These are the Top 5 Benefits of migrating to Microsoft 365

Microsoft 365 offers a range of benefits for businesses, including improved collaboration, enhanced security, scalability, accessibility, and integration with other Microsoft products. These benefits can help businesses operate more efficiently and effectively, leading to better outcomes and improved bottom-line results:

These are the top 5 benefits:

  1. Improved Collaboration: One of the biggest benefits of Microsoft 365 is its ability to improve collaboration among team members. With tools like Microsoft Teams, SharePoint, and OneDrive, employees can easily share documents and collaborate on projects in real time, regardless of their location. This can help teams work more efficiently and effectively, resulting in better outcomes for the business.
  2. Enhanced Security: Another key benefit of Microsoft 365 is its focus on security. The platform uses advanced security measures, such as multi-factor authentication and data encryption, to protect business data from threats like hacking and ransomware. This can give business owners peace of mind and help them comply with industry-specific regulations.
  3. Scalability: Microsoft 365 is a highly scalable platform, which means it can grow with a business as its needs change. Whether a business is small and just starting out, or large and well-established, Microsoft 365 can provide the tools and services it needs to operate effectively.
  4. Accessibility: Microsoft 365 is a cloud-based platform, which means it can be accessed from anywhere with an internet connection. This makes it easy for employees to work remotely and stay connected to the rest of the team. It also enables businesses to respond quickly to changing circumstances and adapt to new challenges.
  5. Integration with Other Microsoft Products: Finally, Microsoft 365 is closely integrated with other popular Microsoft products, such as Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook. This means businesses can use the tools they are already familiar with, while also benefiting from the added features and functionality of Microsoft 365.

How to Migrate to Microsoft 365

Migrating from your current IT system to Microsoft 365 can bring many benefits to your business, including improved collaboration, enhanced security, and access to a range of powerful productivity tools. Here are some key steps to help you make the transition smoothly:

  1. Plan ahead: Before you start the migration process, take some time to plan out how you will move your data and applications to Microsoft 365. This will help you avoid any disruptions to your business and ensure that the transition goes smoothly.
  2. Choose the right Microsoft 365 plan: Microsoft 365 offers a range of plans to suit different business needs. Choose the plan that best meets your requirements, taking into account the number of users, the type of data and applications you need to migrate, and any specific features you require.
  3. Prepare your data and applications: Before you can migrate to Microsoft 365, you will need to ensure that your data and applications are ready. This may involve cleaning up and organizing your data, as well as updating any applications that are not compatible with Microsoft 365.
  4. Use the Microsoft FastTrack service: Microsoft FastTrack is a free service that can help you plan and execute your migration to Microsoft 365. The service includes a range of tools and resources, as well as expert support to help you every step of the way.
  5. Test and verify: Once you have migrated your data and applications to Microsoft 365, it is important to test and verify that everything is working as expected. This will help you identify any issues and ensure that your business is ready to start using Microsoft 365.
  6. Provide training and support: To ensure that your employees can make the most of Microsoft 365, it is important to provide training and support. This may involve creating training materials, holding workshops, or offering one-on-one support to help your employees get up to speed with the new system.

Choosing a Migration Partner

Working with a Microsoft Partner such as AccessOrange can be a great way to ensure a smooth and successful migration to Microsoft 365. A Microsoft Partner is a company that has been certified by Microsoft to provide a range of services related to Microsoft products, including migration to Microsoft 365.

Here are some key ways in which a Microsoft Partner can help with the migration to Microsoft 365:

  1. Expertise and experience: A Microsoft Partner has the expertise and experience to help you migrate to Microsoft 365 quickly and efficiently. They have extensive knowledge of the Microsoft 365 platform, as well as the tools and processes needed to migrate data and applications seamlessly.
  2. Planning and execution: A Microsoft Partner can help you plan and execute your migration to Microsoft 365, ensuring that your data and applications are migrated smoothly and without any disruption to your business. They can provide guidance on the best approach to take, as well as help you manage the migration process from start to finish.
  3. Support and training: A Microsoft Partner can provide support and training to help you and your employees make the most of Microsoft 365 once it is up and running. This may involve creating training materials, holding workshops, or providing one-on-one support to help your employees get up to speed with the new system.
  4. Cost savings: Working with a Microsoft Partner can help you save time and money on your migration to Microsoft 365. A partner can provide cost-effective solutions and services, as well as help you avoid costly mistakes and ensure that your migration is successful.

Overall, working with a Microsoft Partner can be a great way to ensure a smooth and successful migration to Microsoft 365. A partner can provide the expertise, support, and guidance you need to make the transition smoothly and take full advantage of the many benefits of Microsoft 365.

Want to know more information about migrating to Microsoft 365? Contact us via email at [email protected] or chat with us on our website.

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Fortinet warns of actively abused zero-day leak in VPN software

Fortinet warns of actively abused zero-day leak in VPN software

Fortinet is warning organizations of an actively exploited zero-day vulnerability in FortiOS SSL-VPN that could allow a remote attacker to take over vulnerable VPN servers. By sending specially crafted requests, an attacker can cause a heap-based buffer overflow and execute code on the system. Attackers do not need any credentials to carry out the attack.

The impact of the vulnerability has been assessed on a scale of 1 to 10 with a 9.3. Fortinet says the vulnerability, designated CVE-2022-42475 , was actively attacked even before the release of the security update, but does not provide further details about the target of the attacks. The security bulletin does contain information that can be used to recognize a successful attack on the VPN server.

“Vulnerabilities in VPN interfaces can therefore provide a starting point to penetrate a network, after which other systems may also be compromised. Depending on the situation, an attacker can, for example, gain access to sensitive information in this way or carry out a ransomware attack” , according to the National Cyber ​​Security Center.

The Australian Cyber ​​Security Center and the American Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency are calling on organizations to immediately install the security update and check whether their VPN servers have not been compromised.

Do you have a Fortinet Firewall installed in your organization? Reach out to us for assistance with the security update installation.

Contact us at: [email protected]

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Dynamics 365 Sales Automation with Power Automate: Send Teams Channel Message when Lead Assigned

Dynamics 365 Sales is a cloud-based CRM solution that enables salespeople to build strong relationships with their customers, take actions based on insights, and close deals faster. With Dynamics 365 you can manage your customer relationships, from first contact (lead) to qualifying (opportunity) to deal (Quote/Order).

Dynamics 365 can be used by Microsoft Power Automate to automate almost anything within Dynamics 365. Dynamics 365 and Power Automate together, make a great combination for further enhancement of your sales process.

In this example we will teach you how to use Power Automate to send a message to your sales staff via Microsoft Teams when a new lead has been assigned to them in Dynamics 365.

Step 1: Create new Power Automate Flow

Go to https://make.powerautomate.com/ and click on “Create”, and select “Automated Flow”

Step 2: Enter Flow name and select Dataverse

Give the flow a name, and search for “dataverse” and select “When a row is added, modified or deleted”

Step 3: Configure Trigger that will start up our Flow

On the next screen we will configure the trigger. We will configure the Change Type to “added or modified” to ensure that the trigger only runs when a new lead is added, or when a lead is modified.

Table name: Leads (as we want to target leads in this case)

Scope: Organization (We want this flow to run for the entire dataverse organization, not just our user scope)

Select Columns: We will enter “ownerid” here because we want to make sure that our trigger only runs when the field “ownerid” (which is the lead owner) is added or changed

Step 4: Get Current Lead

First we need to get the record of the lead that had an addition/change to the lead owner. We will add a new action to our flow and search for “dataverse” and select “get a row by ID”

We will select the table name “Leads” and for Row ID we will select “lead ID”

Step 5: Ignore Closed Leads

To make sure we’re not going to process leads that have been closed already, we need to filter out the closed leads with a condition. We can do that by terminating the flow if the “Lead Status” is equal to 0.

 

Step 6: Get Lead Owner

For the leads that are not closed, we continue by getting the lead owner from the relationship between table “leads” and “users”. We can do that by retrieving the Table “Users” and get the row id from the Owner Value from the Leads.

Step 7: Get Lead Owner Email Address

Since we want to send a teams message, we will need to retrieve the primary account UPN for that particular owner. We can do that by creating an action called “Get user profile (V2)”, and search the user based on the primary email address we got from the previous step.

Step 8: Get a Mention token for a user in Teams

Since we want to send a message in a particular channel, and tag the owner in the message, we need to get a “mention token” for this user. We can do this with the task “Get an @mention token for a user” from Teams, and use the user principal name we got from the previous step:

Step 9: Delay task for 1 Minute

In order to make sure that Teams is ready to accept our message with mention token, it is recommended to add a 1 minute delay, to make sure no errors occur:

Step 10: Post a Message in a Chat or Channel

Now we have all the information we need, we can post a message in a Teams Channel. In our case we post it in a group chat, but you can also choose a channel.

For the message, we will include not only the Lead Company Name and Lead Topic, but we also want to include a link to the actual lead in dynamics.

Make sure that you enter the fields using the Code View “</>” option, so your urls will not be truncated or broken. In the Code View option, you can enter HTML code to change the layout of the text. (We use <p> for paragraphs, <br> for lines etc

You can see from above screenshot, we first add the “mention token” and then we also include a link to the URL of the lead in Dynamics.

How to get the Lead URL in Dynamics:

  1. Go to Dynamics 365 – Leads
  2. Click on any Lead
  3. Extract the URL from your browser, and remove the last guid from the url (see orange below)

The URL you should use should looks something like:

https://xxxxxxxxxxxxx.dynamics.com/main.aspx?appid=xxxxxx&pagetype=entityrecord&etn=lead&id=

Now paste that in your Flow and make it a Link using the html <a href=””>  lead </a> code.

When you’re done, your flow should have the following steps:

Now you can test your flow, and (hopefully) it should work. Here is an example of how it looks on our side:

Great Work! Feel free to reach out if you have any issues or questions regarding above flow.

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How to use Power Automate to create recurring tasks in Planner

Microsoft Power Automate (earlier known as Microsoft Flow) allows you to automate repetitive manual tasks and paper processes via an easy to use drag-and-drop wizard.

Microsoft Power Automate can create workflows to sync data across apps and software, generate real-time notifications to alert stakeholders, update databases with new information and collect data from Power Apps or other data sources.

In this example we will teach you how to use Power Automate to create recurring tasks in Microsoft Planner.

For this example we imagine that we want to remind our finance department to check and send out a monthly invoice to the customer.

Step 1: Create new Power Automate Flow

Go to https://make.powerautomate.com/ and click on “Create”, and select “Scheduled Cloud Flow”

Step 2: Enter Flow Name and Set Schedule

Give the flow a name, and enter the schedule. In our example we want to have a monthly reminder, so we set the repeat time to every 1 month.

Now we can see the Flow editor screen, with our monthly recurring task as starting point. We click on new step:

Step 3: Create New Task in Planner

We find Planner and select “Create a Task”

After that we select which Planner Plan the task need to be created, and we fill in the information that we want to show in the planner task.

In our example we want to enter some dynamic fields, for the Start Date, Due Date and also to show a dynamic date and time in the Title.

For the Start Date we want today’s date, so we will have to fill in a Dynamic Expression:

Expression:

utcNow()

For the Due Date, we want to set it 15 days from today, hence we fill use the expression adddays() to add 15 days from today (utcnow()):

For the Title we also want to add the Due date, hence we will add the adddays function as well there:

Expression 1:

formatDateTime(adddays(utcnow(),-15),'MM')

Expression 2:

formatDateTime(utcNow(),'yyyy')

Important: For Assigned User Id’s, fill in the email addresses of the users that you want to assign the task to.

Step 4: Update Planner Task Details

Now we have created the main task, we can also update or add more details under the planner task details. For this we add one more flow called “Update task details””.

In this task, we need to refer to our original planner task ID.

 

And after that we can add some more information. In our case we add a link to the billing sheet we want the finance department to use, which is an Excel file. But you Can also add a checklist here.

That’s it! Now our Flow is ready. We can save it, enable it and test it out. If everything runs smooth, your task will now appear in Microsoft Planner every month.

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AccessOrange Achieves CSA Cyber Essentials Mark Certification In Singapore

Singapore, September 2022 – AccessOrange announced that Singapore’s Cyber Security Agency (CSA) has recognised AccessOrange for its strong cybersecurity practices with the Cyber Essentials mark certification.

The Cyber Essentials mark serves to recognise that enterprises have put in place good cyber hygiene practices to protect their operations and customers against common cyber-attacks. To achieve the Cyber Essentials mark by CSA, businesses will have to meet measures across assets (people, hardware, software, and data), secure and protect its access controls and security configurations against malicious software, and stay constantly updated, backed-up and ready to respond to cyber threats.

“Cyber Security is an increasingly important topic for businesses in Singapore and the world. Given the fact that AccessOrange implements security solutions and best practices for our customers, we need to ensure that our own internal systems and procedures are among the highest standards.” , according to Roald Andersen, Director and Business Development of AccessOrange. “The CSA Cyber Security Essentials certification is an important step to ensure that we have the right practices in place to safeguard our business and customer data.”

About CSA Cyber Essentials Certification

The Cyber Essentials mark is a cybersecurity certification for enterprises that are embarking on their cybersecurity journey. It is targeted at organisations operating in Singapore and aims to enable them to prioritise the cybersecurity measures needed to safeguard their systems and operations from common cyber-attacks.

For more information about Cyber Essentials, please visit Cyber Essentials Mark

About AccessOrange

AccessOrange helps companies work smarter by implementing innovative cloud solutions, such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365 for which they provide adoption & migration services, training and support. Microsoft Teams & SharePoint Implementations are a major part of their service portfolio.

For more information about AccessOrange, please visit www.accessorange.com

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Microsoft 365 Price Increase – What’s up with that?

Over the past 10 years, Microsoft has added a huge amount of new features to Microsoft 365. Services such as SharePoint and Teams have significantly broadened the possibilities for users. For the first time in a decade, Microsoft is now going to raise prices a bit. In addition, the software giant introduces changes to subscription terms.

As of March 1st, 2022, prices will increase for the following six products:

  • Office 365 Plan E1
  • Office 365 Plan E3
  • Office 365 Plan E5
  • Microsoft 365 Business Basic
  • Microsoft 365 Business Premium
  • Microsoft 365 Plan E3

On average, the price increase is around 20% but in some cases it can be UP TO 30%. The new prices will apply to all new orders you place on & after March 1st.

New Commerce Experience: 

Monthly vs Yearly Subscriptions

Besides the price increase, Microsoft is changing the license terms to what they call the “New Commerce Experience”.

From March 1st you can choose from the following three subscription terms:

  • Monthly Subscription
    You can change the number of licenses every month, but this option is 20% more expensive than an annual subscription.
  • Yearly Subscription
    You commit yourself for a year, paying a fixed amount upfront every year
  • 3 Year Subscription (Coming Soon)
    In the near future, it is also possible to lock in your subscription for 3 years by paying for 3 years upfront, enabling you to keep a fixed price for 3 years. We will inform you when this option is available.

Please note the following:

  • Licenses cannot be downgraded to a lower plan during the license period
  • Upgrading licenses to a higher plan during the subscription period is still possible
  • Increasing licenses is possible during subscription period. Decreasing licenses is not possible.

Next Steps

Do you have an existing yearly Microsoft 365 subscription?

  • If you renew with us before March 1st, we can lock your existing price for another 12 months.

Do you have an existing monthly Microsoft 365 subscription?

  • We can help you convert them to yearly (annual) subscriptions before March 1st, to prevent the additional 20% price increase.

Renew Early and get a 5% DISCOUNT on annual subscription

From January to February 2022 you can get a 5% discount on an annual subscription. And if you choose a new monthly subscription between January and June 2022, you pay the same price per month as with an annual subscription. (Existing monthly subscriptions excluded)

These promotions are valid for a maximum of 2,400 workplaces.

Want to know more?

Contact Us

Contact us at [email protected] to discuss the possibilities and see how we can help

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