Stephen Wilson

Recent Posts

Microsoft Reveals the Future of OneDrive

It’s October 3, 2023. I am sitting at my PC, waiting as the digital meeting equivalent of "hold music" plays. According to the graphic on the screen, the Q&A session should begin momentarily for the "Microsoft OneDrive: The Future of File Management is Here" event where Microsoft just unveiled the 3rd major version of OneDrive to the public. The main presentation is over, and while I wait, I’m digesting the latest announcements and changes that were unleashed upon us.

Automate Where You Are: Power Automate Desktop

If you work in even a lightly technical workplace these days, you know there is a big push to use technology to automate many day-to-day tasks. Microsoft has worked hard to provide an array of tools to feed that need. If you look at the list of Power Automate's "connectors" (https://make.powerautomate.com/connectors), you will see that Microsoft has worked with a variety of partners to build an ecosystem of endpoints for working with data that moves to and from Microsoft 365 in a way that is designed to be useful for automation tasks. Connectors reduce the "friction" between various services interacting, reducing development needed to make various data sources communicate with one another. If you need to have something automated, in the Microsoft 365 context, Power Automate has probably come up.

Microsoft 365 Backup and Archive Services

Before the Microsoft Backup and Archive services announcement at Microsoft Inspire 2023, an AI Chatbot like ChatGPT would have responded to "Tell me about Microsoft 365 backups provided by Microsoft" with something like this:

Loop: Microsoft's Newest Multitool

Microsoft recently released the Microsoft Loop app into Public Preview. Microsoft Loop isn't new, it has been around since 2021, but this new app unifies some of the working components that already exist in Teams, Outlook, and Dynamics 365. The Microsoft Loop app extends the components unifying them into a convenient interface. This is a Public Preview, so there are some things that are not completely smooth. The Loop app allows quick collaboration and sharing, with features of note taking and task management adapted from the tools that already use Loop components like OneNote and Teams. Even experimental features such as a Co-Pilot are quickly working into the app.

SharePoint 2013 End of Life Part 4: What Can I Do to Prepare?

OK, this is the 4th installment of this blog series, and I have to admit that I have sort of tricked you. At one level or another, all of these articles have tried to introduce you to some of the steps to take as part of your upgrade.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

SharePoint 2013 End of Life, Part 3: What Cool Stuff Do We Get?

In our first 2 installments of this series, SharePoint 2013 - End of Life, What Next? and Migrating SharePoint 2013 to a modern version of SharePoint: Is there an easy way? we discussed what the “End of Life” for SharePoint 2013 this upcoming April means for organizations and if there is an easy way to move it to something newer.