BIFocal Podcast

This is episode 123 recorded on October 31st, 2019 where John & Jason talk to Anna Chu about Microsoft Ignite. She shares information about the upcoming event including lots of tips & tricks, clarifies some information about the event, and we all make some session picks.

Show Notes

6 More tips and tricks for Microsoft Ignite 2019

Ignite Session Picks

John

Unleashing your organization’s creativity and innovation with a deep dive into the Microsoft Power Platform

Monday at 11:00 AM

James Phillips

The Power Platform (Power BI, PowerApps, Microsoft Flow) represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unleash organizational creativity and innovation, by arming those closest to your business processes with the tools to analyze and transform them. And unlike past approaches to “low-code” application development and business intelligence, the Power Platform avoids chaotic “application sprawl.” Join James Phillips, CVP, Business Applications Group, to see how IT organizations retain control through an administrative approach that centralizes governance and policy enforcement – offering “guard rails” while empowering business users with intelligence – giving them the best of both worlds. Learn how some of the world’s leading organizations across industries have harnessed the Power Platform to eliminate their application backlogs, enhance insights, improve productivity, and transform their organizations at a pace previously impossible.

Power BI Data modeling fundamentals

Monday at 2:15 PM

Peter Myers, Ayush Rathi, Angela Dobrea

This instructor-led session covers important topics in relation to scalable and well-performing Power BI models. It targets business analysts and IT pros, and provides them with foundational knowledge of Power BI modeling and Data Analysis Expressions (DAX) basics. This workshop builds upon these foundations by introducing model design best practices, describing row and filter context, exploring practical uses of the CALCULATE function, and solving real-world business challenges with the Time Intelligence functions and iterator functions. This workshop is suitable for those looking to gain an understanding and appreciation of Power BI modeling and DAX.

Microsoft Power BI: Business intelligence strategy, vision, and roadmap update

Tuesday at 2:15

Amir Netz, Christian Wade, Arun Ulagaratchagan, Sarina Stevens, Tim Depledge

Power BI enables customers and partners to do more with their data. Come to this session and join our business intelligence leadership as we share the latest information about our strategy, vision, and roadmap for Power BI.

Jason

Azure Active Directory: New features and roadmap

Tuesday at 9:00 AM

Alex Simons, Melanie Maynes, Sadie Henry, Libby Brown 

For anyone working on or looking in to identity and access management in the cloud, come to this can’t-miss session to get updates on Azure Active Directory and our vision and roadmap areas for identity in the next year. You’ll hear about the newest features and experiences that provide seamless access for any identity, protect your organization from breaches, and use the latest open standards.

Shut the door to cybercrime with identity-driven security

Wednesday at 10:15 AM

Mark Morowczynski, Rohini Goyal 

Today, in most organizations, there exists an abundance of security solutions and yet what will actually make you secure remains obscure. Come to this session to get your much needed answers on the steps you can quickly take to protect yourself against the most prevalent current and emerging threats!

Office 365 and Microsoft Teams adoption from the real world

Wednesday at 5:35 PM

John Peluso 

Oak Ridge National Laboratories is mainly an Office of Science lab and as such, research and collaboration are key to the lab’s success. They had integrated Skype into their environment when it was still Lync, so naturally, end users had utilized it heavily throughout the years. It was then natural to move towards Microsoft Teams when it became available given its additional features, but many challenges stood in their way. While Skype for Business is easy to use because of its simplicity, Teams picks up the slack (no pun intended) from what Skype was missing. Learn how ORNL navigated the many challenges of transforming their team collaboration and created a new model for accomplishing their mission.

Stop doing these four things in SharePoint and start doing them in Azure

Thursday at 3:40 PM

Mark Rackley 

For well over a decade now, Microsoft SharePoint has been used as the silver bullet for a multitude of business needs around data, storage, and workflow. However, all too often attempts are made to shoehorn SharePoint into a process that it was never designed for. Developers become frustrated trying to make SharePoint work the way they want and users become frustrated that their business needs aren’t fully met. There is a better way using Microsoft Azure. In this session, learn about four common business scenarios you are probably trying to do in SharePoint today that you could easily move to Azure and get better performance, improved scalability, and even reduce costs.

Making the most of out-of-box approvals in SharePoint Online

Friday at 9:00 AM

Laura Rogers 

Do your SharePoint power users create approval processes for documents or forms? The approvals action in Microsoft Flow is an extremely useful and versatile action for these scenarios. The requirements of your workflows may range from simple to complex, and they all vary when it comes to flexibility and functionality. In this session, learn the capabilities of Microsoft Flow approvals, and how to successfully build your various business processes in SharePoint. For example, learn how to build parallel versus serial, one or many approvers, or escalate/reassign approvals when out-of-office.

Anna

An introvert’s guide to the IT industry

Tuesday at 2:15

Sonia Cuff

Conferences, co-working spaces and collaboration – today’s tech career essentials or an introvert’s worse nightmare? Come and learn how to effectively navigate social media and in-person networking, while balancing your need for recharging. Explore work tips for both introverts and their extroverted allies, and build a profile where your quiet voice is a super power!

Monday at 5:30 PM

Women in Technology leadership roundtable

Sarah Haase

This diversity session focuses on the unique challenges facing female technology leaders. We share personal stories of success and challenges, discuss the impact of role-based and gender-based stereotypes, and conduct peer mentorship mini-sessions. Whether you’re a woman in technology, an organizational leader/mentor, or an ally that wants to support the growth of gender diversity in the tech space, this session is for you! Learn about the importance of a strong personal brand, gain insight on overcoming obstacles, and see how you can serve as an ally for female technologists.

Wednesday at 11:45 AM

You’re never alone: what community means to people in tech

Magnus Martensson, Susan Hanley, Anna Chu, Laurie Pottmeyer, Sidney Andrews

At a time when we can swipe a touch screen to connect with products, people, and information, what does it mean to be part of a community? What does being part of a community mean to you? Come join panelists from within Microsoft and the MVP community to participate in a conversation about community – what it means, how it helps, and how you can engage.