Any IT professional who’s ever had an experience with malware knows how fast an intrusive attack can happen, and how difficult it can be to educate employees to be vigilant against such threats. And with ransomware attacks only growing, having information, tools and technologies to help protect your network can mean the difference between serious business disruption and business as usual.

Those of us in the Microsoft Malware Protection Center are constantly on the hunt for new malware variants, and working to improve Microsoft’s security-oriented technology to block them from reaching our customers.

In that vein, we just released a new white paper that details a full set of technologies Microsoft has developed or enhanced to provide Windows customers with an array of protection options.

Please check out the Windows Business blog from Rob Lefferts “Defending against ransomware with Windows 10 Anniversary Update“, which offers an overview of those protections. You can also read the full white paper “Ransomware protection in Windows 10 Anniversary Update (PDF).

Summary: Gather data from a URI and send it to OMS through the HTTP API.

In case you missed it, Martin Ehrnst put together a great example of how you can gather data from a URI and send it to OMS through the HTTP API. His example shows this for two different sources of weather and it is available at: http://adatum.no/powershell/weather-data-in-oms-log-analytics.

Now that you have this type of data in OMS, what can you do with it? This blog post will show how you can utilize the data gathered by OMS in queries and dashboards and how you to create your own solution in OMS!

Queries for data uploaded through the HTTP API

The quickest way that I have found to track down new data that’s being added is to use a “*_CL” query. It gets a list of types of data that are being collected by the workspace that were added by the HTTP API. All data that’s sent up via the API automatically adds _CL to the end of the DataType.

From this query, we can reduce it to the particular data we are looking for (OpenWeather data in this example). Query: Type=OpenWeather_CL,

From here, we can see a list of the data. It’s interesting to note how the API handles different types of data. The API automatically adds a _s to each string and an _d to each integer.  Note how Humidity is Humidity_d, WindSpeed is WindSpeed_d, and City is City_s.

And, we can move this to a table format, too.

In this script, we receive a variety of metrics: Temperature, Humidity, Wind Speed and Barometric Pressure.

Queries will drive the creation of our solutions. Following were several that I put together to showcase the various metrics which were being gathered.

Following is an example of this:

So, how much data does this weather information require in OMS? To find this out, we need to see which solution the HTTP API is associated with. This query gives us that insight for the OpenWeather_CL information that we are gathering.

*_CL (DataType=OpenWeather_CL)

Based on the previous query, it appears that data gathered by the HTTP API is associated with the LogManagement solution. We could use a variation of this query to sum the quantity data to determine the total number of Mbytes gathered by this particular portion of the LogManagement solution. Or, for a rough number, we can use the Usage piece of OMS and then look into how much data the LogManagement solution provides. This would be for all data gathered by the HTTP API, but it gives us a rough idea of the amount of data that’s being collected.

This is part of the data that’s not associated with a computer.

So, if we drill into LogManagement, we get the various types of data that are being collected by the API.

Drilling into this table for the OpenWeather_CL gives us details about what’s gathered for this type of information via the HTTP API.

Type=Usage Solution=LogManagement Computer ="-" DataType=OpenWeather_CL  | measure sum(Quantity) by Computer

Based on the previous query, the average amount of data gathered by this solution over seven days is 0.024 MB or .003 MB per day or less than .1 MB per month.

This means that the Log Analytics portion of this solution to monitor weather will easily fit within 500 MB per day.

What about dashboards?

Could we use these queries to populate the My Dashboard page in OMS? Yep, we can do that. To do so, we need to first save our queries to favorites so that they are available for dashboards as shown in the following screenshot.

We can add to the My Dashboard page as we have been able to for a while now by using the My Dashboard icon.

You just add the new dashboard items based on the queries that you saved. A sample of the results is shown in the following screenshot for weather description.

Following are results for temperature, humidity, wind speed, and barometric pressure.

While the My Dashboard functionality is useful, I would recommend minimizing efforts in that area because solutions appear to be where visualization is moving in OMS.

Building a solution based on these queries

The top-level tile is built from the Line chart option.

Details about the tile are shown in the following screenshot.

An example of this tile is displayed in the following screenshot.

Drilling into this tile gives several views. The first shows temperature over time by using the Line chart and List:

Details for this configuration are shown in the following screenshot.

An example of the temperature view is shown in the following screenshot.

The general weather information (humidity, wind speed, barometric pressure) is visualized through the stack of line charts.

An example of the stack of line charts is shown in the following screenshot.

The weather description view is built from the donut and list view.

The weather description information displays like this.

The list of queries is built from the list of queries view.

Each of the queries that were built for this solution or used in this solution were added to the list of queries.

Following is the full solution:

The solution makes it easy to visualize the information that’s being sent to OMS for the various weather metrics we are gathering from Open Weather.

Summary: OMS can gather any type of data that you want by using queries, My Dashboard, and a custom solution to provide intuitive visualization for that data. In the next part of this blog series, we will show how data can be exported from OMS to Power BI and then show examples of how the data can be visualized within Power BI.

Cameron Fuller
Catapult Systems

We hope you enjoyed this week’s episode of This Week on Windows! Learn more about Trimble’s new Sketchup Viewer app for HoloLens and Alcatel’s new virtual reality enabled IDOL 4S phone with Windows 10, or head over here to read our Windows 10 Tip on four ways you can customize the Start menu.

Here’s what’s new in the Windows Store this week:

Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Premium Edition

Forza fans on Windows 10 PC can now experience new content in Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, with the launch of Forza Motorsport 6: Apex Premium Edition ($16.99). The Premium Edition includes the base game of Forza Motorsport 6: Apex, along with three newly-released content packs for the game; two car collections and a new track pack, bringing the legendary Nürburgring to the game.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is now available for Windows 10 and delivers and three unique game modes: Campaign, Multiplayer, and Zombies. Players play as Captain Reyes, a pilot turned Commander, who must lead the remaining coalition forces against a relentless enemy, while trying to overcome the deadly, extreme environments of space.

Don’t Breathe

In the mood for some bone-chilling terror? From horror legend Sam Raimi comes a nightmare that will leave you breathless. Don’t Breathe ($14.99 HD, $13.99 SD) is available now in the Movies & TV section of the Windows Store three weeks before Blu-ray.

Nitro Nation

For those who can’t get enough of drag racing, Nitro Nation is back with a high-octane update. The all-new UI brings quicker start-up, easier navigation, and a nicer look and feel. There are personalized offers, regional leagues for live events, more than 30 new body mods for existing cars, new decals, new sound effects and more.

A Tribe Called Quest, “We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service”

A Tribe Called Quest’s new album, “We got it from Here… Thank You 4 Your service,”  is out today and available in the Windows Store. You can buy the album for $10.99 or listen free with a free 30-day trial of Groove Music Pass.*

Have a great weekend!

You’ve heard about the cloud, you know the benefits it offers, yet you’re still using an on-premises solution for your company’s emails. Maybe the thought of the transition is too daunting, or you’re not convinced it’s necessary at this time—there are many reasons that you might chose to stay with on-premises servers.

According to the 2015 IDG Enterprise Cloud Computing Survey, 72 percent of organizations already have at least one application in the cloud and 56 percent are currently identifying which IT operations to move. Here are some common misconceptions about on-premises email and the reality of what migrating your business email to the cloud can do for your organization.

Email attacks don’t cost our company that much—While sometimes seemingly minor day-to-day annoyances, the cost of malware attacks add up over time, according to CSO Online. Luckily, cloud-based solutions make a difference. Since email threats are constantly evolving, it’s important to have the most up-to-date security protection, which cloud email can provide.

Source: “Phishing is a $3.7-million annual cost for average large company,” 2015, CSO Online

Maybe you don’t face daily threats or don’t see much action in the data-breach arena. But the facts are, when looking at attack incident numbers, cloud-hosted servers showed fewer incidents, according to Alert Logic’s Cloud Security Report.

Source: “Cloud Security Report,” 2015, Alert Logic

Migration costs too much money and downtime—It’s easy to assume that migrating your business email to a cloud server will cause a lot of downtime and upfront infrastructure costs, but it’s the contrary.

Since you don’t have to purchase and maintain expensive hardware, cloud email lowers your company’s capital expenditures. Instead of maintaining and upgrading on-premises servers, your IT team can concentrate on improving their own products and services.

Upp Technology found that 50 percent of companies using cloud technology report having reduced their IT spending by 25 percent. This frees up funds for other projects and gives IT more time to contribute to your bottom line. There’s virtually no lost time during migration, as rapid application delivery ensures business processes stay up and running while you transition.

Downtime is a part of everyday business—Reliable uptime is an important cost consideration. Technical delays and downtime from on-premises servers add up, and they’re completely avoidable. When on-premises servers go down, it costs more than productivity. Cogeco Peer 1 found that downtime could cost more than $1 million per hour for one in six enterprises.

The bottom line

Moving your company’s email to the cloud saves money, protects data and frees up time to focus on other ways to make your organization more productive and profitable.

Learn how to make your transition to the cloud as seamless as possible in the e-book, “Elevate Your Email: Why now is the right time to take your email to the cloud.”

The post Why are you still waiting to upgrade your email to the cloud? appeared first on Office Blogs.

All right, it’s time for some mandatory fun! Chad here again – ready to talk about some FAQ’s. I’m taking on a different approach than before (we previously talked about Azure MFA and Azure AD Connect). In this Mailbag we will be shifting focus on something that should be near and dear to many folks – “Organizations who operate in multiple countries”. There are many questions that come up around localization, supportability, performance, data compliance, and flexibility when customers are looking to deploy across multiple countries/regions. This concept is not new to Azure Active Directory – I’ve captured some common questions that comes up during these discussions. I hope you enjoy!

Question 1:

I’m looking to deploy Self Service Password Reset (SSPR) but I’m concerned the Security Questions that I configure might not be supported for all the different languages that I support for my users. How does Azure AD accommodate this requirement?

Answer 1:

We call these questions “Knowledge based security questions” which are localized based off the user’s browser locale. These are pre-canned security questions that have been vetted and used by multiple Azure AD customers and signed off by Microsofts internal security review process; users may choose these questions for both registering for password reset and resetting their passwords based on how you have configured it in Azure AD.

Question 2:

When one my users receives a phone call or SMS from resetting a password (SSPR), what language will it be? How do I configure this?

Answer 2:

Hey, good news! There’s no configuration required. Azure AD Password Reset is localized into the full Office language set. SSPR uses the user’s browser locale when choosing how to localize the SSPR page and all of its communication (SMS, voice, question languages). If a browser locale is not configured, it will use the users usage location. You can also pass the mkt parameter directly to the page if you want to force a specific locale for your users, like this: https://passwordreset.microsoftonline.com?mkt=es-es

Question 3:

I want to limit access based on country for my third-party applications (SaaS) and licenses for Azure AD Premium/EMS. How can I do this successfully?

Answer 3:

Azure AD Premium/EMS licenses and SaaS applications can be managed by security groups – this doesn’t work with DL’s. These groups can be either synced from on-premises, cloud static security groups, or dynamic security groups in Azure AD.

The best approach would be to create a dynamic group based on attribute, such as an extensionAttribute 1-15, extension_GUID_attributeName (this is an attribute that you added through Azure AD Connect), or even something like usageLocation.

In this example, usage location can be changed in the Azure Portal under the user object:

Other ways to change usageLocation:

• PowerShell: Set-MsolUser -UserPrincipalName user@contoso.com -UsageLocation US
  • Azure AD Connect maps msExchUsageLocation to usageLocation – attribute list

Another common rule that I’ve seen customers create is based on domain from the UPN (e.g. Brands that exist only in a certain country or brands that are acquisition can be targeted):

Assuming that contosoFrance.com exists in France, then you could make an Advanced Rule that contains both France and Germany

You could do the same type of function on-premises and sync the membership. Just note that Azure AD Connect has a limitation of 50k user membership per group.

Question 4:

I use a VPN service and it’s not uncommon for me to connect from Russia and then 30 minutes later connect from Canada or the United States. How do I reduce false positives from Microsoft’s Advance Reporting?

Answer 4:

Under the “Configure” tab from the Azure Portal within your Azure AD, you will see an option called your organization’s public ip address ranges. If you configure your corporate network IP ranges here, it reduces those false positives in your advance reporting.

Note: You must configure both initial and ending IP range. (e.g. the IP range in the US and Canada in your question, for example).

Question 5:

I’m deploying Azure MFA to 70 countries and it must support 8 different languages for phone calls. I want to configure my own message in the local language – where do I go to configure this?

Answer 5:

Log into Azure Portal -> Choose Active Directory icon (bottom left) -> Choose your directory -> Click Configure -> multi-factor authentication/Manage service settings -> advance settings at the bottom Go to the portal -> Voice Messages -> And.. You’re there!

Here you can add the different languages you want by clicking “New” and upload your .mp3 or .wav file. You will be required to map the file to the appropriate greeting/language. This overrides the default configurations

Most of our greetings are linked to high-level cultures such as fr so that more specific cultures such as fr-FR and fr-CA will all get an appropriate greeting. There are a few exceptions where dialects are different enough that there are specific greetings. For example, we have pt-PT and pt-BR for Portuguese and a variety for Chinese. Some of the Chinese greetings are duplicates, but older MFA Servers use older language codes that existed in .NET 2.0 (e.g. zh-CN) and the Azure MFA and newer MFA Servers use newer codes (e.g. zh-HANS). Here is the full list of the languages that we have greetings mapped to:

ar, bg, ca, cs, da, de, el, en, en-GB, es, es-ES, et, eu, fi, fr, gl, he, hi, hr, hu, id, it, ja, kk, ko, lt, lv, ms, nl, no, pl, pt-BR, pt-PT, ro, ru, sk, sl, sr, sv, th, tr, uk, vi, zh-CN, zh-HANS, zh-HANT, zh-HK, zh-TW

In MFA Server, the voice call language is a setting defined in the users profile that exists within MFA Server. If an admin set it to some language that we dont have a greeting for such as fo or ff, those users would hear English greetings since we use English as the default backup.

Thanks for following our Mailbag! As a little bonus for those that read all the way to the end, the Customer Success Team also leads webinars available free to our customers that focuses on many aspects of Azure AD. Join the conversation! I look forward to meeting with yall in our live presentation.

We hope youve found this post and this series to be helpful. For any questions you can reach us at
AskAzureADBlog@microsoft.com, the Microsoft Forums and on Twitter @AzureAD, @MarkMorow and @Alex_A_Simons

-Chad Hasbrook, Mark Morowczynski, Shawn Bishop, Yossi Banai, and Adam Steenwyk

The Skype team is excited to bring a new feature to our Skype Preview for Windows 10 users, SMS relay. This feature allows Windows 10 Mobile users to send and receive SMS and MMS messages directly from a Windows 10 PC. You can view and respond to SMS and MMS messages from your PC, no need to reach for your phone.

Making Skype the Default Messaging App

To get started, you will need to make Skype the default messaging app. On a Windows phone, launch Skype Preview, go to settings and select “Make Skype your default messaging app.”; and on a Windows PC, launch Skype Preview, go to settings and select “Enable Skype on this device to sync my SMS messages.” You can always turn this off by going back to settings.

Create Conversation

Once you’ve changed your settings, it’s easy to create a one-to-one SMS or group MMS chat. Just tap on the + button on the Recent list to start a new conversation. Add the people you want to chat with and Skype will select the type of conversation based on the participants’ contact information to ensure that everyone gets the message. If there are multiple ways to reach everyone, you will get an option to switch from Skype to SMS.

Switch between Skype & SMS

You can also switch a conversation from Skype to SMS and vice versa. You will need to have both the Skype name and phone numbers stored in a contact’s profile to do this.

In the 1:1 chat, you’ll see a line above the chat area which says “Via”. From here you can select Send Via Skype or SMS. If that contact has multiple numbers, you’ll see the first mobile number in this list. If you want to select a different number, click on the gear.

And that’s all you need to do. To learn more about this latest update to Skype preview, check out the Skype garage blog.

Starting with the Windows 1607 release, MSN News and MSN Finance are no longer included with the Windows installation, but they are still available via Windows Store.

For most, this change will be seamless.

• If users upgrade from a previous version of Windows 10, applications that were previously installed will update automatically.
• If users upgrade to Windows 10 1607 from a previous version of Windows (7 or 8) or does a clean installation (no previous install), the system will have the default apps available and any modern apps associated with a Microsoft account will be listed in the Store app, under My Library. MSN News and MSN Finance can be quickly reapplied to the machine from there.

In some Enterprise or Domain scenarios, the standard Windows Store app may not be available or network restrictions make access less than optimal. I want to outline the three methods for adding apps to Windows 10 and call out caveats to each.

First is the default option where users access and download apps via Windows Store.

• Users need to use a Microsoft Account (MSA) to get apps
• All apps will be tied to that user’s MSA account (as seen in My Library)
• Systems need access to the Internet to install and update apps

The second option is the Windows Store for Business.

• System Admins/Organizations/Enterprises can choose to publish only the apps that are desired in their environment.
• This requires an Azure Active Directory (AAD) account, either one for Admins or AAD account for all users.

Note: The standard Windows Store can then be hidden from users by group Policy (User Configuration\Policies\Administrator Templates\Windows Components\Store\Only display the private store within the Windows Store app)

This is documented here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/windows-store-for-business

The third option for installing Apps is called “sideloading”.

• For applications with an offline license, Appx packages can be added into a base image for deployment or pushed via Group Policy.
• This can be used when Windows Store is disabled via Group Policy, MSA accounts are blocked or AAD accounts are not available.
• The drawback here is that the applications will not update via Windows Update or the Store engine.  Admins will have to check for updated versions and push updates manually.

This is documented here:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/deploy/sideload-apps-in-windows-10

In conjunction with System Center:

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/teju_shyamsundar/2016/05/30/deploy-an-application-from-windows-store-for-business-via-system-center-configuration-Manager/

Here is more information on managing access to the Windows Store:

https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/manage/stop-employees-from-using-the-windows-store

Kim Johnson
Sr. Support Escalation Engineer
Windows Beta

While most of the world froze in place to follow the endless stream of U.S. presidential election coverage, we continued to push forward in the world of Windows Developer. And by push forward, we humbly admit that we just kept geeking out over the new Surface Dial and its recently released APIs. (Check out the Surface Dial and more updates from our event here.)

What Devs Need to Know about the Windows 10 Creators Update & New Surface Devices

We recently learned that you can tweak the Surface Dial to be the ultimate debugging tool. Check it out here:

Hey devs, did you know that you can use the new Surface Dial as a debugging tool? Find out how: https://t.co/u0BbSjD9nTpic.twitter.com/x6uDDobFp6

— Windows Developer (@windowsdev) November 11, 2016

And while the politicians duked it out in the electoral college, one particular MVP found himself in a higher stakes conflict – battling aliens in a mall.

Insider Preview Build 14965

TL;DR – A bunch of updates and improvements across the board. Check out Dona’s post by clicking above.

MVP Summit

And, on a high note, we had a great time hosting our Microsoft MVPs in Redmond this week. Thank you to everyone who attended and helped organize the event. Here’s a quick recap from Day One:

We appreciate all you do, MVPs – thank you! Here's a @Ch9 video recap of #MVPSummit: Day 1: https://t.co/a9xk8Alf9J

— MVP Award Program (@MVPAward) November 8, 2016

Overall, regardless of what happens politically, there will always be more bugs to squash and even more code to write. So, on that note, have a great weekend; We’ll be right here waiting for you on Monday morning!

Download Visual Studio to get started.

The Windows team would love to hear your feedback.  Please keep the feedback coming using our Windows Developer UserVoice site. If you have a direct bug, please use the Windows Feedback tool built directly into Windows 10.

Gadget geeks, get ready. If you’re looking to upgrade your tech this holiday, there’s no better time to buy than Black Friday. Microsoft Store and other retailers across the country are offering some of the steepest discounts of the year on Microsoft’s hottest selling PCs and game consoles, so there’s something for everyone on your shopping list. Visit your local Microsoft Store, microsoftstore.com or any of our retail partners for more details on availability and pricing. Here are just a few of the great deals for shoppers next weekend:

Upgrade to Surface and save up to $430

This Black Friday through Cyber Monday, Microsoft is offering an unprecedented deal of up to $430 off select* Surface devices and bundles between Nov. 24 – 28 at Microsoft Store and Best Buy locations. This includes at least $400 off the Surface Book i5 256GB, the ultimate laptop with a detachable screen, exclusively at Microsoft Store, microsoftstore.com and an exclusive Best Buy bundle with Surface Pro 4 128GB and the Signature Type Cover for $599.

Lowest price ever on Xbox One S, starting at just $249!

Between Nov. 24 – 28, shoppers can get $50 off any new Xbox One S bundle – its lowest price ever, starting at $249

Xbox One has been the best-selling gaming console in the U.S. for the past four months according to NPD Group, and between Nov. 24 – 28, shoppers can get $50 off any new Xbox One S bundle – its lowest price ever, starting at $249.

For those looking to beat the Black Friday crowds, shoppers can also save $50 on any new 1TB Xbox One or Xbox One S bundle between Nov. 20 – 23 at Microsoft Store, microsoftstore.com and participating retailers nationwide. The sleeker, slimmer Xbox One S is the only console available this holiday with built-in 4K UHD Blu-ray so you can watch UHD Blu-ray movies and stream video in stunning 4K Ultra HD. It also enables High Dynamic Range (HDR) for gaming so you can experience richer, more luminous colors in games like Gears of War 4, which marks the beginning of a new saga for one of the most acclaimed videogame franchises in history, and Forza Horizon 3, the year’s best-selling and highest-rated racing game. And play with friends on Xbox Live, the fastest, most reliable gaming network with $10 off a 3-month or 6-month Xbox Live Gold subscription at participating retailers.

Microsoft Studios’ biggest blockbuster games are also on sale, including $25 off Gears of War 4 and the entire Gears Xbox 360 Collection, and $20 off ReCore at Microsoft Store, microsoftstore.com and participating retailers. Starting Nov. 22, gamers can also enjoy deep discounts on digital games and entertainment purchased through the Xbox Store. Xbox Live Gold members enjoy early access to Black Friday digital deals on Nov. 18 along with exclusive savings. A full rundown of Xbox Black Friday details can be found on Xbox Wire.

Start the year off right with a new Windows 10 PC

The only way to experience the Windows 10 Creators Update next year is on Windows 10, so if you’re looking to ditch the brick to upgrade to a lighter, more powerful Windows 10 PC and save as much as $400, check out these great Black Friday deals.

• For all of the power of Windows 10 PCs below $500, Microsoft Store and microsoftstore.com will be offering Dell Inspiron PCs starting at $399 and the HP Notebook 15 for just $299.
• Best Buy is offering the HP X360 for $229 or Lenovo Ideapad for $400.
• Office Depot has HP laptops NT Ci3 for $269 and NT Ci5 for $329.
• You can get the ASUS Transformer Mini T102 for $299 from Amazon.
• You can get a $99 Inspiron 11 3000 from Dell.
• For all the bells and whistles, Costco members can save $300 on a Dell XPS 13 from Nov. 25-28 or $100 off the Acer Spin 5 Nov. 24-28.
• Best Buy is also offering $150 off the Lenovo Yoga 910 from Nov. 25-28 or a $200 instant rebate on the Samsung Galaxy TabPro S until Nov. 19.

Elevate Your Style with Deals on Tech Accessories.

This Black Friday save on customized covers and devices that let you personalize a one-of-a kind gift sure to match any unique style. Enjoy free engraving Nov. 24 – 28 when you design your own custom controller with Xbox Design Lab. You can also save $10 on select Xbox Wireless Controllers and Xbox Stereo Headsets. Also, don’t miss the Complete Your Desktop deal, save $200 when you purchase a Surface Dock, Surface Mouse and Surface Keyboard from Nov. 24 – Dec. 24 at Microsoft Store, microsoftstore.com and online at BestBuy.com.

Microsoft Store: Your one stop shop for everyone on your shopping list

Take advantage of Microsoft’s hottest Black Friday deals beginning online at microsoftstore.com on Wednesday, Nov. 23 at 9 p.m. PST, and available at participating Microsoft Stores on Thursday, Nov. 24 and in all Microsoft Stores on Black Friday. Shop these great savings on an assortment of best-in-class products, including Surface devices, Signature PCs and more, with exclusive offers including,

• Save $429 on Surface Pro 4 with a Type Cover.
• Save $50 on select Xbox One or Xbox One S bundles with a $25 gift card plus a free select game.
• Take advantage of great deals on Office with $20 off Office 365 Home and $30 off Office Home & Student.
• Buy an unlocked Lumia 950XL or unlocked 950 and receive a Microsoft Display Dock for free.

Get hands-on with products and hear from our knowledgeable and friendly Microsoft Store associates for gift recommendations, or shop at microsoftstore.com for free shipping and extended holiday returns.

And don’t forget to check out Microsoft’s newest devices announced at our October event, the stunning Surface Studio, Surface Dial and the now on-sale powerful Surface Book i7 with performance base.

Happy shopping!

*Valid in the US only at Microsoft retail and online stores, limit one per customer.

Product: SP4 256GB i5 8GB + black type cover Bundle in MS Store only for $999 (save $429.99). Offer valid on select Surface Pro 4 i5 256GB and Surface Pro Type Cover (excludes NFL, Alcantara and Fingerprint Type Covers). Includes P4 i5 256GB, pen and Black Type Cover all in exclusive bundle.

Product: Surface Book i5 256GB with GPU device. Regular $1899, promo price $1499.

Product: Surface Pro 4 Core M Bundle for $599 at Best Buy only. Includes P4 Core M device, No Pen and Alcantara Cover all in exclusive bundle.

Product: Surface Pro 4 i5 128GB for $799 across full Retail Channel.

Product: Surface Book i5 128GB for $1249 across full Retail Channel.

Not valid on prior orders or purchases; cannot be transferred or otherwise redeemed for cash or coupon code(s). May not be combinable with other offers. Refunds will take into account the discount. Price discount does not include taxes, shipping or other fees. Void where prohibited or restricted by law. Microsoft reserves the right to modify or discontinue offers at any time. Other exclusions and limits may apply.

This post was authored by Vin Yu, Program Manager, Data Platform

The Microsoft SQL Server team will host a special Ask Me Anything session on /r/SQLServer, Friday, November 18th, 2016 from 9:30 am to 2:00 pm PDT. AMA event opens up for questions on Thursday, November 17th 2016 at 2:00pm.

What’s an AMA session?

We’ll have folks from across the Microsoft SQL Server engineering team available to answer any questions you have. You can ask us anything about SQL Server or even our team!

Why are we doing an AMA?

We like reaching out and learning from our customers and the community. We want to know how you use SQL Server and how your experience has been. Your questions provide insights into how we can make SQL Server better. AMA sessions turn out to be very useful, and we plan on doing AMAs covering various SQL Server topics in the future.

Who will be there?

You, of course! We’ll also have PMs and Developers from the SQL Server engineering team participating throughout the day. Have any questions about the following topics? Bring them to the AMA.

• SQL Server Features such as Columnstore, In-Memory OLTP, Row-Level Security, PolyBase, Stretch, or any of the features listed here.
• Database Tools for Microsoft SQL Server and Azure SQL Database (SSMS, SSDT, SSRS, SSIS, SSAS, SSMA, SQLPS, CLI Tools)
• Azure Portal for Azure SQL DB, Azure Elastic Database Pools or Azure Virtual Machines with SQL Server
• R Services for predictive analytics, machine learning, and using scalable R packages with SQL Server technologies
• Developing with SQL Server using the language of your choice (Examples. Node, Python, Java, etc.) or connecting your app to SQL Server using our drivers (ODBC, JDBC and open source drivers)
• Migrating or Building Apps and Solutions with SQL Server and the resources we have available to help you get the most out of SQL Server.

Didn’t cover a topic in the list above? Leave a comment with the topic you’d like us to cover or just bring them to the AMA anyways and we’ll try our best to cover it!

Why should I ask questions here instead of StackOverflow, MSDN or Twitter? Can I really ask anything?

An AMA is a great place to ask us anything. StackOverflow and MSDN have restrictions on which questions can be asked while Twitter only allows 140 characters. With an AMA, you’ll get answers directly from the team and have a conversation with the people who build these products and services.

Here are some question ideas:

• What’s new in SQL Server?
• How do I provide feedback and interact with the SQL Server product team on a regular basis?
• What tools would I use to migrate my database to SQL Server?
• What’s a cool trick you don’t think most customers know about?
• With so many database options, why should I consider SQL Server?

Go ahead, ask us anything about our public products or the team! Please note, we cannot comment on unreleased features and future plans.

Note: This posy is also available as a downloadable PDF here.

System Center 2012 R2 Data Protection Manager (DPM 2012 R2) with Update Rollup 11 (UR11) or later adds support for protecting host level backup of virtual machines running on VMware 5.5 and 6.0 servers. This is accomplished by using VMware APIs over the network and does not require that a DPM agent be installed on the VMware ESXi hosts or vCenter servers.

IMPORTANT NOTE:DPM 2016 will add support for VMware protection in Update Rollup 2 (DPM 2016 UR2). During the upgrade, you will receive a message stating that VMware protection was detected and the console will not run until DPM 2016 UR2 is installed. Once DPM 2016 UR2 is installed, the console will work and VMware protection will resume.

DPM agentless VMware VM backup

DPM is a true agentless VMware VM backup solution. There is no need to install a DPM agent on any vCenter or ESX servers to start backup protection of virtual machines. The DPM server will communicate with vCenter or ESX hosts directly using SOAP calls over HTTPS to perform backups. To start protecting VMware hosted VMs, you first need to add vCenter or ESX servers to DPM by providing the IP address or FQDN of the vCenter or ESX server along with proper login credentials to authenticate with VMware.

The diagram below illustrates communications between DPM and VMware performed by DPMRA. The DPM Engine is not directly involved with any communications between vCenter or ESX or ESXi hosts. Note that the destination files are vhdx files which are native Hyper-V format which allows for DPM Item Level Recovery (ILR) from protected Windows guests.

If the ESXi servers are managed by vCenter, the vCenter should be added to DPM. Otherwise, add the ESXi server to DPM. Below are examples of how DPM can enumerate VMs running in large data center deployments using vCenter or by protecting individual VMware ESXi servers that are not being managed by vCenter.

Keep in mind that it is possible that both vCenter and an ESX host could accidently be added to a DPM server, and in that case DPM would show both views of the same VMs as seen below.

To prevent this, if the ESX host is being managed by vCenter, Lockdown mode can be enabled on that ESX host. Lockdown mode prevents remote users from logging directly into the host, meaning that the host will only be accessible through the local console or an authorized centralized management application like vCenter. You can change the lockdown mode setting from the vSphere web UI by navigating to Hosts and Clusters and selecting the ESX host, then changing LockDown to enabled.

VMware credential management

Because DPM’s VMware backup is an agentless backup solution, DPM performs backups by interacting with vCenter/ESX servers remotely. This is achieved by DPM remotely authenticating with the VMware server. This authentication is required and performed every time DPM interacts with VMware servers. DPM securely stores the required credentials locally in Windows Credentials Manager and uses them whenever needed. Since these credentials can be changed periodically, and because a datacenter may have multiple vCenters or ESX hosts that need different credentials, DPM has built-in credentials management. However, before creating a credential in DPM, the VMware user account used for the credential must have certain privileges.

Required privileges
The required VMware user privileges are in the following table:

Today’s post was written by Cyril Belikoff, senior director of Office Marketing.

It’s no secret that the pace of digital transformation is accelerating across all industries. Information Technology (IT) is right at the forefront of this trend. We built Microsoft FastTrack to help IT organizations embrace this change by making it easier for them to move to the cloud and realize their business value faster. Included with Office 365 at no additional charge, Microsoft FastTrack is the Office 365 customer success service for our business customers.

To date, Microsoft FastTrack has enabled more than 22,000 customers, migrated 2.45 PB of data and is currently taking on more than 4,000 new customers every month. We have over 800 FastTrack engineers worldwide, available to assist you and your partner in 12 languages, providing best practices, insight and guidance.

FastTrack helps IT teams plan, onboard and drive adoption of Office 365 within their organizations—across Exchange, SharePoint, Skype, Yammer and Office apps. To help even more customers, we added migration support for Notes, Gmail, GroupWise, file shares, Box and Google Drive.

One of the keys to any successful migration, once an organization has deployed the new tools, is to make sure people are learning and using them. Some of the most popular digital resources for adoption include our Awareness kits to drive awareness of Office 365 scenarios, the Office Training Center for user training content, and the Productivity Library to help individuals in HR, R&D, Finance, Legal and Sales get the best value from Office 365.

New FastTrack offer for SharePoint 2013 migrations

As you get ready for onboarding, we can support you with emails and file migration from other on-premises environments and cloud providers like Notes, Gmail, GroupWise, file shares, Box and Google Drive.

Today, we are pleased to announce a limited-time offer of migration services from on-premises SharePoint 2013 to Office 365—available at no additional cost to eligible Office 365 customers until March 31, 2017. This offer is available to customers with at least 150 licenses for an eligible service or plan for their Office 365 tenant. For customers who take advantage of this offer, the FastTrack team will assess your SharePoint 2013 environment, and help you build and execute a plan to migrate from your on-premises team sites and MySites to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, respectively. Refer to the offer FAQs for a complete list of items available for migration. To get started, sign in to FastTrack and request the offer from the list of available offers.

FastTrack helps customers add value to their businesses

FastTrack is engineering-led by design to help you reduce the time and cost of migration, and resolve deployment and adoption challenges more easily. As the FastTrack team works with customers, we learn from those experiences and use all of that learning to continually improve the service. With more customers discovering the benefits of Office 365 and FastTrack, migrations are now increasing at an average rate of 10 percent per month. For example, companies like CSC, a leading IT services company, and Jabil, a global manufacturer, have used FastTrack to move to Office 365 to increase productivity and improve collaboration.

Watch this video to learn more about the value of FastTrack from customers who have experienced it firsthand:

FastTrack is continuously evolving

Over the past 12 months, we’ve continuously evolved FastTrack to help meet your needs by enhancing the FastTrack digital experience at fasttrack.microsoft.com and expanding the scope of services delivered by our engineering team. Learn more about what’s included (or not) by watching this webcast and reading our service description. Visit the Office 365 Roadmap to learn about other new updates, features and improvements coming from Microsoft FastTrack.

Want to engage with FastTrack? Sign in at fasttrack.microsoft.com/office to create your personalized success plan and request FastTrack assistance.

We look forward to helping you transition to Office 365.

—Cyril Belikoff

The post New FastTrack offer to migrate SharePoint 2013 customers to Office 365 appeared first on Office Blogs.

Secure personal devices to access important documents and communicate on the spot.

An online immersion session is not your typical online event. Each 90-minute interactive session starts with an online roundtable discussing your business challenges and then launches you into a live environment in the cloud. A skilled facilitator will guide you through simulated business scenarios that are customized to your interests.

We will send you a link to connect your own device to a remote desktop loaded with our latest and greatest technology, so you can experience first-hand how Microsoft tools can solve your biggest challenges in a collaborative, fun environment.

Online immersion sessions help you discover how to:

• Keep information secure while being productive—Make it easier to work securely and maintain compliance without inhibiting your workflow.
• Capture, review and share notes from anywhere—Boost your team’s productivity by sharing documents and collaborating in real time.
• Use social tools to find experts and answers—Break down barriers between departments to share knowledge quickly.
• Quickly visualize and analyze complex data—Zero in on the data and insights you need without having to involve a BI expert.
• Co-author and share content quickly—Access and edit documents even while others are editing and reviewing them—all at the same time.

Expect to leave the session with enough time-saving skills to more than offset your time investment within a few short days.

Each session is only open to 20 participants. Reserve your seat now and learn how you can be more productive anywhere, anytime with Office 365.

Sessions are held at 10 a.m. PT and 12 p.m. PT every Wednesday. Register now!

The post Work securely anywhere with Office 2016 and Windows 10 appeared first on Office Blogs.

With Office 365, we’re eager to help your small business achieve more. That’s why we are expanding the value of Office 365 to include not only essential productivity and collaboration tools, but also new services to help you run your business. The launch of Bookings earlier this year introduced a new way to schedule appointments with your customers. Today, we are adding a new tool to help you manage your customer relationships more effectively.

As a business owner, you know that getting repeat business starts with knowing your customers well, remembering the conversations you’ve had, and following through on their requests. That can be a challenge when you have many customers to keep track of and not enough time in the day. To make it easier for you to track and grow your customer relationships, we are introducing a new Office 365 service called Outlook Customer Manager.

Outlook Customer Manager gives you a complete view of your interactions with each customer, helps you track tasks and deals in progress, and surfaces timely reminders. You can stay on top of customer relationships right from Outlook, with no need to install or learn separate tools.

Now included at no extra cost in the Office 365 Business Premium plan, Outlook Customer Manager is a cloud-powered solution designed especially for small businesses. And as your business needs grow, you can move to Dynamics 365 to take advantage of enhanced customer information, process efficiency and consistency, and deeper financial and customer insights.

Customer information in one place—without busy work

Trying to keep up with all the information and tasks from emails, meeting invites, call logs, Excel sheets, handwritten notes and other team members can get in the way of more important work. That’s why Outlook Customer Manager automatically organizes customer information—such as emails, meetings, calls, notes, files, tasks, deals and deadlines—in a timeline next to your inbox.

See customer information next to your inbox so you can act on it right away.

The information in the timeline is automatically gathered from the email, calendar and call log data from your Office 365 environment, minimizing the need to manually enter data about your customer interactions. With all your customer information gathered in one place, you can spend less time entering data, or searching for it in various places, and more time with customers.

Never miss what’s important

Within the busy day of a business owner, it’s easy to forget about items that need follow-up—or worse, fail to fulfill important commitments to a customer. Outlook Customer Manager helps you stay on top of opportunities and commitments by surfacing timely reminders, letting you associate tasks with a contact, company or deal, and listing deals by stage, close dates, priority and amount. To help you prioritize your time, the system automatically presents a Focused list of your most important customers and deals.

Dive in for a detailed view of your customers and deals, and see timely reminders.

Get everyone on the same page

At a small business, everyone pitches in for customers. But when several team members talk to a customer, it can quickly get complicated to keep track of all the communication. With Outlook Customer Manager, you can choose to share customer information with your team so everyone is on the same page.

This means the next time an employee is out sick, other team members can answer a call from their customers with all the needed information at their fingertips—from notes from recent customer calls to upcoming meeting dates, and from deal stage information to the name of that customer’s dog.

Access it all on the go

Get on-the-go access.

Work doesn’t always happen in front of a desk, which is why Outlook Customer Manager has a mobile app that gives you quick access to the same customer information you’ll see at your desktop. You can check recent communication right before meeting with a customer, jot down a quick note after a meeting or scan a business card to quickly create a new business contact—all in a few swipes on your phone.

The mobile app is initially available for iOS, and over time we will bring it to other mobile platforms.

Simple to use

Outlook Customer Manager is accessible in one click from the home tab in your Outlook inbox—so you don’t need to install any new software or spend days training your team to get them started. Because your data stays in Office 365, you don’t waste valuable time setting up connectors to other software or services, or managing separate products.

Get started in one click.

Getting started with Outlook Customer Manager

Outlook Customer Manager is now rolling out to Office 365 Business Premium customers, starting with those opted into First Release and continuing worldwide in the coming months. Once it has rolled out to your Office 365 account, you will see an icon for it in the home tab in Outlook 2016 for Windows. Just click the icon to get started. If you want early access, please see this page for more information on how to join the First Release program for Office 365.

We are excited to see how Outlook Customer Manager helps you stay on top of customer relationships and grow your business. As you use Outlook Customer Manager, please tell us what you think by providing feedback in our feedback forum.

Frequently asked questions

Q. Which Office 365 subscriptions include Outlook Customer Manager?

A. Outlook Customer Manager is available with an Office 365 Business Premium subscription. We are working to also bring it to E3 and E5 subscriptions in the future.

Q. When will Outlook Customer Manager be available?

A. Outlook Customer Manager is rolling out to Office 365 Business Premium subscribers, starting with those in First Release and continuing worldwide in the coming months. If you want early access, please see support article for more information on how to join the First Release program for Office 365.

Q. How do I access Outlook Customer Manager?

A. An icon for Outlook Customer Manager will appear in the home tab in Outlook 2016 for Windows as soon as it is rolled out to your account. Click the icon to get started.

Q. Where can I get more information or give feedback?

A. Please see this support article for more information. You can share feedback with us in our feedback forum.

The post Introducing Outlook Customer Manager—relationships made easy for small businesses appeared first on Office Blogs.

We’ve showed you how to get started with the Windows Ink Workspace on your PC. Today, we’re talking about all the ways it can make trip-planning easier when you use it with the Windows Maps app. By drawing in the app, you can easily get directions, measure distances, leave notes and more.

Draw a line between two points for instant directions

Simply draw a line between your start point and destination, and the Maps app will quickly convert your ink into a route and give you directions.

Markup and add notes to your map

Personalize your map by adding details, marking places and annotating your plans, just like you would on a regular paper map.

Trace a route and find distances

With the measure tool, you can easily find out the distance of your run, bike or even kayak route. Just trace a route on the map and the app will calculate it for you.

Use the ruler for perfectly straight lines on your map

Use the ruler to draw straight lines directly on the map to outline an area, or combine the ruler with the measure distance tool to get the distance between multiple points. You can also rotate and adjust it to the angle that you need.

You can use Windows Ink with your device’s pen, but all the ink functionality is available with mouse or touch if you enable the touch-writing option on the ink toolbar.

Have a great week!

Summary: Use Power BI to visualize weather information.

The previous part of this blog post showcased how weather information could be visualized in Microsoft OMS using queries, My Dashboard, and a custom solution. In this blog post, we will look at how we can route this data to Power BI and utilize Power BI to visualize this information. In this blog post, we will explain how to export data from OMS to Excel and Power BI, including steps to enable the Power BI Integration.

Export data from OMS to csv and Excel

OMS includes a built-in ability to export any data that you query to a csv file that can be viewed through several applications including Microsoft Excel. To do this, just open a query, and choose the Export button.

This saves the result to a csv file that opens automatically in Excel. After you have the data, you can filter it and graph it. The data appears as we would expect and can be filtered. The subset in the following screenshot shows temperature information for only one location.

You can create graphs based on the information just like you can do with any type of data in Excel.

Configure OMS to export to Power BI

Currently, Power BI Integration is a preview feature in Microsoft OMS. To enable this in your workspace, go to the Settings tab, and then enable the preview feature.

When you open the Preview Features area, you can enable or disable various OMS features that are currently in preview.

After this feature is enabled, you will see the option to export data to Power BI, as shown in the following screenshot, with the other built-in log search options (Export, Alert, Save, Favorites, and History).

Current Power BI exports are available on the Settings tab under Power BI where you can turn on, turn off, or remove exports.

Visualize OMS data in Power BI

After you export the data from Microsoft OMS, data will appear based on the frequency that you specified when you created the export within the Datasets area.

An example of this is shown in the following screenshot.

To determine whether your data is populating, see the right side of Power BI under Fields. The results section should show each of the fields that were exported.

As a hint, start with the slicer visualization.

Add one of the easy values, such as the City, to visualize.

This example also adds a slider for the TimeGenerated field.

After you have the slicer populated, add the Area charts for the various values (Temperature, Humidity, etc). Finally, add the text to the left and the title to the top. After a bit of cleanup, the final result looks like this!

Summary: Power BI provides an incredible method to visualize data, including data from Microsoft OMS. Because we can now route whatever type of data we are interested in to OMS, we can visualize any of this data in Power BI as well.

Cameron Fuller
Catapult Systems

Howdy folks,

Back in July we blogged about our plan to combine the two different authenticator apps from Microsoft into one new app, Microsoft Authenticator. Since then, we’ve released the iOS and Android versions of the application and updated them both quite a few times.

Today I’m happy to let you know that late last week, we released the Windows phone version!

Getting here has taken a bit longer than we had hoped (due to some pretty challenging bugs) but we’re excited to finally bring our industry-leading two-step verification experiences to Windows Phone (Note: you need to be running the Windows 10 Anniversary update). Just like Android and iOS, the new app provides push notification approvals for both our Azure AD and Microsoft consumer accounts. For anyone currently using the app, this new version will arrive as an update. All of your accounts will seamlessly move over to the new app.

Besides the complete redesign, there are quite a few changes under the hood as well, including tons of performance, reliability, and accessibility features. One change to note involves moving to Window’s’ latest notification service. This might prevent you from receiving the first few approval requests from outside the app. It’s only temporary, and the requests can still be easily found by opening the app.

Hope you enjoy the latest app, and I look forward to hearing what you think!

Best regards,

Alex Simons (Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons)

Director of Program Management

Microsoft Identity Division

As hundreds of people across Microsoft head towards New York City we wanted to take this opportunity to write a short blog post to remind our community that we’re almost ready to unveil Connect(); // 2016, Microsoft’s big fall developer event, streaming live and totally for free from November 16^th through the 18^th.

You might be reading this and asking the question “so why should you watch this?” or “what exactly is the agenda like this year?”, so let us walk you through all the details so you can decide.

Day 1: November 16^th (6:45am – 1:30pm PST)

Keynotes: November 16^th we will be live streaming from 9:45am through 4:30pm EST. Join the live stream to see our keynotes by Scott Guthrie and Scott Hanselman, along with many other guest speakers. You don’t want to miss this live stream; we will have lots of exciting news and announcements.

Live Q&A: After the keynotes starting at around 1:00pm EST we will begin our live Q&A with various keynote speakers, executives and some very special guests. This will be your chance to engage and ask questions as we will be taking them through Channel 9 live.

Day 2: November 17^th (8:00am – 5:00pm PST)

Live Sessions: November 17^th we’re once again back live streaming from 8:00am until 5:00pm PDT. Over the course of nine hours you’ll have the opportunity to dive deeper with the product teams that made day 1 announcements possible. This will include sessions on Visual Studio, .NET, Mobile, ALM & DevOps, Azure, Intelligent App and Data, Windows and Office development.

Not only will our product teams go deeper into the announcements from day 1, but they will also take your questions. We will also show some demos that go beyond the keynote.

Day 3: November 18^th (9:00am – 4:00pm PST)

Free Live Training: Day 3 of Connect(); is new this year. This year we have added a training day where you will have the chance to participate in totally free, live training from both Xamarin University and Microsoft Virtual Academy. These training providers will cover the following topics in their agendas:

• Xamarin University: Mobile and Cloud Application Development
• Microsoft Virtual Academy: Web, Cloud and Data Application Development

All the training content will also be available on-demand. , so don’t worry if you miss the live stream. Come join us when you have time after the November 18^th live stream is over and you’ll have full access to the recorded versions of these trainings for free on the respective sites.

Joining live does give you one advantage, and that’s the ability to ask questions so we hope you’ll consider doing so!

On-demand Video & MSDN Magazine

On-demand Videos: On November 16^th we’ll be publishing over 110 brand new on-demand videos. These relatively short (typically around 8-15min) videos provide you another way to learn about the topics or scenarios you’re most interested in without the fluff.

In addition all the live streaming keynotes, live Q&A’s and day 2 session will be recorded and published to Channel 9 after the event, so you can view them on your schedule.

MSDN Magazine: We will also be shipping a special edition of MSDN magazine, available to both print subscribers and anyone who wishes to read them online (for free). We will be publishing over 12 articles that cover a wide variety of topics from the keynotes, and if you know MSDN Magazine then you know these articles will be deep technical content from some of our best writers.

So that’s it! It has been a lot of work to get here and I hope this blog helps you understand exactly where you can join us live or find the content on-demand whenever you can consume it. We really hope you will join us, thank you so much.

Dmitry Lyalin has been building software for 18+ years and has worked in various industries including payroll, education, banking, media and more recently Microsoft Consulting & Premier Support. Currently Dmitry works as a Senior Product Manager for the Cloud App, Developer and Data team out of Redmond. In his spare time Dmitry loves writing code and is a very passionate PC gamer.