With Thanksgiving in the US last week, there weren't too many updates coming out from Microsoft so we dig a little deeper to bring you some interesting updates. Find out what Flowspace is and whether Microsoft is moving into the office furniture space. Learn whether Microsoft will be fighting more anti-trust suits. See whether 20 year old university projects still work.
Micrsoft Lists - Building fast, offline-capable Microsoft 365 web applications
How to Edit lists offline (microsoft.com)
A game changer? setValue in Microsoft Lists | Path to SharePoint... and Beyond!
Microsoft Flowspace office pod guarantees privacy with excitement of being around colleagues - dlmag
Red Dot Design Award: Flowspace Pod (red-dot.org)
Nextcloud complains to EU about OneDrive bundling in Windows • The Register
.Net 6 out on Azure Functions Announcing Azure Functions 4.0 public preview with .NET 6 support - Microsoft Tech Community
With Thanksgiving in the US last week, there weren't too many updates coming out from Microsoft so we dig a little deeper to bring you some interesting updates. Find out what Flowspace is and whether Microsoft is moving into the office furniture space. Learn whether Microsoft will be fighting more anti-trust suits. See whether 20 year old university projects still work.
Micrsoft Lists - Building fast, offline-capable Microsoft 365 web applications
How to Edit lists offline (microsoft.com)
A game changer? setValue in Microsoft Lists | Path to SharePoint... and Beyond!
Microsoft Flowspace office pod guarantees privacy with excitement of being around colleagues - dlmag
Red Dot Design Award: Flowspace Pod (red-dot.org)
Nextcloud complains to EU about OneDrive bundling in Windows • The Register
.Net 6 out on Azure Functions Announcing Azure Functions 4.0 public preview with .NET 6 support - Microsoft Tech Community
hello and welcome to Grey Hat Beard. The modern workplace podcast where we talk about all things Microsoft 365. Here we are at show 3747. I ain't gonna carry on with this third take on this. I'm just gonna carry on with it anyway. I'm the grey of Grey hat beard. My name is Kevin McDonnell. I'm the head of practice for modern workplace at CPS. Send an office apps and services MVP.
Al Eardley:My name is Sal early I'm. The hats are grey hat beard and I'm a technical architect in the Microsoft Technology Center.
Garry Trinder:And my name is Gary Trinder. I'm the beard of Grey hat beard and I'm a modern work consultant at Microsoft.
Kevin McDonnell:Not doing PNP or any other bits no.
Garry Trinder:How thoughtfully file?
Al Eardley:Gotta say that was very that was very short, wasn't it?
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah yeah, that was far too short for you Gary.
Garry Trinder:I just something add a yeah. Well, it's just making awful. You know it's there.
Kevin McDonnell:Or is there something you should tell us, yeah? I'm so yes, here we aren't with show 47 and in the second part which will be out next week, we're going to talk about design thinking, but in this part we we're gonna talk well. We're going to talk about the latest news, but I'll be honest if there's a barrel, we will be at the bottom scraping it. I, I think the only bonus I'll say it says that lovely older whisky barrel so it has some good smells coming out of it, but we are definitely scraping it to for news this week. I think post ignites coming up to Christmas. It's fair to say things are being stretched little bit, but will have a good natter and some good thoughts on the news that is out there. And kick off the the first bit of news and this came out today, which is around the we talked about this in the last new session about Microsoft lists and the offline capability and posters come out talking about that and the kind of improvements it's brought down so that it's not just about that offline capability. There's a 57% improvement in Page interactivity. She's a lovely, very precise number. May I think you'd get some more decimal points going along with that?
Al Eardley:Be intriguing to know what what device that's on, wouldn't it?
Kevin McDonnell:It's available.
Al Eardley:That's to be very specific, yeah?
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, maybe that's an average me. That is intriguing and what's page interactivity, so that's sort. Suggest clicking around and filtering and things on that and and I've I've seen some of the the stuff that's going on with Microsoft List. It's definitely faster with. You've got larger list small, not list. It's definitely making it easier as well. But tonight if they they talk a bit about it and the progressive web apps PWA, this is not project web apps or anything else that PWA seems to stand for in many different places as well. Slash light splash PWA. No used to love those out.
Al Eardley:No, absolutely.
Kevin McDonnell:Uh. That comes to their and and the nice thing if people haven't done this is you can take the the Microsoft lists app itself and install that as a Windows app. If you are on Windows. Within their own kind of put it out from the browser. Make use so there's some really really nice updates in there about it, but I think what I found particularly interesting is when we when we talked about this last week actually fill up, I'm going to say world. I'm hope I'm pronouncing that right. Not not Worrell Worrell. Kind of commented on the show saying it that it needed a lot of work and it's worth drilling into the docs that are available with it, so there's limitations on the kind of column types you need. Our management managed metadata and things like that could cause problems, and the fact that even though it's offline, you can't add items. You can only edit existing one, so it's definitely a few limitations with that, so just something to bear in mind. I have to make. I was gonna. Try not using the scripts and spin out some large lists and give it a bit of a workout, but haven't quite had time to do that yet, but it was interesting to hear that feedback from Phil. So yeah, please please do comment the show notes. Leave us reviews things on that. We do read them and try and call them out and would love to know what people think. I thought she malgieri you thought you had a fairly busy couple of weeks. Haven't had a chance to look at all.
Al Eardley:Not really been playing with less, so when I think it's one, it's still one of those things that when we talked about it before, you know we've had lots of scenarios over the years where we want to take things on the road and be offline. Uh, you know, lists in SharePoint. I've always been quite fun when you get to that 5000 item limits, but also you know those complex data types. The rendering of them, you know they've come a long way if you don't have all of that and you had do have limitations and that could be a real a real obstacle, and it could push people down. I guess other routes in terms of how they how they store that content, and you know, I guess the scalability and those scenarios you know. Do you want it as a an offline app? What is the best technology to host it? Those will be interesting questions to to address. I think it was quite interesting looking at how they're doing it with the project nucleus and they said they're going to be using. A SharePoint executable that they're gonna download using the same the same process as one drive for those those PWA progressive web apps, which is quite interesting, 'cause they're not really talking about any of the mobile. The mobile experience, which I think for offline, that's quite an important element you know, do I go with the mobile devices rather than going with the full fat desktop? That's got all laptop that's got all of the one drive capabilities and using that same delivery mechanism for the the executable to the power it.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, that's a good point. I know, obviously you've got that offline capability. In power platform you know, is it really that much harder to it? Certainly if you've got a key offline capability, would it make more sense to do it in power platform instead?
Al Eardley:I think they'll come down to licensing costs and and scalability and and complexity, and also the skill sets you know. We've got to remember there's a lot of fairly skilled SharePoint developers or super users out there who you know who can put this stuff together quite quickly.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah.
Al Eardley:Uh, you know, and it is a it is a superuser thing for SharePoint lists really is really easy to to create them now to make them really effective to automate them using power automate's you know? So there's lots of. There's lots of benefits for using SharePoint lists where you do have that. Sing that single list rather than relational. It's obviously not a relational data sources.
Kevin McDonnell:No, absolutely not.
Garry Trinder:Yeah, I think it just comes back. So again having light them up the different options right there and you just said power platform. There's the SharePoint and based lists and you know you've got the the the list formatting as well, which is really powerful and getting even more powerful as well. But I don't know if we've mentioned it actually, but they released an update where there's a set value function that's been added in. Now I don't know that there's a lot of.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah. Just as you were saying, there was thinking that was the other news I saw yesterday. I forgot about that's true. We will add that to show notes as well.
Garry Trinder:Yeah. Yeah, which yeah? Which which then you know, coming back to skill sets. If you've if you've got, you know your list or already defined in SharePoint already using it. Maybe you migration scenario that you've migrated largely from on Prem into SharePoint online and you could then start to just, you know, work on that data source at, you know, upgrade the visuals, add in like a small UI and through those those list formatting. Yeah, you gonna stick with that option rather than. You know, maybe lifting that up. Go into power platform on having to learn power apps and then then build that. That might be something that you get delayed down the line, but it's nice to see where you've got all those different options to cater for all different scenarios. I think and and you know, be able to. Yeah, yeah updates really quick. One thing which I was gonna say about the.
Kevin McDonnell:But Microsoft 365 consultants has lots of options are a good thing. Yeah, and I don't know. I maybe that's just selling our services more, but no, that I think January right? Sorry Garry.
Garry Trinder:Uh, yes. Yeah I am, but I was when he was looking through the the article. You know talking about PW as and it does actually in that article talk about one drive as well and it wasn't till recently that I've I realized that one drive is a PDA PW as well. So I I love used it outlook Web. I've got that as a PDPWA so that's where I pin. That's my task bar. So it opens the the PDA version. I've also got one drive on there now and I I really liked. I really like this this kind of.
Kevin McDonnell:Interesting.
Garry Trinder:Uh, I approach to adding these PWA is in there.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah.
Garry Trinder:And and I think this is the story that's kind of a couple of years in in the making, really. 'cause I remember a couple of years ago build there were sessions with the Edge team and obviously Edge now is becoming. You know that that that defacto browser experience, certainly Microsoft 365 where you getting all these enhancements from Microsoft and you know it. It's joined up between the the I guess the engineering teams who are building the PWA and then the Edge team who are also increasing the capabilities of what? Edge can do for the PWA your point of view, so I think that's really being pushed by Microsoft and you know, I I'd like to see more of these kind of coming about so I I find them incredibly useful. Uhm?
Kevin McDonnell:So why the why? What makes you use the kind of the one drive PWA versus kind of teams to find your latest files and things did you? Is it for getting the latest things you're working on or?
Garry Trinder:Yeah, I think it. It's no. I I tend to just, I guess train still off open my browser that I might go to one drive. It's nice just have it there of. Well I'm going to the browser version and I could just click the OneDrive button and get straight to the the the interface so you know it depends where you're working. But yeah, I quite like the you know the extra benefits that you get with the different PWA. It's like they outlook integration for example. That as your default mail it it respects in email links and going. Oh, I'll give you the Outlook Web version. Uh, rather than the desktop or whatever, and so I think it's it's those ability to hook into other areas in the operating system, like what we're seeing with lists, right? It's using a local process that's running on your machine through nucleus, which is based on one drive.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah.
Garry Trinder:Uh, yeah, it's able to to to be a bit more intelligent with the hardware that it's written on. Either the operating system. It's really not.
Kevin McDonnell:And I would say 20 was listening if we lost you talking bout PWA is a nucleus and things of that. The great thing is you're going to get better performance offline and you don't have to think about any of that. So good news all round for that one.
Garry Trinder:Yep.
Kevin McDonnell:No, I I think definitely the PWA submit big big big fan of those. And so we're doing a bit more searching and was looking as I say, really scraping that barrel, but I think I found something that's really quite interesting and it hasn't been announced that much, so I I'm going to say very clearly because obviously have two Microsoft employees and then MVP. This was all found in public. I did not find this through any things in there. It was via Apple News. I just looked at I. I have my Microsoft. What's it called theme within there and something caught my eye 'cause it said Microsoft flow space. And I was like flow spaces. Is this a new way of being able to visualize flows in mixed reality or anything like that? But it appears to be an an office pod and the first I almost moved on 'cause I thought, oh it's another one trying to sell Microsoft stuff, but this appears to be a pod made by Microsoft and it's not not available for purchase. It was the was at the office experiences team. Sorry the Microsoft the envisioning center has come up with this concept pod so if we get too excited, very much concept car. Uhm, type space for it and it it dug down into a link. You can see a few photos are gonna pop over to another link for those looking at screen, but it's effectively a single user pod for that. They realize that people may not be able to see it. You'll see it in the show notes with a link to it single user pods. It can kind of extend outside to kind of cut you off from the rest of the office and now you a bit of focus time, but it's got built in speakers. It's got some mood lighting that Scott within there and. Greedy is one of the best looking examples I've seen of. Yeah, there's quite a few of those pods around, but really nice looking example. I'm gonna come down and show the video for those watching there and try and describe its if it's as I go through, and I wish I could tell me audio off that we go and we turned that down, at least. Why is there no mute button on Vimeo and so apologies for the slightly weird background noise on there, but very much showing within their what that concept is and what it could. In that not just a single pod, but having been dynamic, changing that the lighting, I'm guessing that can be linked so to what's on and screen in terms of the concept, being able to really kind of it. It expands out to bring you more within that portal without and. I think this is absolutely fascinating that the office team are looking at this and making it available. It's really really quite interesting and it looks fantastic.
Al Eardley:Think we need the interesting. The interesting thing about that is that it does have a very large screen. It's kind of like hub two size screen that is adjustable to different angles. So you could. You could be drawing on it or.
Kevin McDonnell:Umm? Steve did not the Surface Studio. There I kind of a shoot, but yeah, you're right stays interesting, yeah.
Al Eardley:It looks a lot larger than a Surface studio. Lot a lot larger, but it doesn't appear to have any video camera and the chair I have to say it let's it down a little bit. Just looking at that picture, it looks like a little just a stool. Which yeah, might might not be quite as comfy as you want it to be.
Kevin McDonnell:And it's it's leaning in slightly to gets you excited leaning into the other content there as well.
Al Eardley:But I think the. I think the idea of having that that pod with all of the. The kit already there, 'cause a lot of the sort of the the spaces that you see that are single person spaces. They don't have any of the technology though, so it's quite interesting to think where you just turn up and just sign in and and that's it. You're you're often on running in your in your in your flow, in your flow pod.
Kevin McDonnell:In your flow space.
Al Eardley:Yeah. So it would be yeah.
Garry Trinder:It's the hot best everyone wants, right? It's got lights and everything. Mood lights.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah. The interesting one here is that you've got the mood lights, and there's something on the kind of the the back part of it that looks, looks almost like a nest. You know the the Google nest with the temperature. Make sure I'm sure it's not that it's some, but it appears to be some kind of display.
Al Eardley:Yeah. That'll be.
Garry Trinder:It looks.
Al Eardley:Seemingly appeared. You'd be able to book it and check into it and.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, yeah. And so that maybe swipe your card or something in.
Al Eardley:You have to have to be able to say, yeah.
Garry Trinder:Yeah, it looks like a profile image, so it's almost like you know this is the person who's who's got it booked. It looks like although it's very small.
Al Eardley:Yeah.
Kevin McDonnell:And we can. Ah. Yeah, yeah.
Garry Trinder:Well, uh.
Al Eardley:I think I mean, I think these you know.
Kevin McDonnell:And I think it's interesting, you know we sorry yeah.
Al Eardley:When when we talking to talking about hybrids, you know this is about the first thing that we've actually seen. That is, well, actually, let's reimagine. How that spice looks completely rather than I will. Let's think about the hardware that we put into it and how we rearrange the desks. You know, it's quite. I think there might be more of these on their way. These just a change in how we think about space and managing it.
Kevin McDonnell:But it's. It's also a step up from Microsoft. You know they they will see how this surface devices as the hardware, but you know this is getting into the the workspace that the physical workspace on there, and I know they talk about teams, rooms and things, but all that hardware. Correct me if I'm wrong, but all that hardware is non Microsoft stuff. Yes you can have this surface hub two and things, but when it comes to team room speakers, that kind of collaborative areas they Microsoft hasn't moved into that space. This yes it's very much concept and no guarantee this will ever get to market. This could be the career mark too but. Interesting there thinking here.
Al Eardley:Maybe they need it. Maybe they need a partnership with IKEA.
Kevin McDonnell:Yes. Here's an idea.
Al Eardley:Yeah.
Garry Trinder:If it's just that, I think I don't know, maybe though OK, this is. This is back to work and this is office stuff. Maybe this could just you could just drop that into a room in your house. There you are. You've got closed working space.
Al Eardley:Or all you need?
Kevin McDonnell:You've met my kids, Garry.
Al Eardley:All you need is a is a shared around it, yeah?
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah.
Garry Trinder:Yeah.
Kevin McDonnell:I it would need a lot more than that to keep my kids out and block out the noise of them to be honest. My noise cancelling headphones struggle with that and and two doors and I can still often hear them, so I like what you're saying there. Garry, but no, not a chance. But yeah, I thought was very interesting.
Garry Trinder:Maybe not for you, Kevin.
Kevin McDonnell:My my house is also different. I do have a pod like that my my wife is making it a Santa's grotto for the school. She's making it 4 Santa because Santa is going to be come to visit and he wants to feel at home for anyone asks if kids are listening center is yes come to visit there and I'm sure he's coming to visit other places as well. But yes it all neatly decorated so I I might give her that and say can you can you make it look like that afterwards and we can reuse it better for the planet that way? I'm.
Al Eardley:Good good luck with that.
Kevin McDonnell:Mingle two other news. Uhm, when there isn't much news, you kind of look back at things that happen in the past and think over these gonna happen again and he's back to antitrust time and someone complained to the EU about Microsoft bundling things and being anti competitive within there. This time the target seems to be one drive and. Uh, the front of 1 joint bundled with Windows and Nextcloud. I think there was one of 30 who are bringing together and antitrust suits against Microsoft can see on this article, but another article I saw mentioned that and go to the EU and trying to get one drive unbundled, which will be interesting. I I did hear some people talking bout teams as well, which I I would have thought being more of a target, especially with the new personal teams. But yeah, be interested to see if we're opening to those. Browser wars, as it says. The 90S browser wars and various other antitrust cases. Whether these will make something. From I don't know.
Al Eardley:Yeah, you'd think they'd be a lesson that would be taken away from from those previous cases to go. Yeah, let's just make sure we can install it all as separate components.
Kevin McDonnell:Hope not.
Al Eardley:And just make it easy to have a choice. I can't remember seeing a a choice about browsers for a long time. But that's.
Kevin McDonnell:Chrome, it's just got different badges.
Garry Trinder:That's true, yeah.
Al Eardley:Well and may, and maybe that's you know, maybe that's it. Up so you know whether the whether this is something. The only affects the personal version or the business version, it's probably. Can it be both? And they're probably going to end up going. Oh well, actually yeah you do have teams bundled in there. Maybe we should get rid of that and bring back Skype. Yeah, it's I don't know, it's it's an intra. It's an interesting one. People are always going to complain when. Can have their product isn't actually placed as prominently. You know, as as anybody else is, you know it's just the way it goes, isn't it?
Kevin McDonnell:I I mean. I don't believe I'm the only person who saw this article. Went one Hurst Nextcloud so as half a teising a marketing going then not doing a bad job by putting that antitrust complaint to get a bit of publicity as well.
Al Eardley:Yeah, and you know things like drop box and Google Drive did not like it. Would be interesting to find out what the proportion of people who actually still use a a Windows device or just use a tablet or a mobile device and what they actually use. So I think there's. Do you know if you've got a Windows device? You're probably using more Microsoft products. If you've got an Android device, then you're probably using more. Google products UM.
Kevin McDonnell:And Apple probably using more Apple products.
Al Eardley:Overlap or you're not gonna have choice or yeah, but you know.
Kevin McDonnell:Well flavorfully I wish I was just thinking about that because with with Apple you've got the safety files, but the files makes it quite easy to add other things to it. And if I compare it with Windows you know you have to install something separate. It's not. Uh, here's a button to add an alternative storage. I suppose you do have that with teams and things, but generally it's not. It's not so obvious in Windows. How to add additional things.
Al Eardley:But but but you. Yeah, so you could.
Garry Trinder:Yeah.
Al Eardley:Yeah, maybe that's all they need.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah.
Al Eardley:You should choose your your story, choose your storage engine. Do you want Google, Dropbox, or OneDrive? Personal One drive business?
Kevin McDonnell:Better UI. And and Nextcloud offsets.
Al Eardley:Or of sorry thought, well, Nextcloud or E all of the above.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah. Yeah exactly yeah.
Garry Trinder:But the last time this kind of happened, though, Windows or Microsoft released the N version of Windows 10, which was the kind of comply with these laws. See had Windows 10 end, which then didn't have. You know all these things bundled, so you would be probably you then had to make the decision to download things. Meaning could argue, like maybe that should be a standard, but that was what was released. So I wonder if another thing is gonna happen. I've not actually seen it. There is an end version of Windows 11, yeah, but. Yeah.
Al Eardley:I don't even know whether there was an inversion of Windows 10.
Garry Trinder:Maybe we'll see that arrive.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, I didn't ever made was actually made available or.
Garry Trinder:The walls here.
Al Eardley:What's that?
Garry Trinder:Nothing was, yeah. I believe so, yeah.
Kevin McDonnell:So see very popular.
Al Eardley:I don't know if I've had Microsoft devices for the last last however many years that I guess they didn't. You put the N version on them, you buy a Microsoft device, then you get the the full fledged version of.
Garry Trinder:Yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Kevin McDonnell:But I. But I was thinking when they had the original browser wars, it was such a pain in the backside when you first installed it, you had to go through making all these choices. You know it's like, actually I don't want all these different ones, and they often trying to move the the kind of standard ones off a bit as well. 'cause I think it's Microsoft way of saying, well, let's not push people towards Google. Let's put the ones people probably won't choose up front, so hopefully they scroll to the Microsoft ones. But it was. Yeah, yeah, I thought was worth so. I hope. Hopefully this doesn't make the experience worse for the consumer and doesn't make it better. Moving on for I start getting Ranty as well. Uhm, of a little bit of news, which is probably more for the more developer focused people. But the as your functions 4.0 preview has got Dot net six support and then factor GI miss. Slightly old article, but the update is it's now generally available so you can run your azurefunctionsusing.net six. Why should people care about that? Who don't love just going for the shiniest things for the sake of it and it's quicker is the short answer. I think with the combined you don't have to think about. Isit.netframeworkisit.net core, it's all combined into one thing. Now the performanceof.net six is fantastically faster, and I there are some new functions and things within there, so I'm really really nice to see that and making things easier as well. So not gonna do well on that too much 'cause I think another article that really caught myeyearound.net 6 and that last one was purely excuse to talk about this was Scott Hanselman. If you don't know if you ever get the chance and see Scott Hanselman at a conference, please go and see him. Doesn't matter what he's talking about. He's fantastic. Really funny the way he puts things across you may have seen him. We we've talked about him before at the C Ignite or builds when he did the keynote. He's done a few of those so very deadpan humor. Well worth watching but he was talking and in his blog that he wrote back in 2001. Uh, I I see sharp app called the tiny virtual operating system and he moved it to vb.net in 2002. But what he's done now is from the.net upgrade assistant. To migrate that to dot net six, which I think is really quite impressive. And then I think Garry, you noted and then run it on Linux in Docker and on a Raspberry Pi. So he's gonna have this project that's now 20 years old. With just a few lines as managed to upgrade that to the latest DOT NET Framework version and and have it run if anyone is listening. Not all project upgrades are quite as easy as that, just for anyone gets excited, but it can be done and I think I think Microsoft seeing that of trying to make it easier to upgrade legacy things and and make them work better. But that was really quite cool. And there's nothing, nothing more to say on that one.
Garry Trinder:I I like this, it's it's reusing what you've already got right. It's not having to just kind of completely throw everything away and start from scratch and then figure out. OK, well, did it do this and did it do that? It's you know. Same technologists guess taking it all the way through the steps that I quite like the story of it running on pretty much every operating system out there as well. Again shows kind of. It's funny how we were talking about kind of like oh, you know, and competition and things and the world as it was before where it was just like you know, just you what operating system or you both in three camps. Conduct now it's it's much more merged. I mean we've got Linux running on windows with WSL and you know it's it's crazy to say you know how far that's progressed in what, just short of 20 years from what that articles posted. Well, 20 years going from the actual day at the year of actually the project that was that was created, and I think he said 2001 there so you know, in that space of time.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Garry Trinder:Time we've gone from, yeah and yeah all in one. Uh, it's everyone got choice.
Al Eardley:And let's face it, it just validates the the fact that you don't need to actually document this stuff 'cause you can just upgrade it now.
Garry Trinder:Perfect.
Kevin McDonnell:I'm one important note on this this.net upgrade will not work with access, so no, you're old access projects. Do you need to be got rid of?
Al Eardley:How how do you know?
Garry Trinder:I just migrated to device.
Kevin McDonnell:I I'm not gonna take into this. Yeah.
Al Eardley:Ah.
Kevin McDonnell:I don't know, but please just get rid of access. It's better that way. So we access lovers on I'm gonna sound like I'm hating on you but yeah, yeah. I'm moving on quickly before we lose too many more people. Uh, it's a nice bit of news. I think it's from a few weeks back, but haven't made sure before that if I think we've talked before about having the Microsoft 365 developer program so you can have your instance sandbox E 525 users gets renewed every three months. As long as you're using it, but how you notice something new and exciting with it?
Al Eardley:Teams, teams sample data pack, so I put in more teams information in there so you got just an additional an additional data set in there now to to test with.
Kevin McDonnell:Which you are.
Al Eardley:Which I realize you know that you know, maybe I'm not actually developing that much, so I don't really use the developer tenants, so I'm gonna I'm gonna. I'm gonna get in there quickly and say that.
Kevin McDonnell:But we do. Also, I was like I say I we we were debating for the show how how new or this is 'cause as my bum. Sorry for all of us when we were part of a Microsoft partner before 2 view deserted we we have the CDX programs and we could spin up. Uhm sandbox environments from that and it was very easy to add data packs so that now because of that I I'm not entirely sure when they added this to the developer program. Garry, you think it was a little while back that you could add the users in the SharePoint side of things? And what what's new here is just teams.
Garry Trinder:Yeah, definitely from from what I've I've had a developer tenant for for years. I think it was round round switch over that. It used to be that you had a 12 month dev tenant and then it would disappear and they brought in the role in three monthly. I guess subscription that would just keep working and you kept it active and and at the time I'm the data packs were were added into the very first one was mail. Sorry watching users and then mail and they're slowly started to add extra ones in there. And I've watched the latest is is teams, so I think yeah. Uh, whether it's brand new or not, I think it's still good to have that there as a as a alternative. And you know, if you're if you're in a dev team, you really want to have you know your own dev environments where you can just muck around with them. Yeah, user, a centralized environment to, you know, integrate all these changes.
Kevin McDonnell:Agree.
Garry Trinder:And so this just helps you know. Get up to speed quickly through your own personal dev environment. Get test data in their test users. You know how many times is it? Oh yeah, I've I've tested it with one user who happens to be an admin and 'cause you know could do everything. But have you tested it with a read only user? Oh, that would mean I'd have to create users and all that kind of stuff. And you know, it's an extra task that you've got to do. Which is is is maybe not the priority, may be the priority is to get the functionality done or is this? Just makes it a little bit easier to you know. Properly test the scenarios and and have something repeatable more importantly, so if you do, you know have something that that goes a bit of a miss. Or you you know completely bum your tenant then yeah, just spin up another.
Kevin McDonnell:Wipe it start again. Yeah, and in fact I did that with with my not that long ago and I thought the teams one.
Garry Trinder:Yeah.
Kevin McDonnell:They must be without the teams pack for it, and I just wiped my one effect was one the three one so wiped it greater new one. I think about half an hour later I had a brand new environment with a whole load of data in there. It's it's like fantastic starting now and and and I think also it's not just for developers. Uh, we probably should say it is targeted at developers, but if you're looking to do kind of the security and compliance stuff then you get some content in there as well that you can try out for security and compliance and things like that too.
Al Eardley:Yeah.
Garry Trinder:Yep.
Al Eardley:Yeah, I think you know. Even even when you're learning, you know it's a great resource to test test configurations, knowing that you can actually undo them. Which, let's face it, in most production or even you know official dev and test environments, you may not want to. You may not want to try them. It's a disposable environment, isn't it?
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah. Maybe that's a chat for a future show, or should we use this fallout ever environments? We don't need a dev tenant anymore, but hold that folks. I know we've had that debate before else, so maybe half hour and a future show as well. I'm one last little article, just gonna shake so that was a great community, one from Liam Cleary as an MVP, talking about performing static code analysis on PowerShell modules and and scripts, so I'm sure many of you don't. Lots of PowerShell. I'm still quite a few of you. Also don't test it particularly well as well, so having some of the static rules of things to do and make sure that your your scripts not just work once but will continue to work and be supportable by others. Uh, I thought was really nice. Summary of all the different things you can get done so well worth a read for Umm, PowerShell people out there.
Garry Trinder:I really like that I'm just gonna say I recently I've been been working with, uh, I guess you know, people writing PowerShell scripts who are there they would say I'm not Dev, right? So I don't need to. Well, I don't maybe just better source control, but it's you know scripting and admins kind of style stuff if you like it. The source control and Dev OPS is the dev stuff, right? And and I think you know I've kind of of.
Kevin McDonnell:Uh.
Garry Trinder:Uh, I've been saying, you know, source control over getting things into Dev OPS it it's it's. It shouldn't just be seen as a dev skills it's, it's something that it's the start of a lot of things, and by introducing things like this this is a great way of being able to introduce people who have not kind of gotten to that source control side of things because. You cannot have these analyzed in there to make sure the quality of the scripts are being that are being created at a kept high right that you can have those kind of pull requests and other simple build that just runs these. Uh, these analyzer rules against them and it will instantly pick up things. Uh and challenged the you know the script writer to go. Oh yeah, actually I did just go with something that I didn't know off before a particular role and and you'll go in and look at that or I'll help you improve and. And learn. Uh, you know other techniques for better for writing your PowerShell scripts, but the end result Wright is better quality scripts that then other people can kind of take on, and you're adding those guardrails in in as well. So yeah, I think that's that's good, but I'm not seeing that with PowerShell before, but it's a nice nice addition definitely.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, we should just think. Yeah she Paul Bullock. If you're listening that might be a nice thing to add any deployment. Process you have for the PNP script samples which I know you look after and we'll put a link in the show notes and that might be quite nice to put in there actually had a bit of a saving bit of time from it, so hopefully I remember to mention that to you tomorrow, but if not, well, just mention it to me. If you've listened to this. Uh, yeah I, I don't as say the PNP script samples were worth a look. If you want some guidance on scripts you can use up the link in the show notes for that. Otherwise, I think we'll wrap up. I've managed to get through the whole bit of news without mentioning how upset I am that I'm not at the collapse summits today. 'cause there's some amazing number of people there and enjoying themselves damnable. But hopefully be there for the next one and do keep a lookout. Hopefully by the time this is published, actually like just after that we'll know who all these speakers are for the Scottish Summit. So if you haven't signed up for Scottish Summit February 25th to 26th, I think after my head saying whatever the the Friday and Saturday is around, there will be some workshops. Do you get on and make sure you sign up? Because I think it is filling up pretty quickly.
Al Eardley:Yep.
Kevin McDonnell:Yeah, and it's getting a very popular so. Wow sign up Eddie's a hybrid event, so if you can't make it over to Glasgow it will be on Oct VR and you can join in there and join all sessions as well. So if you really can't make it and see all the fantastic people I know they've announced that Dona Sarkar is going to be doing the closing keynote. Switch would be fantastic. There's an accessibility hackathon. Lots of going on and there will be Iron Brew as well, so we're worth keeping out an eye out for the sessions when they're announced there. Uhm offer thing. Just a rapper. I mentioned we had the comments from Phil World. Please do if you have enjoyed the show. I don't like to do this every time but please do go back give us a rating and whatever your podcast provide of choices gives a rating. Sensor comments. Send us a tweet sinus each and individual message. We do love the feedback. Let us know what's been interesting. What isn't? It does help and we do try and listen to as many of the comments as possible. Otherwise will wrap up their news and. Listen out for next week as we come back to you to talk about design thinking otherwise. Thank you very much. Bye bye.