April 2024

Apr 30, 2024   |   Claire Sisson

Five ways Microsoft Teams has transformed Microsoft

[Editor’s note: This content was written to highlight a particular event or moment in time. Although that moment has passed, we’re republishing it here so you can see what our thinking and experience was like at the time.] Wow, what a run it has been for Microsoft Teams! When Microsoft Teams was first introduced in...

Apr 26, 2024   |   Stacy Hernandez

Turning to Microsoft Azure to put software engineers in high school classrooms

Software engineers at Microsoft and other companies love that they get to teach their craft in high schools across the United States and in parts of Canada. The grassroots program—which is now more than 10 years old—has been so successful that the people who manage it had to rebuild the infrastructure they use to operate...

Apr 24, 2024   |   Inside Track staff

Using Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow to enhance end-user support at Microsoft

Our Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team is improving our support experience by partnering with ServiceNow to incorporate modern support-agent functionality into our environment by using ServiceNow Virtual Agent and Microsoft Teams. As a result, our support team and the employees they assist have a more complete tool set, a simpler view into the support environment,...

Apr 23, 2024   |   Lukas Velush

Deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 in four chapters

A how-to guide from our Microsoft Digital team the first IT organization to fully deploy our new AI productivity assistant What this guide contains Intro: Deploying Copilot for Microsoft 365 Chapter 1: Getting governance right Chapter 2: Implementation with intention Chapter 3: Driving adoption to capture value Chapter 4: Building a foundation for support Appendix:...

Apr 23, 2024   |   Keith Boyd

Copilot for Microsoft 365 for executives: Sharing our internal deployment and adoption journey at Microsoft

Generative AI has captured the world’s attention, and businesses are taking notice. According to Microsoft’s annual Work Trends report, 70% of people would delegate as much work as possible to AI to lessen their workloads (Microsoft, Work Trends Annual Report: Will AI Fix Work? 2023). Capitalizing on this trend will mean the difference between surging...

Apr 22, 2024   |   Josh Krenz

How Microsoft is delivering smart building experiences with CI/CD for Azure Digital Twins

Microsoft empowers employees and guests with user experience scenarios, like pathfinding and hotdesking, to make life easier. To quickly facilitate impactful smart building features at scale, Microsoft Digital’s engineers rely on a structured approach that combines templates and pipelines for continuous integration and continuous delivery (CI/CD) to accelerate implementation without compromising quality. With CI/CD for...

Apr 19, 2024   |   Summer Frederickson

Start reducing your organization’s Shadow IT risk in 3 steps

You’ve heard a lot about Shadow IT risk, but what is it and what should you do about it? Shadow IT is the set of applications, services, and infrastructure that are developed and managed outside of defined engineering standards. Experts predict somewhere between one-third to one-half of successful cyberattacks this year will be on Shadow...

Apr 17, 2024   |   Inside Track staff

How Microsoft is transforming its own patch management with Azure

[Editor’s note: Azure Update Management is becoming Update Management Center, which is currently available in public preview. Please note that this content was written to highlight a particular event or moment in time. Although that moment has passed, we’re republishing it here so you can see what our thinking and experience was like at the...

Apr 15, 2024   |   Inside Track staff

DevOps is sending engineering practices up in smoke

When it comes to modernizing how software engineers write their code, sometimes you just have to light things on fire. Just ask James Gagnon. He’ll tell you that good engineering teams at Microsoft and in Microsoft Digital are driving towards using DevOps to do their work, and with good reason. “DevOps is a foundational part...

Apr 12, 2024   |   Laura Oxford

Avatar etiquette: How Microsoft employees are using avatars for Microsoft Teams in their meetings

We all know we’re not going back to the way we worked before the COVID-19 pandemic. Flexible work is here to stay. We’ve learned a lot over the past few years, but really, we’re still at the very start of this journey. How do we find new ways to engage with each other and stay...

Apr 10, 2024   |   Alex Fleck

Dining transformation at Microsoft eases the transition as employees return to work

A profound dining transformation is happening at Microsoft as the company’s employees return to an office that’s evolved into a hybrid workplace. The pandemic has changed the way we work—and with it, the way we eat. Consumer expectations are evolving as people, including employees at Microsoft, get used to seamless, on-demand ordering through mobile applications...

Apr 8, 2024   |   Lukas Velush

Driving our Microsoft Viva Goals usage with Microsoft Viva Engage

Employees worldwide are embracing flexible work, seeking work-life balance, and pursuing purpose and fulfillment in careers. Employers want to support their team and maximize efficiency as much as possible—particularly around key objectives. Here at Microsoft, we’re using objectives and key results (OKRs) in Microsoft Viva Goals to align our team priorities with our overarching business...