Office 365 custom training portal

Microsoft just launched the Office 365 custom training portal.

The portal is a SharePoint Online site that you can provision in your own Office 365 tenant.

The site includes a many training videos and material that is customizable.

To install the portal to your tenant you need to be tenant administrator.

• You can go to the PNP Provisioning Site
• You will need to log in with a tenant administrator account
• Then click on Solutions and install the Custom Learning Solution for Office 365.

To customize the training portal:

• Go to the Custom learning for Office 365 page.
• Edit the page
• Click on Playlist administration

You will be able to select the products and the training material that you want to make available.

To learn more about the Office 365 custom training portal

Important: This solution is in Beta and available only in English for now.

Finding help about Microsoft Teams

As Microsoft Teams is getting more and more popular, I am seeing many questions like:

“Where can I find out more information about Microsoft Team?”

So I decided to list some sources of information about Microsoft Team.

1. Microsoft Teams client help

   I’m always surprise to see the number of people that are not aware that the Microsoft Team’s client has a great source of information and videos about Microsoft Team!

   To access Microsoft Teams client Help

Open your Microsoft Teams client Click on the Ellipsis (…) on the left navigation bar Click on Help
Help and FAQs
Videos

 

2. Microsoft Teams Tech Community Site

• The Microsoft Teams Tech community is a great place to ask questions and find answers to your questions.
• On the Microsoft Teams Tech Community site (more than 68K members), you will find MVP, Microsoft employees and community experts from all over the world that will answer your questions.

Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams/ct-p/MicrosoftTeams

3. Microsoft Teams Blog

• On the Microsoft Teams Blog you will find regular articles from the Microsoft Teams Team that will keep you updated with new features, announcements and best practices.

Link: https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Microsoft-Teams-Blog/bg-p/MicrosoftTeamsBlog

4. Microsoft Teams Adoption Hub

The Microsoft Team worked very hard to provide us with a great source of information to help companies to plan and improve end-user adoption.

On the Microsoft Teams Adoption Hub you will find:

• Documentation
• Adoption guidance
• Videos
• Information about training and certification
• How to build a champion program
• Downloadable content and tools
  • Adoption Project plan
  • Examples of personnas
  • Day in the life Templates
  • Embedable video for champions and ITpros
  • Support and help desk preparation tools and content

  

Link: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/MicrosoftTeams/adopt-microsoft-teams-landing-page

5. Coffee in the Cloud

The coffee in the cloud Youtube channel includes many videos about Microsoft Teams/Office 365 about:

• Business solutions
• Best Practices and How To’s
• Videos for Administrators and Champions

Link: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCs2IXBqperxWVe2ozrr3Gdg/featured

New SharePoint 2013 certification option

While I was on vacation Microsoft has announced a change in SharePoint Certification. There are now 2 paths to becoming a MCSE SharePoint. If you look at this page on the Microsoft Learning site: https://www.microsoft.com/learning/en-us/mcse-sharepoint-certification.aspx you will see that in order to become a SharePoint MCSE you need to pass the Office 365 MCSA Certification (Exam 70-346 and 70-347). But it does not do you any good if you just work with SharePoint OnPrem.

If you look right under the certification path requirements, there is a link for “Additional Options” (see image below). If you expand this link you will find that “You can substitute an  MCSA: Windows Server 2012 certification for the MCSA: Office 365 certification”. Where you will need to pass exams 70-410, 70-411, 70-412 instead of exams 70-346 and 70-347.

After you become a MCSA (Office 365 or Windows 2012) you will need to pass exams 70-331 (Core Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013) and 70-332 (Advanced Solutions of Microsoft SharePoint Server 2013) to become MSCE.

Here is more information on MCSA: Office 365 Certification and MCSA: Windows Server 2012 certi;fication

Introduction to Office 365 Development training

If you would like to start doing some Office 365 Development, you should have a look at this free course from the Microsoft Virtual Academy.

http://www.microsoftvirtualacademy.com/training-courses/introduction-to-office-365-development

“Explore how you can build your solutions contextually directly into the Office 365 using the App Model. Learn how to call the Office 365 APIs from your stand-alone web applications and mobile device applications to leverage services like OneDrive for Business, Mail, Calendar, People, and Sites. Watch how experts create typical intranet scenarios using the App Model, and transform your existing SharePoint Full Trust Solutions. Don’t miss this informative session!”

Have fun
Serge

Project Server 2013 training

Microsoft has released a bunch of training videos about Project Server for ITPro and Dev.

If you are interested to learn more about Project Server just click on the following link:

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/projectserver/jj906608

 

SharePoint virtual Labs

If you want to test drive SharePoint 2010.  You can find multilple online virtual  labs (31 at the time of this post).

The Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 virtual labs will cover topics, such as installation, upgrading to SharePoint Server 2010, configuring search UIs, service applications, business continuity management, and many others.  It’s easy, jus click on the following links and follow the instructions.

• TechNet Virtual Lab: Developing KPIs and Scorecards with SharePoint 2010 PerformancePoint Services
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint 2010 Web Content Management Visual Upgrade
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Advanced Search Security
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Configuring Search UIs
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Connectors & Using the Business Data Connectivity (BDC) Service
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Federated Search
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Linguistics
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Monitoring & Systems Management
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: PowerShell for Search
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Query API and Query Languages
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Relevancy and Ranking
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Search Reporting and Analytics
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Server 2010: Upgrading SharePoint 2010 to FAST Search for SharePoint
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Backup and Restore in SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Business Connectivity Services
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Business Continuity Management in SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Configuring Remote Blob Storage FILESTREAM Provider for SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Configuring Tenant Administration on SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Configuring User Profile Synchronization in SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Enterprise Search
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Introduction to Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Upgrade
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Monitoring SharePoint 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: New IT Pro Features in SharePoint Server 2010
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Performance Management
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint Designer for IT Pros
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint RTM – IT PRO – Business Continuity Management
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint RTM – IT PRO – Installing and Configuring
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint RTM – IT PRO – Service Applications
• TechNet Virtual Lab: SharePoint RTM – IT PRO – Upgrade
• TechNet Virtual Lab: Windows PowerShell and SharePoint 2010

Have fun!

Serge

SharePoint 2010 Demos: Enterprise Search Demos & Labs

Microsoft has just published a series of Labs for developping search application with SharePoint 2010 and Fast search.  You can download the labs by following this link: http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/en/details.aspx?FamilyID=9fcbcc96-02b7-4292-b3b7-c04b236accde

 

Here is the description of the labs:

 

• Advanced Query Processing in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module demonstrates how to implement advanced query processing in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint by studying common patterns and applications of advanced query processing. Audience: Application developers.
• Advanced Security in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module reviews security concepts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint including item-level security and the FAST Search authorization process. Learn to protect your FAST Search Server 2010 installation, protect query traffic between SSAs, and how to implement HTTPS for query traffic. Also view guidance on security planning for sites and content and SharePoint Server 2010 authentication. Audience: Application developers.
• Building Search Applications in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. In this module, use your knowledge of Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search to build portions of the Contoso Research Application. Assembling portions of the entire search application facilitates an understanding of how to build a complete website. Audience: Application developers.
• Configuring Search User Interface in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. In this module, discover how to create custom search sites and pages, configure search Web Parts, configure the refinement panel, and enable federation Web Parts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• Content Processing and Property Extraction in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module describes how to create custom search sites and pages, configure search Web Parts, configure the refinement panel, and enable federation Web Parts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• Developing Custom Connectors for SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module reviews the process for extending and developing custom content connectors for use with both Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• Extending the User Interface in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module describes how to extend the user interface in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: application developers.
• Linguistics Features in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module shows how Microsoft SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search implements linguistics features including language identification, wordbreaking, tokenization, character normalization, stemming, keywords, synonyms, anti-phrasing, spell checking, offensive content filtering and phonetic search. Linguistic search features support localized search experiences and improve precision and recall by extracting and adding relevant information for use in ranking and results exploration and refinement. Audience: Application developers.
• Overview of SharePoint 2010 Enterprise Search Connectors and the Business Data Catalog. This module reviews Microsoft SharePoint 2010 enterprise search content feeding architecture and connector framework and connectors in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. In this module, you learn to configure your search center to also search external content by creating an external content type (ECT) using Microsoft Visual Studio 2010, and deploying the ECT to your site, and confirming the connector is available for SharePoint 2010 enterprise search. Audience: Application developers.
• Query API and Query Languages in SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. In this module, learn how to customize queries and develop a methodology for adding queries by reviewing the SharePoint 2010 query API, query language, and how to use FQL operators in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• Relevancy and Ranking in Fast Search Server for SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module describes how to create custom search sites and pages, configure search Web Parts, configure the refinement panel, and enable federation Web Parts in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Federation. This module orients you to the SharePoint 2010 Federation Object Model and Refinement Object Model by reviewing examples of common extensions in Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. Audience: Application developers.
• Windows PowerShell for SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint. This module introduces Windows PowerShell cmdlets for Microsoft SharePoint Server 2010 for Search and Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint beginning with an overview of benefits and best practices including FAST Search cmdlets for administration, installation, security, and spelling. Windows PowerShell is a task-based command-line shell and scripting language designed especially for system administration. PowerShell enables you to control and automate the administration of the Windows operating system and applications that run on Windows. Audience: Application developers.
• Working with FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint Web Crawlers. This module describes how to use the Microsoft FAST Search Server 2010 for SharePoint web crawler to crawl complex web sites. It also describes additional configuration options and how to use the command line administration to facilitate large-scale crawls with multiple crawling servers. Audience: Application developers.

Serge