16Jun2022
03Mar2022
Why Don’t You Have a Retention Policy In Place Yet?
Most SMBs I consult with have never configured a retention policy, or indeed, they are not even aware of the retention capabilities in Microsoft 365. In general, Information Governance is one of those areas that simply does not get the attention that it deserves, especially in the small business market. But...
30Jul2021
The three opportunities for MSP’s moving forward
The writing has been on the wall a while now; with a mass exodus to cloud services such as Microsoft 365 from traditional on-premises infrastructure, it was only a matter of time before those selling MSP services had to either evolve or die off. And with recent high-profile attacks against...
09Mar2021
There is no panacea, there is no silver bullet
I had a really interesting question come up during one of my recent online courses. One of the participants asked whether device management, and even MAM (application-based management) were necessary anymore, now that we have stuff like MIP and Sensitivity Labels. I was taken aback by this question and I...
01Dec2020
Why aren’t you charging your customers to take care of Microsoft 365?
This is a simple question. The way I see it, there are many opportunities to provide Managed Services for SMB customers with regard to their Microsoft 365 subscriptions. Yet to this day, hardly anyone is doing it. Why? I suspect some folks have difficulty connecting all the dots and putting...
12Jun2020
Managed Services Opportunities within Microsoft 365
I still regularly receive questions from independent IT consultants as well as Managed Services Providers about Microsoft 365 in relation to "regular maintenance" tasks and the like, which can be translated into Managed Services opportunity. Everyone intuitively understands that something like this is possible, but they do not know where...
11Dec2019
Notes from the field: Windows 10 Device Compliance
One of the coolest features in Microsoft 365 is the ability to measure device compliance, and based on that reading, grant, deny or limit access to cloud resources. For mobile devices this works really well, and most compliance policies are fairly simple: make sure the device isn't jail-broken/rooted, require a...
08Aug2019
Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive best practices? More like considerations… Part 1: External sharing and communication
This article is part of a series. Also see Part 2, Part 3. Ever since I released the Office 365 Email Security Checklist, I have had a lot of people asking me for similar best practices checklists related to the "other" Office 365 services--especially Teams, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. The...
28Jun2019
Does Microsoft backup my data in Office 365? Do I need more or additional backup?
A new reader question came in, and frankly it's one that I hear a lot. I'm sure I have smatterings referring to this issue in other articles, but this one should stand to clear up the questions once and for all--this will be something I can point people to moving...
15Feb2019