The improved virtual meeting experience with Teams

Microsoft 365 has recently introduced various features for improved virtual meetings within the Microsoft 365 family. With additional features in Microsoft Teams, online meetings can become more focused, and provide the best collaborative experience to Teams users. Following are a few features that have been carefully crafted keeping real-time requirements in mind.

• Real-time noise suppression

It makes you able to focus on the meeting better since this feature minimizes background noises like a keyboard typing. Virtual meetings software equipped with a noise suppression keeps the flow of remote communications intact.

• The raise-hand feature

For a large number of people within the meeting, it sometimes becomes harder to raise a point when you have got one. The raise-hand feature lets you chime into the remote communication meeting and have your say.

• Bookings app in Teams: IT can be used to schedule, manage and execute virtual appointments during remote communication.
• Offline and low-bandwidth support: for people having internet connectivity issues, this feature lets them access their chats and messages even without the internet.
• Emergency events: the new crisis management Site in SharePoint lets organizations take hold of the news and related resources in one place.
• A cloud-based print solution: Universal Print is a cloud-based print infrastructure to facilitate employees with a secure printing experience alleviating the heavy server-based installations of printing services organization-wide. It is another dimension of remote communications.
• Cloud files management with SP and OneDrive: Mover is now available to Microsoft 365. So, users can now seamlessly migrate cloud-based files into Microsoft cloud to OneDrive and SharePoint.

Related: Update your business continuity plan checklist with Remote Desktop Software

MachPanel – The all in one business automation platform

MachPanel automates businesses with its robust cloud-based automation solutions. Its automation modules like Automation module for Dynamics 365, Remote Desktop Services, Skype for Business, Automation module for Microsoft Exchange, Automation module for Microsoft SharePoint and Automation module for Hyper-V provided businesses the necessary cloud-first approach to businesses. Its cloud admin center is a complete platform for Management, Delegation, and Reporting & Auditing for Office 365 services.

Get MachPanel and discover endless opportunities for business success and growth.

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The post New Microsoft 365 features for Remote Communications appeared first on MachSol Blog.

You might remember us telling you about Microsoft acquiring FSLogix last year. FSLogix is a dynamic next-generation app-provisioning platform which requires lesser resources, lesser time and labor for the provision of desktop and apps virtualization experience. This provides faster load times for users of accessing Outlook or OneDrive who don’t use these apps very frequently. With the new Windows Virtual Desktop public preview, FSLogix will be supporting both client and server RDS deployments. In this way, teams at FSLogix will be providing all the help needed for on-premises users to migrate to a bigger and better Windows Virtual Desktop for a better hybrid experience.

Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) extension options for Partners

Partners have a lot of options to extend Windows Virtual desktop. For example Citrix can utilize their Citrix Cloud services to extend the Windows Virtual Desktop capabilities. Samsung partnership with Microsoft will lead to a Windows Virtual Desktop that can utilize all Windows 10 and Office 365 ProPlus experience through Samsung DeX. Many SaaS providers can extend Windows Virtual Desktop capabilities and offer specific solutions in Azure marketplace for targeted customers. Specifically as we mentioned above, Microsoft Cloud Service Providers can deliver end-to-end automated desktop as a service (DaaS) to end customers with Azure subscription. Cloud Service Providers can also unlock the potential of value-added services related to DaaS and offer to their clients and make more revenue out of it in their cloud business.

ALSO READ: Why is Desktop-as-a-Service (DaaS) gaining popularity

Cloud Service Providers prefer to expand their value added services and portray them to the clients in an effective manner. Smart resellers take the opportunities before they are actually launched in the market and take over as much customers as possible.

MachPanel is the best Management and Orchestration Solutions Platform out there which enables Cloud Service Providers to provide best-in-line services to automate their cloud business and provide them top-notch customer support. It also makes resellers adjust their margins and gain maximum profits for their hosted services. Resellers and Cloud Service Providers opt for best services to gain maximum revenue out of their SaaS business and for greater profits and which lead to better growth of their cloud services. Smart resellers opt for the best Management and Orchestration Solutions Platform available in market for a successful growth of their cloud business.

The post Good News for CSPs: Microsoft has announced the public preview of Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD) and it’s just awesome as expected appeared first on MachSol Blog.

Cloud operations are mandatory for Cloud business success. Free SharePoint Migration is a dream come true for CSPs, since they are always in search for best solutions all over the web that can facilitate their Cloud business on-goings. This free tool is provided by Microsoft for its SharePoint Migration for business.

In a nutshell, the free SharePoint Migration tool lets the SharePoint users migrate their lists or files from on-premises files and document libraries to either OneDrive in Office 365 or SharePoint Online. This free SharePoint Migration tool makes the users able to take advantage of collaboration, security and Intelligence solutions with Microsoft Office 365.

In addition to that, here are a few areas which we find interesting about the free SharePoint Migration tool by Microsoft. Let’s have a look:

Status of File permissions upon migration

Technically speaking, once you synchronize Active Directory accounts to Azure Active Directory (AAD), file permission settings are changed once they are migrated to SharePoint online. However, if there is a corresponding user in SharePoint Online, syncing accounts from Active Directory to AAD shall not disturb the on-premises file permissions.

Location of Data

It is best to decide data storage destination in advance because you will be prompted for current location of data files and the location where you wish to move the data files in SharePoint Online site collection, once you are using the free SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT). You can either select the source to be an on-premises SharePoint Server 2013 site, plus there is also an option to choose from a local file share or any current network path.

Monitoring and resuming migration jobs in free SharePoint Migration tool

Once you perform the migrations, you can always monitor and check the status of migration jobs. A View Task Report option is available which shows reports like ItemReport.csv, ItemSummary.csv and ScanSummary.csv. The tool gives the option to resume migrations from any device, if the tool needs to be closed before the job is submitted.

Incremental Migration

To speed things up for future migrations, Microsoft has enabled a feature in the free SharePoint Migration tool where a migration can be saved after it is completed so it can be re-run at a later stage and only those files or updates shall be migrated from source location that are changed after the initial migration is completed.

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MachPanel and professional SharePoint offerings

Cloud Experts are always in need for best services for their business automation and our experts cater this need in an exceptional manner with the unique Multi-Cloud Service Orchestration & Delivery Platform (MSOP), MachPanel. Trusted globally by its partners, it provides you to Sell Active Directory Objects as a Hosted Service, perform automated backups and offers easy installations and up gradations to SharePoint users. It also offers support for latest SharePoint Server 2019 along with previous versions like 2016 and 2013.

Here’s your chance to get your business on a smooth journey towards success with MachPanel. Get started now!

Lets TalkRequest a Demo

The post How to make the best use of the Microsoft’s free SharePoint Migration Tool appeared first on MachSol Blog.

Getting started User friendliness

In case of WorkDocs, it is easier to get started for the users to start using it without having to sign up to AWS first. However, things are not that easy at OneDrive. Since OneDrive is an Office 365 Application, each user of OneDrive needs to be subscribed to Office 365 and also needs to be associated to a particular domain in OneDrive.

Multi-factor authentication

Enabling Multi factor authentication in Microsoft OneDrive is easier to manage and implement as compared to AWS. MFA can be added as an option for different users through administrative panel of OneDrive. The respective users may receive their code as a second authentication factor via email, mobile phone or authentication app.  In case of WorkDcos, a two-step procedure there needs to be followed in order to enable multi factor authentication for users. The Active Directory needs to be connected to WorkDocs for cloud based storage.

High availability

Both OneDrvie and WorkDocs are excellent in terms of Availability and Global accessibility. There is a web based client portal for each of the two. The users are allowed to execute administrative procedures and operational tasks with ease of access.

Synchronization

Downloading and uploading is a tedious task each time documents are changed or edited. Synchronization is a much needed feature in business productivity applications and cloud based storage system. Thankfully, both the applications have this feature with best outcomes.  When you change your file in your local directory, it is automatically synced to the online central storage in the Cloud based storage.

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Cost

Amazon has a less complicated pricing model than OneDrive. In WorkDocs, Businesses have different rates in different nations for each 50GB of file storage initially. Microsoft offers a few plans and you can choose which fits best according to your business needs of cloud based storage system along with a few additional features as complimentary features in the plan. So Microsoft wins the game here.

Integration

OneDrive seamlessly integrates with Office Suite so it is great for professionals already familiar with Office Products while WorkDocs integrates with other platforms like OS X, Mac and PC very well with its cloud based storage system.

Security

WorkDocs and OneDrvie both have similar security features. WorkDocs encrypts files along with comments while at rest in its cloud based storage system. It uses two levels of data security: disk-level encryption and per-file encryption. They both encrypt with SSL. AWS also offers similar security measures but it goes one extra mile by allowing the business to set their WorkDocs site Location on their own. So, generally they chose the site nearest to their location.

That said, both services go neck to neck in terms of comparison based on features and core functionalities. Out of the two, OneDrive is suitable for businesses who are tight on budget, but still need a cloud based storage system, as it offers flexible pricing models. WorkDocs is suitable for business that prefers to work in multiple environments as it offers multiple platform support.

The post Cloud based storage system Comparison: Microsoft OneDrive and Amazon WorkDocs appeared first on MachSol Blog.

A new level of collaboration is emerged once SharePoint is used alongside Teams. Let’s have a look at how did the collaboration space has taken the form in the cloud and how Teams work and benefit your business:

Teams are Tasks oriented
It is necessary to keep all things related to one task in one place like messages, notes, and meetings documents. If the relevant teammates are online for immediate access, it is always a plus.

Extra work eliminated
While working with Teams, many things get streamlined and hence the need of extra work is eliminated like extra e-mails, notification to relevant members, or documents being shared explicitly to teammates after each revision. The need of various small tasks is eliminated altogether.

Information sharing gets smoother
Teams provide a great way to collaborate within a channel. Any meeting can be called right on spot. Brainstorming sessions and online collaborations on e.g. whiteboards get much easier while working with Teams.

You might think that in all this Teams scenarios, where does SharePoint come in?  The answer to that is: Both Teams and SharePoint team sites have one thing in common: they are organized by a project, topic, an organization or some other point of focus for a team in the cloud. So, channels and Teams often have a similar structure for project sites and SharePoint team respectively.

Teams Documents can be shared and stored to SharePoint and OneDrive and have a number of benefits for businesses.  Here are major points:

1. There are two special protocols which are common to SharePoint and One Drive along with Teams and that are: WOPI and FSSHTTP. These protocols are responsible for document co-authoring along with dealing of online versions of Office Applications. So, Documents can be worked on Teams alongside Sharepoint without any co-authoring conflicts.
2. SharePoint and Teams both provide previewed and opened in Teams and SharePoint. There is an option to open Files in SharePoint, while working on Teams. There are no compatibility issues.
3. With documents been worked on at SharePoint, they are better protected, automatically classified and labeled, discoverable with eDiscovery and prevented from Data Loss.

With these extra benefits of handling documents in Teams and SharePoint, the project team gets the benefit of both the worlds. Better collaboration leads to lesser complications, both in documentation and in practice. This not only enhances the performance of the team with better collaboration in the cloud, but also proves beneficial for the business.

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MachPanel Automation Module for Microsoft SharePoint: taking cloud automation to a new level

MachPanel offers promising reselling of SharePoint 2016, 2013 and 2010 which makes it beneficial for your business. The SharePoint Hosted solutions provided by MachPanel are the industry’s best hosted solutions in the cloud. The services are provided for planning and migration, design and deployment, scalability and reliability. Entire Microsoft SharePoint services are automated with MachPanel Automation Module for Microsoft SharePoint, maximum profitability for your business. With the support of multiple environments, multiple domain handling, reliable billing and reporting, maximum uptime, easier collaboration with adding Users to bulk, MachPanel takes care of your SharePoint needs like no one else does, with its MachPanel Automation Module for Microsoft SharePoint.

The post Benefits of collaboration with Microsoft SharePoint and Teams appeared first on MachSol Blog.

Content management is the core of every business. There is a dire need to have a content management system through which the creation, sharing, collaboration and storage of content can be centralized. A full fledge content management system is required to manage the above mentioned functionalities. However, there is no point having a cloud service if it can’t be handled smartly. Most of the times Hybrid is a more feasible solution for business today because of the innumerable benefits like:

1. Apps can be kept on-premises and when they are needed, they can be accessed from app launcher
2. The sensitive data can reside on-premises and need not be sent up to the cloud for storage. It can later be searched through hybrid taxonomy and a unified search
3. Content security is ensure by authenticating users accessing form different locations through a multi-factor authentication system
4. Collaboration gets effective by using business to business sites through extranets.

SharePoint Online and SharePoint server (On Premises) fulfill the essence of going hybrid.

SharePoint Online vs SharePoint Server (On Premises)

With SharePoint Online, services are offered as a SaaS model. Disaster recovery is handled by Microsoft Data Centers. There are annual subscriptions and Pay as you go model. Customizations are limited. In case of SharePoint Server, the whole system resides within the corporate network. Going hybrid with SharePoint hybrid model gives you the best of both the worlds.

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The Hybrid Model

With the hybrid SharePoint option, you need not get concerned for the scalability and security of systems; Microsoft takes care of that. Going hybrid combats Shadow IT making the environment securer. This way, the data and other content specific to business remains with you and is not sent to O365 (SP online). This is more important for companies who don’t want to share their data with a third party cloud providers due to its sensitive nature, or other legal terms. In such cases, Hybrid model is the solution. With its intelligent intranet and cool features of OneDrive, the collaboration and storage is not a problem anymore.

Hybrid federated search is a convenient way to implement, if multiple users are working in the same environment. The results are fetched from the index from the SharePoint Server and from the search index in Microsoft Office 365. The search Center displays search items in two different result blocks resulting in two different ranks being displayed to the user.

The MachSol way

MachPanel Automation Module for Microsoft SharePoint is the most trusted hosted solution on the cloud. The setup of infrastructure on premises is simplified by experts. There is no need to be concerned about the growth of the system as the business continues to grow. With MachPanel, your services to customers can never be down as it ensures maximum uptime. MachPanel SharePoint makes the hassle of cloud computing smooth and easy.

The post SharePoint Hybrid – The Solution to your Cloud computing problems appeared first on MachSol Blog.