 aktiviert sein, was mittlerweile die Standardeinstellung sein sollte.
Zusätzliche Ressourcen
- Microsoft Teams – Cloud Voicemail Enhancements [Microsoft 365 roadmap update item 54235]
- Set up cloud voicemail [admin]
Microsoft Ignite 2019
This year’s Microsoft Ignite 2019 takes place in Orlando, FL, US from 04.-08. November. Ignite is about innovative solutions, how you can built/implement/migrate and manage them.
However, it’s sold out, but you could view live streams, especially the keynotes. Other sessions and contents are usually also widely made available afterwards.
This year I’m glad to attend Ignite. It’s a great opportunity not just to learn about the greatest and latest in tech around the Microsoft products, services and best practices, no, it’s more than that, it’s also an amazing opportunity to socialize with others in your area of expertise and get other views/approaches and ideas.
If you’ll be onsite feel free to send me a pm via Twitter or LinkedIn.
Additional resources
Speaking at abtis IT Symposium 2019
Soon, I’ll get a chance to speak at the abtis IT Symposium in Pforzheim (11/10/2019). The event and speakers cover different topics about the “digital future readiness” (DE: “Bereit für die digitale Zukunft”).
I’ll talk about getting rid of legacy PBX infrastructure and legacy telephony services by embracing modern communication and collaboration with Microsoft Teams as an hub for modern teamwork. Telephony is just one of many features, although it’s very important for our daily business. My session “Vom Festnetztelefon zur integrierten Microsoft Telefonie” is about telephony with Microsoft Teams. I’ll describe which options you have to migrate your telephony workloads partially or completely to Teams and how it the user experience looks like.
