Recent Discussions
Conditional Access Policies are the Best Way to Block Weekend Access to Microsoft 365
Conditional access policies are very powerful. A beta feature appears to support time-limited blocks, but maybe the new feature is not needed because the same effect can be accomplished today through a mixture of conditional access policies, dynamic groups, and Azure Automation runbooks (or scheduled PowerShell scripts). Maybe that’s why Microsoft hasn’t released any documentation for the beta feature! https://office365itpros.com/2026/03/30/conditional-access-weekend-block/I built a free, open-source M365 security assessment tool - looking for feedback
I work as an IT consultant, and a good chunk of my time is spent assessing Microsoft 365 environments for small and mid-sized businesses. Every engagement started the same way: connect to five different PowerShell modules, run dozens of commands across Entra ID, Exchange Online, Defender, SharePoint, and Teams, manually compare each setting against CIS benchmarks, then spend hours assembling everything into a report the client could actually read. The tools that automate this either cost thousands per year, require standing up Azure infrastructure just to run, or only cover one service area. I wanted something simpler: one command that connects, assesses, and produces a client-ready deliverable. So I built it. What M365 Assess does https://github.com/Daren9m/M365-Assess is a PowerShell-based security assessment tool that runs against a Microsoft 365 tenant and produces a comprehensive set of reports. Here is what you get from a single run: 57 automated security checks aligned to the CIS Microsoft 365 Foundations Benchmark v6.0.1, covering Entra ID, Exchange Online, Defender for Office 365, SharePoint Online, and Teams 12 compliance frameworks mapped simultaneously -- every finding is cross-referenced against NIST 800-53, NIST CSF 2.0, ISO 27001:2022, SOC 2, HIPAA, PCI DSS v4.0.1, CMMC 2.0, CISA SCuBA, and DISA STIG (plus CIS profiles for E3 L1/L2 and E5 L1/L2) 20+ CSV exports covering users, mailboxes, MFA status, admin roles, conditional access policies, mail flow rules, device compliance, and more A self-contained HTML report with an executive summary, severity badges, sortable tables, and a compliance overview dashboard -- no external dependencies, fully base64-encoded, just open it in any browser or email it directly The entire assessment is read-only. It never modifies tenant settings. Only Get-* cmdlets are used. A few things I'm proud of Real-time progress in the console. As the assessment runs, you see each check complete with live status indicators and timing. No staring at a blank terminal wondering if it hung. The HTML report is a single file. Logos, backgrounds, fonts -- everything is embedded. You can email the report as an attachment and it renders perfectly. It supports dark mode (auto-detects system preference), and all tables are sortable by clicking column headers. Compliance framework mapping. This was the feature that took the most work. The compliance overview shows coverage percentages across all 12 frameworks, with drill-down to individual controls. Each finding links back to its CIS control ID and maps to every applicable framework control. Pass/Fail detail tables. Each security check shows the CIS control reference, what was checked, what the expected value is, what the actual value is, and a clear Pass/Fail/Warning status. Findings include remediation descriptions to help prioritize fixes. Quick start If you want to try it out, it takes about 5 minutes to get running: # Install prerequisites (if you don't have them already) Install-Module Microsoft.Graph, ExchangeOnlineManagement -Scope CurrentUser Clone and run git clone https://github.com/Daren9m/M365-Assess.git cd M365-Assess .\Invoke-M365Assessment.ps1 The interactive wizard walks you through selecting assessment sections, entering your tenant ID, and choosing an authentication method (interactive browser login, certificate-based, or pre-existing connections). Results land in a timestamped folder with all CSVs and the HTML report. Requires PowerShell 7.x and runs on Windows (macOS and Linux are experimental -- I would love help testing those platforms). Cloud support M365 Assess works with: Commercial (global) tenants GCC, GCC High, and DoD environments If you work in government cloud, the tool handles the different endpoint URIs automatically. What is next This is actively maintained and I have a roadmap of improvements: More automated checks -- 140 CIS v6.0.1 controls are tracked in the registry, with 57 automated today. Expanding coverage is the top priority. Remediation commands -- PowerShell snippets and portal steps for each finding, so you can fix issues directly from the report. XLSX compliance matrix -- A spreadsheet export for audit teams who need to work in Excel. Standalone report regeneration -- Re-run the report from existing CSV data without re-assessing the tenant. I would love your feedback I have been building this for my own consulting work, but I think it could be useful to the broader community. If you try it, I would genuinely appreciate hearing: What checks should I prioritize next? Which security controls matter most in your environment? What compliance frameworks are most requested by your clients or auditors? How does the report land with non-technical stakeholders? Is the executive summary useful, or does it need work? macOS/Linux users -- does it run? What breaks? I have tested it on macOS, but not extensively. Bug reports, feature requests, and contributions are all welcome on GitHub. Repository: https://github.com/Daren9m/M365-Assess License: MIT (free for commercial and personal use) Runtime: PowerShell 7.x Thanks for reading. Happy to answer any questions in the comments.Errors in Event Viewer
Since updating to the latest beta version 15209.20000, the following errors appear in Event Viewer: Failed to parse element: VersionOverrides Id=d949f36b-4eb7-4269-8eae-db0a399b7ca2, DisplayName=Transcribe, Provider=Microsoft Office Services, StoreType=SdxRdx, StoreId=(null) P1: Apps for Office P2: 16.0.15209.20000 P3: 0x8004323E P4: New Document
Filling a column with succeeding lists
Hi, I need a list of files, with numbers starting from 001 for each box. Adding the number for one box is easy but I have thousands of them. A box number is like "0001AA0001". The first number and the letters never change, so I have : 0001AA0001 0001AA0002 0001AA0003 Then I have to add the files numbers, like "0001AA0001/001". I already have a line for each file, but only with the box number in the forst column, repeated several times, each time for every file. What I have What I need 0001AA0001 0001AA0001/001 0001AA0001 0001AA0001/002 0001AA0001 0001AA0001/003 0001AA0002 0001AA0002/001 0001AA0002 0001AA0002/002 0001AA0003 0001AA0003/001 0001AA0004 0001AA0004/001 0001AA0004 0001AA0004/002 0001AA0004 0001AA0004/003 Can you please tell me how can I add automatically the /001 and so on without having to do it for each box ? I can't manage to use a model for CTRL+E and I'm not accustomed to use the functions. Thanks, M.T.Excel formulas starting to include current sheet name
Hi I recently noticed that formulas in excel starting to automatically include the "current" sheet name after leaving and coming back to the sheet (example below). I don't remember this used to be the case but I could be wrong. Does anyone have a similar experience or can confirm if this is correct? Is there a setting somewhere I can turn this on and off? Example: I have 2 tables (1 per sheet). After clicking on Sheet2 to select the cell I want to sum, coming back to Sheet1 and referencing any cells will include "Sheet1!" in my formula. I believe previously the formula omits "Sheet1!". Both ways are useful in different scenarios but wondering if I have missed a trick to "turn on and off" how it behaves. Thanks!
In Cabin font family, horizontal lines move downwards when exporting to PDF
I am trying to create my CV in Microsoft Word, but I'm running into an issue: the horizontal lines under my section headings (created by typing three hyphens and then hitting Enter) are being lowered too much when exporting to PDF. To see what I mean, see the below images. The first is an image of the section heading and the text below it as it appears in Word: There is a decent level of space between the heading, the line, and the text below. However, when I export the document to a PDF, the horizontal line moves downwards to the point where it is almost touching the text below: This seems to be a problem with the Cabin font family that I'm using; I tried the same with Calibri (a native Word font) and Source Serif 4 (from Google Fonts) and the horizontal line stayed where it should.
Analysis ToolPak
With respect to the Analysis ToolPak for use to perform the t-Test, if the option for "t-Test: Two-Sample Assuming Unequal Variances" is selected, is the Satterthwaite Approximation used and not the pooled standard error? Refer to the following URL: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/use-the-analysis-toolpak-to-perform-complex-data-analysis-6c67ccf0-f4a9-487c-8dec-bdb5a2cefab6 Please advise or provide feedback.
Text to Column
Hello Everyone. I'm trying to split data into 2 columns. The original data is made up of cities and states: Notice that some items have a comma and others don't. Also, the cities states are different lengths. So, I cannot use a space or a comma as a delimiter. I'm trying to figure out how to separate them. I came up with this formula to add a colon so I can use the delimiter to separate them. The problem then becomes the fact that I have to count the number of spaces in each city to add the colon. Then, I have to copy and paste special as values. Also, notice that in New Orleans (for example), it keeps the comma: One more issue, if I get a new report with added cities and states, then I have to re-do the calculations. HELP!!!! BaltaSPILL error
Hi. I'm just using a very simple formula to calculate how much money is still due from an original total amount. The formula I have typed is simply in this format: 6000 -(B2-B8), but in the next again cell where I am looking to display the result, I am getting a SPILL error. The correct total is displayed in the cell, but a number of cells immediately below are displaying the "6000" figure!! I'm struggling to correct this - can you help :-) Thank you 👍
Can a font become 'corrupted,' and how to replace?
This refers to MS Word from Office 2019, running under Windows 10 Pro. I have a somewhat large (10MB) Word .docx I've been adding to as time permits. It has text, illustrations, pictures and captions for the pictures in text boxes. suddenly, when I open the file, some of the captions are garbled. The font I used is Arial 10pt, bold and regular. The bold is just fine, the regular is garbled. However, if I highlight the garbled text and change it to bold, italic or any other font, it appears just fine. Here is an example of what I'm talking about. First the .docx as it appears on my screen: Then if I highlight that garbled text and change it to Bold, or any other font, it looks good: If I change point size the problem persists. It's just Arial Regular that garbles, and only in this document, and . Other .docx files using that same font display fine. Also, I can take this file and open it on my other computer, which is running Office 2010 under Windows 10 Pro, and it opens properly. I do have Word programmed to embed non-system fonts in the document, so I'm assuming that Word is fetching Arial Regular to display when opening the file on this computer, and that my other computer maybe has a good Arial Regular installation, which is why it looks good there. Something else I just noticed, referring to the two screenshots that follow. Other 10pt. Arial Regular that was NOT in a text box seemed okay in this document. But on close examination, the kerning seemed a bit off. So I changed that non-text box text to another Helvetica-style font and it did look better, but then when I set it back to Arial, it was garbled too. So do I have a bad Arial Regular on this computer? If so, why don't other documents show this problem. And, most important, how do I fix it? Thanks in advance, and... HELP!
Error Opening the Excel
I can't open the file Get Message. Saved in Last time. Previous Version history Not available. Copy from Cloud to pen drive no difference. Try in 365 online mode not open. Try with google sheet not Open. Change the file extension to .xls & .csv not open. Online Platforms not open. Change the Computer and Operating System. Try to open WPS; But no change.Word document crashes
Every time I leave my word document open in my iPads and search for something and then get back to the document, it crashes, that is, it suddenly disappears. I did all the available suggestions to solve the problem including “clear all the documents,” “delete sing-in credentials,” and “reset cloud settings” in Setting of my iPads (11 and 12). I even deleted the app and downloaded it again. None of them worked. Of course, I don’t have the same problem with my old iPad, 10. That’s killing me.The Retirement of SharePoint Alerts is a Pain in the Rear
I’ve used a SharePoint alert to create an emailed daily digest of changes made to files in a document library for seven years. Microsoft plans to retire SharePoint Alerts in July 2026, and the race is on to find a replacement. Regretfully, neither Power Automate nor SharePoint Rules seem capable of generating an equivalent daily digest, perhaps because these solutions don’t handle the number of file versions created by AutoSave well. https://office365itpros.com/2026/03/27/sharepoint-alerts-replacement/Complex formulae with data model
Over the years, I have developed a significant excel data sheet which has gotten slower and slower with time. I have discovered the idea of excel's data model this week and have learnt how to import the data I need from its source CSV to the data model and I now have a power pivot which looks like what I originally had in excel. What I would like to do next, is to replicate some of the formulae I had in excel to calculate if something should be counted or not. I would not want the red one to be counted as this row would have been counted in the previous month. In excel I was using the following formula- =IF(COUNTIF(B5:M4,">0"),SUM(Patient!B5:M5*0),Patient!N5) is there a way of achieving this with the data model or would I have to hardcode this into another sheet? I was trying to avoid doing this to minimise the number of formulae... Many thanks for your help...
Office 365 issues
We have an end user that started with us approximately a year ago. Shortly after he started he began noticing that his status would go away on a fairly regular basis on MS Teams. We tried uninstall/reinstall, resetting, repairing and the problem persisted. Since he was a relatively new hire we were thinking it was something with his laptop so we replaced and the issue returned. Turned in a ticket with our Office 365 vendor who in turn opened a ticket with Microsoft. After some initial testing they sent a Teams install file that seemed to fix the issue. Since that time he has regularly had issues with Teams disconnecting, Outlook just stop receiving emails, while showing connected. Typically the only fix was a restart and on some occasions that did not work. Sometimes a reset or repair might fix this issue. Throughout this we did clear credential manager, caches, etc...This got a point yesterday where I created a new user profile for him, basically like a new laptop and it temporarily fixed the Teams and Outlook issue, however when attempting to sign into MS Edge it would just spin and had to use task manager to close the app. Tried a repair on the app as you cannot uninstall and same result it would hang up and have to forcibly closed. Just wondering if someone else has encountered something like this and possible fixes. Thanks
VBA: Why does an enter appear at the end of my document?
Hello I have a VBA-code which - when used - always places an enter at the end of my document and I can't find out why. Can someone help me with this? This is the code: Sub TekstNaarInvulruimteBlauw() ' ' TekstNaarInvulruimteBlauw Macro ' ' Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Color = wdColorAutomatic With Selection.Find .Text = "^p" .Replacement.Text = "^p" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll With Selection.Find .Text = "^l" .Replacement.Text = "^l" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll With Selection.Find .Text = "- " .Replacement.Text = "- " .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll With Selection.Find .Text = "(?...?)" .Replacement.Text = "###" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll With Selection.Find .Text = "(?...?X)" .Replacement.Text = "###" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Font.Color = wdColorBlue Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Color = wdColorBlue With Selection.Find .Text = "" .Replacement.Text = "?...?" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll Selection.Find.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.ClearFormatting Selection.Find.Replacement.Font.Color = wdColorBlue With Selection.Find .Text = "###" .Replacement.Text = "(?...?)" .Forward = True .Wrap = wdFindContinue .Format = True .MatchCase = False .MatchWholeWord = False .MatchWildcards = False .MatchSoundsLike = False .MatchAllWordForms = False End With Selection.Find.Execute Replace:=wdReplaceAll Selection.HomeKey Unit:=wdStory End Sub Many thanks in advance. Jessica
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