We’ve adopted ServiceNow Vendor Risk Management (VRM) to manage our risk assessment during the procurement process for Internet of Things (IoT) devices across Microsoft.

ServiceNow VRM provides a centralized, managed solution for assessing security risks for IoT devices and the vendors that supply them for us. With this solution, our vendor risk management processes at Microsoft are more automated and efficient, better monitored, and easier for our employees and vendors to use.

Introduction

At Microsoft, our business necessitates an extensive supply chain that depends on trusted non-Microsoft vendors. These vendors provide much of the hardware and software upon which we run our business. Our Microsoft security team ensures that our vendors and the hardware and software they provide adhere to our compliance and security requirements.

As part of our broader governance, risk, and compliance processes, the vendors and partners that supply these products and services must undergo an assessment of their operations and the products or services they supply. The security team provides technical expertise to confirm that software and hardware adhere to modern security practices. We have multiple business groups that work with the security team to assess vendors. Each business group has nuances that affect the way the security team creates and processes vendor assessments.

One such example is the IoT Security Assessment program. This program focuses on IoT devices procured and deployed throughout Microsoft. Each vendor and the product they supply must be vetted to maintain our security standards.

Improving the vendor assessment process

Globally, we at Microsoft manage thousands of IoT devices supplied by many different vendors. These devices include card readers, cameras, kiosks, and HVAC systems equipment. Each of these devices and the software that supports them must undergo the security assessment processes established by our security team. The basic assessment process includes the following three high-level steps:

• Vendor questionnaire. This questionnaire provides business and technical data about each vendor and IoT device. The Microsoft employee responsible for procuring the device sends an assessment request to the security team, which then triages the request and sends the appropriate risk questionnaire to the vendor. The vendor completes the questionnaire, and then returns it back to the security team.
• Preassessment Questionnaire. We use an initial pre-assessment questionnaire to determine the depth of review required for the solution. Based on the analysis, an in-depth questionnaire is then sent to the vendor to get detailed business and technical data about the device or solution.
• Device-security test. After the vendor returns the questionnaire, the security team then performs security testing on the IoT device hardware and if applicable, software. Any issues are reported back to the vendor for correction.

In response to IoT Security Assessment process changes, including increased vendor data requirements, our security team had previously adopted a simple solution for tracking the assessment process. However, the volume of incoming requests and the detailed nature of IoT device assessments quickly surpassed the original solution’s capabilities, which were centered around file-based assessments exchanged through email and stored in a shared folder.

Setting goals for vendor assessment

The original solution was largely a manual process that involved potential for human error, lost data, and an untracked workflow. We realized that the IoT Security Assessment program needed a more robust and automated process for managing vendors and devices. To begin the workflow reinvention process, we established specific goals for the new solution:

• Facilitate more secure IoT device data. The primary IoT Security Assessment program mandate is to ensure that IoT devices at Microsoft are secure. This high-level goal informed the research for the new solution and how we achieved more specific goals within the solution.
• Minimize manual effort required for assessments. We wanted integrated automation wherever possible to reuse assessment components and reduce both manual effort and potential for error. We needed our security team focused on technical assessments and device vetting, not tracking emails and location of assessment forms.
• Improve the vendor and Microsoft employee experience. In the original solution, both our vendors and our employees procuring IoT devices dealt with a complex set of workflow steps. Our goal for the new solution was an easy-to-use, simplified environment in which all assessment process steps could be more easily performed, tracked, and managed.
• Enable self-service assessment creation and management. Each vendor and device assessment are unique, even if only slightly. We wanted to direct assessment creation and editing tasks to the employees who knew the vendor best and simplify tasks such as updating assessment details or adding questions.
• Manage and track workflow communication. Our original solution contained too many untracked email messages that weren’t a traceable part of the assessment workflow. We wanted our new solution to better manage and track communication between the security team, our employees, and vendors.

Based on these goals, we researched available solutions. Ultimately, we decided on a solution from one of our trusted partners: ServiceNow Vendor Risk Management (VRM).

Simplifying vendor risk management with ServiceNow VRM

The ServiceNow VRM platform provides centralized management across the entire vendor assessment lifecycle process. It has built-in capability for:

• Vendor portfolio management
• Assessment management
• Issue remediation
• Risk scoring
• Integrated monitoring and auditing of vendor risk management processes

We adopted ServiceNow VRM for the IoT Security Assessment program as a single tool to help us more securely engage vendors, assess supply chain risk, and follow IoT device security assessment through to completion.

With ServiceNow VRM, our entire vendor assessment process is hosted online in the ServiceNow VRM portal. Through this centralized portal, employees can create, manage, and assign assessments. Vendors can also use the portal to review incoming assessment requests and complete assessments. All parties involved can review the progress of assessments, receive notification when action is required, and perform necessary actions without switching tools. Improving visibility for the entire process means that both employees and vendors can check the status of assessments, issues, and tasks, and more quickly identify emerging risks.

Automated workflows in ServiceNow VRM improves collaboration. It also helps us establish consistent workflows and enables employees and vendors to reuse assessment components across products and devices.

ServiceNow integrates directly with our Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) tenant to supply single sign-on (SSO) and multifactor authentication to the ServiceNow VRM portal. This capability complies with our security standards while providing a seamless sign-on process for our employees and our vendors.

Onboarding to ServiceNow VRM

In less than three months the IoT Security Assessment program transitioned from our original, manual solution to ServiceNow VRM. Our process started with defining our future requirements and ended with going live with ServiceNow VRM for all IoT security assessments. A quick migration reduced duplicate vendor management tasks in both the original solution and ServiceNow VRM, and it simplified the transition for employees and vendors.

Defining the schema for the vendor database records

Establishing a schema for storing data about vendors and devices helped us better understand assessment requirements. ServiceNow VRM integrates with ServiceNow IT Service Management (ITSM) to track and resolve vendor assessment issues and tasks. It also supplies the schema for vendor records, which directly affects the simplicity and accuracy of the integration and future IT Security assessments.

Configuring and testing vendor assessment forms

We use forms in ServiceNow VRM to create reusable assessment templates. All individual assessments are created using a form, which ensures consistency, reduces potential for human error, and reduces manual effort for assessment creation and management. We also perform all form and assessment tasks in the ServiceNow VRM portal, which creates experience continuity for our employees and security team members. Vendors simply complete individual assessments, which are then reviewed for validity. Assessment answers that require further attention or correction generate a prioritized list of issue records for the vendor to review and take action against.

Documenting and configuring notifications and reminders

We manage all assessment workflow communication within the ServiceNow VRM portal. We’ve customized communications for each of the Microsoft business groups using ServiceNow VRM, including the different assessment types used. All communication and handoff data are tracked, including which assessment is being performed, why it’s being performed, and who is responsible for the process.

End-to-end testing and pilot

Before deploying ServiceNow VRM to the larger group of IoT vendors, we ran a test pilot for the onboarding processes with a single vendor. We used this pilot to confirm processes, test end-to-end functionality, and make any necessary adjustments to our onboarding processes.

Benefits

Centralizing and automating our IoT vendor risk assessment process using ServiceNow VRM has vastly improved the end-to-end experience for our employees, vendors, and the IoT security team. Some of the most significant benefits include:

• Manual effort reduced by more than 50 percent. The combination of issue generation rules, risk score calculation, and email templates have greatly reduced the manual effort required across our vendor assessment process. Our employees and vendors enjoy a more streamlined experience while our security team can focus on the technical aspects of the assessment rather than on process logistics.
• Simplified communication. Access through the ServiceNow VRM portal means that all parties involved review and take part in the assessment process in real time and from a single interface. The number of messages sent between employees and vendors is greatly reduced while overall communication and visibility into the assessment process increases.
• Better understanding of IoT security assessment health. Increased monitoring capabilities, accurate metrics, and complete auditing capability in ServiceNow VRM make it easier for us to understand exactly what’s happening in the assessment environment. We can instantly obtain important insights including ongoing assessments, completed assessments, repeated assessments, issues generated, and end-to-end assessment timelines.

Our IoT Security Assessment program is only the beginning of our process evolution. Here are the next steps that we will take on our journey:

• Extend our ServiceNow VRM capabilities to include implementing a fully automated, no-touch assessment process for low-priority assessments, and vendor-tiering to calculate vendor risk-level.
• Add automated IoT security risk data uploads to our ServiceNow VRM.
• Bring the benefits captured by the IoT Security Assessment program to the rest of Microsoft, which will unify our vendor management processes.

• Read more about modernizing the support experience with ServiceNow and Microsoft.
• Explore instrumenting ServiceNow with Azure Monitor.
• Unpack using Microsoft Teams and ServiceNow to enhance end-user support.

The post Streamlining vendor assessment with ServiceNow VRM at Microsoft appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Microsoft Store is reimagining its online storefront on microsoft.com with Adobe Experience Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and Microsoft Azure. We’re creating a more efficient content-management experience for our developers and a more effective, accessible, and intuitive interface for our customers. We’ve replaced an internally developed, custom solution with a suite of Adobe products that integrate with Microsoft Dynamics 365 Commerce, hosted on Microsoft Azure. This strategy positions us to adapt and grow Microsoft Store’s digital storefronts to meet the changing needs of our customers and business.

Online stores and our digital transformation

As Microsoft has grown as an organization, and as the sales and marketing industry technology has evolved, our retail business has expanded too, especially at microsoft.com. Microsoft Store on microsoft.com drives a large amount of our consumer and retail business and is the most common—and often the first—Microsoft retail experience for our customers. Though our strategic shift toward online sales began several years ago, this was accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

As we plan for the future of our retail operations, our vision involves meeting customers where they are, in terms of where they want to shop, and developing greater efficiencies and agility so our business can respond to the rapidly changing state of retail business. However, this requires having the skills and technology to deliver optimal experiences at enterprise scale.

As part of our own digital transformation at Microsoft, we’ve established a marketing-technology strategy that emphasizes using our partner’s best-in-class tools and minimizing the custom tool development we perform internally. This means replacing legacy and bespoke marketing technology with the industry-leading capabilities, supplied by our strategic partnership with Adobe.

Integrating Adobe Experience Cloud and Microsoft Dynamics, running on Azure, provides us with the functionality and enterprise scale necessary to unify our business and its operations with a common set of marketing-technology solutions across Microsoft.

Improving digital storefronts

To further the digital transformation of Microsoft Store’s digital storefronts, we examined our in-place solutions to decide how we could best meet the needs of our business and our customers. We established several objectives for a reimagined solution, including that we needed to:

• Accelerate digital transformation across our marketing technology stack. Technology solutions should grow and change with our business and keep pace with our business’s growth. Last year, aligned to supporting shifting customer needs, we announced a strategic change to our retail operations, shifting our sales and marketing approach to focus on online sales.
• Increase platform agility. Our engineers and developers created our legacy platform, providing a custom design and comprehensive support. However, while this enabled custom-built functionality across many areas it meant we had to develop, test, and build new features for the platform with internal development resources. This resulted in considerable time spent by our developers and engineers, thereby increasing development and maintenance costs.
• Unify storefronts with a consistent experience. Our goal is for customer experiences across all Microsoft Store digital storefronts to be consistent in branding, imagery, product descriptions, and navigation. However, we had built and grown our legacy system over the years, but often under the direction of multiple lines of businesses, each operating against a different set of rules, compliance risks, and accessibility standards. This led to varied functionality and data standards across our entire solution. We wanted our digital assets centralized, catalogued, and managed under a single interface and a set of standards.
• Create a better onboarding experience. Efficient and connected workflows and toolsets are imperative for our employees. With our legacy platform, our team members were our experts, which isn’t ideal. If we brought in new employees, we had to train them from the ground up on the platform, which would be completely new to them, before they could start working on it. We wanted our new employees to be able to use our solutions quickly after onboarding and with minimal custom training or proprietary knowledge requirements.

Microsoft Store digital storefronts with Adobe Experience Cloud and Dynamics 365

To achieve our goals for a reimagined microsoft.com storefront, we’re using two powerful digital-business products. Adobe Experience Cloud provides our Microsoft Store digital storefront experience and melds seamlessly with the back-office capabilities of Dynamics 365 Commerce. Using Adobe Experience Cloud enables us to create scalable, personalized, content-led experiences, including:

• Core content management. Adobe Experience Manager Sites is our core content-management system. It’s scalable and agile, and our content developers can leverage the same content to quickly produce and publish experiences across all channels. We can supply personalized experiences and use AI to manage and deliver relevant content and suggestions to our customers.
• Digital-asset management. We use Adobe Experience Manager Assets to classify, catalog, and manage digital assets used across our microsoft.com storefront environment. Adobe Experience Manager’s complete digital asset-management functionality ensures we can automate asset tasks such as tagging and cropping, supply dynamic streaming media, and accurately build and curate our asset library.
• Customer interaction and targeting. Adobe Target is our primary tool for AI-informed experimentation and personalization based on the entire spectrum of our customer’s interaction and preferences. This means we can improve and bolster customer experiences regularly and seamlessly.
• Marketing campaign management. We use Adobe Campaign to deliver relevant information to our digital storefront customers, using the email channels and frequency that they indicate best suits them.
• Analytics and reporting. Adobe Analytics enables us to capture important metrics and telemetry across the entire Microsoft Store digital-storefront environment, turning incoming data from our storefronts into actionable insights.

Adobe Experience Cloud’s extensibility was critical during our implementation. Many of our business needs and Microsoft Store digital storefront experiences required specific platform parameters and functionality. For those areas in which we require custom functionality to suit specific use cases, our developers can add integration and customization. But then we still benefit from a publicly used and commercially available platform that Adobe continually updates and supports. For example, we added custom integrations to support localization with multiple translation services. We’re also building automated workflows to reduce errors during the publication process and ensure adherence to organizational standards.

We’re using Dynamics 365 Commerce to unify our in-store, microsoft.com storefront, and back-office capabilities. Commerce provides a complete omnichannel solution that allows us to integrate existing in-store purchasing and shipping with our online stores. Commerce manages the bulk of our customer order-processing capabilities, including:

• Product and service catalog management. We use Dynamics 365 Commerce to manage our entire product and services catalog for each of our Microsoft Store digital storefronts. Commerce enables us to use shared product definitions, documentation, and attributes across supply chains.
• Order processing and fulfillment. Dynamics 365 Commerce gives our customers extensive choices for order processing and fulfillment, including delivery and in-store pickup. This integration simplifies processing and fulfillment for our retail business and creates a unified perspective for all order management.
• Financials and payment services. We use Dynamics 365 Commerce to unify financial-reporting systems across both online and in-store retail transactions. Commerce also allows our customers to track and reuse payment methods across all retail interactions.

Launching Microsoft Store’s new digital storefronts

In April 2021, at our Singapore retail store, we launched Microsoft Store’s first digital storefront powered by Adobe Experience Cloud and Dynamics 365. We chose the Singapore location as our pilot project for several reasons. It had a wide range of features found across our stores, so it was a good representation of situations and considerations that we might experience with our other global spots. Singapore had lower traffic than many of our other stores, so we could implement the pilot on a smaller scale before expanding to larger customer bases.

The migration process for Singapore was dictated by an aggressive timeline that we needed to implement quickly and cleanly. We used the Adobe Experience Cloud content template and deployment functionality to effectively perform the migration on our live microsoft.com site for the Singapore store.

Building on the successful launch and positive results from our Singapore store, we shifted our focus to our online retail operation in the United States, which has a much larger traffic footprint and more complex retail scenarios. During this more complex migration, we leveraged the extensibility of Adobe Experience Cloud to streamline the migration and content-creation process, including:

• Building a page-authoring automation tool that saved more than 6,500 hours of manual content creation needed for the migration.
• Creating a content parser that crawled our product catalog to find missing content related to accessibility. We then fixed accessibility issues across our entire product catalog, preventing incidents in our production instance and saving hours of engineering efforts.

We successfully launched the new US microsoft.com storefront in August 2021 and are currently monitoring results. As we plan migration of our remaining stores, we’ll continue to refine our implementation processes and solution framework, powered by the flexible and vital partnership between Adobe Experience Cloud and Dynamics 365. We’re encouraged by our progress and the benefits we’ve experienced so far and anticipate creating new and compelling experiences for more of our customers soon.

• Explore retooling how Microsoft sellers sell the company.
• Discover designing a modern data catalog at Microsoft to enable business insights.
• Unpack how user experience drives modern management at Microsoft.

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Microsoft’s Smart buildings use IoT-driven experiences to make life easier for users. To unify the thousands of IoT devices needed to power these experiences, Microsoft Digital created the Digital Integration Platform.

Microsoft’s Smart buildings use IoT-driven experiences to make life easier for employees and guests. To unify the thousands of IoT devices needed to power these experiences, Microsoft Digital created the Digital Integration Platform.

Microsoft is always looking for ways to make employees’ lives more productive and enjoyable. In leveraging IoT sensors, the company can convert real-world data into user experiences, like wayfinding, hotdesking, and room occupancy. But these outcomes rely on thousands of sensors originating from different IoT devices and designed by different suppliers. And no two buildings have the exact same IoT services. Consequently, there is no easy way to power fast and consistent IoT-supported benefits for employees and visitors.

Fortunately, a new approach to integrated IoT device management allows Microsoft to standardize the process, introducing new efficiencies, seamless innovation, and positive outcomes for employees. The Digital Integration Platform (DIP) collects, processes, and shares inputs from all IoT devices and exposes necessary data in a uniform way, making it possible to support IoT-driven employee experiences at scale.

What IoT means for employee experience

As you enter a conference room, an occupancy sensor triggers, signaling a series of services and real-world events.

Based on this activity, a light turns on. Elsewhere, a kiosk marks the room as “in use.” Simultaneously, a colleague looking to reserve a workspace checks for vacancies from a mobile app and sees which conference rooms are currently available.

This ecosystem of sensors, services, and systems working in unison showcases some of the ways Microsoft uses IoT devices to create world-class environments. Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms Microsoft, aims to evolve more of its physical spaces into smart buildings: workplaces that combine IoT devices, automation, and the latest in cloud technology to enable modernization. Each connected innovation enhances the various user experiences, giving beneficiaries optimal conditions to stay productive.

Finding the right experiences for IoT

IoT-driven employee experience, like finding the nearest open workspace, is built on a wide array of sensors, devices, and services, all tied to a specific benefit or outcome. Wayfinding is one of many IoT-driven experiences Microsoft relies on to solve user problems or to simply make life easier for users. Productivity, movement, wellness, access—all these pillars are supported by IoT solutions. Microsoft’s Global Workplace Services team (GWS) and Microsoft Digital have a tight partnership to determine which IoT devices are needed to improve building operations and user productivity. By encouraging this dialogue, the company is able to design outcomes that can be supported by IoT. To get there, we conduct surveys, interviews, and research to match pain points to a solution.

Once the experience is mapped out, Microsoft can work with suppliers to identify the devices and sensors that make up the IoT ecosystem. But these IoT devices all come from different suppliers, express insights in different ways, and don’t always work well together.

Unifying the devices that power employee experiences

If there was a single global IoT supplier for devices, everything would be easier.

Due to a variety of circumstances, including building and device age, region, availability, and use, it’s impossible to procure IoT devices from a single source. Since each supplier provides slightly different sensors and devices for tracking similar real-world events, Microsoft Digital needed to create solutions and standards for integrating IoT systems. Thus, the DIP was born.

Consolidating a fragmented system

Before Microsoft had a centralized approach to exposing data with the DIP, hotdesking, occupancy density, and other experiences were a lot more difficult to create. IoT devices are provisioned from a variety of suppliers, which complicates the ecosystem of devices across Microsoft’s global smart buildings.

Each supplier’s device functions in a different way, creating variations into how data is generated and shared with Microsoft. Some suppliers push data to the cloud, and others use APIs that require Microsoft to request the data it needs. They can’t simply focus on one single complication or challenge. Instead, GWS must regularly adjust based on the IoT system they’re working with.

In order to be vendor agnostic, Microsoft Digital developed the DIP. By abstracting the data coming from the vendor, Microsoft Digital can later expose that data downstream, creating a centralized interface for employee experiences to engage with.

Building an integration platform

Instead of managing thousands of different sensors and devices that facilitate wayfinding, hotdesking, and occupancy throughout Microsoft smart buildings and campuses, Microsoft Digital relies on the DIP as an abstraction layer. The DIP gathers data and device telemetry into one place. By building a gateway with components and patterns, Microsoft Digital can enable productivity through common and familiar services—whether they be kiosks, mobile apps, or websites.

The DIP is the glue that ties the physical infrastructure with the digital world, and more specifically, that ties our buildings and IoT devices to our employee experiences. It also brings together the Microsoft services that power the platform, including Azure Digital Twins (ADT), Microsoft 365, Azure Maps, Time Series Insights, and Azure Data Lake.

With ADT, Microsoft Digital is able to create a digital model of the global enterprise, from the largest campus down to the individual occupancy sensor. This model sits at the heart of the DIP and is kept live and up to date through sensor telemetry flowing into IoT Hub.

The DIP supports multiple gateway models to integrate data from disparate subsystems. An IoT Edge gateway hosts Edge Modules bringing in data from previously siloed on-premises devices. Another IoT Edge module is used to integrate HVAC and other data from the Building Management System. Finally, a B2B gateway integrates telemetry from vendors with cloud-hosted infrastructure.

Once ADT is updated with new data, the platform ensures that the Azure Maps state is updated in real-time and reflected in the employee experiences. Updates also flow into Time Series Insights for real-time visualization and analytics.

Managing security across the ecosystem

At Microsoft, security is always the top priority. This extends to IoT devices, where physical and digital security is a crucial selection criterion for GWS. Prior to installation, everything is network and hardware tested at a separate lab, verifying that devices meet Microsoft’s strict standards.

Once introduced into a building, Microsoft keeps its IoT devices isolated to its own network as part of its Zero Trust Networking strategy. Network segmentation isolates potentially vulnerable IoT devices, keeping all of Microsoft safe.

Rethinking how devices are onboarded

Today, onboarding devices across campuses can be time-consuming due to manual testing and supplier variability. In the future, Microsoft Digital will be able to automate device onboarding to the DIP.

Mass adoption of Azure IoT standards, including industry guidelines from the RealEstateCore, a consortium focused on technology features in real estate, will further transform IoT onboarding. Once standardized integration is introduced, GWS will be able to install, scan, then onboard IoT devices with less effort. Telemetry will then flow seamlessly from the devices, and engineers will no longer have to spend time building intermittent gateways to light up employee experiences.

Maintaining system health

In addition to onboarding new devices and sensors, there will be times when IoT systems go out of commission and are no longer supported by the IoT manufacturer. This is true for both existing and new buildings. To keep the IoT environment modern, GWS regularly replaces and upgrades devices.

Installed devices must be checked for compliance, device health, security, and continuing support.

Seamless integration of telemetry will eventually allow Microsoft to analyze IoT system health with automation, testing, and alerting at scale. When an error is detected in a device, a ticket can be created, pointing technicians in the right direction. Since one device can trigger multiple system health alerts, machine learning can be used to help separate and prioritize real issues from noise.

By ensuring that devices are maintained, renewed, and that incorrect data does not populate in employee experiences, Microsoft Digital is able to build confidence with users.

Transforming IoT data into employee experiences

With the DIP consolidating inputs through an abstraction layer, Microsoft Digital can now quickly and easily create employee experiences at scale. Within the DIP, the Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and Azure Maps components enable Microsoft Digital to create a consistent look, feel, and environment for users to interface with. This uniformity empowers productivity.

Bringing everything to life with Microsoft Azure Digital Twins and Azure Maps

Microsoft Azure Digital Twins allows Microsoft Digital to represent physical spaces and devices in a digital environment. Everything from temperature sensors and air quality sensors to cameras and occupancy sensors can be represented in Azure Digital Twins. The first stage of developing an employee experience is to build the digital twin. Digital Twin Definition Language (DTDL), part of the Azure Digital Twins modelling platform, helps describe the physical spaces where users will need a wayfinding application to help navigate a campus.

Integration between Azure Digital Twins and Azure Maps allows Microsoft Digital to visualize data. Once a physical space is represented, it’s possible to funnel information in from Azure IoT Hub.

After data from the DIP is connected, Microsoft Digital can enable employee experiences. This ecosystem of IoT devices and platforms also supports monitoring efforts, empowering Microsoft Digital to easily maintain system health at scale.

Controlling access

Does a user controlling the temperature in a room with an app have permission to do this? And how are they making this change? Through valid code? That’s one of the challenges Microsoft Digital has to address as more and more experiences roll out across campuses.

The objective is for employee experiences to be available to the right users at the right time, and controlling access keeps Microsoft and its users safe.

The future is a modern campus

No longer restricted by a complex IoT ecosystem, Microsoft Digital can now service employee experiences at scale, irrespective of the devices and sensors that facilitate those user benefits. Deploying experiences can be done through a standardized framework where devices can easily be monitored and maintained for security updates and device health.

All of this investment creates stronger employee experiences, but there’s a secondary benefit as well: it improves products like Azure Digital Twins and Azure Maps.

More smart buildings to come

Microsoft continues to develop and expand its real estate properties, including new smart buildings and upgrading existing infrastructure to meet the expectations of employees and visitors. While the scope and turnaround time of keeping pace is a challenge, Microsoft Digital sees an opportunity to install devices, solutions, and experiences that will support modern technology and innovation for the long run.

Different buildings will have different capabilities based on age, operating scenarios, and leased versus owned properties, but Microsoft Digital and GWS wants users to have positive outcomes. These efforts translate to engagement and increased productivity, with devices and experiences being launched and updated at scale.

Encouraging a standardized way to create employee experiences

The size and scope of Microsoft’s smart campuses, specifically how they integrate IoT devices to make lives more productive and enjoyable, is informing the way suppliers develop new technologies. Partnerships with industry groups, including the RealEstateCore, and innovation throughout Microsoft buildings help support industry standards, reducing the burden on other organizations that rely on an abstraction layer for integration. The Real Estate Core has launched DTDL-based models, establishing common ground for IoT suppliers and smart buildings. As more companies develop IoT systems that expose data in a uniform way, vendors will be able to better integrate with each other, allowing enterprises to build even greater employee experiences.

Becoming less reliant on the Digital Integration Platform

The DIP gives Microsoft Digital a way to expose data and work with disparate devices to create wayfinding, occupancy, hotdesking, and other employee experiences.

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Those planning a visit to Microsoft’s transformed campus in Redmond, Washington, will witness the early stages of a seamless employee and guest experience, one made possible thanks to user-centric design.

This Design philosophy puts the user—an employee or a guest—at the heart of every decision and aligns all the facility’s services—physical and digital—to the needs of people. With this approach, seemingly mundane events and tasks that might normally cause friction in a person’s day are smoothed out as much as possible.

How are we doing this?

By turning the broad and diverse array of microtasks—the numerous operations of varying effort that allow you to accomplish the larger and more impactful parts of your job—into a consistent and logical end-to-end experience.

With us moving to a new campus, there’s a way to make it more connected, consistent, and accessible. By being user-centric, we allow campus to work for the user rather than the user having to work around the campus. People can be efficient and do the things they need to do.

—Dave Crawford, director of product design, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

This new experience is taking shape at Microsoft’s transformed 72-acre east campus, which, when it opens in late calendar year 2023, will feature 17 new buildings, a 2.8 million square foot underground parking garage, and three athletic fields. At this major new part of our headquarters, we will employ user-centric design to smartly connect the normally disconnected services a person uses to get through a typical day. By doing this, we’re transforming mundane tasks into experiences that will make it worth a trip to the new campus.

[Learn about Microsoft’s upgraded transportation experience in Puget Sound. Find out how Microsoft’s dining transformation is easing its employees transition back working in the office. Explore how Microsoft is reinventing employee experience for a hybrid world. Discover how Microsoft’s campus enables navigation with new IoT technology and indoor mapping.]

Making our day seamless

Our daily lives are filled with microtasks, including getting to work, finding a parking spot, tracking down a meeting across campus, and ordering lunch. All of these tasks seem menial, but they’re still a necessary part of your day.

And it all adds up, which is why we took a different approach for our latest project.

“With us moving to a new campus, there’s a way to make it more connected, consistent, and accessible,” says Dave Crawford, director of product design with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company. “By being user-centric, we allow campus to work for the user rather than the user having to work around the campus. People can be efficient and do the things they need to do.”

Microtasks are often filled with pain points, little headaches that require a tad more brain power than we’d like to expend. For example, you may have one system to buy lunch, a different one to locate a meeting room, and a third for reserving a Microsoft Connector bus that gets you from home to the office and back.

This myriad of services can become a bit much, especially for new employees or visitors.

“It used to be ‘Take a building, fill it with nice things, and people will figure it out,’” Crawford says. “That’s not how it works anymore. Mobile consumer apps have made our personal lives much easier—be that finding a ride, navigating the world, or ordering food. We expect that kind of convenience and simplicity at work now as well.”

Rather than leverage disconnected systems, user-centric design tries to reduce the burden by introducing consistent and logical flow between services. This makes it easier for people to access services, learn how to use them, and then actually put them to good use.

We’re not focused on one tool; we’re looking at the overall experience. What should we adjust to make the whole day better overall? Not just one part. We found problems at all the different tasks that lead to an effective day.

—Greg Saul, UX designer, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

It’s the same reason why Microsoft embraces coherent design across its products, where a similar look and feel, along with familiar usage patterns, empowers quick adoption. User-centric design enabled Microsoft to look at the journey a person takes as they travel to and across a Microsoft campus then apply the same coherent design principles. The end result was consistencies among different systems, including interfaces with enough in common to make campus services easy to learn and use.

But user-centric design also means building out new backend experiences to support these services.

“There are so many scenarios and surfaces to account for; we have to maintain a realistic vision,” Crawford says. “It’s not as simple as an app with a list of dishes, we need to consider the entire end-to-end experience, from the backend to enter the menu data, to browsing and showcasing, all the way to payment. We have the technology, but we also have to make it approachable and usable.”

What an end-to-end experience looks like

Elevating a visit to Microsoft’s new campus means giving people fast, efficient, and seamless experiences. This includes apps for mobile, kiosks decked out with core experiences, and websites, all with the same functionality, interface, and services.

We will have a 6,500-stall underground parking garage with 17 buildings above it. The space is so big and there’s no line of sight, so you’ll need to use digital tools to find your car or to make sure you come up to the surface at the right location.

—Paul Egger, regional digital transformation lead, Microsoft Real Estate and Facilities

“We’re not focused on one tool; we’re looking at the overall experience,” says Greg Saul, a UX designer with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience. “What should we adjust to make the whole day better overall? Not just one part. We found problems at all the different tasks that lead to an effective day.”

The team initially conducted extensive global research on the journeys employees take throughout their workday, which revealed areas of the employee experience within our physical buildings that could be greatly improved and enhanced by overlaying digital elements.

“We conducted a series of studies leveraging many, many research methodologies—these ranged from focus groups, diary studies, surveys, and interviews with hundreds of employees across the globe,” says Ashley Graham, director of user research with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience. “Our research showcased numerous ways we could improve our employees’ daily journeys in the workplace through digital tools that could be integrated in services and buildings that our employees and visitors use.”

This research then enabled the team to assemble a roadmap to ensure employees and visitors can achieve their goals when they visit our campus. That roadmap is a prioritized list of everything that an employee or guest is going to engage with, in order to take care of the things they came to the campus to do.

And the roadmap starts with a user’s trip to campus.

“We will have a 6,500-stall underground parking garage with 17 buildings above it,” says Paul Egger, a regional digital transformation lead with Microsoft Real Estate and Facilities, the organization responsible for managing and operating the buildings and services across Microsoft. “The space is so big and there’s no line of sight, so you’ll need to use digital tools to find your car or to make sure you come up to the surface at the right location.”

We’re all used to using apps for mobility and food. We want that for Microsoft employees as well. We want a shared experience that can be leveraged across different campuses without having to re-learn the UI.

—Suma Uppuluri, principal group engineering manager, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

Sensors will keep track of stall availability on each floor, directing users to open spots. Once you’re parked, an app on your phone will know where your car is. In the future, the mobile app will integrate with your Outlook calendar to locate the best area for parking relative to where you’re trying to go.

For those who take Connectors and shuttles into the office or to move around our campuses, new systems for booking trips to and around campus have been deployed. This new ride reservation system will have the consistent look and feel of other services and can be accessed from a variety of endpoints, including kiosks in every lobby. Digital signage alerts riders of the next arriving vehicle, which takes the confusion and stress out of getting around campus.

“We’re all used to using apps for mobility and food,” says Suma Uppuluri, a principal group engineering manager responsible for movement and wellness with Microsoft Digital Employee Experience. “We want that for Microsoft employees as well. We want a shared experience that can be leveraged across different campuses without having to re-learn the UI.”

And once you’re on campus, how do you know where to go?

In the past, the campus might have felt like a maze of numbered buildings that must be navigated by signage alone. It was a common source of stress and a wasted use of energy.

Pathfinding across Microsoft’s new campus will also be part of this seamless user-centric design experience, where mobile apps and kiosks can direct you where to go, inform you if the person you’re meeting with has arrived, and help guests check in on their own.

“If they’re late, you can’t start the meeting,” Saul says. “If every meeting is delayed ten minutes, it’s harder for anyone to get anything done.”

And, as the team is designing these apps and kiosks, it collects feedback from employees along the way. Design and product management partner closely with user research to test and evaluate early-stage prototypes and concepts with employees to further refine them and help ensure a usable and useful campus experience is delivered.

User-centric design touches upon every aspect of a person’s day. Meals can be ordered ahead so that they’re ready when you are, workspaces can be easily booked, and when you’re done for the day, the same systems that got you to campus will help you get home.

A seamless future at Microsoft

Transforming a variety of services into a seamless end-to-end experience meant bringing together stakeholders from across Microsoft to align on a single mission.

“It’s about all the teams building a vision together and creating a connected experience,” Saul says. Approaching this as one team is helping us solve the user’s problem.”

These new implementations will also make life better for the people who own and operate the services. The reduced occupancy on campus due to the pandemic and flexible hybrid work environment gave Microsoft an opportunity to rethink the technology and bring in new efficiencies.

“We’re returning to the office from a fully digital remote experience,” Uppuluri says. “Everyone is looking to see how our new hybrid work experience will match up too.”

Early on, the results are good. “What we’re working toward is a best-in-class workplace that takes the best elements of working remotely and working in the office,” she says.

Every day, new experiences that improve campus life are being deployed across Microsoft that empower employees to do more while reducing the burden of microtasks that they have to complete.

This will be one of the reasons people choose hybrid over fully remote.

“You should like being at Microsoft,” Egger says. “We should take the pressure and thought of being here away so that you can focus on the things you want to.”

As Microsoft moves forward, user-centric design choices made on the new campus will be deployed at other campuses, allowing Microsoft to scale great experiences for employees and visitors everywhere.

• Before you get started, use user research to understand the pain points and obstacles that prevent your people from being productive and happy in their daily work. This will help you understand employees and not make assumptions.
• User-centric design puts people and their journey at the center of your decisions. Map out what a person’s day might look like, tell the story of which microtasks they encounter on their way to impactful efforts and determine how to minimize the burden.
• It also means soliciting feedback from users. Don’t assume the experiences you create solve the burden without first engaging with the people who will be interacting with them. Once you understand what their needs are, iterate before making final decisions on the user experience you build.
• A project of this size requires several stakeholders across a variety of services. Spend time aligning on the vision; one team being in disagreement will disrupt the entire approach. Using an established roadmap can help here.
• Accessibility is paramount to user-centric design. Make sure you’re building your services with everyone in mind.

• Learn about Microsoft’s upgraded transportation experience in Puget Sound.
• Find out how Microsoft’s dining transformation is easing its employees transition back working in the office.
• Explore how Microsoft is reinventing employee experience for a hybrid world.
• Discover how Microsoft’s campus enables navigation with new IoT technology and indoor mapping.

The post Shaping Microsoft’s new campus of the future with user-centric design appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Hybrid work has inspired many changes at Microsoft, including how we support employees with accessibility needs.

“We’re all working differently now because of hybrid work,” says Dawn Lee, a principal program manager on the Digital Studio team in Employee Experience. “We needed to make sure we didn’t lose any ground when it comes to enabling all employees, including people with disabilities, to be successful.”

We had an opportunity to get this right from the start. We find we’re way more effective with accessibility when we think about it before we start building something, and here we were launching a new way of working. This was the perfect opportunity to make sure our experiences and behaviors were as inclusive as possible.

—Joanna Briggs, senior program manager, Digital Studio team, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

To support different work styles, that meant new norms would need to be established, and that work would need to be done to make sure that those changes in behavior were inclusive.

“We had an opportunity to get this right from the start,” says Joanna Briggs, a senior program manager on the Digital Studio team in Employee Experience who also identifies as having disabilities. “We find we’re way more effective with accessibility when we think about it before we start building something, and here we were launching a new way of working. This was the perfect opportunity to make sure our experiences and behaviors were as inclusive as possible.”

Here are five things we’ve learned about building experiences and creating work environments that are inclusive of everyone.

[Find out how Microsoft’s fresh approach to accessibility powered by inclusive design. Learn how Microsoft is using insights from employees with disabilities to build accessible employee experiences. Check out how Microsoft is having inclusive and effective meetings with Microsoft Teams. Read Microsoft’s tips for staying productive in an evolving hybrid world.]

Tip one: Make sure your meetings are inclusive

Microsoft employees are now spending much more time in Microsoft Teams meetings. Even when people return to the office and join meetings from conference rooms, they are often still using Teams. The Digital Studio team learned that one of the best ways to increase inclusion in hybrid meetings is to designate a moderator.

A moderator can keep track of who uses the “raise your hand” feature in what order, and they can make sure that contributions provided in the chat window aren’t lost. A moderator can pick the best time to share questions and contributions from the larger group. “This makes the experience more accessible for everyone,” Lee says. “Yes, this helps people with disabilities, but it also helps everyone, for example, those who have background noise who can’t come off mute.”

Accessibility Checker will let you know what you need to do. You can have it running while you work so that it flags issues as you go, helping you learn how to create more accessible content as a natural way of working. This also saves time rather than waiting until you’re done with a really great slide and then realize there are many accessibility issues to resolve.

—Dawn Lee, principal program manager, Digital Studio team, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

There are core features in Microsoft Teams that also help, including live closed captioning, live translation, background noise reduction, dedicated chats for each meeting, and the ability to record meetings so people can listen later at their own pace.

Tip two: Ensure that your content is accessible

Ensure your content, whether it be the PowerPoint decks and videos you share in your meetings, or emails, SharePoint posts, or other communications, is accessible to people with disabilities. You can run Accessibility Checker on much of this content.

“Accessibility Checker will let you know what you need to do,” Lee says. “You can have it running while you work so that it flags issues as you go, helping you learn how to create more accessible content as a natural way of working. This also saves time rather than waiting until you’re done with a really great slide and then realize there are many accessibility issues to resolve.”

For content that doesn’t have Accessibility Checker, you can quickly get the hang of manually adding alternative text to anything that a screen reader can’t see and translate.

“For example, there was a reorg email that went out,” Lee says. “All of the information was included in a PowerPoint deck that didn’t go through the Accessibility Checker. People who use screen readers didn’t have a full understanding of what the re-org meant for them or the organization at large because there wasn’t alt text on the images and the reading order wasn’t correct.”

Another important tip is to have speakers introduce themselves in captioned videos, something that often gets overlooked as well, Briggs says. “People are less likely to understand what someone is trying to say when the presentation switches over to a video if they don’t understand who the people are and what their roles are,” she says.

Finally, sending content before you share it in a meeting is highly recommended as well as it benefits many situations—including people who want more time to process and think about what’s going to be discussed.

Tip three: Make chat welcoming for all

Shifting to hybrid has significantly reduced the amount of time we spend with each other in person, which has limited our ability to bond and have fun with teammates. One of the ways we’ve replaced conversations in the hall, over lunch, and at morale events is by chatting in Microsoft Teams.

During casual interactions in this virtual environment, new kinds of cultural references can come up and create situations where some people, including those with disabilities, might feel left out. One way this can play out is when people share animated GIFs that don’t come with a label explaining what they mean.

“Now our team writes out what a GIF means,” says Briggs, who says this—like all accessible-friendly actions—can benefit everyone. “Myself and others didn’t grow up with Star Wars, so posting a baby Yoda dancing meme could go over our heads without an explanation.”

Tip four: Understand the value of diverse perspectives and experiences

One of the most important things we’ve learned along the way is that to create solutions, we need to have an advisory community made up of people from the disability community and accessibility experts. We are better at building tools and services that empower our employees to do their jobs effectively when we do it together with input from everyone.

“It’s critical to have the perspective and influence of people who understand what is needed for an application to be truly helpful and inclusive, because of their own lived experiences,” Briggs says. “It was really important for us to build a lasting and healthy relationship with the accessibility community at Microsoft.”

The Digital Studio team has also been focused on getting teams across Microsoft Digital Employee Experience to consider accessibility before they get started on new tools and experiences.

Encouraging teams to shift left was in place before the pandemic, which has helped the org stay focused even as pressures to adapt and change to support new ways of working including hybrid has increased, Lee says.

“We encourage individuals to think about accessibility in the context of their engineering discipline—how can you incorporate accessibility into your engineering practices,” she says. “As with any issues, identifying problems earlier in the process will reduce your cost in terms of time and effort.”

Tip five: Make training your foundation

The most foundational thing that we do is to make sure everyone in our organization has access to accessibility learning resources tailored to their role, which builds upon the company-wide accessibility training that our Corporate External and Legal Affairs (CELA) team creates.

“One way we do that is with training that all new Employee Experience employees attend,” Briggs says. “During this training, accessibility has been elevated to the same level as other key topics such as security.”

The Digital Studio team champions additional accessibility training within the Employee Experience organization that is role-specific and amplifies opportunities that are offered by other teams across Microsoft or externally. One way the team incorporates learning about accessibility into the culture is the inclusion of an Accessibility Minute at quarterly all hands. This provides a forum for sharing quick tips or highlighting ways to learn and grow on a regular basis with the entire Employee Experience organization.

Tying it all together

At the end of the day, the most important thing we’ve learned is that getting accessibility right is a journey.

“We’re going to make mistakes,” Lee says. “The important thing is to be curious, to learn about accessibility, and to continue to explore how you can do things differently. It’s really an example of our growth mindset in action.”

• Learn about Microsoft’s commitment to accessibility.
• Watch to learn more about using accessibility features in Microsoft products.
• Find out how Microsoft’s fresh approach to accessibility powered by inclusive design.
• Learn how Microsoft is using insights from employees with disabilities to build accessible employee experiences.
• Check out how Microsoft is having inclusive and effective meetings with Microsoft Teams.
• Read Microsoft’s tips for staying productive in an evolving hybrid world.
• Learn how to use Microsoft’s Accessibility Checker.

The post How accessibility fosters inclusion: Five lessons learned appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Microsoft Global Workplace Services (GWS) manages millions of dollars of office furniture, but because those assets were not physically tracked, the company couldn’t always say with certainty where all those desks, whiteboards, and monitors were at any given time.

Because they’re on wheels, office chairs were an even bigger challenge. Whenever anyone went to a meeting and there weren’t enough chairs, someone would go hunting for extra chairs in nearby conference rooms (and chances were they wouldn’t return them when they were done).

Once a PO was written for furniture items and they were procured, there was never any location-specific tracking of that furniture—ever.

—Timothy Ikehara-Martin, software engineer, Microsoft Digital Employee Experience

And while this was irritating to the employee who had to go find a chair, it was even more so for the people in charge of tracking the furniture; something the pandemic made more challenging because chairs that once just moved from one office to the next were now moving across town to an employee’s home office.

“Once a PO was written for furniture items and they were procured, there was never any location-specific tracking of that furniture—ever,” says Timothy Ikehara-Martin, a software engineer with the Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team.

If chairs are like cats, and who says they’re not, this amusing but frustrating situation was a challenge for facility managers who had no way of knowing where the indifferent chairs that they were herding from room to room lived.

[Read how Microsoft connects high-quality, discoverable data.]

Creating the ideal asset management solution

When the Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team heard of the challenge with the company’s physical assets, it started working with GWS on potential solutions. The team decided to use Microsoft Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management’s Asset Management functionality with some enhancements added by the team.

The multi-organizational team was up to the challenge—they started by identifying the pain points they wanted to fix.

First, was the problem of location. Where had all the chairs gone to? The solution would require a quick, simple way to track assets physically.

Second, the team considered the cost of repairs (and using warranties to reduce costs). If no one was keeping track of asset locations, they most likely weren’t able to track current conditions and repairs.

Third, the team had to consider the manual labor associated with asset management. Many asset tracking programs require a barcode scan, which would mean employees would sometimes need to stoop, bend, crawl, or lift to get a good read. It was a sub-optimal scenario that could lead to a poor working experience along with human error.

Finally, they considered the amount of time it might require to ensure assets are tracked properly. Tagging, scanning, and inputting data for thousands of assets is an ambitious task. They needed to streamline the process as much as possible.

Their solution was to use Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) technology, which gives employees a quick, simple way to automatically update asset locations using passive tags with a minimal level of physical work.

With this shift to RFID, we’re looking at each piece of furniture as its own unique asset with its own unique properties and characteristics. You can look up the history of the asset, what’s happened against it, where it’s been, and also make any necessary updates.

—Scott Parker, senior district facilities manager, Global Workplace Services

Rather than having to find and scan a barcode for every piece of furniture, an employee just needs to stand near the asset—the RFID technology locates and documents the location automatically if a technician comes within a couple of feet of the asset. In the real world, this means a technician simply opens a conference room door, holds up their scanner for a few seconds, and boom, they are done.

With Dynamics 365 Field Service and Dynamics 365 Asset Management, data is entered into the system when a physical asset is created and is assigned a tag ID. Subsequently, when a user is scanning that tag, they can see the history of that asset, meaning they know where it has been, where it potentially belongs, and who is checking in or checking out this asset.

“With this shift to RFID, we’re looking at each piece of furniture as its own unique asset with its own unique properties and characteristics,” says Scott Parker, senior district facilities manager in GWS. “You can look up the history of the asset, what’s happened against it, where it’s been, and also make any necessary updates.”

Wide-scale deployment

The Microsoft Digital Employee Experience team wants to do much more with their new Microsoft Dynamics 365 Asset Management module.

“It’s designed to work with any asset type in any location,” Ikehara-Martin says.

So far, it’s been successfully utilized for furniture resets, within warehouses, and by technicians. While they haven’t yet determined the exact ROI for GWS specifically, it’s already provided numerous savings opportunities when it comes to warranties and budgeting.

In the future, GWS expects to fully automate the asset tracking process using Dynamics 365 and the Asset Management module. With full automation, technicians can stand by the door of a room and within a few minutes be able to scan the equipment and furniture in the room, cutting back significantly on the time required to track each piece of furniture. From Global Security to AV, tracking and managing security cameras and audio/visual equipment is much easier. Visual floor plans can direct users to know where each asset is at any given moment, whether it is a chair or an Internet of Things device.

Many Microsoft customers are facing some of the same challenges.

“Using Microsoft Dynamics 365 with RFID workflows enabled, it’s possible to extend its Asset Management capability in ways that can transform your enterprise,” Ikehara-Martin says.

While it isn’t just about physical assets such as tables and chairs, it is also about the larger range of assets that can be ascribed a tag ID to follow and be managed within the same program. Having these types of insights in a single dashboard helps various departments keep track of both physical assets and expands to other things such as equipment and shipping capabilities.

• Treat every new onboarding or offboarding cycle as an opportunity to reassess physical equipment and materials and to review your need for upgrades, purchases, or sales.
• Consider using RFID tags—they are flexible and easier to manage than barcode-based tracking.
• Look to Microsoft Dynamics 365 for scaling automation and tracking processes like asset management.

• Read how Microsoft connects high-quality, discoverable data.

The post Transforming how Microsoft tracks its moveable assets appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company, continued its focus on building inclusive and accessible experiences internally at Microsoft in 2021.

Employees in Microsoft Digital identified potential challenges to inclusive and accessible experiences that the company employees were having working in a remote and hybrid environment and quickly responded with practical solutions. The solutions ranged from automating user research, to rethinking simple face-to-face interactions, to identifying new workplace norms, to making Microsoft Teams meetings more accessible.

For me, it’s not just about making products accessible for Microsoft employees to help them get their work done. It’s also about supporting employees with disabilities and ensuring that Microsoft builds a diverse and inclusive workforce across the spectrum of abilities.

-Manish Agrawal, senior program manager, Accessibility team, Microsoft Digital

[Leading a successful adoption of Microsoft Teams. When being ‘selfish’ about using Microsoft products gets personal. How Microsoft is reimagining meetings for a hybrid work world.]

Powering accessibility with inclusive design

Microsoft continued its focus on designing for accessibility in 2021.

“For me, it’s not just about making products accessible for Microsoft employees to help them get their work done,” says Manish Agrawal, a senior program manager for the Accessibility team within Microsoft Digital. “It’s also about supporting employees with disabilities and ensuring that Microsoft builds a diverse and inclusive workforce across the spectrum of abilities.”

Read more about Microsoft’s fresh approach to accessibility powered by inclusive design.

Solve for one, extend to many

Microsoft’s internal push to build inclusive and accessible experiences got a boost in 2021 when it transformed the portal that Microsoft guests use to register their devices and connect to the internet when they visit one of the company’s buildings.

“We didn’t want to just guess what certain employees would want or face,” says Faris Mango, a software engineering manager in Microsoft Digital. “Instead, we wanted to have our employees use the portal so we could get feedback straight from them.”

The transformation of that app was fueled by collecting real-time feedback from users.

“Ensure that you’re getting feedback from customers outside of your own team, discipline, or organization, bring in a diverse user base from the beginning, and really listen to what they need,” says- Hope Idaewor, a user researcher on the Digital Studio team in Microsoft Digital.

Read more about prioritizing accessibility at Microsoft with feedback from people with disabilities.

Creating inclusive and effective meetings

The need to work remotely led Microsoft to focus on making hybrid meetings more inclusive in 2021.

“Inclusion is defined by the ability to feel comfortable contributing their ideas and perspectives,” says Sara Bush, a senior program manager on the Seamless Teamwork team in Microsoft Digital. “In an inclusive and effective meeting, I can participate fully because I have access to all the relevant documents, content, and people before, during, and after. This allows me to engage and contribute from anywhere.”

Read these tips on holding inclusive and effective meetings.

Staying productive in a hybrid world

With most of the world continuing to work remotely throughout 2021, Microsoft doubled down on helping its employees stay productive.

“We are stewards of the employee experience, and we obsess over every detail of the online and in-person meeting experience for our employees, from the physical spaces on campus, to the software that enables the experience, to the support model when employees need additional assistance,” says Nathalie D’Hers, Microsoft’s corporate vice president of Employee Experience in Microsoft Digital. “While reliable, easy-to-use technology is critical to a great meeting experience in this new hybrid world of work, so are the right behaviors.”

Read D’Her’s tips for staying productive in an evolving hybrid world.

Driving transformation with inclusive and accessible experiences

Microsoft Digital continued to lead the company’s push to ensure the services it builds for its employees to use at work reflect the diversity of the company’s employees, customers, and partners.

“Building inclusive, accessible experiences is a catalyst for digital transformation, because without accessible tools, people can’t do their best work,” says John Jendrezak, corporate vice president of Customer Experience in Microsoft Digital. “And if people can’t do their best work, the company, its culture, and its customers are directly impacted.”

Read Jenderzak’s perspective on building inclusive and accessible experiences.

Here are some tips for building and encouraging inclusive and accessible experiences for your employees:

• Think—and design for—inclusive and accessible experiences before you start.
• Build a plan for making your meetings inclusive that includes plans for before the meeting, during the meeting, and after the meeting.
• Establish new norms for making all your people feel included in meetings and in all situations.

• Learn more about Microsoft’s Inclusive Design methodology.
• Check out Microsoft’s internal Microsoft Teams Meeting guide.
• Leading a successful adoption of Microsoft Teams.
• When being ‘selfish’ about using Microsoft products gets personal.
• How Microsoft is reimagining meetings for a hybrid work world.

The post Best of Inside Track: Deploying inclusive and accessible experiences at Microsoft in 2021 appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Microsoft’s internal security team uses a Zero Trust security model to keep the company safe.

Guided by its Zero Trust security model, in 2021 the internal security team focused on protecting its employees and the company while providing employees appropriate access on the devices they needed to do their work.

Foundation of Zero Trust

Microsoft’s internal deployment of its Zero Trust model requires alignment among many teams across the country who must work together to protect more than 600 offices in 120 countries and regions.

Read more about implementing a Zero Trust security model at Microsoft.

In Microsoft’s approach to Zero Trust, we don’t assume any identity or device on our corporate network is secure. We continuously verify it—this allows us to reduce the risk in our environment.

-Carmichael Patton, security architect, Microsoft internal security

Zero Trust best practices

Microsoft’s commitment to using a Zero Trust model to protect the company begins with identity verification and device health, and is backed by making sure its network is healthy.

“In Microsoft’s approach to Zero Trust, we don’t assume any identity or device on our corporate network is secure,” says Carmichael Patton, a security architect on the company’s internal security team. “We continuously verify it—this allows us to reduce the risk in our environment.”

Find out the best practices Microsoft learned when deploying a Zero Trust security model internally across the company.

Zero Trust networking

Deploying a Zero Trust model on Microsoft’s internal network centers on strong identity, least-privilege access, device health verification, and service-level control and telemetry across the company’s entire IT infrastructure. This includes fully integrated authentication across all network devices, effective segmentation of the company’s global network, end-to-end encrypted connectivity, and intelligent monitoring.

“Zero Trust networking requires a reassessment of any organization’s network operations,” says David Lef, a principal IT enterprise architect on Microsoft’s internal networking team. “At Microsoft, we’re making fundamental changes to a network that hosts more than 1 million devices.”

Read about the lessons Microsoft learned implementing a Zero Trust model across its network.

Transforming how Microsoft responds to billions of security events

Microsoft needed to upgrade how it responds to the billions of security events that inundate the company daily so it could focus on the most important security threats.

The company turned to Microsoft Azure Sentinel, its new Security Information Event Management (SIEM) system. The new SEIM enables Microsoft’s engineers and analysts to protect the company much more effectively.

“Ingesting data into our legacy SIEM took hours,” says Mei Lau, a senior program manager for Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms Microsoft. “In Sentinel, it takes around 10 minutes, which is 18 times faster.”

Read a story and watch a video on how Microsoft transformed how it responds to billions of security events with Microsoft Azure Sentinel.

• Look into how you can manage your network with a Zero Trust security model.
• Migrate your identities to Microsoft Azure Active Directory to establish modern identity.
• Protect your online environment with Microsoft Security Essentials anti-virus software.
• Check into deploying Microsoft Azure Sentinel to manage your company’s security events.

Learn how Microsoft transitioned to modern access architecture with Zero Trust.

Find out more on how Microsoft applied its Zero Trust security model.

The post Best of Inside Track: Securing Microsoft with Zero Trust in 2021 appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

More than 93 percent of Microsoft’s internal processes are now operating in the cloud on Microsoft Azure. This is part of an ongoing digital transformation at the company fueled by Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms the company.

Microsoft drove many cloud-based internal projects during 2021, including bids to expand its use of a Zero Trust security model, to transform its internal network, to improve how teams ingest data across the company, and to automate how it responds to tens of billions of security threats.

Moving to Microsoft Azure

While Microsoft’s journey to the cloud is nearly complete, the lessons learned along the way are still highly relevant to the company and its customers. To move to the cloud, Microsoft rethought its infrastructure and operations platforms, tools, engineering methods, and business processes—all to create a collaborative organization that delivers cohesive and scalable solutions to its employees, partners, and customers.

To get there, Microsoft Digital led the company on a very specific path: First it focused on improving operational efficiency, then on embracing modern engineering thinking and reinventing its culture to help its employees embrace transformation, and then, finally, on delivering value by using the new capabilities and tools within Microsoft Azure.

Discover how Microsoft is evolving its internal operations with Microsoft Azure.

Transforming Microsoft’s internal network

At Microsoft, the shift to remote and hybrid work has helped the company speed up the transformation of its internal network. The company benefited from the need to move quickly to make sure that the 180,000 people who work on its network were not disrupted when they began working remotely.

The opportunity to do new and more powerful things is just immense. I’m looking forward to seeing where we go next.

—Pete Apple, principal service engineer, Microsoft Digital

Microsoft Digital made several improvements to its network while protecting the company and its employees against a growing and evolving threat landscape. Those improvements included adopting the cloud as its primary endpoint for all activity at the company. It also made sure its network was fully able to support and secure several new remote and hybrid work scenarios and a surge of new Internet of Things experiences.

Click through to learn more about the transformation of Microsoft’s network.

Unpacking Microsoft’s journey to cloud

Microsoft’s Pete Apple was there to guide Microsoft through its journey to the cloud, something that he documented in a series of blog posts.

“The opportunity to do new and more powerful things is just immense,” says Apple, a principal service engineer in Microsoft Digital. “I’m looking forward to seeing where we go next.”

Read the first installment in Apple’s Microsoft’s Expedition where he writes about the learning, pitfalls, and compromises that the company made along the way.

Deploying identity-based access

With a growing online population and increasing performance demand, the cybersecurity threat landscape has grown more dangerous. Microsoft’s internal security team is responsible for powering and protecting all assets across the enterprise. One of the ways it does that is by using Microsoft Azure Active Directory Multifactor Authentication to help company employees stay secure on any device.

Learn how Microsoft is using Microsoft Azure Active Directory and Microsoft Azure Multifactor Authentication to enhance its remote security.

Responding to 20 billion cybersecurity events per day

To help it respond to the growing security threat, Microsoft deployed Microsoft Azure Sentinel to improve how it responds to more than 20 billion cybersecurity events per day.

The new security information and event management (SIEM) is helping the company zero in on the threats that need attention and allowing it to not worry about those that don’t.

Read more about the lessons learned in rolling out Azure Sentinel internally at Microsoft.

• To learn more about how Microsoft used Microsoft Azure internally in 2021 and how Microsoft deploys its own technology and services across the company, visit the Microsoft Inside Track website.
• Use Microsoft Azure Sentinel to scan for security threats at your company.
• Try Microsoft Azure Monitor to get insights into your applications, infrastructure, and network.

• Check out how Microsoft is transitioning to a modern access architecture with Zero Trust.
• Learn how Microsoft is powering IoT experiences across the company internally.
• Find out how Microsoft is instrumenting ServiceNow with Microsoft Azure Monitor.

The post Best of Inside Track: Driving Microsoft’s internal transformation in 2021 with Microsoft Azure appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

Hybrid (or flexible) work requires a change in mindset, culture, and technology, creating challenges and opportunities as Microsoft empowers employee productivity from anywhere.

When it comes to embracing flexible work at Microsoft, employees want options. In this video, Microsoft Chief Digital Officer Andrew Wilson and Microsoft CVP of Employee Experience Nathalie D’Hers share how Microsoft is giving its 180,000-plus employees the flexibility and connection they want.

“We were able to keep people productive from day one because we had moved most of our key workload to the cloud in a Zero Trust security model,” D’Hers says. “Our cloud-first approach is going to continue to be critical in hybrid work because we want to make sure that people are productive and secure from wherever they’re working.”

Note: You may need to be logged in to LinkedIn to view the video below.

You’ll also hear them share tips on how you can get the most out of working in a flexible-work environment at your company, which requires alignment across the physical space, digital capabilities, and cultural norms.

One of D’Hers’ big pieces of advice to leaders for powering employee productivity?

“Accelerate your move to the cloud,” D’Hers says. “While it initially might seem like a daunting task, the long-term impact from an employee experience standpoint and cost-savings perspective are well worth it.”

Wilson also advocates for a learn-it-all mindset, something that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has also discussed. Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Viva are great tools to do that.

“One size doesn’t fit all, and we don’t have all the answers,” Wilson says. “We’re going to evolve together.”

• Make investments to transform your digital capabilities, cultural norms, and physical spaces and facilities.
• Enable everyone to be seen, heard, and fully participate from anywhere with Microsoft Teams Rooms.
• Use Azure Digital Twins and Internet of Things connected devices to power smart buildings at Microsoft and connect data from motion and occupancy sensors.
• Leverage a Zero Trust security model to ensure you have a healthy and protected environment that reinforces strong identity, device health, and least privilege access.

• Check out D’Hers’ post about how Microsoft is reimagining meetings for a hybrid work world.
• Read about how Microsoft is accelerating its global real estate transformation using Microsoft Azure Digital Twins.
• Discover the buzz around new meeting-room technology and experiences at Microsoft.

Want more information? Email us and include a link to this story and we’ll get back to you.

The post Powering hybrid work at Microsoft: A conversation with Andrew Wilson and Nathalie D’Hers appeared first on Inside Track Blog.

When ownership of returns and repairs at Microsoft shifted hands, Microsoft Digital saw an opportunity to transform the supply chain infrastructure supporting those services.

Microsoft’s Customer Repair Experience and Warranty (CREW) relies on DeviceCare, an internal suite of tools and background processes used to manage repairs and returns, to satisfy customers. But DeviceCare was becoming a bit much to handle.

As much as we wanted to move from legacy to modern, it couldn’t just be lift and shift. We had to tread carefully to avoid any negative impacts to our customer’s experience.

—Abhinav Mahajan, principal group engineering manager, Microsoft Digital

“We knew what we signed up for, so excitement fueled our confidence,” says Abhinav Mahajan, a principal group engineering manager with Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, protects, and transforms Microsoft, including CREW. “There were infrastructure opportunities to be had—between our two teams, we were spending more than $2 million a year to keep the lights on.”

With multiple applications running in DeviceCare’s backend, updating the supply chain infrastructure meant consolidating several stacks into one. The system handles over 6 million requests a day, making it an important tool for customer satisfaction. Microsoft Digital would need to update the backend without interrupting business.

“As much as we wanted to move from legacy to modern, it couldn’t just be lift and shift,” Mahajan says. “We had to tread carefully to avoid any negative impacts to our customer’s experience.”

The stakes were high, but in transforming DeviceCare, Microsoft Digital created a modern supply chain infrastructure to work from which improved developer productivity, made it easier to onboard new employees, allowed them to retire CREW’s legacy system, and saw close to $1 million a year savings in operating costs.

[Learn how Azure Data Lake connects supply chain data for advanced analytics.]

Too much can be a bad thing

CREW inherited DeviceCare in December of 2019. When initially tasked with supporting CREW and their new application, Microsoft Digital tried to work with the system they were handed.

“It was like hammering nails into a black box, never knowing if you were about to hit your finger,” says Deepak Sanghi, a senior software engineer with Microsoft Digital. “Any change required us to figure something out, and we weren’t always certain there wouldn’t be issues.”

The challenge was due to years of point solutions and legacy systems that made up what was a very piecemeal supply chain infrastructure. Since its inception, DeviceCare’s backend was assembled from dozens of applications and powered by multiple datasets merged into the environment.

“These solutions are great, but not in our context,” Sanghi says. “It was too much to manage. If anything was asked of us—for example, updating an aging feature—we had to figure out how it was hosted, sort out which tools we would need to use to do the work, and just sort out the entire process that we needed to follow.”

Customers are already having some problem, that’s why they need to interact with DeviceCare. We don’t want them to have a frustrating time with their return or repair. Reputation is important, you have to win them back with a great experience.

—Deepak Sanghi, senior software engineer, Microsoft Digital

DeviceCare utilized over 170 APIs, 27 upstream dependent systems, and around 17 subscriptions. It was a lot to engage with, expensive, and not particularly efficient.

“It’s not scalable,” says Amulya Pokala, a software engineer with Microsoft Digital. “There are so many APIs that if we want to scale a background job, we couldn’t do it. Plus, when someone new comes onto the team, they have to learn all of these processes and tools.”

The crowded backend left Microsoft Digital routinely on the hunt for issues, because letting DeviceCare go down was simply not an option.

“Customers are already having some problem, that’s why they need to interact with DeviceCare,” Sanghi says. “We don’t want them to have a frustrating time with their return or repair. Reputation is important, you have to win them back with a great experience.”

And there was one other looming concern.

“We knew compliance would be pressed hard on this infrastructure,” Mahajan says. Microsoft Digital knew that DeviceCare’s legacy solutions would eventually fall short of Microsoft’s compliance standards.

This made it even more pertinent to institute changes.

Microsoft Digital would need to come up with new supply chain infrastructure to support DeviceCare.

Transforming the infrastructure

Bringing DeviceCare to a future state meant CREW would be equipped with the latest technology, improved developer productivity, a better user experience, the ability to quickly scale up, and would see a reduced cost of ownership.

To get there, Microsoft Digital decided to use the Microsoft Azure Kubernetes Service (AKS).

“That would make us future ready,” Sanghi says.

Modernization really helped us with scalability. We had over 35 background processors on a single instance. In the new state, we separate it out so that we only have to scale up a single background processor.

—Renjuraj T, software engineer, Microsoft Digital

Kubernetes is a container orchestration platform. Apps are deployed as a container, and AKS will auto-heal out of the box.

“It’s really needed for resiliency and scaling,” Sanghi says. “It’s pay as you go, you give your app what you need and get the best out of it. You decide how much you want out of an instance and efficiently manage resources and cost. Kubernetes makes scaling instantaneous.”

AKS allowed CREW to host based on need. Previously, DeviceCare existed on one instance, which meant everything had to be scaled even if it wasn’t needed. Now with AKS, Microsoft Digital can be precise.

“Modernization really helped us with scalability,” says Renjuraj T, a software engineer with Microsoft Digital. “We had over 35 background processors on a single instance. In the new state, we separate it out so that we only have to scale up a single background processor.”

Microsoft Digital would also need to migrate the supply chain infrastructure from .NET Framework to .NET Core, but doing so added another layer of complexity.

“Testing .NET Core in the legacy environment would double our effort,” Pokala says. “We decided to move it to Kubernetes and address any problems there.”

The decision ended up paying off.

“When we were doing this, the system was high-volume all day,” Sanghi says. “We could get everything back to the old state in five minutes if we needed to roll it back. But we also knew that if we could make it through the high-volume period, we could survive anything.”

Optimal outcomes for DeviceCare

The Microsoft Digital team has not only created a sustainable backend, they’ve also optimized the way DeviceCare works. Under the legacy environment, a large amount of data was being generated and uploaded.

“The system was creating 100gb a day,” Pokala says. “If we lift and shift, that data would have stayed there forever and no one would look at it. The way Azure Kubernetes works, that’s redundant data and we took the opportunity to remove it.”

We were able to decrease release time from five hours to 30 minutes. The legacy environment was so complex that build to release time was long. Deploying a new feature meant we had to wait and rolling it back took several hours. That’s no longer the case.

—Amulya Pokala, software engineer, Microsoft Digital

In performing this optimization, Microsoft Digital was able to cut 97gb of data off the daily system upload, reducing the amount of data generated to just 3gb per day.

Development time and onboarding have improved as well.

With a streamlined environment powered by the latest framework, users can create features that will continue to improve DeviceCare.

“We were able to decrease release time from five hours to 30 minutes,” Pokala says. “The legacy environment was so complex that build to release time was long. Deploying a new feature meant we had to wait and rolling it back took several hours. That’s no longer the case.”

But there’s one other important outcome as well: “We anticipated compliance issues for the legacy infrastructure,” Mahajan says. “We were well-positioned to retire the old environment because of our decisions.”

Updating the supply chain infrastructure allowed Microsoft Digital to be proactive.

Paving the way for others

Changes to DeviceCare have all been implemented without disruption. AKS gave Microsoft Digital supply chain infrastructure that would improve developer productivity, boost compliance, and introduce new efficiencies and cost savings.

Now that Microsoft Digital has completed the first leg of improving DeviceCare’s backend, there’s an opportunity to support the rest of the supply chain.

“With this infrastructure, we can help out others as well,” Mahajan says. “We can impact CREW and other engineering teams in supply chain. No one told us that we would save a million dollars a year on this effort. We can now onboard other tenants from supply chain.”

Support from leadership, even in the face of the unknown, meant everyone contributed. As a result, the systems that support supply chain are scalable, more resilient, and better equipped to serve Microsoft in the future.

“This is all about helping engineering, but everyone contributed in their own way,” Sanghi says. “We did our due diligence, went ahead, and had to see things in production to learn. We kept moving and made progress.”

Check out this introduction to Azure Kubernetes Service.

Learn how Azure Data Lake connects supply chain data for advanced analytics.

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November 2019 was a perfect time for Microsoft Digital, the organization that powers, transforms, and protects Microsoft, to re-evaluate Microsoft’s telephony solution. The Microsoft Teams Enterprise Voice solution was developing rapidly, offering a fully cloud-based architecture and mature Enterprise Voice features.

Around this time, the Microsoft Australia region decided to move its Sydney office. It was an opportunity to upgrade all the operational systems as necessary.

Our goal was to make our environment more secure and save recurring costs by moving the on-premises systems to the cloud.

—Chee Ming Tan, service engineer, Microsoft Digital

It had been years since the existing individual, receptionist, and conference room telephones were installed. Market conditions and telephony offerings had changed considerably.

Chee Ming Tan, a service engineer with Microsoft Digital, realized that the Phone System with Calling Plans offering in Microsoft Teams might be the right solution for the Australia offices.

“We wanted to use the latest technology in our new offices,” Tan says. “Our goal was to make our environment more secure and save recurring costs by moving the on-premises systems to the cloud.”

Microsoft Australia was an ideal candidate to try a widespread internal deployment of Phone System with Calling Plans. With 2,000 users and endpoints in six offices across vast distances, the region would be able to try the solution at scale.

If the Australia rollout was successful, it would be the first Microsoft subsidiary to rely solely on the fully cloud-based Microsoft Teams Phone System solution for everyday communication. The initiative would lay the groundwork for potentially taking the solution to more than 180,000 Microsoft employees and contractors around the world.

[See how Microsoft Teams helps Microsoft communicate with employees at scale. Find out more about how Microsoft implemented a Zero Trust security model.]

Decoupling phones and endpoints from physical spaces

Out of the box, Microsoft Teams supports the ability for users to make voice over IP (VoIP) calls from Teams client to Teams client. In addition, Microsoft Teams now has the capability to handle calls to and from landlines and mobile phones that connect through a Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN).

To enable users to make, receive, and transfer calls to and from landlines and mobile phones on a PSTN, Microsoft Teams has three options:

• Use Microsoft Teams Phone System with Calling Plans, and Microsoft provides the phone number to users and PSTN services. Australia is unique because it’s a “lighthouse” country, where Telstra (a telephony vendor in Australia) provides the native Calling Plans in the region rather than Microsoft. This kind of lighthouse relationship occurs in only two regions globally—Australia with Telstra and Japan with Softbank.
• Use Operator Connect, where users can select the carrier they want to use and quickly provision numbers to users.
• Use direct routing, where organizations can connect their existing PSTN systems to Microsoft Teams via an SBC (Session Boarder Controller) and select the carrier they want to use.

These PSTN solutions all allow Microsoft Teams users to talk with anyone internally using Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) or externally via a phone number. By selecting one of these PSTN options, customers can now essentially turn any PC, Mac, or mobile device into a phone.

Without the need to use local infrastructure, Microsoft Australia would be able to provide business voice numbers even to people not associated with a building. The workspaces could be flexible rather than being associated with seats in an office.

“We could clear out our on-premises environment,” Tan says. “With Microsoft Teams Business Voice in the cloud, no matter where I am in the world, I’m being serviced at the closest data center, not one inside a company infrastructure.”

The team knew that engineering excellence and a positive customer experience was key to a successful deployment of Microsoft Teams Phone System. “We had to port and thoroughly test all the available features and prep the users before any change in workflow,” Tan says.

This would be much easier with a supportive calling plan service provider.

Helpfully, Telstra, a large telecommunications provider in Australia, has had a close working relationship with Microsoft for decades. Telstra offers customers a variety of phone plans, access to the National Broadband Network, business phones, and more.

“We held our annual cross-team meeting with Telstra,” Tan says. “That’s where we first ideated a possible solution. We wanted to bring them in from the start so that we could work closely together and quickly solve any issues.”

Leon Wright, a product marketing manager in Microsoft Australia, works with Telstra and had helped develop the Telstra calling plans. The annual meeting had a dual purpose: to check in with a long-term business partner and to explore a telephony upgrade for Microsoft itself that would roll out at a continent-wide scale.

“Microsoft has more extensive requirements than many organizations with regards to security and reliability,” Wright says. “Phone System enhances your security posture quite significantly because voice services within the Teams tenant now wrap into the Microsoft 365 family.”

During the discussions, the team decided to architect and pilot a solution using Telstra calling plans and Microsoft Teams Phone System.

“In certain scenarios, it definitely makes sense,” says Scott Kovach, the Microsoft Teams Service Manager in Microsoft Digital. “When you look at the agility you can introduce, it’s a huge business advantage for us.”

It’s critical to map out the user profiles so the solution meets expectations. Sometimes they will need to use a different process for the same result as before.

—Leon Wright, product marketing manager, Microsoft Australia

Kovach’s team is responsible for the performance and reliability of Microsoft Teams voice services worldwide. “Across the globe, we constantly look at what options are available,” he says. “A lot of carriers are no longer offering standard ISDN and PRI. They’re pushing towards SIP. We had to make a change.”

Full-featured cloud-based telephony for Microsoft Australia and beyond

The project kicked off with a small group of early testers. “Our pilot was conducted over two weeks,” Tan says. “We repeated all the scenarios using different endpoints, such as the user account, a Teams meeting room account, and a Teams call queue account.”

The tests concentrated on the user experience and any impact on voice quality or latency. “We worked closely with the local IT teams so they could anticipate what they would experience locally,” Tan says. “Performance depends on where you are and the infrastructure available.”

Adoption and change management tactics need to vary by role and workstream. “It’s critical to map out the user profiles so the solution meets expectations,” Wright says. “Sometimes they will need to use a different process for the same result as before.”

Setting expectations is key, Wright says. “You don’t want to be halfway through a deployment and find out you don’t have an important feature for a user group, then it stops the process. Emphasize network readiness and test properly and thoroughly.”

Once the team achieved its reliability and quality objectives, the Australia team continued the rollout. The project was completed in June 2021. “It took longer than what a customer would experience because we tied it to our office relocations,” Tan says.

In fact, the US subsidiary recently onboarded 22,000 users to a similar calling plan solution in about six months. “It went quicker than I expected,” Kovach says. “We were able to get the releasing carrier to provide numbers in a large volume.”

The first part of the US deployment was hastened by the COVID-19 pandemic. “When COVID-19 hit in 2020, Microsoft’s retail store folks went to work from home,” Kovach says. “We spun up phone numbers in calling plans for all 110 stores. They were up and running within a month.”

Before deploying in the US, the solution needed to address requirements for emergency calling services, number portability, Telco service, and support-level parity. Dynamic emergency calling for Microsoft Teams Calling Plans and Phone System on a direct routing architecture let the customer configure and route calls and notify security personnel based on the current location of the Microsoft Teams client.

Globally, the new location-based routing functionality that complies with country and region-specific regulations about placing calls has allowed the Microsoft Teams Phone System to be deployed in Microsoft India offices.

Looking ahead to ongoing benefits and cost reduction

The successful deployment has provided immediate cost savings for Microsoft Australia. Now, the team doesn’t have to deploy local devices any longer. Going forward with the Telstra calling plan, these are no longer required. This means Microsoft can cut maintenance costs and eliminate another potential point of failure.

What’s next for Microsoft’s internal use of Phone System and the other Microsoft Teams voice options?

“We are going to expand our use of Calling Plans and potentially Operator Connect,” Kovach says. “We keep watching the market and will support customers as the remote workforce aligns with the usage of these types of technologies.”

In today’s changing workplaces, scalability is central to efficient operations.

“The flexible workspace concept is becoming more and more of a driving force,” Kovach says. “If you build for a certain number of seats in an office, sometimes it’s not possible to add to that infrastructure another 100 percent growth for remote workers. Using cloud offers that agility.”

Learn more about Microsoft Teams Phone.

Check out these tips on Microsoft Phone System features.

Plan how to manage your voice solution in Microsoft Teams.

See how Microsoft Teams helps Microsoft communicate with employees at scale.

Find out more about how Microsoft implemented a Zero Trust security model.

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