Microsoft Teams : Not-That-Frequently Asked Questions

Does Teams work Offline?

Nope. Teams an application that was developed to run online.

Teams Offline

 

When should I use Chat and when should I use Teams channels?

Chat groups are ideal to discuss and work on a project before sharing it in a channel. And the channels are recommended to be used in a more formal way since they bring more main groups like departments and projects together. For example: Creating channels for sharing success stories, announcements of the HR, splitting projects into phases is more efficient whereas using chat groups for daily flows would be more recommendable.

Tip: You can name the Chat groups to be able to find them easier later.

Chat Group

Teams

 

Where do the Deleted Teams Go?

The Teams are in a restorable environment called soft-delete for 30 days after they are deleted. But once that period is over, they are deleted completely. Each Team represent an Office 365 group and the files shared are stored in SharePoint Online Sites. And the chat in channels are stores in the mailboxes of teams.

Teams Architecture

 

Can Teams track and report user behavior?

Off course. There is Audit Logs in Office 365 Security & Compliance Center (protection.office.com) where all the Office 365 applications are tracked and can be reported. Teams activities can be also tracked with Cloud App Security, Azure Sentinel or PowerShell (Search-UnifiedAuditLog) apart from this method.

Audit Logs

 

Can I set a profile picture for Guest users?

Yes, but not within Teams! You can execute whatever update you wants through Azure Active Directory/Guest user accounts or use the Set-AzureADUserThumbnailPhoto cmdlet. Defining a default profile picture for all guest users can be a good way to indicate the users outside your company.

 

Can I send and announcement to multiple teams simultaneously?

Yes. The Format option is shown with the letter A at the bottom of the channels. When you lick it, you can share announcement with different channels of different teams by using the “Share in multiple channels” option.

Announcement

 

Does it make sense to use Teams instead of e-mails?

Teams is a very useful application for cooperation within the company and with first-degree partners. With chats, online meeting, co-authoring on a file and integrations, it gets to be a roof platform and increases productivity. But, since e-mails are still a common language for chats and between companies, it is not completely dispensable.

Teams vs Outlook

 

Why can I not blur my background in meetings?

The precondition to blur your background is a computer with Advanced Vector Extension 2 (AVX2) graphics. If your computer doesn’t meet this precondition, you cannot use the blur feature. You can also try to use the blur feature with the Ctrl+Shift+P shortcut.

Blur

 

Is there a limit for a Teams message size? If yes, what is it?

It is approximately 28 KB (media not included). This limit is for the e-mails sent to the Teams channels, messages that come from connectors and applications and all the messages that you can send by copy-pasting.

Limits

 

Why are the mail addresses of channels are so weird?

Team mail addresses work under the teams.ms domain connected to a different tenant Microsoft administrates, not to Office 365 tenant. Mails sent here are not sent to users one by one. Instead, they are sent to the mailbox of the channel a gets to be sent as a message to the channel via a connector. Apart from that, it is also stored in the SharePoint Site connected to the team, hence as a .eml file under the Files of the team.

Channel mail addresses

 

What is Priority Access?

Priority Access is the messages that you receive the notifications of when you state your status as Do not Disturb and turn off Teams notifications. You can set the people whose notification you will always receive through the Privacy tab of Teams settings. Urgent Messages are among the notification with priority and can be sent by anyone. Urgent messages can only be sent in Chats, not in channels.

Priority Access

 

What do Bots do in online meetings?

Bots have a lot of different responsibilities, specific to this question we can see that bots enable the connection between Teams and Stream. And also, a bot joins the meeting when it is started and when it is over, the bot send the record to Azure Media Services and then it is transmitted to Stream.

Create and Track Lists from a Center with Microsoft Lists

microsoft lists logoMicrosoft Lists

Track information with Microsoft Lists. Organize your work. Customize for your team. Track your work, convey information and visualize data with your team from a center.

Stay on top of it all with Lists, your smart information tracking app in Microsoft 365. Work with anyone, anywhere. Configure your lists to better organize events, issues, assets, and more.

 

 

Make lists smarter with Microsoft Lists in order to do more in Microsoft 365

Tracking information is a part of our daily lives. Writing something or using electronical tables work for simple things. However, while dealing with hundreds or thousand of data and when you need to coordinate with your teammates and match with the new workflows, it can become overwhelming rapidly. Since global pandemic has turned remote working into the new normal, we also face the difficulties caused by having to stay in sync while staying home.

We have created Lists that will save you time and overcome difficulties. Lists that are easy to use as a spreadsheet, help you to track any information, invite others to cooperate and use rules to synchronize everybody in addition to customizing forms and flows with Power Platform. Simple, smart and flexible way to track information and do more.

 

 

Start from a Template or an Excel file, or from the scratch

Create by using various templates, transform an Excel file or start from the scratch to bring you vision to life.

 

 

View your data in your style

Visualize your data in different ways and interact with them. View the information in a gallery or track your work on a calendar.

 

Set rules and send a notification to your team

Create rules to automatize processes based of your list data. When a change is made, send yourself or others a notification.

 

Create a New List

 

  • You can create a blank list.
  • You can import a list as a Table from Excel.
  • You can continue from an existing SharePoint team list.

microsoft list yeni liste ekle

Create, share and track lists with people you want

Start quickly with ready-made templates. See the recently and frequently used lists.Track and manage lists wherever you’re working. Share lists with others easily.

Favorites and Recent Lists in Microsoft Lists

 

Keep everyone in sync with lists in Teams

Work together in real time with conversation and lists side by side. Track what matters most to your team using rules, reminders, and comments.

A list of sessions for an event, including details about each session, shown within Microsoft Teams.

Customize lists for whatever your team needs

See your lists any way you want using calendar, grid, gallery, or a custom view. Configure basic form elements and highlight important details with conditional formatting.

A list of assets shown in grid view in lists

 

Add automation with Power Platform

Build custom productivity apps using lists as the data source. Extend forms with Power Apps and customize workflows with Power Automate.

An applicant’s information shown on an HR recruiting list within Microsoft Teams

 

 

You can get the other details about Microsoft Lists here.
You can read our other blog posts here.

Power BI: Let your data speak to you

Our 4th CodeRunner event took place in Istanbul with the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality. We had a fun event on the “Power BI: Let your data speak to you” topic.

You can download our presentation to get detailed information on Power BI.

Information Technologies Legal News in February

What is new in February?

Facebook

06.02.2020 – Libra, which Facebook says that has been developed for 1.7 billion people without bank accounts, will be released in mid-2020.

07.02.2020 – Facebook’s social media accounts were temporarily compromised by a group of hackers on Friday. The hacker group OurMine captured the Instagram and Twitter accounts of Facebook and Messenger and shared a post stating “Even Facebook can be hacked”. The social media giant’s Twitter and Instagram accounts were then taken again.

Cyber ​​security

07.02.2020 – Cyber ​​security company ERNW discovered a very serious security vulnerability in Android 9 and other devices below. This vulnerability allows hackers to access phones storage via Bluetooth.

10.02.2020 – US Justice Secretary Barr announced that 4 Chinese soldiers have been charged with the hacking of Equifax, the largest cyber-attack in US history.

Netflix

11.02.2020 – Netflix has announced nine productions that have been taken off the air at the request of governments so far. The country where Netflix was censored the most was Singapore, which took down five productions.

Corona virus

12.02.2020 – Mobile World Congress (MWC) 2020, the world’s largest mobile phone fair to be held in Barcelona, ​​has been canceled due to the concern about the coronavirus outbreak.

Law of Protection of Personal Data

13.02.2020 – The Russian court fined a total of 8 million rubles to social media sites Facebook and Twitter for violating the legislation on the protection of personal data.

Facebook’s German unit was fined 55 thousand dollars (51 thousand euros) for not employing a data protection officer in its office in Hamburg.

Whatsapp

02/14/2020 – Whatsapp, the world’s most popular instant messaging platform, announced that it supports more than 2 billion users worldwide.

Apple vs Microsoft

Cybersecurity companies have brought Apple’s Mac computers and Microsoft’s Windows face to face. More malware was found on Mac PCs.

The US Department of Defense (Pentagon) reacted to the federal court’s decision to suspend the cloud project known as the Joint Defense Infrastructure Initiative (JEDI), which would also be transferred to the ministry’s confidential information.

Facebook

16.02.2020 – Facebook’s satellite project, which has been on the agenda for a while, turns into reality with the necessary permission being provided. Facebook will launch its first satellite next March.

Facebook has announced to its users that it has officially agreed with Reuters to audit their content.

Google

20.02.2020 – New Mexico filed a lawsuit against Alphabet Inc (the multinational conglomerate established in 2015 to bring Google and other companies owned by Google under one roof) for allegedly violating the data privacy of children.

Other Developments

Credit card giant Visa has given principal membership to a cryptocurrency company for the first time. Accordingly, Coinbase will be able to issue debit cards for Bitcoin.

Larry Tesler, who worked at Apple between 1980 and 1997 and was the inventor of cut, copy and paste on computers, passed away at the age of 74.

21.02.2020 – Huawei Carrier Business President Ryan Ding announced that they are planning a $20 million investment to develop the 5G technology over the next 5 years.

21.02.2020 – Microsoft, one of the most valuable companies in the world, announced that it has decided to invest 1.1 billion dollars in Mexico in the next five years and a new data center will be established in Mexico.

24.02.2020 – The antibiotic that kills the most dangerous bacteria has been found thanks to artificial intelligence. It was determined that the antibiotic killed Acinetobacter baumanii and Enterobacteriaceae bacteria, two of the three pathogens in need of the most urgent drug according to the World Health Organization.

Information Technologies Legal News in March

IT LAW – UPDATES IN MARCH

Coronavirus was at the center of most updates in March:

  • This year, the highly anticipated Microsoft IoT in Action has been canceled due to the Google I/O 2020 coronavirus danger.
  • YouTube, the world’s largest video platform, has changed its advertising model to prevent misinformation about coronavirus and has started to impose an advertising ban for coronavirus videos, except for reliable news channels.
  • The World Health Organization opened a TikTok account for TikTok users to get accurate information about the pandemic.
  • Google has changed its SEO (Search Engine Optimization) strategy so that users can access reliable publishers in coronavirus searches.
  • Alibaba, one of the largest e-commerce companies in the world, has developed a new artificial intelligence that can detect the coronavirus in a very short time of 20 seconds using the screening results of people suspected of coronavirus, and this artificial intelligence is mainly in Hubei, Guangdong and Anhui provinces. It is stated that it will be used in more than 100 hospitals.
  • WhatsApp, Facebook, Microsoft Bing moved the coronavirus title to its home page to prevent misinformation spreading on the internet due to the coronavirus pandemic.
  • Netflix, YouTube, Instagram and Facebook have decided to reduce the quality of their videos so that people who started to work from home due to the coronavirus pandemic do not cause blockage in the networks.
  • The Eczacıbaşı Group, Netmarble Turkey and Turkey Informatics Foundation (TBV) who wanted to draw attention to the basic hygiene rules have launched a new digital game idea competition named “Play and Learn”.
  • Coronathon that was created with the partnership of Turkey’s leading entrepreneurs, universities, non-governmental organizations, ministries, private companies in order to produce solutions to the problems caused by the has been awarded with 12 project awards in Turkey.
  • The market value of the world giants such as Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft, which had their values increased highly in February, decreased by about 1.3 trillion dollars in total after the virus pandemic.

 

Information Technologies Legal News in April

INFORMATION TECHNOLOGIES LEGAL NEWS IN APRIL

This month, Covid-19 was at the center of information technology updates again.

  • It has been announced that an energy investment of approximately 130 trillion dollars of the world economies is required for the comprehensive decarbonization strategies.
  • In the January-March period of 2020, when the Corona virus pandemic was effective, the total number of Netflix subscribers reached 182.9 million with an increase of 15.8 million.
  • Video communication platform Zoom announced new features that increase conversation privacy and security with the v4.6.10 update.
  • Apple and Google are developing an application against the Corona virus that can detect whether you have been in contact with someone infected with the virus or not.
  • The explosion of online shopping due to the Corona virus pandemic has added another $24 billion to the fortune of its founder and boss, Jeff Bezos, as Amazon’s shares have been thoroughly valued.
  • In the lawsuit filed by Hagens Berman law firm in California Northern District Court, Amazon was accused of “illegal price increases during the Covid-19 outbreak”.
  • Social media company Facebook announced that it has invested $5.7 billion in mobile internet company Jio Platforms, owned by Indian billionaire businessman Mukesh Ambani.
  • The Netherlands has banned the use of the video conferencing program Zoom for distance education due to safety concerns.
  • The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and Microsoft have established a digital education platform for students affected by the new type of coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic.
  • China-based e-commerce platform Alibaba’s cloud technologies company Alibaba Cloud Intelligence has announced that it will invest an additional 200 billion yuan -$28.5 billion, in the next three years in cloud infrastructure.
  • Google Meet got new features. The most attention-grabbing point of the updates was that 16 participants could be seen on a single screen.

 

Peyman Creates Its Reports with Power BI

Peyman -the leader of Turkish Dried-Nut Industry, has become one of the strongest main industries from a regional player identity in a very short period of time with their investments and courageous steps that they took. Peyman managed to be in ISO 500 and became one of the 500 Large Industry Companies of Turkey. Peyman Kuruyemiş continues to offer its products to the consumers by visiting hundreds of customers with around 400 sales representatives every day.

How did the cooperation between PEYMAN and PEAKUP happen?

With around 400 sales representatives in the field, we visit hundreds of customers every day and bring our products to consumers. In this process, it becomes very important to follow the sales performance of both our team and our products, to compare them with past data and to analyze them with various criteria. In the past, efforts to meet this need were insufficient at the stage of meeting the need due to the license cost or capacity limits of the selected solutions.

After the analysis and researches we made as the IT team, Power BI became the prominent solution for us with its simplicity, easy implementation, and the fact that it is easy to learn.

We needed consultancy on the details of the capabilities of Power BI and whether the priority reports for us could be prepared in Power BI and how long it would take to get started with it. The PEAKUP team guided us in the right way with their knowledge and experience in Power BI and supported us with the most accurate solution for our reporting needs. Later, with the training we received from PEAKUP, we introduced 15 of our friends to Power BI, and we got to teach them that they could prepare with excel and publish their reports more quickly and easily through this environment.

With Power BI consultancy, we quickly created our reports with priority. It has been a great achievement for us that we can access our sales data in region and product details with a few clicks by using the reports we have created, and that our sales team can access these reports over the internet whenever they want.

PEAKUP is a team of friends who are competent in Power BI. Ms. Birhan helped us as a consultant during our work. Ms. Birhan, with her experience in Power BI, both guided us in the right way and helped us find the right solution with the consultancy she gave us in every issue we got stuck during the development of the reports we created. The case study and exercises she did during our Power BI trainings ensured that the trainings were effective and efficient. I highly recommend PEAKUP to everyone, both because of their approach and because of their experienced and competent teammates.

İrfan Cin – Sales Systems and Business Intelligence Expert

HAVE YOU EVER SORTED WITH A FORMULA?

THE SORT FUNCTION

 

Hello everyone,

No doubt that one of the most frequently used functions in Excel is the Sort function.
This feature has 2 constants: A-Z and Z-A i.e. Ascending and Descending Sort.
We sort our data by certain field in pretty much all tables.
Have you ever tried to get this sorting action done with a formula?

 

WHAT DOES IT DO

You can easily sort columns or rows by the sort order you want in a different field from your mail table with the SORT function that is one of the dynamic array functions that are recently released after Office 365 . 

 

SYNTAX

=SORT(array,[sort_index],[sort_order],[by_col])

There are 4 arguments in the function.
The first one is required, the next 3 arguments are optional.

Now, let’s take a look at what these arguments mean, i.e. what the function wants from us and what we will give it.

Argument Description
array

Required

 The range, or array to sort
[sort_index]

Optional

 A number indicating the row or column to sort by
[sort_order]

Optional

 A number indicating the desired sort order; 1 for ascending order (default), -1 for descending order
[by_col]

Optional

A logical value indicating the desired sort direction; FALSE to sort by row (default), TRUE to sort by column

 

USE OF THE FUNCTION

  • Choose the fields you want from your table and state by which column and order you will sort.
  • When you choose a field for the array argument only, the data is sort based on the Ascending order.
  • If multiple columns are selected in the array argument, the column by which the sorting will be done is chosen.
  • You can choose the Descending order in the sort_order argument if you want. If you don’ choose it, the sort is always Ascending.
  • In the by_col argument, you can sort by column i.e. from left to right. If not chosen, the sorting will always be from top to bottom.

 

Let’s have an example and see what happens when we choose the array argument only.

 

Now, let’s choose multiple columns and state the sort_index argument as well.

 

Since we didn’t use the sort_order argument in the formula below, prices are sorted from the lower to the higher. Now, let’s use the sort_order argument in the same function and see our data sorted from the higher to the lower.

 

Lastly, let’s sort the data from left to right and now from top to bottom.

We will be talking about the other New Dynamic Array functions in our next articles.
And then we will be able to get things done way easier by using these new functions together. LONG LIVE THE NEW DYNAMIC ARRAY FUNCTIONS!

See you in other articles, bye. 🙋🏻‍♂️
You can share this article and help a lot of people get informed as well. 👍🏻

AZURE SENTINEL DATA CONNECTORS

We had the chance to talk a bit about the Microsoft Azure Sentinel in our previous article. We tried to answer a lot of questions like “What is Azure Sentinel? How does it work? What are the costs? ” In this article, we will talk about the data connector methods and which data connector method we should use. These methods are Integration from Service to Service, API Integration and Agent Integration. I will explain which integration should be used for which products shortly.

Data Connectors Methods

Integration from Service to Service

  • Amazon Web Services – CloudTrail
  • Office 365
  • Azure AD audit logs and sign-ins
  • Azure Activity
  • Azure AD Identity Protection
  • Azure Security Center
  • Azure Information Protection
  • Azure Advanced Threat Protection
  • Cloud App Security
  • Windows security events
  • Windows firewall

Integration with API

  • Barracuda
  • Symantec
  • Citrix Analytics (Security)

Integration with Agent

  • Firewalls, Proxy and Endpoints:
    • F5
    • Check Point
    • Cisco ASA
    • Fortinet
    • Palo Alto
    • Other CEF products
    • Other Syslog products
    • Barracuda CloudGen Firewall
    • ExtraHop Reveal(x)
    • One Identity Safeguard
    • Trend Micro Deep Security
  • DLP Solutions
  • DNS Servers
  • Linux Servers
  • Other Cloud Services

Things to Do for Sentinel Data Connector

Like we have mentioned above, there are 3 methods to connect data. Let’s take a look at how these methods work:

It will be enough to enter username and password on Data Connectors for Integration from Service to Service. But keep in mind that the Account should have at least Security Administrator authority since we will log into Microsoft products. For AWS, the process is a bit different but we still need just one Account. As a different step, it will be enough for us to create a user on IAM and assign the “AWSCloudTrailReadOnlyAccess” role. Also, I need to mention that you need at least the AADP1 licence for Azure AD Identity Protection.

We need to execute some actions on the product from which we’ll get the link for integration with API. These actions vary from one product to another. For example, we need to execute different actions for Barracuda and Symantec. Since each one of these actions are a topic of an article, you can find the technical documents below.

Barracuda API Integration

Symantec API Integration

Citrix Analytics API Integration

We need a Connector service for integration with Agent as a different step from the other methods. The role of this server is to provide the connection between the Product and Sentinel. Different from the other methods, integration with Agent requires a comprehensive and extensive work.

I hope that this helped you.

Click here to read our article about Raspberry PI HotSpot/Modem.