Monday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM · Room S103bc

Unboxing Microsoft 365: Make the most of your productivity toolbox

Join Microsoft MVP and certified trainer Nate Chamberlain in this full day workshop for newer Microsoft 365 users or evaluators looking to better understand all the possibilities Microsoft 365 brings to your organization.

Attendees will learn about all the apps and latest features in Microsoft 365 that enable both individual and group productivity including SharePoint, Office 365 apps, Outlook, OneDrive, To Do, Teams, Lists, Planner, Viva, and more.

We’ll go beyond definitions to explore specific business use cases, tips, and FAQs such as: • Microsoft 365 overview: What’s in my toolbox? • Understand the relationships between apps, and how permissions and Microsoft 365 groups power your modern work • Co-authoring documents, version history • Requesting files from others, sharing files, and managing access in OneDrive and SharePoint • Teams vs SharePoint vs OneDrive • Teams conversations vs chats vs emails • How do the newer Viva apps fit in? & more!

Monday 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM · Room S106b

Power Automate Multi-Stage Approval Workflows - Part 1

In every organization there are a number of scenarios which require an Approval process. It could be Contract approvals, PTO/Leave Approvals, Event approvals and many other business processes.

In this workshop we'll learn how to design and develop Multi-Stage Approval Workflows Using Power Automate. The workflow will move back and forth b/w different stages and will also learn how to restart a workflow from a given stage. We'll learn how to include Dynamic Approvers in the workflow process.

Tuesday 9:00 AM - 5:00 PM · Room S103bc

Microsoft 365 Purview: Maintaining and Protecting Your Data Throughout its Lifecycle

In recent years, the amount of digital content moving to the cloud has been dramatic. No doubt, this has made collaboration easier and more versatile, but it's also brought with it a new set of problems, such as oversharing, exfiltration of data, and non-compliant destruction of data. Organizations like yours must ensure data is available when required and protected when sensitive.

In this workshop, your expert presenters will share their collective knowledge and experience with a deep dive into what Microsoft Purview can do, including coverage of features such as Data Lifecycle Management, Records Management, and Microsoft Information Protection.

But it's not all theory. You'll leave the workshop with their recommended approach for implementation using a Day 1/Day 2/Day 3 incremental model that maintains a balance between the user experience and the necessary protections for your organization.

Now's the time to ensure your data is safe from prying eyes. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from two of the best in the industry on exactly how to make that happen.

Tuesday 9:00 AM - 12:30 PM · Room S106a

Microsoft 365 User Adoption Master Class

A smooth deployment isn't enough. Driving effective utilization of SharePoint and Microsoft 365 is more than building effective migration strategies, training users on key features or sending out marketing emails. This master class provides a deep-dive on the components of user adoption. You'll learn why user adoption programs succeed and fail, gain practical experience designing adoption strategies and learn how to leverage innovation games to build consensus.

During this workshop, you will: • Learn the basic foundations of user adoption, including key intrinsic and extrinsic motivators • Understand how different types of users in your organization can make (or break) your chances of user adoption success • Understand how innovation games can help drive shared understanding, uncover user requirements and drive engagement/enthusiasm • Examine real-world user adoption programs and determine how and why they were successful

Wednesday 9:50 AM - 11:00 AM · Room S105a

Build external-facing websites using Power Pages

Microsoft Power Pages is a secure, enterprise-grade, low-code software as a service (SaaS) platform for creating, hosting, and administering modern external-facing business websites. Power Pages provides you with rich, customizable templates, a fluid visual experience through a reimagined design studio, and a new, integrated learning hub to quickly build sites that suit your unique business needs.

We'll learn how to create powerful external-facing websites that allow users outside their organizations to sign in with a wide variety of identities, create and view data in Microsoft Dataverse, or even browse content anonymously.

Also, we'll learn to quickly create a website and customize it with pages, layout, and content.

Wednesday 11:30 AM - 12:40 PM · Room S103bc

The Ultimate Shopping List for a Successful Intranet in Microsoft 365

If you are shopping for or planning a new intranet, what capabilities do you need to have? What do you need to think about to ensure that you deliver success? How does Microsoft Teams factor into your intranet? How can Microsoft Viva deliver value for your intranet users? How can the new features introduced for SharePoint, including Copilot, help me advance my intranet outcome goals?

If you are wondering about the answers to these questions and more, this session is for you! We’ll review key concepts, ideas, capabilities, and planning tips to help ensure that your intranet drives value for everyone in the organization.

Whether you are a seasoned intranet professional or just starting your journey, this presentation will provide you with valuable insights and practical guidance on what to include in your ultimate shopping list.

Wednesday 1:40 PM - 2:50 PM · Room S104b

Building a Rich People Search with OOTB and Open Source Components

Whenever we poll an organization for the top features for their Intranet, People Search that actually works is always in the top three. You'd think this would have been long solved, but it's often still a challenge for many organizations.

There are a number of reasons for this:

• People data is often spread in many different places and systems in an organization, and there is no single version of the truth
• As a result, Azure AD, which is the core of identity in Microsoft 365, is either not well populated or just plain wrong
• People search and people cards in Microsoft 365 has gotten tremendously better, but it's still not all the way there

With so much of an organization's IP and knowledge actually in the heads of the people, finding a person or expert is key to success for the organization as a whole.

In this session we'll go over a series of steps any organization can take to get a handle on their people in Microsoft 365, and provide a simple and rich experience for finding the right person at the right time.

• Review of Azure AD identities and how they are managed
  • Synced users from on-premises AD with Azure AD Connect
  • Cloud only identities
  • What IT manages, and what users or the business can self-manage
• Other sources of truth, and how they can be synced to Azure AD
  • HRIS, payroll
  • Customizing and extending Azure AD with additional attributes specific to the organization
  • Easily deploying and configuring an open-source, rich people search web part that can be used organization wide or within departments or business units
    • https://github.com/YannickRe/spfx-msgraph-peoplesearch
  • Building fully-customized person pages and self-managed profile pages

We'll also share real-world examples of this in use for a municipal police force, large charity, and post-secondary college.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S102a

Exploring Microsoft Syntex Document Processing from Start to Finish

Microsoft Syntex marks a significant stride in the intelligent classification of SharePoint content. At the heart of Syntex lies document processing models to effectively assist in managing content. The modern workplace generates vast amounts of unstructured content, which demands large-scale management through automatic structuring, including metadata and content types, and governance, such as security and compliance controls. Fortunately, Microsoft Syntex offers precisely that, and much more!

To showcase this novel capability, Joanne will explain all Syntex model types and provide use-cases for each one. She'll then conduct a live demo to highlight the creation of a Microsoft Syntex unstructured document processing model to efficiently classify SharePoint documents and then integrate it with Power Automate and Syntex Content Assembly to automatically generate related documents using a Syntex modern template!. The walkthrough will cover the complete end-to-end process from setup to model training and deployment.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S102bc

Power Automate Multi-Stage Approval Workflows

In this session we’ll learn how to design and develop Multi-Stage Approval Workflows Using Power Automate.

We will also learn how to restart the workflow from a given stage and how to include Dynamic Approvers. We'll dig into how to design and develop Automated escalations and Automated reminders. We will also learn how to log workflow history and ways to retain the history indefinitely.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S102d

Data Security: It's Not Just for IT Anymore

Data security is more important than ever before. As businesses and individuals move more of their data to the cloud, protecting it from unauthorized access, use, disclosure, disruption, modification, or destruction is essential.

In this session, we will focus on data security for end users in Microsoft 365. We will discuss the common threats to data security and the security features available in Microsoft 365 to help protect your data. We will also share tips and advice on how to use these features effectively.

By the end of this session, you will be able to:

• Understand the importance of data security and the common threats to data security
• Identify the key data security features in Microsoft 365
• Learn how to use Microsoft 365 security features to protect your data
• Implement best practices for data security in your workplace

This session is ideal for end users in Microsoft 365 who want to learn more about how to protect their data. No prior knowledge of data security is required.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S104a

Organizational Tools & Resources: Configuration thru Customization

Your intranet is the entry point to all your company tools and resources. This can be anything from an external website or solution, a custom application, etc. How to centralize all these different tools and applications is one of the most common questions Sympraxis Consulting gets from clients.

Typically, organizations will manually add links to these resources using various web parts across many sites. There is no way out of the box to search your environment for these links. This introduces individual management of enterprise resources, which can cause challenges when there are company changes.

For example, if your company uses Workday for their finances but then decides to switch to Oracle, you’ll have to manually adjust all the different links to Workday within your intranet. If all those links are centralized it is scalable and much easier to manage as the owner of that link can instead edit in one place and have it reflected everywhere.

In this session, we'll take a holistic view of the technology through the lens of the Maturity Model for Microsoft 365 and gain an understanding of current state vs. desired state can help organizations in these important ways:

• Define current state and limitations with out of the box web parts
• Understand and compare options for solving your organizations quick links issues through extension
• Identify the pros and cons of each approach

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S104b

Host engaging and professional virtual events with Town Halls in Microsoft Teams

Virtual events have become vital to connect and communicate with your organization, customers, and partners in the hybrid work era. Whether you want to host a company-wide town hall, an internal broadcast, or a customer-facing webinar, you need a reliable and easy-to-use platform to deliver a high-quality and interactive experience. In this session, you will learn how to use Town Halls in Microsoft Teams, a new virtual event experience that integrates advanced production capabilities into the familiar Teams meeting experience. You will discover how to create, schedule, and manage Town Halls in Teams and use the virtual green room, the studio mode, and the Q&A panel. You will also get a sneak peek into the upcoming features and enhancements that will make Town Halls even more powerful and engaging. Join us and learn how to take your virtual events to the next level with Town Halls in Microsoft Teams.

Wednesday 3:30 PM - 4:40 PM · Room S105a

Real World Tips and Tricks for Driving Software Deployment

What do companies like Lego, AEG, Polaris, Takeda, and the Special Olympics have in common? They all have useful tips and tricks around driving internal usage of software to help them move from synchronous work to asynchronous work.

In this session we will hear from those customers and learn how they drove success in their organizations and how you can as well.

Thursday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room S105a

Automate content processing using AI & SharePoint Syntex

We'll learn how to use SharePoint Syntex that uses advanced AI and machine teaching to amplify human expertise, automate content processing, and transform content into knowledge.

Thursday 10:40 AM - 11:50 AM · Room S104a

Unearthing the power of Microsoft Teams Room

In this transformative era of meetings, the fusion of physical and digital spaces offers unparalleled opportunities for innovation, connection, and productivity.

This session will cover how Microsoft Teams Rooms revolutionizes how we work by providing advanced, interactive, and captivating meeting spaces that cater to the needs of hybrid work environments.

You will leave this session learning how to create an engaging, inclusive meeting room atmosphere that fosters collaboration and teamwork among remote and in-person participants.

Thursday 12:40 PM - 1:10 PM · Room S102bc

Brewing Beer with IDP, Machine Learning & RPA

Attention technologists & beer drinkers: In this unique session we'll look at how one of the nation's largest independent breweries improved their business & their beer with state-of-the-art document technologies integrated into Microsoft SharePoint. Bring your intellect & your questions. You just might win some cool NBB swag!

Thursday 12:40 PM - 1:10 PM · Room S102d

Building a Roadmap to Safeguard Your Data with Microsoft Purview

In today's ever-evolving landscape, safeguarding your data goes beyond meeting internal security benchmarks—it's about staying ahead of emerging compliance and privacy demands. Join our distinguished Microsoft Purview experts in this session where we dive deep into the capabilities of Microsoft Purview. Discover how to not only comprehend these capabilities but also leverage them to construct a strategic roadmap for deploying and harnessing Purview's potential, all in the service of enhancing your Data Protection, Risk, and Compliance Programs. This actionable roadmap is designed to outline the vision, strategy and high-level timeline for success and includes an assessment of organizational priorities and current state of data protection technology.

Thursday 12:40 PM - 1:10 PM · Room S104b

Can security and productivity coexist in Microsoft 365?

As end users gain greater autonomy within the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, adapting to this shift and finding effective ways to manage collaboration seamlessly and securely is essential. Now is the time to embrace change and address the challenges head-on.

In this session, our esteemed Solutions Architect, Samuel Martineau, delves into the practical insights needed to navigate this changing landscape through governance. From user adoption, sprawl, shadow IT, security, and management concerns, Samuel provides valuable strategies to maintain control without panicking.

This session is a must-attend for anyone seeking to optimize Microsoft 365 while ensuring security and productivity coexist—this is how great IT teams evolve!

Thursday 1:20 PM - 2:30 PM · Room S104b

Modern Work Architecture - From the Core to Professional Self

Learn how Microsoft is empowering employee experiences at the core, creativity of personal and team productivity, connection to community and leaders, and your professional experiences.

You will walk away with a new sense of Modern Work Architecture that envisions where work gets done and what matters to you and employees you may support.

Thursday 1:20 PM - 2:30 PM · Room S105a

Teams First Information Architecture and Governance

When planning out or updating a Microsoft 365 implementation, SharePoint is still important, but it really needs to start with Teams, and then the underlying SharePoint structure for a big part flows out of that. It's not just answering planning questions, but also ensuring that everyone understands that Teams is much more than a meeting and chat platform.

Topics we'll cover in this session include:

• Introducing a maturity model on how organizations leverage Teams,
• SharePoint, Email, and OneDrive
• Level setting on how they work together
• Understanding the differences between Standard, Private, and Shared
• Channels, and the underlying SharePoint site collections
• Where do standalone Communication and Team Sites fit into the Teams and SharePoint structure -Guests versus B2B Direct Connect in Teams, and external sharing in SharePoint
• Open source scripts and Power BI dashboards to inventory and analyze your file shares, SharePoint on-premises, and SharePoint Online
• Answering the question - what does a Team and a Channel represent in my organization
• MindJet as a tool for planning your IA
• Commercial and open-source solutions for implementing your IA Real-world scenarios and case studies

Thursday 2:40 PM - 3:50 PM · Room S102d

Better together: Viva Connections and the Power Platform

In this session Martina and Toni will take a look on how to implement Viva Connections. With the powerful toolset behind the Power Platform you will learn how to solve business requirements for mobile users.

Thursday 2:40 PM - 3:50 PM · Room S103d

Understanding Power Platform licensing

Get under the covers and find out what all this great functionality may cost by diving into the latest Microsoft information on licensing when using the the Power Platform.

This session is updated monthly with each publication of the latest Power Platform licensing guidance and also includes Roadmap changes that are publicly declared.

Friday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room S103d

Case Study: Launching a modern Intranet when stakeholders won't engage

When you want to launch a global Intranet on top of Microsoft 365, you need to engage the right stakeholders before you ever get started. What do you do it no one will engage and take ownership?

This session talks about the steps we took to remove the road blocks to launch a successful Intranet. In the early days of SharePoint, some of us failed because they took a "build it and they will come" approach. However, SharePoint is different now. Building an Intranet doesn't require months of planning and development. You can mock up concept pages very quickly now which are visually engaging.

In this session, you'll lean how we build SharePoint sites directly with our stakeholders and drove adoption like never before. If you're struggling to get your Intranet off the ground, this session is for you.

Friday 9:00 AM - 10:10 AM · Room S104b

Boosting Employee Development with Viva Goals and Copilot

In today's dynamic work environment, organizations strive to empower their employees' growth and development. Microsoft Viva Goals, a powerful platform within the Microsoft Viva suite, offers a comprehensive yet user-friendly solution for goal management and tracking within Microsoft 365.

This session dives into the capabilities of Viva Goals and explores how Copilot can augment the goal management experience, leading to improved employee performance and engagement.

Key topics covered in this session include:

• Introduction to Viva Goals
• Leveraging Copilot for Goal Creation
• Goal Tracking and Progress Monitoring
• Strategies for promoting adoption and engagement

Discover how Microsoft Viva Goals and Copilot can accelerate employee development and goal management within Microsoft 365.

Friday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room S102d

Using Viva Connections and Topics to Build a World Class Employee Experience

Microsoft Viva Connections and Topics are the new gateway to a modern employee experience designed to keep everyone engaged and informed. Viva Connections and Topics are customizable apps in Microsoft Teams that gives everyone a personalized destination to discover relevant news, conversations, and the tools they need to succeed.

This session will do a deep dive into how to get started and actual use cases to build the story on how to improve the employee experience at your organizations.

Friday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room S103d

Enhance Your Intranet with Viva Dashboard Cards

In today's fast-paced business world, an effective intranet is essential for staying connected and productive. The Viva Connections Dashboard enhances every employee's experience by delivering flexible and dynamic information in their flow of work. Using the Dashboard's adaptive cards, we can bring a customized experience for each user. Creating adaptive cards that bring value to your users can start with simple, no-code solutions. Developers can also create cards to connect to data sources and bring enhanced functionality by creating complex integrations.

In this session we will discuss how to create true, no code solutions in the Viva Connections Dashboard, as well as low and full code adaptive cards. Learn how to create and customize adaptive cards, as well as best practices for integrating them into intranets. By the end of the session, attendees will have a better understanding of how to use adaptive cards to improve their intranet and make it more engaging and user-friendly.

Friday 10:20 AM - 11:30 AM · Room S106a

Viva Learning, Learning Pathways, DAP, LMS: How to Setup Your Organizational Learning Strategy

Classroom training, Viva Learning, LMS, DAP… There are so many types of learning platforms and methodologies available these days that organizations are finding themselves confused as to what they should use and what they should ignore.

This session will provide the guidance you need to bridge the gap between all of these learning solutions and methodologies so you know exactly how you can implement a seamless blended learning experience for your team.

Friday 12:30 PM - 1:40 PM · Room S103d

How to leverage Microsoft 365 and Microsoft Viva to improve employee communications and engagement

Microsoft Viva provides critical applications and experiences to improve employee engagement and connection. New features and capabilities provide opportunities to ensure that your employees are both connected and engaged, no matter where they work.

In this session, you will learn practical approaches for employee communications in Microsoft 365 – from SharePoint news to the personalized Viva Connections feed in Teams to Yammer, Viva Engage, and Viva Amplify.

Take away insights into what you need to know about what is possible, what is coming, and how to improve communication and engagement outcomes with Microsoft Viva and Microsoft 365.

Friday 1:50 PM - 3:00 PM · Room S102d

ALM for Power Apps and Power Automate

Everyone talks about "No Code" or "Low Code" solutions and how easy they are to build. What nobody talks about is ALM (Application Lifecycle Management). Come to this sessions to learn about how to manage permissions and govern the environment and the solutions your users are creating.

We also will cover the Importing and Exporting packages and solutions, the Power Platform Center of Excellence, and using tools such as PowerShell, GitHub, and Power Platform Build Tools for Azure DevOps.

Friday 1:50 PM - 3:00 PM · Room S104b

Unleashing the Power of Adaptive Cards in Viva Connections

In this session, we'll explore the versatility of Adaptive Cards in Microsoft 365, focusing on how they can be leveraged in Viva Connections (and Outlook and Microsoft Teams) to create custom experiences and streamline workflows. We'll explore both low-code and pro-code solutions and demonstrate how they can be used to solve common use cases such as creating interactive forms, notifications, and more.

Additionally, we'll present a decision framework to help determine when custom development is appropriate versus when low-code solutions can be used. This will include an examination of factors such as timeline, budget, technical requirements, and desired outcomes. Key Takeaways:

• Understanding the basics of Adaptive Cards and their capabilities in Viva Connections
• Hands-on demos of low-code solutions for building custom experiences
• A decision framework for choosing between custom development and low-code solutions
• Real-world examples of Adaptive Cards in action
• Best practices for leveraging Adaptive Cards in a Microsoft 365 environment, specifically for Viva Connections.