Recent Discussions
Announcing Microsoft 365 for IT Pros (2027 Edition)
The editorial team is happy to announce the publication of Microsoft 365 for IT Pros (2027 edition) eBook, the most comprehensive and up-to-date book covering tenant management. Previously named Office 365 for IT Pros and now spanning four books with the addition of Microsoft Purview for IT Pros and Power Platform for IT Pros, Microsoft 365 for IT Pros includes coverage of Exchange Online, SharePoint Online, Entra ID, Teams, Planner, and many other aspects of the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, including hundred of examples of using PowerShell and the Microsoft Graph to automate tenant operations. https://office365itpros.com/2026/07/01/microsoft-365-for-it-pros/Using Graph Delta Queries with Entra ID Groups
Delta queries are a Microsoft Graph mechanism to allow applications to query resources to find objects that have changed since a baseline was established. The technique is most useful for applications that need to synchronize a local store with online content. It’s not an appropriate method to use for reporting changes to Entra ID groups because knowing that an object changed doesn’t mean much by itself. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/25/graph-delta-queries-entra-id-groups/What Is Agentic AI in Microsoft Ecosystem? A Deep Technical Explainer
Artificial intelligence has rapidly moved from simple automation tools to intelligent systems that can understand, reason, and perform complex tasks. The next major evolution in this space is Agentic AI. Traditional AI applications usually work by receiving a request, processing it, and generating a response. They are useful, but they depend heavily on humans to guide every step. https://dellenny.com/what-is-agentic-ai-in-microsoft-ecosystem-a-deep-technical-explainer/Entra ID Tightens Conditional Access Processing for Baseline Scopes
Microsoft is closing a gap in conditional access policies where apps that only request baseline scopes with at least one exclusion are not processed. The rollout has already started and should be finished by mid-August. For most tenants, the change shouldn’t be an issue, but it is possible that some apps are in use that fit the profile and cannot handle conditional access. If MC1223829 appeared in your tenant, it’s time to check. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/19/baseline-scopes-ca/Microsoft Blocks Graph Access to Non-IPM Folders
An app written to fetch details of Copilot interactions from the TeamsMessagesData folder suddenly stopped working when the Graph refused to return items. The 403 forbidden error can’t be argued with. Fortunately, the aiInteractionHistory API fills the gap, even if the API does not return the full text of Copilot responses. That information is available, but you’ll need to use eDiscovery to get it. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/18/copilot-interaction-app/Microsoft Tightens Security for Self-Service Password Reset
Microsoft plans to improve the security of the Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR) facility in September 2026 by requiring users to register at least one authentication method. SSPR will then use the registered authentication method to verify user accounts when changing passwords. The change aligns SSPR with user sign-ins and improves security by removing fallback on directory attributes, which might be altered by attackers. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/17/sspr-authentication-methods/Microsoft to Delete Unlicensed OneDrive for Business Accounts
Microsoft will delete unlicensed OneDrive for Business accounts that aren’t paid for (to be archived) after July 2026. Up to now, it’s been possible to leave unpaid-for accounts linger in Microsoft 365 archive until retention policies and holds expire. Now, tenants must decide which accounts they wish to keep and pay for. Unpaid accounts will be removed, even if retention policies or eDiscovery holds apply to their content. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/12/unlicensed-onedrive-for-business-2/Primer: Finding Sensitivity Labels with PowerShell
Three cmdlets exist to fetch sensitivity labels. One is in the Exchange Online module; the others are powered by Graph APIs. What are the differences between each method and how can you make sure that the set of sensitivity labels fetched by PowerShell is the full set of available labels? These and other questions are investigated in this article. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/11/sensitivity-label-ps/
Migrate from Dropbox to Google Drive: Simplifying Cloud File Management
As organizations seek more integrated collaboration platforms, many are choosing to Migrate from Dropbox to Google Drive. While Dropbox remains a popular file-sharing solution, Google Drive offers seamless integration with the broader Google Workspace ecosystem, enabling teams to collaborate, communicate, and manage files from a single platform. Why Businesses Are Making the Switch Modern workplaces rely on real-time collaboration and centralized access to information. By choosing a Dropbox to Google Drive migration, organizations can take advantage of Google Docs, Sheets, Slides, Meet, and other productivity tools that work directly with stored files. In addition to enhanced collaboration, Google Drive provides flexible storage options, simplified sharing controls, and streamlined administration for businesses managing large volumes of data. Planning a Successful Migration Before beginning the migration process, organizations should assess their existing Dropbox environment, including folder structures, file permissions, shared content, and storage requirements. Understanding these elements helps ensure that data is transferred accurately and remains accessible after the move. A successful migration from Dropbox to the Google Drive project should also include user mapping, permission validation, pilot testing, and post-migration verification. Proper planning minimizes disruptions and helps users adapt quickly to the new platform. Supporting Collaboration in a Cloud-First Environment After migration, teams can collaborate on documents in real time, securely share files with internal and external users, and access content from virtually any device. The integration between Google Drive and Google Workspace applications creates a more connected and productive work environment. For organizations looking to streamline file management and improve collaboration, Apps4Rent assists with migrating from Dropbox to Google Drive projects, helping ensure secure data transfers, minimal downtime, and a smooth transition to Google's cloud-based platform.Restricting Access is The Most Important Step in a Microsoft 365 Copilot Deployment
I was asked what the most important step is in the deployment of Microsoft 365 Copilot. It’s a good question. Put simply, restricted access is the answer. That is, restricting Copilot access to information stored in Microsoft 365 locations until your tenant is ready for unrestricted Copilot search and retrieval. The fortunate thing is that tools exist today to make it relatively easy to establish guardrails for Copilot, which is exactly what you need to do. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/10/microsoft-365-copilot-prep/How to Find Inactive (Stale) User Accounts
Inactive accounts can soak up a lot of paid-for but unused product licenses. With increases for Microsoft 365 licenses due to come into effect from 1 July 2026, it’s time to find and remove unused licenses from inactive user accounts. We discuss two approaches by using the Microsoft 365 Licensing Report or a PowerShell script that assesses inactivity based on sign-in dates and refresh token baselines. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/09/find-inactive-accounts/Microsoft Extends Sensitivity Label Block for Connected Services
The BlockContentAnalysisServices sensitivity label setting blocks access to Microsoft connected services for the content of labeled Office documents. The intention is that users assign sensitivity labels with the block setting to protect an organization’s most sensitive files. Regretfully, Microsoft’s documentation and explanation offered in the message center post don’t convey a clear story about its value. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/08/blockcontentanalysisservices-label/Microsoft Wants PowerShell Developers to Change How They Download Microsoft Modules
A Microsoft blog describes some changes for PowerShell developers in terms of installing modules and the role of the Microsoft Artifact Registry (MAR). In a nutshell, Microsoft intends the MAR to be the go-to place to download first-party PowerShell modules and other artifacts. This solves the problem of potentially compromised modules found in the PowerShell Gallery, but MAR can’t work if it doesn’t contain the modules people use. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/05/microsoft-artifact-registry/The Great Loop Departed User Process
When employees leave a Microsoft 365 tenant, they might leave a user-owned Loop workspace behind which contains some valuable information that the organization wants to retain. Two years or so after announcing that a workflow to handle user-owned workspaces was coming, Microsoft is rolling out the update to tenants worldwide. The process is manual, but not much automation is possible to review and preserve workspace content. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/04/user-owned-loop-workspaces/Microsoft Launches Container Management Support for Security Groups
A recent blog from the Microsoft Digital (IT department) discusses the preview implementation of container management labels for security groups. The implementation is limited because it encompasses just one control: the ability to have guest accounts in the membership of security groups. However, just that limited control is sufficient to stop unintended access to sensitive information by guest accounts, and that’s a very good thing. https://office365itpros.com/2026/06/03/security-groups-labels/
Word/PowerPoint are not suitable replacements for Publisher
I’m writing following the guidance that Word and PowerPoint can be used as replacements for Publisher. This feedback is based on completing a real production document, not theoretical use Having just completed a fairly complex, layout-heavy technical document, I thought it only fair to share how that works in practice. In theory, I can see the logic: Word handles documents PowerPoint handles layouts Therefore, between the two, everything should be covered Unfortunately, in reality, this appears to be more of a theoretical exercise than a practical solution. Publisher was clearly designed for: Fixed, page-based layouts Precise positioning of objects Efficient alignment of mixed content (text, images, tables) Producing consistent, professional multi-page documents By comparison: Word is admirably committed to reminding you that it would prefer everything to flow freely, regardless of whether you want it to or not PowerPoint, while better behaved, does seem to assume every page is a standalone slide rather than part of a structured document Both tools can, with enough persistence, be persuaded into doing the job. However, this involves a level of manual intervention, workaround, and general negotiation with the software that feels somewhat at odds with modern productivity software. To put it simply: They are not replacements in any meaningful, real-world sense. The end result can be achieved, but the process is unnecessarily time-consuming, fragile, and prone to unexpected layout changes—particularly when precision actually matters. Replacing a purpose-built publishing tool with two applications that were never designed for that role gives the impression that this use case has been… optimistically simplified. I would strongly encourage Microsoft to either: Provide a genuine page-layout solution within the Office suite, or Enhance existing applications so they can support fixed-layout publishing without constant workarounds At present, the gap left by Publisher is very noticeable for anyone producing structured documents beyond basic text. I appreciate the direction of Microsoft 365 overall, but in this particular area, the experience feels less like an evolution and more like working around a missing tool. Regards AndyMicrosoft Cans Power BI App for Reporting Microsoft 365 Usage
Microsoft has announced that the Microsoft 365 Usage Analytics Power BI app will retire on August 1, 2026. The alternative is the usage reports in the Microsoft 365 admin center or to develop a custom Power BI dashboard based on data imported through the Graph usage reports API. The decision isn’t surprising, but I’m sure that some will mourn the passing of Microsoft’s first tool to report usage information. https://office365itpros.com/2026/05/29/microsoft-365-usage-analytics/
BYROW/BYCOL/MAP Variants for Nested Arrays + BENCHMARK
Hey everyone! I made some simple BYROW, BYCOL, and MAP variants that can return nested arrays, and I also made a BENCHMARK function for performance testing. Here's some code for testing: BYROW⊟ = LAMBDA(array, function, [orient], LET( me, LAMBDA(me, seg, LET( n, ROWS(seg), IF( n = 1, function(seg), IF( orient, HSTACK( me(me, TAKE(seg, INT(n / 2))), me(me, DROP(seg, INT(n / 2))) ), VSTACK( me(me, TAKE(seg, INT(n / 2))), me(me, DROP(seg, INT(n / 2))) ) ) ) ) ), IFNA(me(me, array), "") ) ); I didn’t put a huge amount of effort into polishing this but In my tests on my device, these performed a lot better than using REDUCE + VSTACK for the same kind of thing, so maybe it’ll be useful to someone. Really curious to see how people use it, and if something looks like it should be optimized or changed, say so. I'll update them regularly, fix bugs whenever I can. You can find the rest of them on my Gist pages: https://gist.github.com/Medohh2120/f565516bc636700adf5ba27fd8f0d19e, https://gist.github.com/Medohh2120/d9d04f56d93694aed9d0c49d516f0fbf.
Migration from Hosted Exchange (Hybrid) to M365 Classic Outlook Client Problems and Solutions
Hello Everyone, I'm a tech who started on a 8088 processor in the 80's. Not mentioning the Vic20 and C64 since that hardly seem relevant! I'm posting here to hopefully help the next person with the issues I've had over the last few weeks. My client had to port his email from a provider with an on-perm Exchange server in a Hybrid setup with M365 to his own M365 environment. I expected this was to be about 3 hours of work for me - setup M365 environment, plan the cut-over window, update the Outlook clients on each PC. It ended up being roughly 20 hours of my time and at least 10 hours of dedicated time for my client. For those wanting to jump directly to what mostly fixed it use this link, it should get you past the dreaded "an encrypted connection to your mail server is not available" when trying to add the mail account into a clean profile. Use https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/classic-outlook-troubleshooters-086e3d66-5404-4034-9cc5-545909dcc166 and pick "Classic Outlook Profile Setup Troubleshooter" Most hits are going to tell you its an autodiscovery issue, but if you're reading this I'm going to assume you've already confirmed that. Our issue was some ghost configuration, only on the PCs previously setup for mail on the old server. A new PC could add the same account without issue. Some of the research suggested this would not happen if the proper Microsoft migration process is followed to move the account - but in our case the previous provider was unable to perform the migration. I'll skip over the research we tried along the way, such as New Outlook Profiles, Registry entry changes, MS Personal users with the same email as MS Business Users, Autodiscover problems (including concerns that the base website for the client was offering invalid data), and so on. After each hit where we applied a fix we again had to try adding the mail to the profile, and each time we sat watching the little circle for up to 5 minutes only to get the same error. Now, once we found the link above - which did not come up in most searches - things got better, but not 100%. We added the profile ok but then Outlook gave a permission error while starting. To fix that, the user signed in must have administrative access and you use File Explorer to navigate to the folder identified in the error. In our case it was in folders kept under \Windows\System32\. When prompted that we need to grant permanent access we said yes. In our case this is where Outlook was storing the ost files. That worked for most of the clients, but we had one additional issue where the error was pointing to a folder that didn't exist. Just creating the folder was not enough, the final fix was to hold CTRL-SHIFT down while opening Outlook to start in administrative mode to allow it to create the ost file in the newly created folder. Finally 3 weeks after our cut over window, while the client had to use OWA, we were able to get outlook running. This was critical for my client because they did not have access to the mail history since the migration didn't happen - they had to open a copy of their PST in Outlook and use mail in OWA and constantly bounce back and forth. I hope this helps someone avoid the pain we went though!
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