Tuesday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM · Room A311

Best Practices for Intranet Information Architecture: the key to unlocking AI’s full potential

In this workshop, we will explore the basics of Information Architecture (IA) and its role in creating effective intranets using Microsoft 365, SharePoint, and Viva Connections. We’ll talk about why IA is so important to AI – and how you can ensure that your intranet content can act as a valuable partner in your AI solutions. Whether you are just starting out or looking to improve your current intranet design, this workshop will provide you with the necessary tools and techniques to make the most of new and upcoming features, capabilities, and best practices.

We'll cover key topics including creating and organizing content, building site structures, creating metadata, and leveraging search functionality.

You will take away:

• Approaches for planning navigation across the entire intranet and on individual sites
• Tips and best practices for audiences, hubs, and home sites
• Page design guidance that supports accessibility and great user experiences
• Effective use of metadata on pages and documents – and whether it is OK to use folders to organize your content.
• How to leverage Viva Connections to bring your intranet to your users in the flow of work – and how to plan audiences to ensure that the right tools and information gets to the right groups.
• How Copilot can help your information architecture and vice versa.

You'll leave with a clear understanding of what IA is, why it matters, and how to get started with creating effective intranets that meet your organization's needs.

Tuesday 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM · Room A314

Taking Ownership: Microsoft 365 for Site and Team Owners

This intermediate workshop, tailored for Microsoft 365 site and team owners, delves into the intricacies of group and site roles, focusing on exclusive capabilities and strategies essential for effective management of SharePoint sites and Microsoft Teams.

In SharePoint, elevate your skills with advanced techniques in page and news scheduling, audience targeting, as well as in-depth list and library settings and permissions management. In Teams, master channel optimization for greater usability and member productivity.

Engage in practical, real-world scenarios to apply your knowledge in solving organizational challenges with Microsoft 365. Understand when and how to integrate Planner, Forms, and the Power Platform to broaden your site's or team's capabilities and meet business requirements.

Gain a better understanding of permissions management, learn when to responsibly break inheritance, and apply item-level permissions when appropriate. This workshop emphasizes security, privacy, and workflow efficiency, enhancing your skills in user access management when solution planning.

This workshop is ideal for those eager to explore Microsoft 365's behind-the-scenes workings, boost team collaboration, and innovate with out-of-the-box solutions. Uncover the full potential of Microsoft 365 and revolutionize your work approach.

Wednesday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room A405

Transform your intranet for the future with the latest best practices and capabilities in Microsoft

Intranets are more than technology projects. They thrive when they are at the heart of the digital workplace, connecting people, process, and technology. In this session, we will discuss how you can both prepare your intranet for the future with a great foundation and unlock potential with the latest capabilities in SharePoint, Copilot, and Viva. This session will guide you through creating a dynamic, user-friendly intranet that enhances collaboration and productivity. Learn how to leverage AI-driven insights and boost employee engagement. Whether you're revamping an existing intranet or building a new one, you'll gain practical tips and strategies to drive meaningful business outcomes and take your intranet to the next level.

Wednesday 11:40 AM - 12:50 PM · Room A405

News: Who, what, when, where, and how

Today there are numerous methods to share news within your organization. This session explores the various types of news, the audience for each option, and what you should use when. Learn about how to create effective communications for your organization.

Wednesday 11:40 AM - 12:50 PM · Room A313

Extending Microsoft 365: Exploring the Art of the Possible

Ever felt like the world of Microsoft 365 is a maze? You’re not alone! In this session, we’ll take a journey together through real-life examples where we’ve turned the complexity of Microsoft 365 into simple, automated solutions.

We’ll start from the basics, exploring out-of-the-box and low-code options, and gradually move towards creating custom self-hosted solutions. Extending Microsoft 365 is not limited to just creating web parts and by the end of this session, you’ll be inspired to see how you can make Microsoft 365 work for you in ways you’ve never imagined before. So, whether you’re a beginner or have some experience under your belt, join us as we unravel the exciting possibilities of extending Microsoft 365!

Wednesday 11:40 AM - 12:50 PM · Room A314

Data Security Breach in Microsoft 365, Now What?

In today's world, it is almost inevitable that your organization will experience a data and security breach, no matter the on-premises or cloud software. Microsoft 365 is no different. Even though it contains many fantastic security controls and features, many organizations do not implement them for varying reasons.

In order to protect from a data security breach you need to know what you would do if that were to happen, as well as the controls and features to enable.

In this session, we will step through where to start in the event of a data and security breach within Microsoft 365. We will walk through how to analyze logs, identify which services to review, how to identify the breach, and then how to protect from future events.

Wednesday 2:00 PM - 3:10 PM · Room A315

Case Document Management with Document Sets

In this session we will walk through how to enable and build Document Set Content types. We will explore features and configuration options. Join us as we explore uses for this folder 2.0.

In this session we will explore: What is it and how can it be used Plan
Build a Custom Document Set Document Set Settings Additional Configurations in the Library

Wednesday 4:00 PM - 5:10 PM · Room A405

A SharePoint based Intranet your users actually will love

Join this session to learn how to build a SharePoint based Intranet with all the features that your users will love, and how it will integrate with Viva and Teams.

Knut has worked with delivering Intranets for the last 15 years with both SharePoint and different vendors, and have deep knowledge in aligning business requirements with the functionality available and make great solutions for the end users.

We will cover all the latest updates from Microsoft and look into what webparts to use when, and share insights and best practices.

Wednesday 4:00 PM - 5:10 PM · Room A314

You Have Sensitive Information. Now Let's Protect It.

Every organization has data considered sensitive to its business, employees, or even the industry it exists within. As a result, protecting its data has become a priority for many organizations worldwide. Microsoft provides several tools for identifying sensitive information within the organization and protecting it from being provided to sources that should not have it.

In this session, we'll cover features and processes such as Microsoft Purview Information Protection (MPIP), Data Loss Prevention (DLP), and more to help you protect your organization's sensitive information from leaving your control and falling into the hands of those who should not have it.

Wednesday 4:00 PM - 5:10 PM · Room A315

Integrating Forms with Teams for Real-time Responses

Do you ever wonder what your Microsoft Team members are thinking or what their thoughts are on a specific topic or initiative? Microsoft Forms is a powerful and versatile tool that allows you to create surveys, quizzes, and polls that can be responded to by your Team members which allows you to view real-time responses from your participants. These results can then be exported to an Excel spreadsheet for additional analysis, and to generate some neat visual charts or graphs using Power BI.

In this session we are going to introduce and discuss the different types of uses for Forms, how to create a form on a Microsoft Teams channel, explore the configuration options for these forms, as well as how to export the results for use in other Microsoft products, like Power BI.

Wednesday 4:00 PM - 5:10 PM · Room A316

Creating a Cohesive Brand Identity in Microsoft 365 and Power Platform

Branding is essential for creating a cohesive image across your organization, improving user experience, increasing engagement, building trust in custom solutions, and reinforcing your organization’s identity.

Microsoft 365 offers various branding capabilities through the new Brand Center, Organizational Settings, and themes in the Power Platform to help you achieve brand cohesion.

This session will provide a comprehensive overview of these tools and demonstrate how to use them to enhance your brand’s presence and consistency.

We'll explore the SharePoint Brand Center, a centralized application that allows you to manage and deploy your organization’s brand assets seamlessly. You’ll learn how to use custom fonts, images, logos, colors, templates, and site themes across Microsoft 365 to ensure a unified look and feel. Finally, we'll demo themes in the Power Platform, showcasing how to create branded apps and workflows that reflect your organization’s identity backed by user experience better practices.

Thursday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room A402

Expanding SharePoint Framework Web Parts in Teams, Office and Outlook

SharePoint Framework is not just a SharePoint development framework as it could seem from the name.

It allows to develop solutions that are available in Teams, Outlook and office.com.

Join me during this session to learn how to easily implement SPFx web part and expose it in all available hosts.

Thursday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room A405

Optimizing your information architecture

Managing a portal in today's landscape of SharePoint, OneDrive, Microsoft Loop, and Microsoft Teams can introduce information sprawl. This session covers using information architecture principles and governance to manage collaboration spaces effectively. By employing hubs, policies, labels, and best practices, you can enhance data management and empower users to use Copilot efficiently.

Thursday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room A315

Build a Vacation Request Solution OOB

From gathering requirements to building a workflow in Power Automate, follow along as we build a solution to track and approve vacation requests. Take the information back to your office and build your own vacation request solution. The basis of this simple solution will use out-of-the box functionality in SharePoint and Power Automate.

Thursday 10:50 AM - 12:00 PM · Room A405

Empowering corporate communications with Microsoft 365

Creating and delivering compelling and consistent corporate communications messages across multiple channels can be challenging, especially in the fast-paced and dynamic business environment. In this session, you will learn tips and best practices to improve internal communications. We will talk about new and emerging capabilities in SharePoint News and Viva Engage along with premium capabilities available with Viva Amplify and Copilot. Whether you’re a seasoned communicator or a curious novice, this session promises actionable insights, practical tips, and a dash of innovation.

Thursday 1:00 PM - 2:10 PM · Room A315

Buttons in SharePoint Lists - Logic for Non-devs

In lists, formatting can be done easily, and buttons can be created using a little JSON code. Wouldn't it be nice for end users to be able to click a button on an item in a list, to set a value or run a flow, without even having to open the item? In this session, you will learn how to create a nice pretty button to quickly click to run a workflow. No menus, no panels, super simple for end users! Laura Rogers will teach you the logic used in order to assign the action that the button takes, how to set up the button's visual appearance, and its text, and how to create conditional formatting on all of these. You will even learn how to utilize Copilot to help with your code!

Thursday 2:20 PM - 3:30 PM · Room A405

Enhancing Communication and Collaboration through Customized Search Experiences

In SharePoint Online and Microsoft Teams, we are building a flat hierarchy through separate site collections or Teams and creating connections through hub site relationships. This supports organizational change, cleaner permission models, and so much more but can prove challenging when you want to centralize a subset of content across these site collections.

Join us as we explore different approaches for centralizing your content in this modern decentralized world. You will leave with scenarios and best practices for how to structure and deliver content throughout your tenant.

What we'll cover: -Understanding the hub site structure and search scopes -Using the content type gallery for consistent information architecture -Centralizing content through search experiences (including PnP Modern Search web part and search verticals) -Creating intuitive microlearning content

Thursday 2:20 PM - 3:30 PM · Room A410

How to succeed in search: Acronyms, bookmarks, and Q&A results

Are your users breaking a sweat sifting through outdated and vague content in search of simple answers and results in Microsoft 365? Learn how to involve users in improving search for everyone in your organization by collaborating to incorporate acronyms, bookmarks, and Q&A result types in your search results across all of Microsoft 365.

We'll also cover some content lifecycle tips to help you keep unwanted and outdated results out of the picture (looking at you, Site Assets library full of icons and images).

While this session is targeted towards Search administrators (or global administrators), power users are welcome to (and should) attend to learn what's possible and to be empowered to start conversations with admins to make positive change org-wide.

Thursday 4:10 PM - 5:20 PM · Room A405

Revamp your Communications from Strategy to Technology

If you have ever done some type of communication, this session will help you make sense of where to start, what to use when and how to get your message out. If you are working on a large-scale campaign to the entire company or sending an update to your project team, there are all types of communications that happen in an organization. Learn how to create strategies that flow into governance guidelines and use the technology appropriately for the best results. This session will focus on using your intranet, SharePoint, Viva Engage, Viva Connections, Amplify and Teams as well as how Copilot can interact, and you will walk away with a better sense of where to start.

Thursday 4:10 PM - 5:20 PM · Room A315

Reaching Airspeed Velocity to Get Your New Intranet Off the Ground

The creation of the first intranet happened in the latter part of the 20th century, but no one would recognize that as an intranet by today’s standards. Since then, intranet implementations and the platforms they’re built on have matured significantly and grown more complex.

In this session, we’ll be looking at the modern intranet through the lens of SharePoint. There are plenty of decisions to consider and points to deliberate even before you jump into action. We’ll discuss optimal team composition, roles that should be factored-in, technological considerations, stakeholder involvement/representation, project lifecycle needs, launch considerations, and more.

I’ll be sharing my experiences, highlights, triumphs, and painful lessons learned architecting intranets of varying sizes for the last decade or so.

In short: we will be covering all of the things I wish I had known before I ever started building intranets in the hopes they will spare you some of the pain I endured.

Friday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room A405

Conducting User Research to Drive Your Intranet Design

Intranet teams are responsible for creating intuitive experiences for employees to find the right content at the right time, enabling them to better do their jobs. Many organizations forget to include employees in the development process introducing the risk of creating a solution that fails.

In this session, we will discuss how to develop a user research plan, conduct virtual qualitative usability testing, and communicate the results across your organization. Learn how user research can help you achieve your business goals and identify 85% of the usability problems early in your development process. Create a human-centered process in your organization to yield the best results.

Friday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room A402

Microsoft 365 PnP for SharePoint Framework Developer

The SharePoint Framework (SPFx) is a development model for building solutions across Microsoft 365 suite. It allows building applications for SharePoint, Microsoft Teams, Viva Connections. But the additional beauty of SPFx is the community support! This session will cover resources that Microsoft 365 PnP Community provides for SPFx developers.

Friday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room A403

Navigating Document Approval in SharePoint: A Practical Case Study

At a medical research non-profit, different departments rely heavily on SOP documents, or Standard Operating Procedures. These documents have to go through annual reviews that are several layers deep, in addition to needing a group approval of the final SOP. In this session, Lindsay will break down exactly how she built SOP approval processes for six different departments using just SharePoint document libraries, Power Automate, and Approvals that have served their purpose effectively and efficiently for years.

Friday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room A405

Ensure your intranet is ready for Copilot: How to plan an effective governance strategy

Are you tired of your intranet being a mess of unorganized, outdated, and non-compliant content? Do you have a governance plan that no one reads, follows, or cares about? Do you want to learn an approach to make your digital workplace more efficient, engaging, and secure? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then this session is for you! Learn how to plan and implement governance for your intranet, Microsoft Viva, and Microsoft 365 in a way that actually works – and provides a framework to help you prepare and deploy Copilot. Whether you are new to governance or a seasoned pro, this session will give you the tips, tricks, and templates you need to succeed!

Friday 12:30 PM - 1:40 PM · Room A315

Ensuring brand consistency with Microsoft 365

Learn how to keep your brand consistent and improve your digital presence using SharePoint, Office, Stream, and Designer.

This session will explore effective strategies for leveraging these powerful tools to maintain a cohesive and recognizable brand identity. By integrating the functionalities of SharePoint, Office, Stream, and Designer, you can create a unified digital experience that reflects your brand's values and aesthetics.

Friday 1:50 PM - 3:00 PM · Room A405

AI-Powered Intranet: Reinvent Your Digital Workplace

AI is changing the way organizations communicate, collaborate, and operate. Are you maximizing the potential of AI to create a smarter, more engaged digital workplace?

AI is no longer optional—it’s essential. 3 out of 4 leaders agree that failing to adopt AI in the next 12 to 24 months will be harmful to organizational success.

Learn how AI has the power to reinvent intranets for the modern workforce.

In this eye-opening session we’ll explore how you can:

• Transform Communications: Learn how AI-powered tools can reshape internal communications and knowledge management.
• Simplify Workflows: Discover smart automation techniques that streamline processes and improve searchability.
• Integrate Seamlessly: Get practical strategies for integrating AI into your Microsoft 365 intranet.
• Avoid Pitfalls: Understand common challenges and how to ensure AI adoption aligns with your long-term goals.
• Experience AI Live: Watch a live demo showcasing next-gen intranet capabilities.

Join this session to secure and start your journey towards a more intelligent and engaging digital workplace.

Who Should Attend?

• Internal Communications Leaders – Improve messaging and engagement
• Corporate Communications Teams – Streamline content creation and governance.
• HR & Marketing Professionals – Deliver personalized, AI-driven experiences.