Microsoft Partner Archives

Migrating to Azure with Confidence

You’ve already envisioned the benefits: you know migrating to a cloud-based hosting platform can boost the performance of your organization’s computing infrastructure. You can see how it’ll improve efficiency, save time, and reduce costs. And you’re prepared to join the hundreds of thousands of other businesses, large and small, that have already chosen Microsoft Azure for its service quality, security, reliability, and global reach. But there’s no getting around it: migrating to the cloud entails significant organizational change. To make the best possible use of the Azure platform, you need to understand its unique attributes and keep them front of mind throughout the migration process, and beyond. Fortunately, Microsoft offers an extensive set of tools and services that can help ease and simplify migration. And as a Microsoft partner with extensive experience helping our clients shift existing applications to the Azure platform, Red Level can ensure that you’ll take advantage ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:15+00:00

Tech Stack Showdown — Top Five Stacks Compared

Why might you want to read about tech stacks? We can think of two primary reasons: You're a developer. You want to keep current. Skip right to the comparison. You're not a developer. You have a digital project and want to understand what you're getting into. Stick with us a bit. We'll explain this in plain terms first. Section 1. Explanation What the heck is a tech stack? A tech stack is a set of tools, programming languages, and technologies that work together to build digital products or solutions like websites, and mobile or web apps. Some people call them Solutions Stacks, but it's the same thing. Netflix is built on a tech stack. So are Airbnb, Facebook, WebMD, Wikipedia, and just about any major digital tool or app you use. Stackshare is a great online tool to discover which tech stack a major company is using. Here is WebMD's ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:20+00:00

Microsoft’s Response to Education Institutions

Technology can play a vital role in reducing the impact of COVID-19 on people and organizations. Many schools and universities have moved to online courses to ensure everyone is still receiving an education during this time. Microsoft has introduced extended free trials and resources for clients to use to maintain collaboration, productivity, and security. Here is Microsoft's response for education institutions: New, Extended Free Trials for EDU Customers Office 365 A1 – Free versions to all educational institutions: This version provides unlimited chat, built-in group and one-on-one audio or video calling, 10 GB of team file storage, and 2 GB of personal file storage per user. You also get real-time collaboration with the Office apps for web, including Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote. No restrictions for # of users. Get started for free Technical documentation Microsoft Teams for Free (Individuals and IT roll-out – in Office 365 A1 above): Provides unlimited chat, built-in ...

Microsoft2023-02-16T16:01:23+00:00

Top 7 Microsoft Exclusive Quick Starts

We developed a series of Microsoft Exclusive Quick Starts to help answers our client's everyday questions on Office 365 and Microsoft 365. Some of the biggest and most frequent questions are around: Where do I start? What do we need to do first? Where should we go from here? We've just bought Office 365, we've just moved to Teams, or were moving to SharePoint, what do we do first? Based on these questions, we developed a series of Microsoft Exclusive Quick Starts to help provide answers. Microsoft 365 Immersion Experience Quick Start Office 365 is way more than just email. Microsoft 365 is cloud storage, integrated voice, integrated messaging, file sharing, document collaboration, video sharing, and so much more. This quick start is perfect for anyone who is looking at Office 365 and wants to make sure that it’s the right fit for them. It is also ideal for companies that have just deployed Office 365, and want to ensure they are using it to the fullest. Office 365 Power Up Quick Start Dig into all the different layers of Office ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:24+00:00

Use Exchange Online Protection to Protect Your Business Against Online Threats

Exchange Online Protection (EOP) is a service that is hosted by Microsoft as email security for your organization it's always on filtering spam, in addition to removing malware and viruses, so you don't have to. What is Exchange Online Protection Service? Microsoft Exchange Online Protection is a cloud-based email filtering service that helps protect your business against online threats, including spam and malware. How can it be used? Exchange Online: Built-in to Office 365 email subscription Standalone Scenario: Protection for your existing on-premises email server Hybrid deployment: Protection for both on-premises and cloud mailboxes EOP provides several convenient services, and there is no software to install. It is built-in and ready to go for Office 365 subscribers. For Exchange Hybrid and Standalone environments, all that is needed is to point your MX records (records that allow the internet to know how to reach you by email) to exchange online protection ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations

As we move into a cloud-first world, identity protection is becoming more necessary and prevalent. A cloud-first world has a lot of benefits, but it also comes with its challenges. Identity Challenges for Today’s Organizations The explosion of apps on-premise and BYOD and external users outside your corporate network are coming in, and those could be customers, vendors, partners, contractors, whoever is needing access to collaborate share data. The result of that there’s been an increase in identity attacks, and for most organizations, they lack the visibility and control. Increases in identity attacks and lack of visibility and control is leaving organizations vulnerable. Some organizations have protocols in place to watch out for suspicious activity. However, organizations may not have the time to go and proactively review every log. The lack of visibility and control has been a big struggle we have seen for businesses of all sizes. Evolving data ...

Justin Coffey2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Modern Workplace Summit Delivers Business Insight to Michigan Companies

The modern workplace is coming into its own as more and more companies jump on board with advancements in technology and tools that digitally enable the workforce. Where the conference room used to be the meeting hub, now digital collaboration tools like Microsoft Teams effectively lead virtual “in-person” meetings. Where note pads, folios, and pens dotted tables in boardrooms, now e-pads and screens replace paper with Microsoft OneNote as the preferred mode of notetaking. Red Level, along with Microsoft, recently hosted the Modern Workplace Summit to help focus Michigan businesses on their evolution to the modern workplace. “Continual change is the new normal. New systems and practices sweep away old ones with almost predictable regularity,” said David King, President and CEO of Red Level. “Our annual Modern Workplace Summit tackles the necessary efficiencies everyone needs to smoothly transition as a digital workforce.” Power Summit for IT and Business Leaders Alike ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:25+00:00

Protect Against Spoofing

Office 365 Exchange Online is a robust email platform, but it’s still vulnerable to cyber-attacks. One such attack is spoofing. Spoofing is when somebody with malicious intent sends an email to trick you into thinking that the email is coming from someone you know within your organization or someone you receive emails from regularly. For example, I received one last week from someone that appeared to be from Amazon for Business the email was telling me to reset my password to click to verify and asking me to put in my credentials. It looked very similar to an Amazon email. It had the Amazon logo, and the form was professionally done. However, I do not have an Amazon for Business account, so I knew it was a spoofing attempt. Here are a couple of examples of what you might see when someone has sent you a spoofed message: The display ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:26+00:00

Best From SharePoint North America Conference 2019

I have been involved in the technology industry, in the SharePoint community since 2007, just about the same time when SharePoint gained its popularity. This year, I got my first big chance to attend the 2019 SharePoint North America conference in Las Vegas and it was PHENOMENAL. There is a whole variety of things the SharePoint Conference covers, which made choosing what session to attend difficult. Every track really applied to me as I am a developer, a configure-er, an admin, and a user adoption and collaboration specialist. I went through a lot of different sessions at the conference and I would love to share my key take aways from the conference and what stood out for me from the keynotes. https://youtu.be/v9N72pzeMX0 1. SharePoint SharePoint Home Site: Built in the SharePoint modern interface, it mirrors a lot of the same functionality that we saw in previous on-prem versions and ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:27+00:00

Phase out, Check-in and Check-out?

With shared storage of documents, overwriting other author’s work has historically been a concern. Two people would open the same document and made changes to the same content and whom over saves last wins and the other work is lost….. So as good technicians we have historically fought that scenario by requiring Checkout before editing. SharePoint would do this for us as soon as a user edited the file. A lock would be placed on the file until it is closed. Brilliant! I know those were good days. Question: With SharePoint online and the co-authoring options, is check-out and check-in a required default. I am sure there are still scenarios when you need to check out the file for exclusive access and control. Like you want to format the whole thing or apply document-wide content or settings. What is the process and best use of the document check-in and ...

Red Level2023-02-16T16:01:30+00:00

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