Show 42 - Part 1: a deluge of news

Garry and Kevin sat down to run through the latest news as Viva Connections Public Preview went out, more attempts to explain Yammer and Teams and the excitement of collaborating on flows in Power Automate lands. All while Kevin tried not to burst with the excitement of meeting real people at Commsverse.

Viva Connections Public Preview - Microsoft Tech Community

73%: The Hybrid Work Paradox

The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers | Nature Human Behaviour

New collaborative app from ServiceNow brings employee experiences into the flow of work in Microsoft Teams 

Bringing large groups and communities together in Teams - Microsoft Tech Community

Announcing Public Preview of Power Apps respecting Conditional Access on individual apps 

Power Fx Formula Columns in Dataverse (for Teams)

Announcing co-presence in Power Automate | Power Automate Blog (microsoft.com)

Power Apps, Accessibility, and WCAG - Hart of the Midlands

SharePoint: Hub to hub site association

SharePoint Navigation Switcher 

Microsoft acquires Clipchamp to empower creators

Office LTSC is now generally available

Home computing pioneer Sir Clive Sinclair dies aged 81 | Clive Sinclair | The Guardian

Halt and Catch Fire

https://github.com/GavinMendelGleason/excel_as_code

Events

• CollabTalk - What Does It Take To Build Community? – buckleyPLANET
• South Coast Summit – A Microsoft Cloud Technology Conference
• European Collaboration Summit - Home (collabsummit.eu)
• Scottish Summit will be hybrid https://twitter.com/kevmcdonk/status/1438935272192987142?s=20

Transcript

Garry Trinder: 0:00

Thursday stripping lined up today.

Kevin McDonnell: 0:02

Oh well, I can turn off.

Garry Trinder: 0:04

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 0:05

I'm gonna turn off transcription. Coding. And transcription started lovely all ready to go. And show 42. 321 hello and welcome to show 42 of Grey Hat Beard the meaning of life. This is the modern workplace podcast where we talk about all things Microsoft 365 and the grey of Grey Hat period. My name is Kevin McDonnell. I'm a solutions architect at CPS and an office apps and Services MVP. Unfortunately have no hat this week. UM, rumors that it's 'cause he drank too much whiskey at Converse are not true, so don't let anyone be spreading that. But we do have a beard.

Garry Trinder: 3:25

Right? We do yes. Hi everyone, my name is Garry Trinder. I'm a modern work consultant at Microsoft, former Office Development MVP and a member of the PNP T.

Kevin McDonnell: 3:38

Oh, I see. We're putting 4 most stuff into our BIOS now. Working OK, OK, alright.

Garry Trinder: 3:42

Why not?

Kevin McDonnell: 3:44

So I'm I'm a former Cox, a former army cadet trainee, former double glazing salesman. Yes, so we we were doing all those bits as well.

Garry Trinder: 3:50

Scout for former lifeguard. There we go.

Kevin McDonnell: 3:57

Oh no, that is called. I didn't know that. Uhm? I'm going to get in trouble for our more find out if he's listening, but I I think maybe on next episode when AL is here we should talk about some of the former things he used to do.

Garry Trinder: 4:09

I think so.

Kevin McDonnell: 4:10

Ah, but he'll kill me for mentioning that. So we should probably move on from. This is part one as usual in this one we're we're talking about the latest news and stuff that's been going on in Part 2. We're actually going to be joined by carolena category, who was meant to be joining us tonight. Unfortunately, she's a bit ill, so we've decided to postpone the recording of that till next week and she'll be joining us to talk about Viva connections and the the power of employee experience. Which kicks off quite nicely with the first bit of the show, notes show notes. I should say the news, and that is that the Viva Connections Public Preview is now available now. I should pause slightly here, 'cause some of you may be listening. Going hang on. Isn't Viva connections already live? Yes, the the Viva connections capability. What was announced and you could put up your intranet. Your modern home page into Microsoft Teams. You could get your global navigation in parts of that. There's some other smaller nice things on there. What's really been announced now as the extra. Or there could be a CSV at the ACS so that the ability to put the dashboard on the page.

Garry Trinder: 5:19

OK.

Kevin McDonnell: 5:24

Yeah, it's been released and also the mobile clients as well, so you can now embed uh and look at your dashboard feed and resources on the mobile client. Now was stuttering there that that wasn't just my incompetence at talking, but maybe partly that.

Garry Trinder: 5:27

Sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 5:39

But also the fact that it's kind of there. The dashboard. I don't know Gary. If you've had a look, but the dashboard is there. The dashboard Web Part still isn't, so you can create a new page for those you can see on the page, see on the screen we can kind of see these. We'll see adaptive card extensions now, so these sort of small, easy ways to display data and you can create with those. Hook them into APIs and things on there. You can't yet put these onto your homepage, so there's still still a little bit to come, I think.

Garry Trinder: 6:04

Yeah. Yeah, definitely. I think you know this is there's the whole Viva connections. Kind of, you know, preview element. There's bits getting released bits, you know being updated in SharePoint bits being updated in teams, the whole you know aces. Uh, kind of web parts. We've then got SharePoint framework which is then, you know, actively being developed. We've got the public previews that are being published as well that you can use the CLI for Microsoft 365 to get the latest previews for your projects.

Kevin McDonnell: 6:45

Now that but that reminds me, you can also 'cause previously if you wanted to turn on Viva connections, you had to use either CLI or PNP PowerShell or the really clunky scripts from Microsoft. Now you can actually do that for the GUI as well, so there's there's actually an easier way of doing it.

Garry Trinder: 6:53

Huh? Yeah. Yes, definitely. So everything is getting, you know being worked on in the background. There's a lot of framework changes, framework support that's needed as well for these new experiences, so you know, I know that there's a lot of you know developers interested. They're getting involved in in GitHub, on the on the public preview lot of feedback as well. So I I think you know, like you mentioned, we seem to have talked about this for quite a while, but I think it's that it's it's. It's getting those things. Right, which is good and I and I like that that it's getting things right and it's collaboration with developers. Or you know, either internal to companies or Isvs who are able to give that feedback and really drive the the experience forward so that it is a better experience rather than just. Oh it's released and you know now we'd like feedback please.

Kevin McDonnell: 7:33

Yeah. Absolutely I. I'd say one thing. I love about these cards is stuff you know. You talk about the developer experience, which is fantastic. Really, like what you can do with that, but the the card designer that they've built with it, the ability to kind of have a power user way of doing that that can connect him with APIs. So if you know a little bit about rest, you know a bit about Jason, but maybe react and TypeScript or little bit too far for you. You can actually start build these out yourself so I.

Garry Trinder: 7:57

And. Sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 8:24

I like where they've gone with that to give a few of the simpler options, it gives a nice kind of spectrum. Of being able to create these, and I think that's good. More people can do that better.

Garry Trinder: 8:34

Huh? Definitely yeah you want. Sometimes you just want something you know dead simple. Why do you need to crack open? You know your development tools just for something basic you wanna you wanna leave that to the? You know the more advanced stuff and so yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 8:50

Yeah. And it's got to do with having this chat or I forgot the first thing we're going to talk about which comes first, which I'll come back to it set, but was chatting. Chatting someone there about, you know when do you need development for these things, and I think if you wanna change state. So if you want that card that appears on the page you can click next or have something react when you click on a button, that's when you go down to development route. If it's just displaying data dynamically from a system going down a card sign, you can do an awful lot with in there.

Garry Trinder: 9:10

Yeah. Yeah, and that's you know again it depends on your requirements, right? And not everything will need to be real time in some cases that real time update will be, you know, fantastic addition and for other people it's just maybe overhead. And so yeah, then that's good. Let's see it progressing.

Kevin McDonnell: 9:28

Me. So slight deviation to talk about last week. I know Gary wasn't there, but Alan myself for both comes verse over in Norway, breach in Surry in the UK Mercedes-Benz world, which was just the best location you went in. There was a classic Mercedes right by the escalator. There was the 4th showroom with all the new ones. The MGS at the top which is just gorgeous on there. Had all the Formula One cars they all interspersed weather rooms were so you literally walking around this fantastic cars there was test track.

Garry Trinder: 9:39

Yes. Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 10:09

With people spinning around in circles around the back and then just the best thing was meeting other people actually be going around seeing familiar faces as it's chatting to the the the two from Office 365 distilled. Having a lovely conversation about whiskey meeting a few colleagues that I haven't seen for a while. Seeing all the vendors and seeing all their teams devices which I hadn't seen before, going looking very jealously at some of the the new Bose headsets which look very very nice. I did find out how much. Which put me off slightly, but they they did look fantastic. I have to say from there, but it it. If I saw any of you there, thank you. If any of you are thinking about coming to events and aren't quite sure too, it was lovely. It felt very safe. Everyone felt in a good position. Those who didn't want to get close that they had nice tickets or say, you know, don't get too close on their seating was laid out nicely. But yeah, thank you, Mark Randy Martin. Phillipa for everything you did with that so.

Garry Trinder: 10:41

Thanks.

Kevin McDonnell: 11:10

I lovely events Gmail can't join us today and we can. We can talk about her, the whiskey we had on the previous nights which made the start to the event a little bit slower than it probably should have been, but.

Garry Trinder: 11:16

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 11:21

So it was a lovely chat. So yeah, yeah, really good, but I'm what maybe think of that was the next task was talked about was one you saw and it is from another podcast we we do encourage you to listen to other podcasts as long as you listen to all of hours and but work lab have released podcast and they were talking about the hybrid work paradox.

Garry Trinder: 11:44

Yeah so yeah. We what we talked about quite a bit. Now you know, there's a there's organizations are starting to welcome you, know employees back into their offices. And you know basically how is this going to pan out in the future and what are the what are the needs of the employee employees now? And you know, some people have been traveling previous that the pandemic. Now let's spending more time at home. They found better, you know, work life balance.

Kevin McDonnell: 12:09

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 12:18

And even higher productivity as well. And you know. And but there is this kind of. I guess split where whilst you've got all those good things. We're also missing things as well, so we've talked about it. Like Kevin you mentioned comes versus you know it was a it was a hybrid event right? You could still join remotely, but you did have the option of going.

Kevin McDonnell: 12:38

Yeah, and and some of the speakers were remote as well, so you could sit in the room and have someone presenting remotely and things and mostly worked.

Garry Trinder: 12:42

Yep. But it's the same content, but it's you know, I guess you know, taking that content in a different way, being able to discuss that with people directly in a room and as well and and you know all these different needs and everyone is different. And how do organisations handle the different needs of their their employees? And this you know 73% the hybrid work paradox for that at Microsoft Research is done through work lab. To basically. You know, survey 30,000 people within you know Microsoft and say, OK, you know what kind of are your needs you know are you more productive working from home? Are you more productive? Come into the office and the results are. Both.

Kevin McDonnell: 13:34

Yeah, as it says here, like 73% would like the flexibility they've had, but also 67% so they want more time in person so.

Garry Trinder: 13:34

You know it it it. Huh?

Kevin McDonnell: 13:44

It's official, we all want to have our cake and eat it, I think.

Garry Trinder: 13:44

Yeah. Definitely yeah and and and that's it. It's that there's no. It's going to be so situational. And you know, I, I'm I'm as a probably a lot of Azar we're in split teams. We've got people who are local to the office, got people who are remote, we're running team meetings with people you know around a desk, and whilst everyone else is remote and then you can kind of step into this whole, everyone is going to be back in office and it's great to get everyone together. And it's like, you know, that's not necessarily going to be the case.

Kevin McDonnell: 13:53

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 14:18

All the time and logistically and also you know our our job needs as well. Uhm, yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 14:25

Exactly, I think it's going to be and the the reality is companies have invested a lot of money in all these big buildings and they can't just turn them off. In most cases you know the joy of the cloud is you can turn things on and off. Fortunately, physical places don't work quite the same as that, and so it would be.

Garry Trinder: 14:31

Sure. Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 14:43

It's interesting to see how all these needs a balance. I think we'll move on a little bit 'cause we have talked about this an awful lot, and there's been talks about one. One other article will highlight we're putting the show notes but not talk about too much is if you're really looking for the science, nature, human behavior.

Garry Trinder: 14:49

Miller

Kevin McDonnell: 15:00

It's part of their nature. I was gonna say magazines, but that that seems downplayed journals, so I think that's the the word I'm looking for.

Garry Trinder: 15:06

yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 15:08

It it's talked about that same Microsoft survey and sun are much more of a scientific view of it. So if you love those big heavy documents that really go into detail this, this certainly goes into that. Come on now, I've met so I tried to flick through it just before now to have a good read. And yeah, don't don't try and read this and they sit down nicely. Have a cup of tea and read it properly. It's fair, say what are my good friends is works for naturists as the editor for one. The other journals they have, uh, and he had noted to him about seeing this is like where you really reading that bloody hell? You've could change again and I had to admit at that point, no, I hadn't read it also. But do do you give that read? I'm certain plan to to go through that bit more. I think it's really good to see that, and there was some interesting chat I had with a few people about the the kind of survey from Microsoft and. Different perspectives and one number thought was interesting was hang on, so Microsoft only now considering remote working. What about all that stuff they talked about previously? Did they not believe in it then? And I don't think it's an entirely unfair comments because many people have been doing this for years, so I think it's Phil Phil Worrell who talked about doing this back in 2002, being able to work remote, and people like Scott Hanselman who've been remote and being to preaching the right way to do this for a long time.

Garry Trinder: 16:15

Sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 16:26

So, uhm. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 16:28

I, I think on that it's one of those things that it it has. It had to affect more people and it's not just a few individuals. I mean, I've been doing the same. I've I've known that I've been able to remote work for a long time, but being the odd one out, let's say, and you do, you did have the challenges of you know, being able to battle that I'm not in the office.

Kevin McDonnell: 16:35

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 16:52

And you know. Handling when you go into the office. Maybe that drop in productivity because you're not going to the office to work.

Kevin McDonnell: 16:58

Yeah. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 17:01

So you know, it's I think just bridezilla for a man.

Kevin McDonnell: 17:07

Yeah, which is a good thing. I I I think the the comments that maybe it should have been brought to the fore a bit earlier, I don't think are entirely unfair.

Garry Trinder: 17:08

Just yeah. Oh yeah, absolutely yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 17:19

Uhm? But Microsoft is still innovating whatever may be innovating strong word but doing interesting things and bringing ServiceNow into teams on their they still haven't worked out. The noise cancelling for animals particularly well. Sorry for Gary's dog saying hello there.

Garry Trinder: 17:29

No.

Kevin McDonnell: 17:38

I'm but some news that now service now has been bringing bought into what I think seems to be new phrase of the day. It's either hybrid or flow of work. I keep seeing that pop up on there. But really, bringing your service now. Cool, uh capabilities into a tab in teams and really integrating it there so it's you can bring your virtual agent. I think that's bringing the the service now bots within there. It's all these different functionalities that Microsoft been talking about. A lot are really there for big Enterprise Products and Microsoft. Working with them to sort of help surface that and bring the the right things out there, and I think it's it's very interesting. It really highlights that teams is seen as that hub, not just for Microsoft products, but for all your digital workplace needs within there. So things like it's got the translators. It says here a great article talking about how Microsoft is your translator can handle the real time communications between the different sides on their bring their virtual agents. I think there was the ability to mention tickets from service now and. Have those tagged within chats and things much like what we're talking about with dynamics. So I think it was the week before last. The same for service now, and that that fact that Microsoft products and third parties have been treated in the same way I. I think it's brilliant. It's showing that the the capabilities are there and hopefully encouraging others to to do the same thing. That's well.

Garry Trinder: 19:01

Yeah, I I again it's the more examples we have of this the the more other organizations are gonna are gonna look and go OK, how can we leverage this technology now? And you know, it's it's very easy to talk about. Teams can do lots of different things, but this is bringing all of those things together to them to effectively change the way that you would work and change the way that you know. People who are dealing with you know the. Yeah, and the outputs of these systems, you're doing it through teams and you're not going to different portals. You can do it all from one place and and, and you know that's the vision. And this is helping bring that together.

Kevin McDonnell: 19:36

Yeah. And I'm chuckling slightly from the conversation we have all had. It is all in one place, which is great until you want to do two things at the same time, and then then you are slightly stuck, but. It it makes things easy and you know you can certainly open things up in tabs and Jim, you can see for example on the screen there is the link, so you can still open ServiceNow into a browser and work with things there, but so. That would would be nice about flip between things a little bit more easily occasionally. Uh, another article that came out around teams, and I hope we're not gonna lose too many people at this point, but Yammer and and the age old conversation of is it teams or Yammer? Is it teams and Yammer? Why the hell are you using Yammer which seems came out? It was like talking to the event as you I won't name because I'm getting a lot of trouble for for calling Mountain there but they were like you're doing a session on Yammer to someone else. Oh you poor people other words or maybe slack. So go on tell me the benefits and the poor person was.

Garry Trinder: 20:37

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 20:43

Slightly put on on the spot, but for me I think this shows that the power of Yammer is around that large teams. It's those large groups they're intended, but yes, you can do it within teams. But and yes, there's now the ability to reply to specific messages in teams, but if you're following along thread you just can't do that. In teams it would jump around all over place. Yammer is geared for those ongoing separate points of conversations that you'd have in community. That ability to build knowledge and kind of ask questions and have that answered.

Garry Trinder: 20:53

Who?

Kevin McDonnell: 21:13

The fact you can surface that in teams mean it. It doesn't need to be one or the other. You can put both of them surface door via that same hub and access from there. So getting the the power for me of Yammer is that Q&A is fantastic. That ability to have conversations in in topic is where it works well and then build that into your teams as the Communities Act is is perfect. So I think they're really just trying to trying to talk about that.

Garry Trinder: 21:18

Right? Right? Yeah. Yeah, definitely a big fan of the communities app for me that was a a very simple simple app to build up and then you know drop that into teams and it's just it it whilst you're in teams you can get to your communities. Gets here in announcements likely due from the you know your teams notifications. Just kind of brought it together a little bit more. Give a little bit more and I guess.

Kevin McDonnell: 22:02

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 22:09

Exposure to to those communities as well.

Kevin McDonnell: 22:13

And and I love this coming here, but I've I've been talking about tacit knowledge in a few of my Beaver topics. Talks at conferences and user groups, and here it is that integration with Yammer, that tacit knowledge that people chat about, suddenly becomes usable. It's a right knowledge that right time and and Yammer helps. It helps make that happen really so.

Garry Trinder: 22:17

Here.

Kevin McDonnell: 22:33

I though there will still be plenty of people who will not enjoy Yammer and say it won't be for them, but I I think for larger organizations certainly that there is a lot of benefit to that structuring things.

Garry Trinder: 22:33

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, and I think you you mentioned the other topics as well and the the hashtags when the topics that you're now using in Yammer and how that's going to work together. And obviously that Q&A right? That answer is knowledge and so able to then surface that through one of the topics in Viva. Again, just helps that that Viva pillar if you like.

Kevin McDonnell: 22:51

Yeah. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 23:07

And you know, to just be able to use the tools that are already there. So pure Q and Q&A and then yeah, let me the topics, some pool the data.

Kevin McDonnell: 23:18

Yeah, absolutely. I I. I'm chuckling slightly 'cause the blog that I'm just trying to publisher might put in the show notes about comes first one, the the the common themes I had from that was how much Viva got mentioned even in talks that weren't went obviously about Viva eight came up a lot on those talks that were about Viva were pretty popular as well. So if it comes to teams and Viva basically if you're not doing stuff with that, it's time to give up.

Garry Trinder: 23:35

Yeah. Yep.

Kevin McDonnell: 23:47

Bonsai Johor jacking a site let's move on to something else which is power platform and. I really liked this article about the public preview of power apps respecting conditional access on individual apps. Did you want to talk about this Gary before I?

Garry Trinder: 24:07

Our resident resident security and compliance expertise is a is leaving us in the lurch here, but but now I think, you know it's conditional access is is one of those key you know security features in 365 and in Azure, and you know if you're not using conditional access, then you know you should be looking at it to turn it on it, you know.

Kevin McDonnell: 24:07

Salon.

Garry Trinder: 24:31

And it just does help you apply those policies and and make accessing your data more secure. And so yeah, I think it. It's just you know. I am at progression of of that security and story really from Microsoft and it is, you know, like we we've seen in in in recent weeks in. In the news, you know Microsoft.

Kevin McDonnell: 24:51

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 24:57

And working with other large, uhm, you know computer organizations to subject cloud software vendors to to increase security. For governments, you know it's it's a hot topic, and so you know seeing. More security coming to the power platform is sort of a great step forward.

Kevin McDonnell: 25:19

And and you know the data that's in there could be just as sensitive and as anywhere else, and I could take a pause. Now we haven't got Al here to correct me, so you might have to jump in slightly Gary, as my brain gets away with me, but some people aren't going OK. What is conditional access? What what we're talking about here is when you have an app and you want to put extra layers on. So for example, you have to be in a certain IP address range as it says on here you may say to do this app.

Garry Trinder: 25:24

Oh yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 25:50

You have to be connected with multifactor authentication, so you need to re authenticate to use that app.

Garry Trinder: 25:53

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 25:56

You could restrict which devices you can access the app from, so making sure you're not an Intune labeled device, so you know if there's data on there. It gets wiped that that sort of things. What we're talking about. Isn't it really?

Garry Trinder: 26:06

Sure. Yeah, and you know home mix and match as well. It's like you know, do you want certain policies when your internal network you want them applied when you're an external network as well? And so yeah, it's it's just those granular and controls to be, you know, just a lot more restrictive and I guess reduce your attack surface, right? And that's

Kevin McDonnell: 26:29

It's been interesting. When can we? Can you actually do something within the app based on that conditional access? I haven't seen any kind of coded way to look at that, but that would be interesting to to know.

Garry Trinder: 26:40

not that I'm aware of, no.

Kevin McDonnell: 26:42

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 26:43

I mean, a lot of this is authentication and accessing different. You know data sources as well so.

Kevin McDonnell: 26:43

'cause that? But showing sort of different messages or behaving differently depending on that conditional access policy that. There's a user voice or whatever it's called these days for for Microsoft to come for that one. Now next article I've been definitely getting you to ask about this. 'cause I I saw this and went men. That's power effects, formula columns in dataverse.

Garry Trinder: 27:14

Yeah, I guess it was. I mean I, I looked at this and kind of. I mean coming from a SharePoint background, right? There's a lot of people that we go in. What what this this? I think you know, yeah, we've had calculated columns since in the early days of SharePoint and I guess it's the a couple of things like like kind of pull out for me was one power FX has been mentioned. So you know again the the programming language of power platform issue like was was mentioned that you were able to. You know build these little expressions in in a nice UI that look nice.

Kevin McDonnell: 27:24

Can't do that already, yeah.

Garry Trinder: 27:51

And the little interface and the other thing was, whilst this is a, you know a nice feature in a nice step forward so that it's only available for dataverse for teams at the moment and not full day averse. So yeah, it the title was kind of misleading a bit 'cause there should be an Asterix at the end, should say data first for teams at the moment.

Kevin McDonnell: 28:14

Yeah, that's yeah I noticed that.

Garry Trinder: 28:16

Say it. So it'll be interesting to see how their palate taste come across and whether if it's actually just a big UI update that this is.

Kevin McDonnell: 28:18

Yes.

Garry Trinder: 28:25

So yeah. That that this is, and it's not actually something already behind the scenes.

Kevin McDonnell: 28:30

It's funny earlier with working with someone and found that they'd created a canvas hyperpower wrapping dataverse for teams, but with SharePoint lists as the back end. Fritz, in there. With some some reasons for that. But it's just there are times when you just do something. It feels wrong and dirty, and this is definitely one of those times and make people kind of turn over their graves, even if they haven't passed away yet.

Garry Trinder: 28:46

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 28:55

So.

Garry Trinder: 28:55

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 28:56

I'd like to point out Chris Huntingford on Twitter about that one, but yeah, it it's kind of a trick. It's stuff in those cases. Just because you can doesn't mean you should. From there, at least not without good reason. Uhm? Now this this article which is announcing Co presence in power automate I almost missed this one 'cause it didn't jump out as what it actually was. I saw copresent so I thought this would be about like status are you. Are you green? Oh you're available or you busy on there? But it's not. This is about the ability to work on a power automate flow with someone else at the same time. So like you can do collaborate on docs in Word, Excel, PowerPoint. You could now do that in flow, which is absolutely fantastic for those who worked on much larger flows. I would have had to wait for someone else to finish before you do your bit or can't check something else. It's very frustrating. Uhm, you now can and I think basically you if you edit the same block or someone else, it gives you a warning and says it, it's locked and someone makes a change. It will warn you, but I I just fantastic. I'm so so happy they've got this. Got this. I can't wait for this comes up our apps as well. Having the the both of those together, it will suddenly become, you know, open this up to a lot more people and to be more available and in some ways I I certainly have kept some apps smaller or built into multiple apps because that that inability for people to work on different screens at the same time gone now. Well, I know that's not. That's power apps, not power automate, but certainly when that comes to power apps. But now would be a big big change and I'm surprised this hasn't been shout about more to be honest.

Garry Trinder: 30:21

Yeah. Yeah, I think you know being able to share and work at the same time. It's just always a benefit, right? There's you, you're going to get massive benefits from that, either from a learning point of view 'cause your work, you know you're working with someone else on the same.

Kevin McDonnell: 30:54

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 31:03

The same technology and able to see those updates go go through as well. So I think yeah yeah, it's great if out honestly yeah like fully agree if this technology can be moved over to other areas like power platform, that would be a huge game changer. Definitely because and I know that that is a large sticking point of, you know, not being able to do, you know, develop on the same app or you have to split things up and it gets really messy. And so yeah that.

Kevin McDonnell: 31:20

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 31:34

OK, great.

Kevin McDonnell: 31:36

Uh, next what I have found out on the power platform was actually not not a announcement of news, but a fantastic thing from. Mike Hartley, heart of the Midlands who's created. Uh, an accessibility checker within power apps, so they're a way to look at the color contrast and details now at I know power apps do have things built into it as well, but this is just really details on the template system to make sure that you've got that accessibility to check that between your path, as it says here, power apps, power automate and dataverse, he's created different background colors and a set of themes that will work and check on that so well. Well worth giving that. That Blogger look. I think he's got a video on it as it on this as well. Or certainly there's. Yeah, there's links to it down there. That's a video about it. It's got details on GitHub as well, so accessibility is such an important things so important. The open things. If you're gonna be boring about it, there is a legal requirement to do it for for most organizations to make sure it's available, are hoping that's not why you're thinking about doing it or doing it. 'cause it's the right thing to do, but that there's a good reason and double the fact that Mike's made it even easier to do fantastic really commend him on that one.

Garry Trinder: 32:53

Yeah. Yeah, I mean you're only ever gonna gain right by making it the thing that's accessible by default that it's a. It's a no brainer really. 'cause you're you're looking at it from a different perspective and you're opening up that app experience to more and more people you know. Hey, it's me, it's big. It's a starting point. You know, bolt accessibility. In the end you have it front and center and and and that into you know the way that you work and you'll end up with better, more intuitive designs as as an output as well and then simply, you know, ignoring it or leaving it to the end. So yeah, accessible by default, definitely.

Kevin McDonnell: 33:20

Yeah. We like that.

Garry Trinder: 33:41

Yes.

Kevin McDonnell: 33:42

I move away from power platform. Uh, I'd almost say back to SharePoint there 'cause we're talking about teams that was a slip of the tongue and moving onto SharePoint a completely different thing from teams I should should add there. And some road map items which are always nice to see even if taken with a slight pinch of salt.

Garry Trinder: 33:59

Right?

Kevin McDonnell: 34:02

Uhm Hub hub site associations. This was talked about. Was it the last Ignite or even the one in 2020 I think.

Garry Trinder: 34:10

It's been around for a long time. This one definitely. In fact, I'm surprised I saw a message from about a week ago where someone was saying exactly the same thing. Uh, yeah hasn't this been around for a while? If we got any news updates and then and it was actually in the latest message center updates that, Yep, actually it's it's getting there. It's very close and I think there's a preview at the moment. There's some preview PowerShell to enable this on on tenants and and try it out. I believe so yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 34:45

So is there? Oh I missed that.

Garry Trinder: 34:47

I'm but, but yeah, it's coming.

Kevin McDonnell: 34:49

No, I haven't seen that. I would try and dig out the link for that and if you happen to find it as well Gary send over 'cause that would be.

Garry Trinder: 34:51

Uhm? I've I've got. I just got it wrong and it was something else, but you know it's in it. It came up in the road map and yeah I think was later. Oh this is nice but but yeah finally.

Kevin McDonnell: 35:06

Really. We, I know there's definitely some good articles about you know. Would it means so when you connect to effectively 2 hub sites, you know what the what the impact is, how it affects theming, how it affects search as well. So search can go across these so I can understand why it has taken, while 'cause the complexity of how those things cascade down. This isn't just about navigation, there is things that put through. I think it's spending the time to make sure all those different scenarios work, which is good. I'm slightly intrigued about this. I don't know if it's my eyebrows adding troubles, but it seems to be a lot of question marks.

Garry Trinder: 35:20

Huh? Millimeter. Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 35:39

Going into this road map, one which seems quite ironic for some of the road map articles, but. Entry on that and another Roman article that I liked, and Gary put this in the notes and I kinda went. Oh what's this? And then you talked it through and got quite excited. Remember I had seen this so yeah, do you want to explain?

Garry Trinder: 36:01

Yeah, so I guess traditionally you would just look at a communication site in SharePoint and a team site and you know exactly which is which because the team site would have the quick launch on left hand side and very static, and that bar sounds great. It's not always wanted and I know. Uh, yeah efforts in the past on the team site template of people to remove that quick launch through various different means. And now you don't have to. Now you can just switch so or so you will be able to to to actually switch that so that your team site will be able to take on navigation similar to. To communication site.

Kevin McDonnell: 36:46

Yeah, so it's it's interesting. Well then I I know we were chatting bit before the show and I was talking to someone at comes first again about this was So what is a communication communication site in a team site? What's? The difference now 'cause the biggest one that you really talk about with people is that you basically got a wider one versus one with the left hand menu. The main. The main thing I can think about now is the permissions. So obviously a team site we generally tide to Microsoft 365 groups and yes you can break those, but that's the full permissions versa communication site. You set them up separately. I think that's about 8 ready. I guess you tying it to a Microsoft team as well. You can only be done with a team site, not with a communication site, but.

Garry Trinder: 37:31

Sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 37:31

But otherwise, they're much of a muchness.

Garry Trinder: 37:34

Yeah, be interesting to see. We have if there's any authoring capabilities that you miss out on with it not being a communication site. Uh, because obviously they the team site templates don't based around collaboration and you do get modern pages, know that in the past there were certain page templates that you couldn't use the team site. Thinking fullwidth think at one point, but yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 37:44

Yeah. I think no. I think they're all well, actually, yeah, but the weather, the full width ones.

Garry Trinder: 38:06

Or

Kevin McDonnell: 38:06

Whether they become enabled or whether you won't have that full whip. So even if you have a team site, maybe you don't make the benefit of that. Full width page? Yeah, but I think I think they're all in team sites now, but but be interested. Certainly there seems to be quite few things landing in SharePoint at the moment. And and with Aviva connections bits, I've got a bit of a backlog of things to actually play around with. That's they land and try them out, so I'll try and get some videos out on that one.

Garry Trinder: 38:28

sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 38:34

I'm moving, moving on to the section I've neatly and cleverly called other 'cause I can't quite find anything else that it goes under. Uh Microsoft Scope carrying on with its buying spree, I think it's been kind of consistently bought organizations over time. And this time they bought something called clipchamp, which I can safely say, and I apologize to them greatly. I'd never heard off until Microsoft looked to board them, but it will see it in in in browser, video creation and editing experience, so that ability to work with videos they haven't said anything here really what they're planning to do with it.

Garry Trinder: 39:04

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 39:10

It's a it does say it's a natural fit for Microsoft 365. Which and and a great fit for Microsoft Microsoft Windows. So that was interesting. I did hear some people suggesting that maybe even Xbox and that ability to kind of cut your your videos that you've recorded from your your live streams and things and push from there certainly hints more at the Microsoft 365 space on here which. Uh, I think suggests Gary the more the stream and ability to edit videos within there, which would be nice.

Garry Trinder: 39:42

Yes, I mean I'm exactly like you first time I'd heard of this was the acquisition and when I looked at it, it's primary. You seem to be to be able to create social media videos. You know I want to make a video for Facebook and have the right layouts and things. And then it's gone a little bit more. And obviously technology has been over there to, you know, create the longer videos by instructional videos and it it. Be nice to see the capabilities coming in.

Kevin McDonnell: 40:10

So so sorry Gary, just to check. So you weren't using these to create all your tick tock videos all the time or.

Garry Trinder: 40:13

Sorry. Tick tock what? Adult. But

Kevin McDonnell: 40:22

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 40:23

and but yeah, you know you've you've got this. Just, uh, what looks like a very nice modern video editing experience and you know, he says that video is becoming more and more, I guess ubiquitous right? We're recording meetings on sign, will record parts of meetings, and then use those for as videos later on for people to consume. You know, even within projects.

Kevin McDonnell: 40:40

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 40:51

And for people.

Kevin McDonnell: 40:51

Sorry, did you say that some people actually rewatch those recordings of meetings? I kind of thought that was always a made up thing and no one actually did it.

Garry Trinder: 40:57

Yeah. Nada. But it's, you know, make some of it back right? Make them reusable. Make them rewatchable, and because you know again, it's the benefit rather than maybe reading document, you have someone talking to you or you have some discussion going on. And so yeah, it would be interesting to see where this goes, 'cause it it it's very much across the board on all devices.

Kevin McDonnell: 41:07

Yeah. Yeah, could could therefore use this I I think I'd be intrigued 'cause I know I've tried trimming videos in stream before and it could be 10 minutes just to take a few seconds off a video so if it improves on that performance that that would certainly help.

Garry Trinder: 41:38

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 41:40

So yeah, interesting ones. Ah. Another one in cut off news that it's going to be important to some people. It's not to me which is the office LTSC the long term servicing channel. This is really about the not office online. This is about people who want to buy a copy of office. If you are old like Gary and I. Your Member be under going to shop and buying office off the shelf. If you like Al then then you remember being able to get it off the the the sort of little discs as well, not even CDs but we just check and see how far it listens to the show.

Garry Trinder: 42:07

Sure. Sure.

Kevin McDonnell: 42:20

But now yet, they they have said they're going to continue with the LTSC they've made that generally available. So if you don't want that version from Office 365 or Microsoft 365, Yep, you can buy a single one that you don't have to keep paying support for.

Garry Trinder: 42:35

It's it's an interesting article this because you read it. It's almost like, yeah, well, we've released it. You can do that book, but really, like you're missing.

Kevin McDonnell: 42:43

Some customers aren't ready to move to the cloud.

Garry Trinder: 42:46

Yeah, there's there's a there's a there's a section that just says you know you won't get cloud based capabilities of 365 real time collaboration. You know security and all those things and it's like Oh yeah, you have to factor that in right security is part of office as well. If you're not getting those updates, then you're potentially missing out on again having to wait for when the next cycle.

Kevin McDonnell: 42:53

Yes. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 43:11

Uhm, yeah. Release happens again and so yeah, I guess it is a very specific use case. It is still there, but in the vast majority of cases you're going to be far better than.

Kevin McDonnell: 43:20

Yeah. It is trying to make sure that people only use it for that use case as it says like on the manufacturing floor, something that's not Internet connected won't get the updates. Yep, so if you do have that need fantastic it's there or and projects in Visio as well, which is all for exciting so.

Garry Trinder: 43:30

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 43:45

I'm. We've got slightly saddened use this week. Saw the the death of Sir Clive Sinclair. I though for many children of the 80s the ZED X spectrum would have been their their first computer that they used at home, which probably they just used for games really. And then someone tried to convince them to use it for other things, but it's stuck with their. And for me, he's always. He's always been the guy that invented the Sinclair C5, and I desperately wanted one of those. I've got to driver once it was awful and I still wanted one. I just the idea is so low that I thought was amazing from it. But he was also as someone who grew up from tomorrow's world and step that kind of thinking about new ideas. That crazy inventor heat me up. It amazed that idea of the the man inventor coming up with crazy things but trying to break what everyone saw is a norm.

Garry Trinder: 44:23

Yeah. Cool.

Kevin McDonnell: 44:40

Trying to find new ways of doing it that and for me and utter inspiration. Still before the acorn electron over the static spectrum, I'm afraid, but a true inspiration on the.

Garry Trinder: 44:54

Definitely yeah, and I think, uh, you know. It's interesting reading articles about, you know, just him as a as a person and you know his personality and and things. And and you know it. It's hilarious. The C5 and we, you know we talk about it and and it's kind of ridiculed and even the launch. I was reading how it was launched and it was freezing cold and they did not realize that the freezing cold basically stopped the batteries from working so it didn't work on its launch.

Kevin McDonnell: 45:21

Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 45:22

Uh, and it was though that just kind of, you know, I'm going to build it and I'm gonna release it and get it out there. And and you know, and that's got I'd be admired right as as well it is a bit comical at the same time. But so yeah, I I think I was also reading, you know, the comments from people like Elon Musk was mentioned in that article you just had on their Sachin Adela as well. You know the you you think oh it's just the you know the English inventor that just.

Kevin McDonnell: 45:27

Yeah. Yeah.

Garry Trinder: 45:52

You don't think the spectrum, but actually you know the the legacy that he left was. It's it's just huge, it's massive and you know. And and I know that we do laugh about the C5 but still all the other things that we've done. You know the pocket calculator. All that yeah, basically bringing computer in computers into peoples homes, right? And you know?

Kevin McDonnell: 45:54

I agree. Cheap computers, yeah, made them available to people. It's amazing.

Garry Trinder: 46:15

Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and and you know the more accessible technology is, the more that that can change people's lives, definitely. Yeah, whether that is a spectrum, whether it was an acorn, whether it's a Raspberry pie at the moment, it it's the it's the same thing, right? Uh, yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 46:36

Not that I didn't notice the last article, that outside inventing his interest, included poetry, running marathons and poker, and apparently appeared in the first three seasons of the Late Night Poker television series, and won the first season of the Celebrity Poker Club, defeating Keith Allen. I. I've gotta go back him him against Keith Allen, that that could be hysterical.

Garry Trinder: 46:44

Oh yeah. Yeah. It's gonna be a YouTube video for that.

Kevin McDonnell: 47:01

And slight deviation, but if you haven't seen it as a fantastic Amazon TV show called, Halt and Catch Fire and Pretty sure it's still on there. I'll double check and put in the show notes of it is where they did a kind of fictional story of people inventing computers, so it's a story through the 80s and then they go into the Internet boom, and that's kind of collection of people keep bumping into each other. And I always thought of of Clive Sinclair as being one of those and being part of that kind of excited hacking away at things and never quite be able to make it it's.

Garry Trinder: 47:19

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 47:32

It's a big business, but things things on there. So yeah, rest in peace. Cliff Sinclair. I'm. And I'm gonna put one of the things in the show notes that I'm not going to touch on too much now. We we are slightly overtime but entertaining article about how you can treat XLS code and have it with CI CD with Excel. But if you fancy a slight deviation I could see Gary's got that look of you. Tom, you weren't going to mention that.

Garry Trinder: 47:53

Yeah.

Kevin McDonnell: 48:03

But yeah, I'll I'll put it in the show notes and and have a good read and let us know what you think anyway. It's it's about treating Excel properly, so that's the only thing I'd say. I'm maybe I'm talking about some of the upcoming events this Wednesday. The what's the date and 22nd of September? There's a another collabed awkward. Don't often talk about these, but Christine Buckley runs monthly tweet jams, so he puts loaded questions up and Twitter one by one. And people aren't so great chance to have a chat. And it's lovely anyone can join. So if you're interested in talking about the evolution, excuse me, evolution of community with questions of with so many. How many online events? What do you predict will be the future of in person events and and things like that and so do if. If you're interested in the community to come along, I'll I will be there all look, I'm second on the list this time and I'll be there for it and chatting about their all on Twitter. Don't need to speak, don't need to do your hair and makeup, you could just be as you are in there. I'm mentioning converse earlier. I know we've been talking about that an awful lot over last 18 months. They will be back next year and I bet 'cause marks got their place booked out, but the next in person one is the South Coast summits down in Southampton 15th and 16th of October will be some fantastic events coming. I just been told that I've been made on their captains for the quiz team so if you are interested in joining the quiz. There's going to be a lot of power platform people, but I'm led to believe that quite a few questions going to be about Microsoft 365 as well as other things, and it's really raising money for breast cancer awareness. Uh, as well. So do you sign up or he loved to see some great happy fans? Come join my team if you click on register, you can pick the team captains. So yeah, do do feel free to come join our team. The other teams are available, but if you want to win you know where to come too. On that one, and they're also a lot of events going on to the Friday. For example, there's the hackathorn and and we've got loaded pre summit workshops. So there's going to be one on fever and Syntex security and compliance to make sure I have a look. There's plenty of those with Microsoft MVP's, such as myself will be there for the Viva and Syntex one at a very low price where you get the foods you get the expertise you get hands on with these workshops. It should be very interesting, so take a look at those as well as on the date itself there. Be lots going on so. Really quite excited about that. Offer comes first and they'll be even more people. I think it's badly 1000 people coming to that, so it's should be exciting on there. And other events going on at don't think any of us are. You're not speaking at Club summit. Sawyer, Gary, but.

Garry Trinder: 50:57

Nope, fortunately not.

Kevin McDonnell: 51:00

I did look at it, but it's just a bit too close to Christmas and family and thinks I'm at so I would be if there. But if you are in Europe or want to get Bannon community, the collapse something comes in their fantastic events, highly highly recommend them and certainly looking to go along next year and and get get along to that one.

Garry Trinder: 51:14

Right?

Kevin McDonnell: 51:22

Because it's fantastic, so there'll be some really big people and see Dan home investing even under there. So some great keynote speakers as well. I think they've announced. Yeah, they have announced all the speakers as well, but there should be some really good people speaking at that fence. I hadn't seen. I mean Moneypenny will be talking bout project Cortex, so it's actually a talk from 1999. But sorry, 2019 by that look. And then the final one. Well, I've got the link here, but these Scottish summits which will be next February. I wanna say or they got the dates on here. No I think it's 22nd and 23rd. Something like that. Anyway forget to scottishsummit.com but they've also announced that if you can't be there they're going hybrid and actually gonna use Altspace VR so you can actually have a VR there either with your headsets if you're lucky enough to have one. Those or you can run it off your PC or Mac as well and. It it's quite fun. I've done a couple of vents on there. It does add a bit of interactivity from there, and you can go and watch him walk around the spaces filled a bit like you're in a real conference, so I like that they're trying to again open up that hybrid ways of working to people. But I think many of us has. I'll certainly be there. I'm I'm volunteering and hoping to get a speaking slot, but. Regardless, will be up there for that one.

Garry Trinder: 52:44

Yeah, I'm hoping to get out there for that one. Hopefully make it the first one that I can actually get to in person.

Kevin McDonnell: 52:51

Absolutely, at it will be exciting as say comes versus certainly whet my appetite to come. Some of these in person events and you know, fingers crossed. So I keep looking at some of the numbers and number of people around me. You seem to keep getting positive tested, but hopefully next year will start to see things die down a bit.

Garry Trinder: 52:56

Right?

Kevin McDonnell: 53:10

And will be able to get back to more in person. I think that's about it. There's nothing else you wanted to cover Gary at all.

Garry Trinder: 53:19

Because all about it?

Kevin McDonnell: 53:19

I say al. Now should be back with us next week and we'll have carolena katakuri catch you gotta get that name. Like carolena kids, you carry a man who will be talking about with us about fever, connections and the the power of all the great stuff that's in V from willing means to people as well. So do you? Come join us next week. Otherwise, I've been Gray. We haven't got a hat.

Garry Trinder: 53:44

And I've been doing it.

Kevin McDonnell: 53:46

Thanks very much. Speak to you next week.

Garry Trinder: 53:48

Bye bye.