Microsoft Entra B2B Collaboration vs B2B Direct Connect explained

B2B (Business to business) connections in Microsoft Entra can be used to connect with external parties so you can collaborate on projects without having to have an account in 1 Microsoft Entra environment.

The recent introduction of Microsoft Entra B2B Direct Connect came with some confusion in security settings, what boundaries can be set between organizations and what the difference is in usage for end-users in for example Microsoft Teams. In this blog, I will explain both variations of Microsoft Entra B2B connections, their differences and which one you should use in what scenario. Are you ready? Let’s go!

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Microsoft Purview 101: Using Adaptive Scopes

In the previous post I talked about retention policies and how you can apply them to your environment. To keep things simple, I used static scopes in that article. But since adaptive scopes are the recommended approach for retention policies I want to show you what they can do, and why Microsoft recommends them to be used instead of static scopes.

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Microsoft Purview 101: Data Lifecycle Management (DLM)

One of the core features of Microsoft Purview is Data Lifecycle Management (DLM), formerly known as Microsoft Information Governance. DLM is all about providing you with the tools you need to keep information that you need, and delete the information that you don’t. This process is of great importance for compliance with regulations, risk management en liability management.

Data Lifecycle Management in Microsoft Purview has a great overlap with Records Management, although they also have their differences. However this is something for another article. This article will explain how to configure the basics of Data Lifecycle Management, and will show you the end-user experience.

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Get your focus back with Viva Insights Focus Timer

Remember that time where you could start your PC, open Microsoft Word and could start being productive without being disturbed by Microsoft Teams calls, chat messages, new emails coming in, popups from coworkers that mention you and upcoming event messages just to name a few? Well, that time is not coming back. (and Clippy 📎 isn’t either 😄)

But, what if I told you that you can get the same piece of mind to be just as productive as back in the day you started Word(Perfect) without being hooked up to the internet? With the use of focus timers you can!

Viva Insights features a focus timer to let you keep your focus (what’s in a name) on things that you have planned. Here’s how it works.

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Microsoft Purview 101: Down the rabbit hole with Information Barriers Configuration

Information Barriers in Microsoft 365 can be used to block (or allow) communication between groups of users and will apply to Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. An example for a use case is a R&D department which may not communicate with the marketing department. The example used in this article is a multi-national company where users in the Netherlands are not allowed to communicate with users in Belgium because of high regulatory laws and requirements.

In this article, I will introduce you to Information Barriers in Microsoft Purview by walking you through setting up the backend and show you the impact it has on your users. Let’s go!

Setting the scene

For this demonstration, we are going to use the following employees in our fictional company:

Allan Deyoung and Adele Vance, working in the Netherlands Office.
Christie Cline and Megan Bowen, working in the Belgium Office.

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Microsoft Purview 101: How to use Compliance Manager to help improve data protection and comply to regulatory standards in Microsoft 365

Microsoft Purview has a pretty sweet feature called “Compliance Manager”. It can be used to assess your Microsoft 365 (and other non-Microsoft) environments based on various regulations like “ISO 27001” or you can create your own custom assessment that’s not based on a regulation. (Do note that at the time of writing this article, the creation of custom assessments is disabled due to an update of the process by Microsoft.)

Basics first, as always

Before we dive into the world of assessments and regulations, let’s start with the basic components of compliance manager:

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Managing Data Security, Compliance and Governance in Microsoft 365 with Microsoft Purview

Microsoft Purview. I’m certain it’s features can seem a little overwhelming when first strolling through the documentation of the product. It sure was for me. In this blog series I want to give you insight in Microsoft’s product for managing data security, compliance and governance for the Microsoft 365 suite, Microsoft Purview.

This article acts as an overview of the features in Microsoft Purview, how they fit in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem and what feature can be used to reach a certain goal. Each feature (which is underlined) will be explained in a separate article, where I’ll use this overview to link to each of those articles.

First things first. Microsoft Purview is a unified solution that used to consist of 2 products: Azure Purview and Microsoft 365 Compliance solutions. In this blog series I’ll focus on the Microsoft 365 side of the product.

Overview – The big picture

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Periodic password resets, ancient myth or modern need?

At the time we began embracing the (public) cloud, we also started changing the way we safeguard our data. In the classic datacenter model, our data was buried deep within a datacenter that was separated from the outside world by using a firewall. It was your single entry point for accessing your companies data. Solutions to make your data accessible when away from the office was by using a VPN or other remote connection such as a Citrix or VDI environment.

Modern workplace environments don’t rely on the firewall anymore to protect data from being accessed by the outside world. We trust cloud providers to take care of the datacenter part and companies themselves are made responsible to safeguard their data. In this modern cloud approach the user account itself is at the center of accessing data. If anyone with bad intentions is able to get their hands on a username and password combination this gives them access to all the data the user has access to, for example in the Microsoft Cloud (Onedrive, Sharepoint, etc).

So we should make sure our users change their password periodically so bad people have a hard time guessing passwords right? Wrong.

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Where are Microsoft Teams files stored?

With Microsoft Teams, you can share files with your coworkers, team(s) or your entire organization. It is even possible to share files with people outside your organization.

But where are these files stored?

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Combine Microsoft 365 Project and Planner for serious team productivity

In projects I’m part of there’s often this gap between the project manager and the project architect (or technical project lead if you will) in terms of planning and milestones that have to be reached. Where the project manager wants to retain a more “zoomed out” view of the situation, the project architect wants to keep track of the consultants work that has been completed, ideally enabling the consultant to update the status of the tasks at hand at a central place.

The tool of choice of the project manager in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem? Microsoft Project Online.

The tool of choice of the project architect in the Microsoft 365 ecosystem? Microsoft Planner.

Do the two platforms connect with each other at this time in a technical sense of the word connect? Unfortunately, no. Does this keep us from using the two platforms to achieve some serious team productivity? Of course not! Following a few simple rules and a little bit administrative effort, the two platforms work perfectly together providing all project members with the information they seek.

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