Visual Studio Marketplace is the exclusive destination for discovering extensions for Visual Studio IDE, Team Services and Code, and purchasing subscriptions. While consumers of the Marketplace benefit greatly from it, we want our publishers to have a great experience too. After all, it is they who make the Marketplace rich with real world extensions and integrations.

This post gives you a sneak peek at the set of publisher centric enhancements that we plan to bring to Marketplace in Q2 CY 2017. As always, the timelines and designs shared in this post are subject to change.

Publisher Hub

As the publisher of a VSTS extension, you want to know how your extension in performing. Publisher Hub would provide you all such context and more:

• Insights about how your extension is being acquired, such as uptake around VSTS & TFS, conversion funnel from impressions to page views to installs
• Information w.r.t. uninstalls of the extension along with related reasoning
• Be able to analyze how the extension is being reviewed/rated & then drive actions right from this hub
• And also, be able to download this data for your offline processing as need be

We are likely to enable this for paid extensions first.

Support for Extension Versions

Our publishers shared the following cases with us:

• We wish to test the v2 of my extension while its v1 is being used by customers in production
• I wish to patch my extension and try it out with a limited set of customers before sharing it more widely

For both above, a versioning story becomes essential where the in-development extension can be privately shared with selective account(s) to solicit feedback and aid testing. Hence we plan to enable a versioning story for extensions (Team Services and TFS only) in coming months. Likely on the following lines:

Q&A Support

User reviews on the extensions today is being overloaded by consumers for questions and support as opposed to just reviews. Since rating is mandatory in such situation, this can negatively affect the extension rating overall and in turn the publisher. Hence a Q&A section is being added to support dialogue between publishers and their consumers across all extension targets. Appropriate notifications would be sent when a question is posted or answered. 

We are happy to announce SQL Server vNext Management Pack CTP2 bits with new features are ready. Please install and use this public preview and send us your feedback (sqlmpsfeedback@microsoft.com)!

Please download the public preview bits at:

Microsoft System Center Management Pack (Community Technical Preview 2) for SQL Server vNext

Please note that CTP1 bits are not upgradable to CTP2. If you previously installed CTP1, you need to uninstall it before installing this release.

Here is a table that gives a high level overview of which features are available:

Legend

Completed

W – Supported on Windows

L – Supported on Linux

W/L – Supported on Windows and Linux

W/NA – Supported on Windows but no applicable to Linux

New Features and Fixes in CTP2

• Implemented “Discovery Data Mapper”; improved queries and datasources
• Implemented support for full cookdown for all discoveries on Linux and Windows
• Implemented Log Shipping monitoring
• Implemented new monitors and rules:

•  “Service Pack Compliance” monitor
• “SQL Server Windows Service” monitor
• “CPU Utilization (%)” monitor
• “SQL Server Service (database)” monitor
• “Database Health Policy (Critical)” monitor
• “Database Health Policy (Warning)” monitor
• “WMI Health” monitor
• “Memory Used By Tables (MB) rule
• “Memory Used By Indexes (MB)” rule
• “MSSQL vNext on Windows: DB Engine CPU Utilization (%)” rule
• “SQL Server vNext DB Engine is restarted” rule
• Implemented new DB Space performance rules:
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Allocated Space Unused (MB)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Free Space Total (%)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Free Outer Space (MB)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Transaction Log
  • Free Space Total (%)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Free Space Total (MB)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Allocated Space Used (MB)
  • MSSQL vNext: DB Allocated Space (MB)

• Implemented new classes:

• SQL Server vNext DB FILESTREAM Filegroup on
• SQL Server vNext DB Memory-Optimized Data Container on
• Generic SQL Server vNext Custom User Policy
• SQL Server vNext Custom User Policy on
• SQL Server vNext Database Critical Policy on
• SQL Server vNext Database Warning Policy on
• SQL Server vNext Resource Pool Group on
• Generic SQL Server vNext Resource Pool
• SQL Server vNext Resource Pool on
• SQL Server vNext Internal Resource Pool on
• SQL Server vNext User Resource Pool on
• SQL Server vNext User-Defined Resource Pool on

• Implemented new monitor and rule for FILESTREAM objects:

• MSSQL vNext on : DB FILESTREAM Filegroup Free Space Total (MB)
• MSSQL vNext on : DB FILESTREAM Filegroup Free Space Total (%)

• Implemented new performance rules for Memory-Optimized Data filegroups:

• MSSQL vNext on Windows: DB Memory-Optimized Data Filegroup Free Space Total (MB)
• MSSQL vNext on Windows: DB Memory-Optimized Data Filegroup Free Space Total (%)

• Implemented “MSSQL LogReader” module
• Implemented Event Collection monitoring for Linux and Windows (more than 400 workflows)
• Implemented discoveries, rollups and icons for the new classes; updated Filegroup and child classes’ icons
• Implemented all XTP counters (more than 200 workflows)
• Implemented “Empty Bucket percent” in the hash index monitor
• Implemented “Average length of the row chains” in the hash buckets monitor
• Implemented “SQL Full-text Filter Daemon Launcher Service”; added “NetworkName” property to local dbengine; refactored Windows monitoring folder structure
• Added “Local Database” class on Windows
• Improved the architecture: split “Windows.DBEngine” and “Windows.LocalDBEngine” classes
• Improved error logging
• Improved the error-handling (connectivity issues)
• Remounted “LocalDiscoverySeed” discovery to support long names and not support wow64
• Updated Add Monitoring Wizard: fixed layouts issues, improved multithreading and performance, implemented background loading progress
• Updated and fixed the Knowledge Base articles and display strings; unified the workflows naming template
• Fixed alerts for classes managed by local agent
• Fixed Smart Connect issues connected with cached data (WMI connection)
• Fixed Linux modules to skip smart connect
• Fixed issue: “Total Transactions Per Second” rule runs twice in one interval
• Fixed issue: SQL Server vNext on Windows database objects may get rediscovered
• Fixed issue: filegroups get undiscovered in SQL Express instance
• Fixed issue: in some situations, Add Monitoring Wizard cannot detect that test connection task is completed
• Fixed issue: the already discovered database objects are undiscovered if database state is changed to “Offline”

All the details regarding the new functionality can be found in the Operations Guide that can be downloaded along with the Management Pack. Full functionality will be available with SQL Server vNext GA. This CTP release only covers a subset of monitors and rules. We will work towards full functionality as we release new CTPs.

We are looking forward to hearing your feedback (sqlmpsfeedback@microsoft.com)!

This post was authored by the Azure Stack Team.

Today we were excited to announce the third Technical Preview of Azure Stack the final preview before general availability in mid-calendar year 2017.

Azure Stack is the vessel that brings the agility and fast-paced innovation of cloud computing to on-premises environments. We think of Azure Stack as an extension of Azure, enabling organizations to run a true hybrid cloud. This offers customers greater choice and flexibility, with some workloads running behind the firewall, and some potentially running in Azure.

The Azure blog post walks through whats new in Azure Stack, including:

• TP3 software available for download
• Packaging and pay-as-you-use pricing model
• Roadmap update, including what to expect leading up to general availability

Head over to Azure to download Azure Stack TP3 and start building innovative applications that work in Azure and on-premises environments.

Klein Forest High School is located in Houston, Texas. Our student body is about 3,700 students; our faculty and staff total approximately 500, and we are 1:1. We have an on-campus repair center that services our devices, but they do not teach teachers and students how to use software. That’s where we step in. As the instructional specialists in technology on campus, it is our responsibility to ensure that teachers and students can utilize the technology effectively for teaching and learning.

We first saw OneNote Class Notebook while attending the TCEA annual technology conference last February. We attended an amazing session called Personalizing Student Learning with the OneNote Class Notebook. We were in love with so many features of the class notebook, but what sold us was Learning Tools because of our high English Language Learner (ELL) population.

As our campus struggled to step away from excessive paper copies in our 1:1 environment, administrators asked us for solutions utilizing our technology more effectively. We knew OneNote was a perfect solution. Before we could sell it, we had to become experts ourselves. So, we created a Class Notebook for our 13-member, cross-content specialist PLC. Our PLC was a team of guinea pigs. Once we gained confidence in the tool, we were ready to bring it to the staff. Like any school, our teaching staff contains all kinds—from technophobes to tech enthusiasts. Knowing that, we asked a few tech enthusiasts to pilot OneNote Class Notebook with their students. This way we would have tried and true testimonials for our technophobes from within the building.

This Sway showcases the use of OneNote at Klein Forest High School.

Just like we expected, they LOVED it. One staff member, an English IV teacher, used it with her students and immediately gravitated to the collaboration space. She had her students revise and edit each other’s essays and then leave quality feedback using the Record Audio feature. Her students asked her, “Why haven’t you been using this all year?”

Another staff member, an ELL teacher, used it with his students who are new to the country and learning the English language. He was drawn to the Learning Tools add-in. He saw vast improvements in the students’ writing and language acquisition over time. He even made some tutorial videos as a supplemental resource for our teachers ready to jump in. A third staff member, a math co-teacher, used Class Notebook with his SPED students. He, too, liked the Learning Tools, but he loved how easy it was to organize. This proved to be extremely beneficial for his population because it made providing individual accommodations easier. Additionally, the teachers provided us feedback about potential obstacles, which allowed us to anticipate problems and have possible solutions readily available.

To prepare for our summer trainings, we decided to actively “promote” OneNote. We visited PLC meetings, made infographics, emailed the details out and posted on our website. During the summer of 2016, we provided professional development for our staff introducing OneNote and had them participate as students using a Class Notebook that we had created. Most of them fell in love with it on the spot. We also had the teachers who piloted OneNote during the previous year assist with staff development for additional buy-in.

Once school started this August, things got off to a slower start than we anticipated. Teachers were falling into old habits. Therefore, we decided to switch our approach from marketing to grassroots. We targeted specific teachers who we felt were catalysts, teachers that would share our sentiments. This proved to be successful because—just like we suspected—it spread like wildfire!

Teachers and other campuses within our district began contacting us about OneNote daily. Soon, our district’s chief learning officer asked us to do a guest blog post in The Exchange, an in-district blog. As you can imagine, we were pumped.

One question that always emerges is how we support our teachers with OneNote. The first thing we do is schedule two appointments with the teachers. We have found that initial and ongoing support are a huge indicator of success, especially for teachers that are weary about trying a new tool. OneNote can be daunting for some. Additionally, we provide supplemental trainings like Using OneNote for Accommodations or OneNote Tips and Tricks for people at various places in their OneNote journey. Another way we support teachers is sharing and showcasing their efforts and ideas on our website. Lastly, we ensure we follow up with teachers frequently, whether it is a quick conversation in the hall or an email asking, “How’s OneNote going?”

OneNote has been an excellent tool for our struggling students and co-teach classes. A few accommodations we have seen incorporated into OneNote are Read Aloud, enlarged text, graphic organizers, to-do list and use of calculator. (Did you know OneNote can solve simple equations?) OneNote helps students who may struggle with learning disabilities to keep their work organized because the teacher can distribute the work to their notebooks. Students are not losing or misplacing their work anymore. The differentiation of assignments is also made easy with the Distribute Page tool. Teachers can send out different assignments based on the needs of the students within the same class. Teachers also can watch the students work on their own computers and offer direct feedback during and after the assignment.

OneNote Class Notebook has been a powerful addition to our technology toolbox. OneNote Class Notebook integrates with many different programs and, lucky for us, it integrates with both our LMS and SIS. OneNote Class Notebook integrates with our LMS, which means it can automatically enroll students in the OneNote Class Notebook—one less thing for teachers to do. Another nice integration is our SIS/gradebook. Our teachers can grade an assignment in OneNote, and with the click of a button, have those grades automatically added to their gradebook.

What we have learned in the last 10 months is that OneNote can work for everyone. We have just about every subject represented, from our math teachers to our dance teachers. We have also learned that initial and follow-up support are important for continued success. There are so many awesome features in OneNote, and it can be intimidating for some when trying to show them everything up front. We try to scaffold them as we continue to follow up with our teachers. Without a doubt, OneNote has positively impacted our campus instructionally, for teachers and students alike.

—TaMara Breaux and Scott Howe, instructional specialists at Klein Forest High School in Houston, Texas

The post OneNote Class Notebook supports English Language Learners at Klein Forest High School appeared first on Office Blogs.

Today, Outlook 2016 for Mac is adding support for Google Calendar and Contacts—available first to our Office Insider Fast community. We’re excited to be delivering on these highly-requested features for Mac users and matching our Outlook apps for iOS and Android, providing Google accounts with a more powerful way to stay in control of the day ahead.

While today marks the beginning of this rollout, we need your help to test drive and provide feedback on the experience. We will be closely managing the rollout to Insiders, expanding availability over the next several weeks, before becoming broadly available to Office 365 customers later this year.

More than just email

Outlook for Mac has long supported connecting to and managing your Gmail. With these updates, Outlook will now also sync your Google calendars and contacts. The experience will be very similar to what you are familiar with in Outlook today, with support for all the core actions—such as add, delete, edit time and location. All changes will update back and forth with Gmail or Outlook for iOS and Android, so everything is in sync across all your devices.

Bringing the best features of Outlook to your Gmail account

Up to now, many of Outlook’s best and most advanced email features have only been available to those with an Outlook.com, Office 365 or Exchange email address. With these updates, you will also be able to take advantage of several of Outlook’s advanced features with your Gmail account, including Focused Inbox and richer experiences for travel reservations and package deliveries. Additional advanced features will become available as we roll these updates out more broadly.

How to get started

Outlook 2016 for Mac users who are part of the Office Insider Fast program will be the first to try this new feature. To become an Insider, simply open up Outlook, click Help > Check for Updates and then follow the directions found here.

Not all Insiders will see the new Google account experience right away. We will closely monitor feedback and expand the rollout over the next few weeks. Outlook will notify you when this feature becomes available, with a prompt asking you to add your Google account. If you have an existing Google account connected to Outlook, you can remove it after setting up the new experience.

If you ignore the initial prompt, you can add a Google account at a later time by going to Tools> Accounts.

We are still fine-tuning the Google account experience in Outlook for Mac and will provide regular updates to Insiders before releasing the features more broadly. You can help us improve the experience by providing feedback and identifying bugs by going to Help > Contact Support.

Got a suggestion for how to improve Outlook for Mac? Please suggest and vote on future feature ideas on our Outlook for Mac UserVoice page.

—The Outlook team

The post Outlook 2016 for Mac adds support for Google Calendar and Contacts appeared first on Office Blogs.

Mobility is paramount in today’s business environment. That’s why we’re excited to announce Microsoft Visio Online, which enables users to share and view Visio diagrams in high fidelity from almost any device using their favorite browser. Today, Visio Online opens the online viewing experience to almost all Office 365 commercial users, boosting productivity for everyone on your team, no matter where they’re working. In addition to Visio Online, we’ve released JavaScript APIs for IT professionals to extend Visio capabilities to meet specific user needs.

The Visio team has steadily released more and more features to increase mobility across your organization. In November 2016, we brought Visio Online Public Preview for a group of Office 365 users—and their feedback was fantastic! Since then, we’ve enabled Visio Online for VSD file format and for users who are using email through Exchange Online, Outlook.com and Hotmail. In addition to online viewing, we’re excited to announce commenting for Visio Online, giving you and your team a place to review and discuss process flows, shape data and more without switching windows.

Get started today! For more information, visit our FAQ page.

Add comments to Visio diagrams from your browser.

Create custom Visio Online solutions to meet your needs

We are also releasing Visio JavaScript APIs that extend the capabilities of Visio Online for developers. Using these APIs, IT professionals can now build rich mashup solutions to meet their organization’s specific needs.

The APIs enable programmatic access to the embedded Visio Online diagrams in a SharePoint Online page. Developers can use them to interact with Visio diagram elements—like pages and shapes—expose diagram data, write custom handlers for mouse events, create visual mark-ups on the diagram canvas and more. As a mashup example, developers can create a custom overlay, such as a list of steps required to complete before moving forward in a process, that appears when users select or hover over a diagram shape.

Embed Visio Online diagrams into SharePoint Online using JavaScript APIs.

Please visit the Office Dev Center and read the related blog for detailed instructions and more information on how to use JavaScript APIs with Visio Online.

You can also visit our UserVoice page to submit suggestions for new products, and follow us on Facebook, YouTube and Twitter for the latest Visio news.

—The Visio team

The post Visio Online—anywhere, anytime access to your diagrams appeared first on Office Blogs.

Today, we’re pleased to announce that the new Office 365 Service health dashboard is now available to all customers. Since the first preview—announced at Ignite in September 2016—the new Service health dashboard has provided admins with a deeper level of service health insight. We’re excited about the rich insights that it is bringing to admins.

The new Service health dashboard reaches general availability

For many of you, moving to Office 365 was a big change. In an on-premises world, if there was a service incident, you were the ones investigating and solving the issue. With Office 365, you trust Microsoft with running the service as well as with quickly solving service incidents. We know that having visibility into the service is crucial for you, and we built the Service health dashboard with that in mind. We are now providing an even deeper level of service health insights that are personalized for your organization. This allows admins to stay on top of service incidents, improve their internal support experience and improve their users’ Office 365 experience.

We’d like to thank each one of you who has participated in the preview program and who has provided feedback on the Service health dashboard. Over the last four months, we have received numerous pieces of feedback that have helped us identify gaps, fix bugs and evolve the Service health dashboard to a monitoring experience that meets the needs of all company sizes. And it’s great to hear how it is already helping you:

“The Service health dashboard has helped us better understand the current state of the Office 365 service and is a much clearer picture of potential service. It conveys easy to understand information about service health and makes me aware of what is relevant to me.” —Customer feedback

Here is a summary of the main improvements:

Access rich and more actionable incident insights—The dashboard now features a view that separates major business critical outages from others and splits them into two categories: Incidents and Advisories. This view makes it easy for you to identify issues that you might want to act on immediately.

Quickly understand the incident—A summary view surfaces the most relevant and critical details to you in two short sentences—easy and quick to consume. If you want to access additional details, you can go to a more detailed view that provides you with all available information, including workarounds and message history. You can also access a history of incidents and advisories that occurred in the past 30 days.

Easily see the impact for your organization—The dashboard allows you to quickly understand the impact of the service incident on your organization by showing you the number of impacted users. (Please note: This functionality is currently available for Exchange Online–related incidents only and will be extended to other workloads over time.)

Quickly providefeedback—A rating option now enables admins to provide feedback on the accuracy and usefulness of the information of each post on the Service health dashboard.

To access the new Service health dashboard, click Service health in the left navigation menu in the Office 365 admin center.

More to come

This is just the beginning. Our goal is to provide you with richer and more actionable service health insights that will help you to stay on top of incidents, reduce support costs and improve end user experiences. We’ll be adding more enhancements in the coming months, including:

Tell us about issues—If you are impacted by an issue that is not showing up on your Service health dashboard, the Tell us feature will provide you with a quick and easy way to let us know.

Stay informed through your preferred channel—The Service health dashboard will enable you to sign up for notifications via text and/or email, so that you can monitor the service and track issues through the channel you prefer.

Access user level details—In addition to the number of impacted users, you will also be able to access a full list of impacted users to enable you to drive more targeted communication and support.

Check the health of your users—On-demand user health checks will allow you to check end user health by running a test against our service. User Monitoring will enable you to proactively monitor specific users and to find out about possible health issues affecting those users right away—often before they might even notice them.

In-product messaging—The Service health dashboard will enable you to make your users aware of service incidents and inform them about possible workaround solutions through optional in-product notifications.

More management enhancements in February

Here’s a summary of additional Office 365 administration updates for February:

Weekly Message Center digest—Based on popular demand, we introduced a weekly digest that enables Office 365 admins to receive a summary of their Message Center notifications via email. The Message Center is the main channel that Microsoft uses to inform admins about changes, maintenance work and updates coming to their service. To make it easier for you to stay up to date and to share the notifications with your co-workers, the weekly digest now brings them directly to your inbox and can be configured for delivery to any email address of your choosing—even a distribution list! The weekly digest capability is currently available to Office 365 admins who are set to First Release in tenants with more than 50 subscribed users and will become available for all customers over time.

If you don’t receive the weekly digest yet, you can also access the Message Center in the admin center, admin mobile app and Office 365 Service Communications API.

Introducing Azure AD tenant restrictions (preview)—Certain organizations choose to restrict internet destinations by filtering on Fully Qualified Domain Names (FQDNs) and/or IP addresses using proxy and/or firewall devices. However, this approach is not effective in a world where SaaS applications are hosted in a public cloud, running on shared FQDNs such as outlook.office.com (Outlook on the web) and login.microsoftonline.com (Azure AD). Blocking these FQDNs would effectively block access to every instance of the service, including the organization’s.

The new tenant restrictions feature enables organizations to control access to SaaS cloud applications, based on the Azure AD tenant the applications use for single sign-on. For example, you may want to allow access to your organization’s Office 365 applications, while preventing access to other organizations’ Office 365 applications.

Tenant restrictions is a new feature being introduced to Azure AD Premium P1 subscribers and all Office 365 customers. To make use of this feature, Office 365 subscribers must enable Modern Authentication as the default authentication protocol for the cloud service and access the service using a Modern Authentication–enabled client. When you’re ready to get started, see Use Tenant restrictions to manage access to SaaS cloud applications for more information.

Office 365 admin center learning page—To help small business run their business on Office 365, we’ve launched an Office 365 admin center video page that makes it easy to understand key management scenarios through a series of short, easy-to-follow videos. Learn how to add a domain name, add people, set up document storage, download software and much more. Please let us know what content you’d like to see as we continue to add more videos and categories in the coming months.

New Power BI admin role—The Power BI admin role is a new role in Azure AD, meant for those tasked with administering Power BI for their organization. Office 365 user admins can assign users to be Power BI admins within the Office 365 admin center or via PowerShell script. Once a user is assigned, they’ll be able to access the Power BI Admin portal. There, they will have access to tenant-wide usage metrics and be able to control tenant-wide usage of Power BI features.

Office 365 admin app improvements—The Office 365 admin app now supports cert-based authentication and multi-factor authentication.

New tile for the Office 365 admin center dashboard—To enable admins to manage Office 365 more efficiently, we continue to evolve the admin center home page. In February, we included a Suggested Features tile that admins can add to their home page. The tile shows features we recommend enabling to increase the value your organization is getting out of Office 365.

In addition, we’ve started to retire the old admin center and the ability for customers to switch back to the old experience.

More to come

Over the coming months, we will add more reports, focused on the clients used to access SharePoint and OneDrive for Business. We are also working on making the Office 365 adoption content pack in Power BI available to all customers and on providing new public APIs that will enable you to programmatically access the usage data and integrate it into custom applications, like a company reporting portal.

Let us know what you think!

Try the new features and provide feedback using the feedback link in the lower right corner of the admin center. And don’t be surprised if we respond to your feedback. We truly read every piece of feedback that we receive to make sure the Office 365 administration experience meets your needs.

Please note: The features mentioned in this blog post have started to roll out. If they are not available yet in your region, for your subscription or for your organization, please check back in a few weeks!

—Anne Michels, @Anne_Michels, senior product marketing manager for the Office 365 Marketing team

The post What’s new in Office 365 administration—new Service health dashboard now generally available appeared first on Office Blogs.

Today we’re announcing the availability of Azure Stack Technical Preview 3. Azure Stack is the vessel we’re using to bring Azure technologies in a way designed to run on-premises. Azure Stack is aimed at rounding out a cloud strategy by providing additional choice and flexibility when using Azure.

You can easily factor Azure Stack into your plans when building applications. The tools you use, and DevOps processes you follow in Azure can be transferred to Azure Stack. You can use Azure Stack to help you solve the requirements applications may face around issues of regulation, data latency, data sensitivity, or customization. Think of Azure Stack as an extension of Azure, that enables organizations to run a true hybrid cloud, with some parts running behind the firewall, and some potentially running in Azure.

The reason we’re posting on the Visual Studio blog is that Visual Studio, Visual Studio Team Services and Team Foundation Server all include support for Azure Stack. There’s a unified deployment experience with across Azure and Azure Stack and you can set up a hybrid CI/CD pipeline wherever you need to run your app. Our goal is to help you invest in your skills, processes, and applications in a way that is transferable to any Azure cloud without too much complexity.

If you’re interested in learning more about Azure Stack, take a look at our Azure Stack page.

Take a look at the TP3 announcements, play with the product and give us your feedback on what you see.

Andrew Zeller, Senior Product Marketing Manager, Azure Stack Andrew started working at Microsoft with the Windows Server and System Center products. For the last few years, he has been working on bringing cloud to datacenters.

Join us for the second episode of a two-part Modern Workplace special security series, “Cyber Intelligence—the human element,” airing March 7, 2017 at 8 a.m. PST / 4 p.m. GMT. In this episode, get a deeper look inside the biggest threat to an organization’s security—its employees. In addition, you will learn how to motivate your team to proactively help prevent a breach.

Featured guests:

• Cyber intelligence advisor, Dr. Jessica Barker, shares simple steps you can take today to motivate your organization to help keep security threats at bay.
• CISO for Nielsen, Phil Ferraro, discusses five common security myths you must avoid to protect your data.

Plus, learn how Office 365 Advanced Threat Protection can help enterprise businesses detect, investigate and respond to advanced threats.

Register now!

Related content

• Download the eBook, “Insider’s Guide to Social Engineering.”
• Download the eBook, “ 5 Questions for Security Teams.”
• Watch the video, “Stay Secure with Advanced Threat Protection in Office 365.”

The post Learn how to protect your organization from the human element appeared first on Office Blogs.

This post was authored by the Windows Server Team.

Today we are announcing the general availability of Windows Server Premium Assurance with which you can add the flexibility to keep systems running without disruption as you modernize. When you purchase Premium Assurance, you receive “critical” and “important” security updates and bulletins for six additional years after the end of Extended Support. This means you can get up to 16 years of total support beginning from Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 versions.

The best time to purchase is now. You can get the lowest price and lock in savings if you purchase Premium Assurance through June 2017. Prices will increase over time, so act now.

To learn more about Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance, visit the announcement on Hybrid Cloud blog.

Today we are announcing general availability of SQL Server Premium Assurance, a new offering that enables flexibility to keep systems running without disruption while modernizing on your own schedule.

When you purchase Premium Assurance, you receive “critical” and “important” security updates and bulletins during the six years after the End of Extended Support. This means you can get up to 16 years of total support beginning with SQL Server 2008 and 2008 R2 versions.

To learn more about SQL Server Premium Assurance and its companion offering Windows Server Premium Assurance, visit the announcement on Hybrid Cloud blog. You can get the lowest price and lock in savings if you purchase Premium Assurance through June 2017. Prices will increase over time, so act now!

This post was authored by the Windows Server and SQL Server Product Teams.

Today we are announcing the availability of Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance. With Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance, you receive critical and important security updates and bulletins for an additional six years after the end of Extended Support. This means you can get up to 16 years of total support, an extension from the usual five years each of Mainstream and Extended support.

These new offerings are designed to provide flexibility by enabling legacy applications to continue running without disruption as you modernize applications and infrastructure, or move to cloud. Some of the key benefits include:

• Sustain critical and legacy applications for six additional years
• Stay compliant with regulatory requirements
• Maintain security on systems that may not be ready to update

Premium Assurance is available for both Windows Server and SQL Server, which helps you sustain key scenarios that might require older versions of Windows Server and SQL Server. For example:

• A legacy ERP system that is heavily integrated with other systems
• Critical applications that cannot support the down time required for updates
• Custom applications that might be working fine and would be expensive to rearchitect
• Industry-specific applications not yet offered as cloud-based solutions

Purchase now and lock in savings

The sooner you buy Windows Server Premium Assurance or SQL Server Premium Assurance, the more you will save. Buying through June of this year will save you up to 60 percent, as price of the offering will increase over time. Since your initial purchase price remains consistent over time and renewal periods, you are locking in those savings for the future.

To support a specific product version, you must purchase the Windows Server Premium Assurance or SQL Server Premium Assurance offering before that version goes out of support. For example, to support Windows Server 2008 product versions, you have through December 2019 to purchase Premium Assurance. To support SQL Server 2008 version, you have through June 2019 to purchase this offering.

You can purchase at any time; there is no need to wait until renewal. After your initial purchase, you have the option to add licenses for the Premium Assurance offerings at any time. If your needs change, you can also reduce licenses or drop them altogether at the time of your Software Assurance renewal.

Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance are purchased as add-ons to Software Assurance on that product. You must purchase the Premium Assurance add-on for all servers with active Software Assurance. We have priced the add-ons with the full coverage in mind, making it easier for you not to have to keep track of which servers are running which versions, and providing you the flexibility to adjust to changes in the future.

Software Assurance is still the best way to protect your investments

Software Assurance provides you with several different notable benefits to help you maintain the value of your investments in Windows Server and SQL Server, including:

• The rights to the latest versions of Windows Server and SQL Server, with the latest innovations built in, so that you can build more agile, intelligent, and secure applications.
• The ability to move applications to Azure, taking advantage of speed, scale, and economics of cloud computing. Save up to 50% when running Windows Server in Azure with the Azure Hybrid Use Benefit. License Mobility provides the flexibility to deploy existing SQL Server licenses in the cloud without additional fees.

On top of these benefits, Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance add six more years of product support for eligible productsfor a total of 16 years of support.

Learn more about Windows Server Premium Assurance and SQL Server Premium Assurance.

Our mobile devices and wearables shape how we communicate and find information. Luckily, Visual Studio – including the latest version, Visual Studio 2017, launching on March 7– gives you all the tools you need to start building apps for the ever-growing connected device ecosystem. Whether you’re building for enterprise users or everyday consumers, Visual Studio’s built-in Xamarin mobile support allows you to bring your .NET skills and knowledge from the desktop, web, and Windows world to new platforms, including popular mobile devices and wearables.

Jumpstart your mobile development skills with Xamarin University’s free five-part webinar series, airing every Thursday in March. Xamarin University’s industry-leading mobile development curriculum includes 80+ courses from beginner to advanced, developed and delivered by industry experts for developers just like you. With this popular webinar series, you’ll get the step-by-step training you need to start building amazing mobile apps.

Register for the free “Xamarin University Presents” webinar series

Beginning on March 2^nd, join us for one or all sessions and bring your questions. Xamarin University instructors and experts will be on hand for live Q & A.

• Thursday, March 2^nd, 9am PT: Intro to Xamarin for Visual Studio: Native iOS, Android, and Windows apps in C#– Xamarin University Guest Lecturer James Montemagno will show you how to create, debug, test and deploy apps for iOS, Android and Windows while maximizing the shared code between all platforms.
• Thursday, March 9^th, 9 am PT: Building your First Xamarin.Forms App– Adrian Stevens, Xamarin University curriculum manager, will walk you through building your first Xamarin.Forms application, including using a common set of controls to define a fully native UI for Android, iOS, and Windows.
• Thursday, March 16^th, 9am PT: Building Your First Android App– Xamarin University professor Judy McNeil will show you how to design native Android UIs with the Android Designer, add behavior, and deploy apps to Android emulators and devices – straight from Visual Studio.
• Thursday, March 23^rd, 9 am PT: Building Your First iOS App– Chris van Wyk, another expert Xamarin University professor, will dive into a typical Xamarin.iOS project, explore the MVC architecture, create screens with the Visual Studio iOS Designer, and test Xamarin.iOS apps on a simulator and real devices.
• Thursday, March 30^th, 9 am PT: Connected Mobile Apps with Microsoft Azure
  James Montemagno will teach you how to integrate various Azure App services into your Xamarin apps, including: cloud data storage, offline sync, push notifications, user authentication, and data and intelligence.

Sign up today.

We’re looking forward to seeing you soon and helping you build apps users love – now and in the future.

For even more hands-on guidance, don’t miss the Visual Studio 2017 launch event March 7-8 for keynotes, demos, and a full day of virtual training from Xamarin University!

Mark Smith, Principal Program Manager Mark leads Xamarin University, where he helps developers learn how to utilize their .NET skills to build amazing mobile apps for Android, iOS, Windows and beyond. Prior to his career at Microsoft and Xamarin (acquired by Microsoft), Mark ran a consulting business, specializing in custom development

Howdy folks,

I’m excited to announce that we’re going to host our first ever Azure AD Ask Me Anything session!

When:

March 9, 2017 from 10:00 am to 1:00 pm
Pacific Time. You’ll be able to access the AAD AMA when it goes live on March 8.

What’s an AMA session?

We’ll have folks from across the Azure Active Directory Engineering team available to answer any questions you have. You can ask us anything about our products, services, or even our team!

Why are we doing an AMA?

As you know, we love learning from our customers and the overall identity community. We want to know how you use Azure Active Directory and how your experience has been using it. Your questions provide insights into how we can make the service better.

Who will be there?

Well, first we really hope you’ll be there! We’ll have a broad set of Program Managers and Developers from the Azure Active Directory team participating throughout the day.

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

So head over to the Azure Active Directory AMA
on March 9!
We’re looking forward to having a conversation with you!

Best Regards,

Alex Simons (Twitter: @Alex_A_Simons)

Director of Program Management

Microsoft Identity Division

Yammer empowers people to work out loud and connect with others across their organization to share ideas and get things done. In Yammer, groups provide the structure for people to gather in open spaces to share best practices, develop into communities of interest and ignite new initiatives.

Today, we are pleased to announce the integration of Yammer with Office 365 Groups—the group membership service that provides a single identity for teams in Office 365. Now, when you create a new group in Yammer, it will automatically be part of the Office 365 Groups service, giving the group a OneNote notebook, a Planner for task management, a SharePoint Online team site and document library. With the integration, you and the members of your group can readily access these shared resources directly from Yammer.

This integration between Yammer and Office 365 Groups affects customers who have enforced Office 365 identity in their networks, and have only one Yammer network associated with their Office 365 tenant. The full rollout of Office 365 Groups will take place in phases, which will connect Office 365 Groups with existing non-connected Yammer groups and remaining Office 365 tenants. You can also look forward to integration with Outlook Calendar as well as greater enhancements to Yammer integration with SharePoint Online and Planner.

Through Office 365 Groups integration, Office 365 administrators will soon be able to use query-based group membership in Yammer based on Azure Active Directory attributes such as role, location and manager. This will ensure that certain groups based on organizational structure dynamically include the right members.

We are always seeking user feedback and invite you to join us next Tuesday, March 7, 2017 from 9 a.m. to 10 a.m. PST / 5 p.m. to 6 p.m. GMT for an Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA), hosted by the Microsoft Tech Community. This live online event will give you the opportunity to connect with members of the product and engineering teams who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback. Add the event to your calendar and join us in the Yammer AMA group next week. To keep up with Yammer releases and connect with our product teams on an ongoing basis, please join the Yammer Service Updates External Group.

—Connie Woo, product marketing manager for the Yammer team

Frequently asked questions

Q. How do I know if my tenant is eligible for this new Yammer groups experience?

A. To meet the initial rollout requirements, you must have only one Yammer network associated with your Office 365 tenant and Office 365 identity must be enforced. Please refer to the support article to learn more about configuration requirements in your tenant.

Q. Will my existing Yammer groups be converted to Office 365–connected Yammer groups?

A. Currently, only new groups created in Yammer that meet the initial rollout requirements will be Office 365–connected Yammer groups. In the coming months, we will be working on the next phase of converting existing non-connected Yammer groups.

Q. If I disable Office 365 Groups creation for my tenant, will the groups that I create in Yammer be Office 365–connected?

A. No. If you have disabled Office 365 Groups creation, the groups you create in Yammer will not be connected to Office 365 Groups.

Q. Will a message I post to an Office 365–connected Yammer group also appear in the same group in Outlook?

A. No. The conversations will either reside in a group in Outlook or a connected Yammer group, whichever communication tool your group decided to use at its origin. Messages won’t appear in both. Users who send a message in Outlook to an Office 365–connected Yammer group will receive a “Success” email confirming their message was posted, and any replies to that message will follow standard Yammer notifications for posts via email.

The post Yammer integration with Office 365 Groups now rolling out appeared first on Office Blogs.

In episode 120 of the Office 365 Developer Podcast, Richard diZerega and Andrew Coates are joined by MVP Mikael Svenson to discuss his community efforts with Office 365 Dev.

Download the podcast.

Weekly updates

• SharePoint Framework reaches general availability by the SharePoint team
• Microsoft gives SharePoint Extensibility a shot in the arm by eweek.com
• SharePoint Framework reaches general availability by Chakkaradeep (Chaks) Chandran
• SharePoint Framework reaches general availability by Andrew Connell
• SharePoint Framework reaches general availability by Wictor Wilen
• SharePoint Framework (SPFx) enterprise guidance by the SharePoint team
• Visio JavaScript APIs generally available by OfficeDev
• SharePoint PnP Webcast – Automate custom solution deployment steps at Office 365 and Azure by the PnP Team
• Keep your SPFx and NPM Packages up-to-date by Stefan Bauer
• Configure tenant policies for groups and sharing by Paul Schaeflein
• Dive into PowerApps – Build Apps That Mean Business Without Writing Code by Charles Sterling and Martin Abbott
• Serverless in Office 365 – Build Services with Azure Functions by John Liu

SharePoint PnP links

• SPFx special interest group bi-weekly invite
• PnP CSOM Core, PowerShell and Provisioning bi-weekly invite
• SharePoint PnP YouTube Channel

Show notes

• Mikael Svenson Blog
• Mikael Svenson Twitter
• Mikael Svenson MVP Profile
• Puzzlepart

Got questions or comments about the show? Join the O365 Dev Podcast on the Office 365 Technical Network. The podcast RSS is available on iTunes or search for it at “Office 365 Developer Podcast” or add directly with the RSS feeds.feedburner.com/Office365DeveloperPodcast.

About Mikael Svenson

Mikael Svenson is the CTO for Puzzlepart, an Office 365 consultancy. He works as a consultant delivering solutions Office 365, and has worked in the search field for over 15 years implementing solutions for major international corporations and for several Nordic governmental institutions. Mikael is a an international speaker as well as an Office Server and Services MVP for the past six years. He is a Microsoft P-TSP, and he is also involved in a lot of SharePoint community work in Norway. Mikael has worked with media monitoring software, developed an Enterprise Search Engine in C#, and developed for Office 365 and SharePoint in general. He has also authored two books, “SharePoint Search Queries Explained” and “Working with FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint.”

About the hosts

Richard is a software engineer in Microsoft’s Developer Experience (DX) group, where he helps developers and software vendors maximize their use of Microsoft cloud services in Office 365 and Azure. Richard has spent a good portion of the last decade architecting Office-centric solutions, many that span Microsoft’s diverse technology portfolio. He is a passionate technology evangelist and a frequent speaker at worldwide conferences, trainings and events. Richard is highly active in the Office 365 community, popular blogger at aka.ms/richdizz and can be found on Twitter at @richdizz. Richard is born, raised and based in Dallas, TX, but works on a worldwide team based in Redmond. Richard is an avid builder of things (BoT), musician and lightning-fast runner.

A Civil Engineer by training and a software developer by profession, Andrew Coates has been a Developer Evangelist at Microsoft since early 2004, teaching, learning and sharing coding techniques. During that time, he’s focused on .NET development on the desktop, in the cloud, on the web, on mobile devices and most recently for Office. Andrew has a number of apps in various stores and generally has far too much fun doing his job to honestly be able to call it work. Andrew lives in Sydney, Australia with his wife and two almost-grown-up children.

Useful links

• Office 365 Developer Center
• Office 365 main blog
• dev.office.com blog
• Twitter
• Facebook
• FlipBoard
• Slack channel

StackOverflow

• http://aka.ms/AskSharePointDev
• http://aka.ms/AskOfficeDev
• http://aka.ms/AskOffice365Dev

Yammer Office 365 Technical Network

• O365 Dev Podcast
• O365 Dev Apps Model
• O365 Dev Tools
• O365 Dev APIs
• O365 Dev Migration to App Model
• O365 Dev Links
• UserVoice

The post Episode 120 with MVP Mikael Svenson—Office 365 Developer Podcast appeared first on Office Blogs.

This post was authored by the Azure Stack Team.

Building and deploying a hybrid cloud platform for your applications will make it easier for you and your business to build new applications that will add to the business’s topline. We continue to make progress on bringing Azure Stack to market and announced the third Technical Preview yesterday. We know many customers are eager to get started building solutions and applications for Azure and Azure Stack. Weve put together a few tools and resources that can help them begin their work on Azure Stack now, so that they can be ready when Azure Stack is generally available later this year. In this blog post, Were going to walk through the flow at a high level and provide some links to resources for anyone who wants to get going. Generally speaking, you need to: 1) get access to Azure; 2) Setup Azure Stack; 3) Get tools and configure policies in Azure; and 4) Start working.

Get into Azure

If youre not already using Azure, the first thing to do is to sign up for an Azure Subscription. There are some nice benefits through the link that can get you going on up to 14 virtual machines, 40 SQL databases, or 8 TBs of storage for a month. Additionally, if you are already a Visual Studio subscriber, you can activate your monthly Azure credit.

Start using Azure Resource Manager

The key technology for how Azure and Azure Stack enable you to build once and deploy to either Azure or Azure Stack is Azure Resource Manager. Azure Resource Manager is a technology in Azure that helps you describe, deploy, and control your application resources in the cloud. Its the same thing that were shipping in Azure Stack. To help you get started, read this whitepaper on how Azure Resource Manager works.

Learn about hybrid applications and think about use cases for your business

The next thing we recommend is that you really start envisioning and thinking about what you want to do. There are a ton of combinations for how and why you can use a hybrid cloud platform. Some are more process oriented, like Dev/Test in public cloud and deploy production in Azure Stack or Dev/Test in Azure Stack and deploy to production in public cloud. Others are more functional, like building a hybrid application where a part of the application resides in Azure and the other on-premises (e.g. a front-end in Azure and a back-end in Azure Stack).

Whatever your goal, we had Technical Fellows, Jeffrey Snover and Mark Russinovich, put some of their thoughts together in a video on what a hybrid cloud platform means in the big picture and illustrate what it can look like for your people, processes, and applications. There are a ton of demos throughout the video. In fact, one of the program managers who helped with the demos goes a little deeper into them in an additional session.

Get Azure Stack running for prototype validation

When we ship an Xbox, some time before the generally availability of the actual system, we release a developer kit that helps developers prototype their solution. The single server Technical Preview of Azure Stack can be used much in the same way. Weve put a giant green download button on Azure so you can grab an Azure Stack emulator to validate the work you are doing in Azure. That said, youll need a physical server to run it (not a laptop) and then connect to it from your development environment (laptop). Run this script to make sure you have a machine that meets the spec. Once you have the server, downloaded Azure Stack, you can follow this step by step guide to get everything up and running. From there, you can configure Azure Stack to meet your needs, such as connecting tools, creating accounts, quotas, and operating system images in the marketplace.

Get Azure Stack Tools and configure Azure

To recap, we know what we want to build, we have a place to work in Azure, and we have an Azure Stack stood up to check our work. The next thing we need to do is get a few tools to help us work in Azure in a way that wont cause us trouble later by using functionality that isnt yet in Azure Stack. The main thing we need is the Azure Stack Policy module. This tool lets us configure an Azure Subscription with the same versioning and services as Azure Stack. What this means, is that when you try to create something in Azure that isnt available on Azure Stack, youll get an error. As we continue with bringing API and Service consistency to Azure Stack through the development process, the delta of difference will close, but the policy module should help you get started now.

To help with how the policy module can be used in Azure, we got one of the Azure Stack PMs to sit down and do a video walking through it.

Start iterating and expanding

From there, you can start working to build your applications in Azure that you plan to run on Azure Stack later. As you become comfortable with the platform and tools, it will go a long way to start introducing new techniques, such as hooking up a Hybrid CI/CD pipeline. As you go, validate your work on the Azure Stack Technical Preview to ensure that you are not going off the rails.

Good luck!