Join power users, decision makers, developers, and administrators at&nbsp;M365 Twin Cities.&nbsp;M365 Twin Cities is the evolution of SharePoint Saturday Twin Cities, an educational event with sessions delivered by Microsoft platform professionals and MVPs. The event will include a variety of sessions on Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, Power Platform, Microsoft Viva, Azure, and OneDrive.
M365 Twin Cities is a FREE community-run in-person event being held January 21, 2023.

We are currently seeking sponsors for our January 21, 2023 event.&nbsp;A variety of sponsorship levels are available. We offer multiple methods of engaging with attendees at our event, as well as sponsor sessions to promote your products and services. Contact us via email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:sponsors@m365tc.com">sponsors@m365tc.com</a> for more information.

M365 Twin Cities

J110

J130

H195

H191

H170

H253

H251

H225

H255

H257

Are you in the middle of implementing a strategy for managing the Power Platform and feel like you are playing whack-a-mole?  Learn about a top 10 list that will set the groundwork for a successful Power Platform governance strategy.  During this session you will understand the importance of a Center of Excellence and what tools you should be utilizing to gain control over the Power Platform and operationalize your strategy through pillars of Secure, Monitor, Alert & Action and Deploy.  If you have struggled with Power Platform administration and are looking for a strong foundation to build upon, come join us for this session to secure your path forward.

Top 10 table stakes for Power Platform Governance

Shared Channels is a new and powerful collaboration feature for Microsoft Teams. It has the ability to unlock many existing barriers to collaboration inside and outside your organization. But with great power comes great responsibility.

We'll discuss three key areas that could pose challenges to your administration of Shared Channels:  
1) Confusion over when to use a Standard Channel vs Private Channel vs Shared Channel 
2) Recognition and concern that data in Shared Channels can be exposed to outside people and entities. 
3) Confusion about how to govern Shared Channels 

Come learn what Shared Channels can do for end-users, when they should be used, and options for governing access to the data so that you can reap the collaboration benefits without incurring undo risk.

Microsoft Teams Shared Channels: Know your Options

On Feb 4, 2021, Microsoft Viva was announced and has taken the world of employee experience to a new level during the heart of the pandemic.  However, to many, questions are still left from what is this new thing to where do I get started?  In this session we will talk about each of the modules that are available today, what you need for pre-requisites and what are some things you can do to start to take advantage of these experiences as well as what will change in the near future.  Come make sense out of Microsoft Viva and take advantage of the employee experiences it offers.  

What is Microsoft Viva?

You will learn the needs of generational workforces and how to create curated experiences in Teams based on your organization's personas.  You will see how four diverse types of employee's experiences in Teams have unique needs: Deployment Team; Information Workers; Firstline Workers; and Executives. And learn to apply policies and settings that matter to them.

Create a Curated Experience in Teams!

Congratulations, on your decision to move to Microsoft 365. If your mind is running rampant on how to complete the migration, this session is for you.

We will begin by exploring the steps necessary during the following migration phases
• Before the migration
• Completing the migration
• Managing the cloud-based content after migration

As you can guess, you’re going to need to know what the best approach is to complete the migration, so we will also discuss what your migration options are, and what tools are available, including out of the box tools like the SharePoint Migration Assessment Tool (SMAT), the SharePoint Migration Tool (SPMT), Migration Manager, as well as several other tools to help streamline and successfully complete your migration to Microsoft 365.

Exploring Microsoft 365 migration considerations and tools

For decades now, a lack of project communications management has consistently been ranked as one of the top 10 reasons for project failure. With the assistance of Collaborative Project Management leveraging Project for the Web and Office 365, project communications management can now be listed as one of the top 10 reasons for project success! Office 365 tooling addressed in this webinar include Teams, Roadmap, Project for the Web, Project Professional desktop tool, and Project-PfW Two-Way Sync.

Collaborative Project Management

A deep knowledge of expressions is critical to maximizing the power of Power Automate.  In this demo rich session, we'll take a deep dive into the types of expressions available and how to apply them.  You'll see how to combine expressions, how to use and apply date and string expressions, how to use expressions with collections and arrays and more...  If you have a casual knowledge of Power Automate and want to "step up your game" with the use of expressions, attend this session!

Expressions in Power Automate

Power BI is a great tool for telling data-centric stories. You have data all around you, but what story can it tell? Are you interested in learning how to go from spreadsheets to engaging reports?

In this session, we will discuss the Power BI building blocks, the different types of data you can utilize, and the insights you can get from Power BI. We will also discuss the ins and outs of sharing dashboards and reports - insight and outside of your organization. You will leave with the resources you need to get started with creating in Power BI.

Get Started Creating Power BI Reports

Your identity platforms are the foundation for all of your IT systems and applications. Let's talk about how to approach identity, authentication, and authorization using modern solutions to keep your organization secure while boosting usability. 

Identity is Foundational

"I hear that I need to use Microsoft Graph for developing against Microsoft 365 but I have no clue where to start."  "I want to grant access to company data without throwing in the entire kitchen sink."  Fear not fellow developers and admins.  This session we will ramp you up to a 200 level knowledge on the pertinent parts of Microsoft Graph including endpoints available, syntax, authentication flows, and more.  We will also cover useful examples of what can be accomplished using these APIs.  Prior experience with Microsoft Graph is not required but can be helpful.

Getting Up to Speed with Microsoft Graph Development

Now that the workforce is trending towards remote/hybrid, paper pushing approval processes are out. How do we accommodate for our users outside of the office walls? How do we keep record of something that isn’t best served in an email or Teams chat? (Think PTO request, new hire setup, annual policy review, etc.) Approvals are a versatile M365 component that streamline the signoff process but there are many things to consider before making your approval process electronic. First, before thinking about the technology (i.e. Power Apps and/or Power Automate), a discovery conversation is necessary to construct an efficient, repeatable process and we will touch on the main points for this. Next, we will examine the four pillars of the Approval lifecycle: 
1.	Creation of the task – will OOTB Approvals suffice or do we need to design our own custom process with Power Automate? 
2.	Format the notification – how will we let our approvers know they have a deliverable? The most popular options include email and/or adaptive cards and we will cover the major differences in formatting.
3.	Monitor items in progress – how do we see active Approvals? Do we need to build in reminders for our task?
4.	Document the results - how do we share the results of our Approval and more importantly, record the outcome? 
Lastly, we’ll look at an alternative to Approvals using Power Apps and discuss which business processes would fit best with this model. 

Transform your Request Processes with Approvals, Power Apps & Power Automate

Microsoft 365; it's a vast platform that every organization uses a little differently.  The options available to meet the needs of the business are endless.  You have so many ways to communicate, collaborate, and store your data.  To be honest, many find it daunting.  With more and more organizations moving into the cloud and adopting a hybrid working model, understanding which tool best meets your organization's needs is paramount for an efficient transition to this new way of working.  

Join David as he breaks down the key collaboration tools within Microsoft 365 and helps you understand which tool best fits the different situations.  He will break down an organization's options for communications, collaboration, and maintenance of their information.  He'll leave you with the understanding you need to support your organization as it tries to determine which application best meets its needs.

OneDrive, and SharePoint, and Teams...Oh my!  Understanding Microsoft 365's Collaboration Features

The Power Platform consists of several components that work well together.  How do these fit into the bigger organization transformational architecture for modernization?  This session presents two real life use cases and lays out a pattern for utilizing Power with other enterprise platforms including Salesforce, ServiceNow to name a couple.  Gain insight as we go deep into resolving technical debt, utilizing automation, and integrating Power into your organization's strategy.

Power Platform Aligned with Enterprise Architecture

Microsoft Syntex is a big step forward in providing the ability to intelligently identify content across your Microsoft 365 environment. Unstructured content is being produced at an exponential rate in our modern workplaces today and we need a way to manage it at scale by providing structure (content types and metadata) and governance (security and compliance controls) to it. Microsoft Syntex is that and so much more!

To demonstrate this new capability, Joanne Klein will walk through a live demo of using a Microsoft Syntex AI document understanding model to intelligently identify Statements of Work across SharePoint libraries. 

The walkthrough will cover setup, training, deployment, and all the "extras" you get with a Syntex license.  

Microsoft Syntex. It’s almost magic.

An end-to-end look at Microsoft Syntex

When storing important data in cloud services like Microsoft 365, it’s important to understand the retention policies and potential threats and hazards that can lead to permanent loss of data stored in the cloud

This session will focus on the retention policies of popular cloud-based services like Microsoft 365 and building a disaster recovery plan to reduce the risk of unrecoverable and unexpected data loss. We will examine several case studies and share best practices for backing up cloud data and recovering from malicious attacks targeting cloud services

Data protection for SaaS | Why and how to back up data from the cloud services

Is your organization planning a rollout of Microsoft Purview Information Protection?  Have you already rolled out information protection capabilities but aren’t seeing strong usage?  Are your users confused about which sensitivity label to choose or about which content they should label?  
 
A successful rollout of Microsoft Purview Information Protection requires careful planning and a robust education program for your employees. Your IT security teams need to understand the impact different label configurations can have on end users, and your users need to understand how to choose the right sensitivity label for different types of content. The success of your security solution hinges on implementing the right technical configuration AND building the right training and adoption program. 

Join Antonio and Sarah as they share real-world practical strategies for planning, implementing, and adopting Microsoft Purview Information Protection.

Microsoft Purview Information Protection – It’s about security AND adoption!

You’ve customized your all SharePoint forms with InfoPath and your organization is now moving to SharePoint online? Not a problem, join us in this session and learn how to use PowerApps to customize your SharePoint online forms. 

During this session we will take a tour of the PowerApps Studio application, look at the available controls and discuss the basic concepts of PowerApps. 

We will also, perform a step-by-step demo showing you how to create a multi-tab SharePoint online form integrating corporate branding, user driven content and simple business logic. 


Customize your SharePoint online forms with Power Apps

Join this session to learn about what Viva Goals and Viva insights is and how you can leverage them to better understand your employees.

As part of the session, learn how you can build alignment among your leadership team, learn about real world use cases how Viva Insights and Viva Goals can help, see a demo of Viva Insights and Viva Goals features, and explore scenarios and examples on how to measure and improve your employee experience.

Aligning Employee Experience to Business Goals by Leveraging Viva Goals and Viva Insights

Since its introduction, the growth in popularity and compelling value of Office 365 have resulted in many organizations adopting SharePoint Online rather than building an on-premises implementation. Building SharePoint Online sites shouldn’t be approached with the same mindset as on-premises site construction, though. In this session, we’ll explore some of the key differences between SharePoint Online and SharePoint on-premises that impact performance and affect site design. We’ll examine why developing for the cloud is different, identify common performance issues/concerns, and demonstrate some good (and not-so-good) site construction approaches. We’ll also look at some hands-on troubleshooting techniques that are available for diagnosing common SharePoint Online performance issues, as well as some solutions that can be applied. At the conclusion of this session, participants will have a greater understanding of SharePoint Online, how to build snappy sites in SharePoint Online, and how to conduct basic performance troubleshooting in the cloud.

Troubleshooting Performance Issues in SharePoint Online Sites

Today's work environment has changed tremendously over the last year. Companies are focusing on how to handle hybrid work and the end user experience especially when collaborating and meeting. During this session, we will walk through Microsoft's strategy on Shared Spaces. We will dive in the Microsoft Teams Room experience and how to be evolve you conference rooms to support a hybrid meeting. 

Microsoft's Hybrid Meetings for Shared Space Strategy

In this session we’ll learn how to design and develop Multi-Stage Approval Workflows Using Power Automate. 

We will also learn how to restart the workflow from a given stage and how to include Dynamic Approvers. We'll dig into how to design and develop Automated escalations and Automated reminders. We will also learn how to log workflow history and ways to retain the history indefinitely. 

Power Automate Multi-Stage Approval Workflows

OneDrive is a fundamental backbone of Microsoft 365 but how can you be sure your users are getting the most out of it? The OneDrive Sync Client allows your users to work with their files from Windows File Explorer (and Finder in macOS) but it can also offer so much more. During this session, you will learn how the sync client works, how it is used, how to control its behavior, and how to educate your end users to get the most out of OneDrive. 

Sync up your company with OneDrive

Are you ready for SharePoint migration to the cloud? In the past, most of us have implemented a “lift and shift” migration with limited resources and budget. It was easier to update the content databases and move the content as is. However, migration to the cloud requires much upfront preparation, strategy, and cleanup to move the content. 
In this session we will cover:
• Cloud migration challenges including what doesn’t work in the cloud
• SharePoint pre-migration checklist
• Preparation for InfoPath forms and SharePoint workflows
• Strategies for hub site architecture 
• Replacing one-on-one meeting sites with Microsoft Teams

We will also discuss Hybrid scenarios if you are considering SharePoint hybrid migration.
At the end of this session, you'll be more confident and prepared to move to the cloud.


Top 5 SharePoint Migration Strategies – Setting up for Success

Sometimes you attend sessions that cover deep and complex topics that require a lot of attention, thought, and work on the part of the attendee… and then there is this one. 

In this fun and informative "battle" between two productivity heavy weights, Christian Buckley and Tom Duff will square off to present their favorite Microsoft 365 Productivity tips, mano-a-mano. The tips shared will cover both personal and team productivity, spanning the entire M365 platform (Yammer, SharePoint Teams, OneDrive, Office tools, etc) and will include some audience participation. Christian and Tom will have five rounds of head-to-head battle, and the audience will vote on the best solution after each round. At the end of the session, the overall winner will be crowned the "King of Office 365 Productivity"…until they meet again.

While you should expect to have a lot of fun and laughs, attendees should walk away with two or three gems that could change the way you work on a daily basis. Tom and Christian have both seen (and experienced) multiple examples of where a one-minute tip ends up saving you hours of effort, and they'll make sure this session is worth your time. 

The Battle of the M365 Productivity Tips

Learn how to go Beyond the Intranet. Extend the reach of Viva Connections. Give your employees a more immersive, collaborative and branded experience by bridging your business SharePoint sites, Microsoft Lists, and business process through an ExpresDUO App. What is it? Visit our session, or booth to learn more.

Build Apps in minutes for Viva Connections, Teams and SharePoint

Want to do some fancy formatting? Don't know JSON? Don't worry. If you know how to copy and paste, you too can use JSON to make things fancy.

Some of the fancy things we'll do include:
1) Add Approve and Reject buttons for a list item
2) Create inline editing without even clicking on Edit in grid view
3) Add conditional formatting to a calendar

Getting Started Making It Fancy with JSON Formatting

Do you need to automate parts of your daily work routine?  What Microsoft Cloud data is available through Microsoft Graph for automating?  In this session we'll walk through multiple real world examples of using Power Automate for daily tasks such as assigning round robin tasks to team members, sending weekly reminders, processing survey results, and more.  Prior experience with Power Automate is useful but not required.  Target audience is open to all (productivity workers, developers, admins, etc.)

How to Use Power Automate and Microsoft Graph in Daily Work

Your organization has decided they want to eliminate your network drives and move you into the cloud with Microsoft 365. Now what? Do any of these sound familiar?

What do you mean we can't have folders? 
I put everything in my OneDrive but I can't find anything!
I need to share my documents with my peers.  How do I do that
My co-worker left the company and now we lost their contributions?

In this session, we are going to take the "What Goes Where" discussion and talk about how to create a Document Management strategy and the roles that OneDrive, SharePoint and Teams play in that strategy.

Beyond What Goes Where, Let's Talk Documentation Strategy

In this session you will learn about the security features of O365 that every administrator should have configured.  Conditional Access, Privilege Identity Management, and Azure tenant settings are just the start to very hot topics we will cover in-depth with live demos!

The Admins guide to securing your 365 Tenant

In this session we will cover how to build more advanced web parts that allow your site owners to configure them in there site. We will cover advanced web part properties and how to make your property pane dynamic based on the chosen properties. Come and join me for a feature packed session with fewer than 10 PowerPoint slides.

Building Reusable Components with the SharePoint Framework

Power Automate flows can do a lot to automate repetitive tasks.  But up until now they only worked if there was a pre-built connector with actions that can accomplish the task or at least an existing Application Programming Interface API that you could use to build a custom connector.  

In this talk we'll look at Power Automate's entry into the world of Robotic Process Automation (RPA) called UI flows. Using UI flows You can automate repetitive tasks on your desktop in Windows or a Web application. UI flows record and play back user interface actions, like keyboard entries, mouse clicks, etc. 

UI flows open up possibilities to automate applications that don't have a pre-built connector or an API.

Power Automate Desktop: How to Automate Almost Anything

SharePoint Intranets have radically evolved in the past 5 years. This session's focus is on the advancements in building an Intranet with SharePoint combined with Viva to help you make your company's intranet more useful and ready for prime time. My presentation style will mix rich content combined with how-to, best practices, and demonstrations.
 
Topics include: All about hub sites, how to use them and what they deliver, connecting subscriber sites, what templates to use when, leveraging distributed content and pulling it all together using search and web parts, how to use news posts for news and for other creative use cases, configuring Viva Connections to expand the reach of the Intranet into Teams, and using Viva Engage to bring in Yammer posts within Teams and SharePoint.


Building a Professional Modern Intranet using SharePoint Hubs and Viva

Microsoft Viva may still be one of Microsoft's newer technology stacks, but even at its young age it provides vast amount of opportunities to organizations to better tackle their knowledge management goals. Where there are many Viva tools currently available, Viva Topics provides the greatest opportunity to up your knowledge management game.

In this session, join Virgil Carroll as he walks you through the the capabilities of Microsoft Viva, how it ties into comprehensive knowledge management and strategies to leverage it inside any kind of organization.

Microsoft Viva Topics: Upping your Knowledge Management Strategy

An end user friendly introduction to SharePoint Online and key features! We will demonstrate navigation throughout a SharePoint site with a basic overview of Lists, Libraries, and Pages with a couple practical use cases for each!

SharePoint Online 101

Knowledge management is the practice of organizing and bringing information together as a whole. It involves a concerted effort and commitment by an organization to promote a single source and to deliver that information to users in a relevant and efficient manner. It is not a technology, software application or platform.  We will explore the questions of "Can it be used?", "Should it be used?, "How can be it used?", and "What should I consider?" when partnering SharePoint (on-premise or Office365) and Microsoft technologies with a Knowledge Management strategy.

Knowledge Management + Microsoft 365 = Bad Ass

The key to successful data visualization is context. A collection of charts and graphs on a BI dashboard are great, but without context you’re likely to miss key insights. For example, the red bars on a hospital’s environmental monitoring dashboard may alert you that a problem exists, but when you can click the red bars and see the exact location of the problem on a floor plan, you can formulate an immediate response. Similarly, when a dashboard includes a network diagram that shows real-time server status and you can click a failed server to see the data required to initiate a fix, you’re two steps ahead. 

How do you achieve this level of insight? There’s no better way to add context than to enhance Power BI reports with floor plans, network diagrams, process maps, or org charts created in Visio. This session includes multiple Visio/Power BI examples from an ongoing project to get data in the hands of frontline workers for a major theme park operator.

Case Study: Visualizing data in context for a theme park operator

Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM) for a mobile workforce is critically important and multifaceted.  Examples:  How should a device and user profile be configured; Who can access what Resources from what Devices, in what Circumstances (and possibly to meet Compliance/Governance requirements).  Microsoft’s cloud hosted Endpoint Manager (Intune) is a realistic, affordable solution for organizations of all sizes to help do those options and much more—and your organization may already have licenses to use it!  In this session we will review the suite of tools that make up Endpoint Manager, key parts of Azure Active Directory, required and optional licensing, including demonstrations.

Microsoft Endpoint Manager (Intune) –User, Application, and Device Management

JSON is EVERYWHERE in SharePoint Online and your ability to take your SharePoint deployments to the next level depend on your ability to understand and create complicated JSON objects. In this densely demo-packed session, attendees will learn what JSON is and how to understand the structure as well as tips for creating JSON objects and starting with community content as a starting point.

Attendees will also learn how to use JSON Objects in SharePoint Online to customize list columns and list views, create Site Designs for creating custom site templates, create stunning Quick Views for Viva Connections ACE's, post messages in teams as Adaptive Cards, process SharePoint REST queries in Power Automate, and more!! 

Details

Address

Date / Time

Registration

Call for Speakers

Call for Sponsors

Social / Web

Twitter

Hashtag

Website

Community Days | M365 Twin Cities