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TonyRedmond
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Copilot Chat Arrives in Microsoft 365 Apps
The rollout of the Copilot Chat integration with the Microsoft 365 apps has started, with the intention of making it easier to use AI in peoples’ work. Nice as the integration is, the news that an Open in Word action button is coming (soon) to allow content generated by Copilot to be edited in Word is even better. And we round out the week with a note about a change to the domain used by Teams. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/19/copilot-chat-microsoft-365-apps/31Views0likes0CommentsWhat’s the Best Way to Manage Guest Accounts?
Guest account management should be a part of every Microsoft 365 tenant administrator’s checklist, unless the tenant has no guests. That’s possible but given the way that workloads like Teams and SharePoint Online create new guest accounts, the average tenant is likely to have quite a few guests. The question is how to manage guests – with Microsoft’s tools or using tenant-designed PowerShell scripts? https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/18/guest-account-management/21Views0likes0CommentsEntra ID’s Keep Me Signed In Feature – Good or Bad?
The Entra ID Keep Me Signed In (KMSI) feature creates persistent authentication cookies to allow users to avoid sign-ins during browser sessions. Is this a good or bad thing and should Microsoft 365 tenants enable or disable KMSI. I think KMSI is fine in certain conditions and explain my logic in this article. Feel free to disagree! https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/17/kmsi-good-or-bad/Copilot Administrative Skills Don’t Do Much for SharePoint Management
Microsoft 365 Copilot now has some SharePoint skills to deploy in the SharePoint admin center. The problem is that the skills aren’t very good and don’t do much to help hard-pressed SharePoint Online administrators cope with the vast explosion of sites that exist in many tenants today. The problem is data. If Copilot doesn’t have the information to reason over, it can’t answer questions or give advice. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/16/sharepoint-skills-copilot/27Views1like0CommentsCopilot Transcription Behavior Changing for Teams Meetings
Microsoft plans to deploy an update to change how transcription behaves for Teams meetings where Copilot is enabled. New meetings will not generate a transcript unless the meeting organizer explicitly enables transcription or the Microsoft 365 tenant deploys custom meeting policies that enable transcription with Copilot. The AI features work even without a transcript. But no transcript means no searchable artifact, and that’s what some want. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/15/transcription-teams-meetings/50Views0likes0CommentsRunning Teams PowerShell Cmdlets in Azure Automation
This article describes the prerequisites and how to run cmdlets from the Teams PowerShell module in Azure Automation runbooks. We also consider when you’d want to consider using Teams PowerShell cmdlets instead of Graph API requests or cmdlets from the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. The bottom line is that it’s possible, but maybe not a frequently-used option. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/12/teams-powershell-azure-automation/30Views0likes0CommentsPractical Graph: Analyzing External Meeting Participants for Teams Meetings
A reader asked if it's possible to analyze the external meeting participants for Teams online events. The information is available through the Events Graph API, and some PowerShell code written using the Graph PowerShell SDK quickly extracts events to analyze and determine the set of external domains meeting participants come from. https://practical365.com/external-meeting-participants-analysis/15Views0likes0CommentsRunning the SharePoint Site Content and Policy Comparison Report
A new SharePoint Site content and policy comparison report is available to tenants with Microsoft 365 Copilot or SharePoint advanced management licenses. The idea is that you choose some reference sites to compare other sites against to detect deviations from the reference site. It seems like a good idea if you’re trying to impose standards to control Copilot. Unhappily, attempts at running the report turned up zero results. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/11/sharepoint-site-content-comparison/23Views0likes0CommentsMicrosoft’s Effort to Develop a Broad People Platform
Microsoft 365 users see the profile card and might wonder where the information displayed on the card comes from. Entra ID is the obvious source, but the people platform that Microsoft is developing is another and could include information imported through a Copilot connector to build out a complete picture of users and contacts within a Microsoft 365 tenant. It’s early days yet, but beta code is available. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/10/people-platform/61Views1like2CommentsMicrosoft’s Push to Save Office Files in the Cloud
A new policy setting is available to force Microsoft 365 enterprise (Office subscription) applications to save to cloud locations and ignore the local disk. The idea is to increase cloud usage and improve compliance by storing all Office files in OneDrive for Business or SharePoint Online. Like a network PC, creating a dependency on a network connection only makes sense when a network connection is dependable, which might not always be the case. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/09/save-to-cloud-locations/31Views0likes0CommentsMicrosoft Bolts on Copilot License Check onto ExRCA
Microsoft announced a new Copilot license check diagnostic for the Exchange Connectivity Analyzer. Sounds good, but the test is very simple, and its results don’t tell you anything more than a few lines of PowerShell can deliver. To prove the point, we wrote a quick script to show how to perform a Copilot license check with the Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/08/copilot-license-check-exrca/20Views1like0CommentsHow to Update Entra ID Apps to Run Teams Cmdlets
MC1134747 describes a new permissions requirement for Entra apps that run Teams PowerShell cmdlets. Despite what you might think after reading some of the overhyped and ill-informed online commentary about this topic, this is not a dramatic security change, and it's easy to update apps to meet the new requirement with PowerShell. First, find the apps that use Teams PowerShell (we show two ways), and then assign the two required permissions to the apps. All done with a few lines of Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK code. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/05/update-apps-teams-powershell/83Views0likes0CommentsPeople Settings Appear in the Microsoft 365 Admin Center
The Org Settings section of the Microsoft 365 admin center has a new People Settings section where you can choose properties for the Microsoft 365 profile card instead of using PowerShell. The kicker is that the old method of using Exchange custom properties to customize what appears on the profile card is being replaced with standard Entra ID properties. A migration is needed, and it’s easily done with PowerShell. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/04/microsoft-365-profile-card-2/Microsoft Explains the Differences Between Copilot Memories
Copilot memory is a term that refers to different things, including Copilot communication memory, a method to use the Graph to personalize responses for users. The idea is to use all the sources of information available through the Graph as Copilot responds to user prompts in Microsoft 365 apps instead of limiting sources to whatever the app works with. It’s a good idea, providing the Graph sources are accurate. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/03/copilot-memory-types/52Views0likes0CommentsUse PowerShell to Send Messages from Shared Mailboxes, Groups, and Distribution Lists
Everyone probably knows how to use Exchange's Send As and Send on Behalf of permissions to send email from user mailboxes. Here we venture into the same task, but for Microsoft 365 Groups, shared mailboxes, distribution lists, and mail-enabled security groups. Once your permissions are aligned, everything is pretty simple. https://practical365.com/sendas-send-on-behalf-of-mail-objects/58Views0likes0CommentsMicrosoft Deprecates Graph CLI and Toolkit
Microsoft has depreciated the Microsoft Graph CLI and Graph Toolkit. It’s nice to see some rationalization in this area, but the real need is for better quality and coverage across all the Microsoft 365 administrative actions. Even after fourteen years of development, too many undocumented and private APIs exist in use today in places like the Microsoft 365 admin center, which is an unacceptable situation. You should vote for a feedback portal item (link in article) to ask Microsoft to do better. https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/02/microsoft-graph-inconsistencies/35Views0likes0CommentsRe: Announcing Office 365 for IT Pros (2026 Edition)
September 2025 Update for Office 365 for IT Pros Monthly update #123 is available for the Office 365 for IT Pros eBook. Subscribers can download updated EPUB and PDF files for the main book and the Automating Microsoft 365 with PowerShell book from their Gumroad.com account. As with every month, the update touches most chapters as we continue to make sense of the changes that occur across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Subscribe today! https://office365itpros.com/2025/09/01/office-365-for-it-pros-123/42Views0likes0CommentsCreating and Using an Azure Automation Custom Runtime Environment
A custom runtime environment is a way of defining a specific job execution environment for Azure Automation runbooks, including Microsoft Graph PowerShell SDK runbooks. In this article, we create a new environment for PowerShell V7.4, load in some SDK modules, switch a runbook from a system-generated environment, and run some code. https://office365itpros.com/2025/08/29/custom-runtime-environment/27Views0likes0CommentsTeams Gives Users Control Over Hiding Inactive Channels
In March, Microsoft said that they’d change Teams to offer suggestions about which inactive channels a user might want to hide from client channel lists. That update is now available. There’s no tenant-wide admin control, so users must decide for themselves whether Teams will suggest which channels to hide. No detail is available how Teams decides about inactive channels, but the change to put control in user hands is welcome. https://office365itpros.com/2025/08/28/hide-inactive-channels-teams0825/39Views0likes0Comments
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