While writing a couple of posts recently I became a bit out of step with my intended schedule by discussing sensitivity for automated processes before actually discussing how Microsoft 365 deals with sensitive content. This is fine if you are familiar with information protection within Microsoft 365, but for those of you who are not let me get back on track and discuss information protection concepts within Microsoft 365. This is the overview first in a series of posts that I will explain and demonstrate how Microsoft 365 protects an organization’s sensitive information.
In a couple of previous posts, I covered retention labels and how to apply them within your tenant. An option when creating retention labels is to have your document declared a record when the policy/label is applied. Records add an extra level of content security to your documents. Now keep in mind I don’t mean information security in this case. Declaring a document won’t keep your information from entering the wrong hands or being used improperly. We’ll cover those topics in the future. A record instead protects the content within the document. Read on as I explain Office 365 records management.
So today I started creating a new custom approval using Microsoft Flow. I had been working for about 15 minutes or so and thought to myself that it may be a really good idea for me to save my work because we all know that if I didn’t do it soon something would cause me to lose everything (because initial save hadn’t been accomplished yet. When I clicked on the save button I received an error I hadn’t received before. “Tag value to large. Following tag value…exceeded the maximum length. Maximum allowed length for tag value – ‘256’ characters.
The other day a friend of mine, Daniel Glen, asked if I could step in last minute to help out remotely for a presentation to the Nashville O365 User Group. I of course said yes and then promptly dumped all the stuff I had to do that night on my wife (oops). I sent Daniel the tickle trunk of presentations that I was ready to do last minute and I was surprised when he selected Leading Practices for Building Anything SharePoint or O365. It’s an older presentation and one I was actually considering pulling out of my active list. However, as I was reviewing it I found that the core of the presentation still held true with anything you should do with O365 and SharePoint. In many cases, any project could use some or all of the concepts I discussed.
Well the presentation went over very well. It’s a really good group of people there in Nashville and even though I was 2600km (1615+) miles away I can honestly say that session was the most fun I have had yet giving that presentation. Thanks Nashville. Let me know when you need another speaker.
I had a great time recently presenting at CalSpoug’s SharePoint Saturday. The first session I presented was on SharePoint Business Connectivity Service. I have done this session quite a few times and I always have at least one attendee state they have never heard of BCS before. This session was no different. One of the things I cover is the importance of BCS in different environments. Many will argue it is an old, unnecessary system. I do not necessarily disagree with this. However, I argue it isn’t dead yet. If you are working with simple data in a SQL Database or even more complex but well-organized data in a database the ease of use within BCS is quickly seen. In 5-10 minutes you can connect to your data and present it within SharePoint utilizing built-in forms (no custom form development). Users will be able to read and update the data immediately (assuming permissions are configured already). There’s more to it than just this and you can take a look at my slide deck to see.
Having said that, I do believe that I see an end to BCS. PowerApps and Flows make accessing data just as easy and more configurable through the many, many connectors available. As these connectors mature and the tools grow, the use cases for BCS will slowly disappear. However, we aren’t there yet. BCS is still there and still very easy to use.
Take a look at my slide deck and if you have questions, please reach out.
Thanks for reading!