03Mar2022
01Nov2021
Announcing the Microsoft 365 SMB Data Protection Toolkit
Update March 2023: This product has been updated significantly, and renamed too. It is now called The SMB Guide to Data Protection and Microsoft Purview in Microsoft 365 Business Premium Plans. It still contains the written guide as well as supporting materials such as scripts and templates to help you...
25Nov2019
Unpopular opinion: Do not restrict users from creating Teams (Office 365 Groups)
I realize that advocating for no (or very limited) boundaries on who can create Teams puts me in the minority. When I look out across the community, I mostly see consultants in this space suggesting the opposite is a superior approach for various reasons--that the privilege should be constrained heavily....
15Aug2019
Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive best practices? Part 3: Data governance
In part 1 of this series, we discussed external sharing and chat. In part 2, we dealt with access controls and notifications. Now, we turn our focus to Data governance, a very important conversation indeed when it comes to compliance. And when it comes to compliance, every organization is going to...
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...
08May2019
How to deal with departed user data in Microsoft Office 365
Going from one organization to the next, I am always amazed at how different people implement their own take on new user setups or decommissioning departed users. Some have no real organized methodology and it's a hassle every time, while others have a well-developed practice or script around each process. It...
25Apr2019
Two philosophies for deploying Microsoft Teams in an organization
IT admins throughout the world subscribe to one of two worldviews today: Control mindset: IT's job is to control and restrict, and of course, to protect the clueless users from all of those scary threats out there in the world today (including themselves)Empower mindset: IT's job is to educate and...
24Sep2018
Using Security & Compliance Center to manage retention policies
Today I want to discuss retention policies, which can be administered via the Security & Compliance admin center in Microsoft 365 / Office 365. Retention policies exist to protect and/or purge (delete) certain types of information. Some organizations have very strict archive and retention policies that they must maintain data...
17Sep2018