Microsoft Viva – An Overview

Microsoft Viva is an employee experience platform that is designed to improve collaboration, communication, learning, and well-being within an organization. It was launched in 2021 and Viva is integrated with Microsoft Teams. It is comprised of four main components: Viva Connections, Viva Insights, Viva Learning, and Viva Topics. Each of these modules addresses different elements of the employee experience, working to foster a more connected and engaged workforce.

An Overview of Microsoft SharePoint

Microsoft SharePoint, conversely, is a robust content management and collaboration platform that has been around for nearly two decades. It allows its users to create, store, and manage documents, collaborate on projects, and build intranet sites to share information within their organizations. Microsoft SharePoint integrates with other Microsoft products like Office 365 and can be tailored and customized to meet a significant range of business needs.

ROI Considerations for Implementing Microsoft Viva:

• • Enhanced Employee Engagement: Microsoft Viva’s focus on the employee experience translates to higher engagement and productivity, which can ultimately lead to increased revenue and reduced turnover costs.

• • Improved Knowledge Management: Viva Topics uses AI to automatically identify and organize valuable company knowledge, which reduces time spent searching for information and increasing overall efficiency.
  • Streamlined Learning: Viva Learning centralizes training resources, making it easier for employees to access and complete relevant training. This can lead to higher skills proficiency and better performance.
  • Employee Well-being: Viva Insights offers personalized recommendations for better work habits and well-being, leading to a healthier, more productive workforce in your organization.

ROI Considerations for Utilizing Microsoft SharePoint

• • Cost Savings: SharePoint is usually more cost-effective than Viva, particularly for smaller organizations with more limited budgets.
  • Customization: The flexibility of SharePoint allows for significant customization to match unique business processes, which can often result in improved workflow efficiency.
  • Document Management: SharePoint excels at document management and collaboration, with features like version control, co-authoring, and approval workflows that can save your organization time as well as reduce errors.

Conclusion – Microsoft Viva versus Microsoft SharePoint – Which to Choose?

When evaluating the ROI of investing in Microsoft Viva versus Microsoft SharePoint, it is critical to consider your organization’s specific needs and objectives. Microsoft Viva provides a comprehensive employee experience platform that is designed to improve engagement, collaboration, learning, and well-being, while Microsoft SharePoint is a powerful content management and collaboration tool that can be tailored and customized to fit various business processes.

If your organization wants to emphasize employee engagement, knowledge management, and well-being, Microsoft Viva may provide you with a higher ROI. If cost-effectiveness and customization for specific workflows are your main concerns, Microsoft SharePoint may be the better choice. Ultimately, understanding your company’s requirements and goals will allow you to make the most informed (and best) decision.

Curious about implementing Microsoft Viva or Microsoft SharePoint for your business?  Contact 6th Street Consulting today to schedule your free consultation.

The post What’s the ROI of investing in Microsoft Viva for my company versus Microsoft SharePoint? appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

While the end-of-support date doesn’t mean the product will stop working, it does mean that Microsoft will no longer support the platform.  Using an unsupported on-prem platform also poses a risk of data loss.

What are the dangers of not upgrading?

Security risks

Without Microsoft’s routine security updates and patches, you expose yourself to security breaches from hackers and cybercriminals. Also, Microsoft will not provide support to remediate an attack.

Compliance risks

Your organization’s reputation could come under serious scrutiny, and you could incur potential hefty legal, financial, and operational penalties as well.

Data loss risks

With an unsupported on-prem platform, you risk being unable to recover data in the event your database is corrupted.

Productivity and functionality costs

Newer versions of SharePoint offer features that aren’t available in SharePoint 2013. By not migrating, you are potentially costing your organization valuable time and resources that could be supported by new platform improvements.

What Action Should a Company Take?

Migrating to SharePoint Online, which is part of a Microsoft 365 subscription, can offer benefits such as reduced maintenance and a monthly subscription model based on license type and number of users. Perficient can assist with assessments of your current SharePoint environment, migration planning, and implementation services.

With over 20 years of experience in modern work solutions and business applications, our experts can guide your organization through the migration process. Contact 6th Street Consulting to learn more.

The post How will SharePoint 2013 End of Life Impact Your Business? appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

In the past, Zoom has been an incredibly popular product for holding these meetings. Microsoft Teams has long offered a viable alternative to Zoom, with significantly better security measures that result in a Tier-D security compliance rating. This compliance rating makes Microsoft Teams usable for even the strictest government sector meetings. Meanwhile, Zoom has come under fire during the Coronavirus outbreak for weak security measures. Some of these Zoom breaches have come to be referred to as “Zoombombing”, but they are no laughing matter.

Microsoft Teams Features Compared to Zoom

Microsoft Teams offers several important security features that Zoom does not. Besides having a greater emphasis on the security features of its products, Microsoft has greater bandwidth to deal with providing quality service.

Microsoft is a more mature company and deletes user data after accounts are removed. The company works hard on creating transparency reports, which Zoom is still working on creating for its users.

It’s important to note that several government agencies have banned using Zoom for their business, given the recent security breaches and the lack of cooperation with law enforcement on the part of the company.

Microsoft offers a detailed report on the security measures they take, including how their protocols for data transfer are stored and what they do with data. As an added benefit, Microsoft Teams does not utilize ads in their product.

Microsoft Teams For Government Agencies and Defense Contractors

We are sure that government agencies like defense contractors and schools are getting a better product with Microsoft Teams. Given the recent choice of other government contractors to stop using Zoom, we offer Microsoft Teams as a superior option.

You have a lot more control over how you manage security in Microsoft Teams, and we are happy to offer demos at our company. Microsoft is a much older company and has a stronger culture in security than other newer products, like Zoom, can offer.

We encourage you to try it for yourself, but we also encourage you to review Microsoft’s detailed outline of the transfer protocols for Teams. This report offers insight into how the security ratings are achieved and why Microsoft Teams is HIPPA-compliant.

The post Microsoft Teams vs. Zoom Meetings in the Era of Coronavirus appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

Integrated Outlook Experience

Teams are where work gets done.  And today, a lot of work and time goes into email communication.  Teams set out to make your email work harder and improve the way that employees communicate and collaborate with each other.  By integrating Outlook and Teams, you can now move a Teams conversation from Teams to Outlook with just a few simple clicks.  Additionally, you can take an email conversation and move it to Teams (including images, tables, and attachments).  Learn more about this new feature.

Targeted Communication

Teams is smart.  When it comes to communication, Teams can help you to define the audience that you need to message automatically.  By using an @tag, Teams allows a user to message an entire audience associated with that @tag with just one click.  Need to message the entire marketing department about a new product, use their @tag (for example @marketing), and in one-click, your message is ready to send to the whole group.

Files Powered by SharePoint

Never lose track of a file again.  With the new Teams file experience powered by SharePoint, the File tab of a channel includes the ability to sync files directly from your PC.  Now you can see previews of file types including images, videos, Microsoft 365 files like Word & Excel, and much more directly within Teams.

Stay tuned to the 6th Street Consulting blog for more updates on the latest functionality coming to Microsoft Teams, and contact us if your company or organization is looking to customize or optimize their Teams experience.

The post What’s New with Microsoft Teams Functionality appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

The new end of support date for SharePoint Server 2010 will not be April 13, 2021, a full six months from the original end of support date.  This includes the following versions of SharePoint and Project Server:

• SharePoint Foundation 2010
• SharePoint Server 2010
• Project Server 2010

What Does the Extension Mean for Businesses?

This extension will provide businesses the time and flexibility to manage their transition plans accordingly.  Microsoft does intend to keep the new April 2021 end of support date without offering another extension.  When support does end, Microsoft will no longer be providing support for problems that occur which includes bug fixes, usability concerns, and most importantly, vulnerabilities that are discovered which may result in security breaches.

At 6th Street Consulting, we strongly recommend that you begin your transition plans well before the end of support date.  Migrations to newer or cloud-based versions of SharePoint can take time, especially if the platform that been highly customized for a specific business, and we expect that there will be a large volume of companies that choose to delay migrations resulting in a flurry of activity prior to the end of support date.

Migrate SharePoint 2010 to Microsoft 365

It is our recommendation is most circumstances that companies migrate their legacy versions of SharePoint 2010 to Microsoft 365.  This provides a multitude of benefits, including going to a cloud-based subscription service that offers best-in-class tools for the modern workforce.

If your company is working with a legacy version of SharePoint 2010 and will need to migrate, contact our office to speak with one of our certified experts.  We can provide specific consulting and migration services that meet the needs of your specific use of SharePoint while ensuring that the migration process is handled quickly and seamlessly from start to finish.

The post SharePoint Server 2010 End of Support Extended appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

We are no stranger to the regulatory issues that can crop up when setting up an employee, or your whole workforce, to work remotely. We have helped many of our clients navigate similar waters. With that in mind, we have compiled our top three tips for healthcare companies trying to maintain HIPAA compliance with a remote workforce:

Encourage employees to set up workspaces apart from other family members whenever possible.

The number one goal of HIPAA is to protect patients’ PHI (Protected Health Information) and ePHI. In the workplace, you as an employer are able to maintain a certain level of control over who accesses what PHI. Now that employees are working from home along with all of their family members and/or roommates, it is harder to maintain control over who is seeing what. Now is a great time to send a reminder to employees that stresses the importance of maintaining a workspace where they are able to protect patients’ PHI and ensure they are the only ones able to see it.

Make online HIPAA refresher courses available to employees.

There is no better time like the present to give employees access to continuing education courses that reinforce HIPAA knowledge and best practices. Microsoft SharePoint is a great platform for making training videos available to employees working remotely, as well as any other HIPAA training materials you would like them to have access to, as a refresher.

Ensure you have a BAA (Business Associate Agreement) signed with any software vendors whose product you are using to communicate PHI.

There are a variety of software solutions available that can help you and your employees maintain connectivity right now, including Microsoft Teams. It is important, however, to note that any vendor that has access to PHI is considered a business associate and you must have a signed business associate agreement (BAA) with them for communication through that software to be considered HIPAA-compliant.

It is important to note that not all software solutions for healthcare communication are equal. Microsoft Teams is listed in Microsoft’s Tier D compliance category, meaning that all of the innovative security controls are automatically activated and it meets the standards required by HIPAA. We can show you all the ways that Microsoft Teams and Microsoft Office 365 can help your employees maintain HIPPA compliance while working remotely.

If you or your company need assistance with managing regulatory compliance while working remotely contact our team of experts to get a plan in place to manage your business responsibly.

The post 3 Tips for Maintaining Regulatory Compliance While Working Remotely appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

Azure’s home page

Microsoft just simplified it to make it more focused on user experience – your user experience. Recent programs now auto-populate at you use the product, so there’s no set list of features decided by Microsoft – it’s all based on what you use the most often. It gets better and more customized the more you use it, and you don’t even have to be proactive about organizing it, it’s all done for you. And at the same time, there’s a static set of resources on the bottom part of the home page, for consistency.

Service information cards

These are the boxes that show up when you hover your cursor over something. For example, when you hover over someone’s name in Outlook – without clicking – it shows you their name/email/position/your latest correspondence with them. Think that same idea, but with your resources in Azure, giving you quick access to common tasks and relevant in-context information.

Global portal search

Azure’s search function is now streamlined, so you can be sure you never lose progress in a task. It allows you to search across all your lists of services, all the instances of your services, offers in the marketplace, documentation and research groups. And no matter where you are in Azure, the global search bar is always right there at the top.

Easy navigation between multiple accounts

All with just one click. Many Azure users have multiple accounts, whether it be a work account and a personal account – or more if you’re contracted. But you can now instantly switch between the two, while the two stay tailored to what you do in each separate account.

Utilizing patterns

Azure can do. A. Lot. But to keep things from getting overwhelming, if you just learn a few basic rules, you can apply them across all of Azure.

Streamlined browsing

It’s now faster and “way more functional,” according to Leon Welicki, Partner Group PM Manager, who delivered this presentation on Azure at Ignite. All your instances are in one place, and now, you can customize what that looks like by easily adding instances right to your list and adjusting the columns as you see fit. You can also quickly export anything you see on your screen. When it comes to filtering and sorting – there are no catches. You know how sometimes you’re in a piece of software and you KNOW what you’re looking for is there but can’t find it? The new browsing system uses more than just basic keywords to help you easily pinpoint the resources you’re looking for

Resource graph explorer

A more advanced tool, this gives you full control of all your Azure data, your subscriptions, resources, etc. Azure offers a fully integrated user experience to let you access the graph explorer right inside the portal. When you find relevant data, you can export it, share it, or pin it for future use.

Create your own dashboards

You can create private dashboards that you can either use for your own functionality or share with others. And you can make/use multiple at one time.

The post How Microsoft is making sure you get more out of Azure appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

“This is an incredible honor to receive from our peers and other professionals in our field”, said Michelle Hollis, President of 6^th Street Consulting.  “Our focus is always on the end-user, empowering our clients and their employees to achieve more and we plan to continue that approach in the decade to come”.

The IAMCP SoCal Partner of the Decade award honors the company in the Southern California area, including the LA North, SoCal, and San Diego chapters of IAMCP, that has proven to be an ongoing leader in the Microsoft partner community over the past ten years through their business expertise, community leadership, and service to the IAMCP SoCal.

6th Street Consulting’s successful partnerships with businesses of all sizes implementing Microsoft-based solutions to challenges and their innovative business before technology mindset have made them invaluable to the community of Microsoft partners. This honor recognizes their track record of stellar customer service and industry leadership, both locally and nationwide.

“6th Street Consulting has been a trusted partner of mine for many years, across multiple companies. The 6SC team is very easy to work with, hardworking and resourceful. They have excellent domain knowledge and expertise across the Microsoft platform; coupled with their business acumen and willingness to go the extra mile for their customers, I know I can always count on 6SC,” said long-time customer Henry Ong of Quest Software

The award was given during the IAMCP SoCal Tenth Anniversary party which brought together Microsoft partners from across the country including Microsoft executives, field sellers, and OCP team members. The day-long event was full of opportunities for education for Microsoft partners, feedback for Microsoft, a focus on diversity and inclusion, and a fundraising drive that raised over $100,000 for the Children’s Hospital of Orange County and Ronald McDonald House.

This is not the only Microsoft Partner award received by 6th Street Consulting. Their passion for what they do, and the results they achieve for their clients, has resulted in numerous industry honors for the firm, including:

• Top one percent of Microsoft’s SharePoint partner ecosystem
• Among RCP’s Top 200 Microsoft Solution Providers of 2017
• Microsoft Partner of the Year for Collaboration & Content in 2013
• Microsoft Managed Partner with both a Gold competency in Collaboration & Content and a Silver competency in Cloud Productivity.

Based out of Redondo Beach, California, 6^th Street Consulting is a Microsoft Gold Partner and is trusted by global businesses to deliver intranets, portals, and experiences that truly engage.  For more information about the company please visit www.CulverG.com or email at info@CulverG.com.

The post 6th Street Consulting Named IAMCP SoCal Partner of the Decade appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

There are numerous benefits of Microsoft Teams and how they can help your business.  From boosted efficiency to improved collaboration and communication, Microsoft Teams empowers businesses to thrive.

Talking with staff around our office, we compiled a list of our favorite aspects of Microsoft Teams to provide you with no-nonsense benefits and ways it can help you too:

Agility

Teams is a tool with purpose and incorporate conversations from both email and chat and improve the quality of these conversations to cut down on the number of emails and chats necessary.  Additionally, logging all the communication in one place being able to circle back and view conversations and files cuts down on wasted time and eliminates unnecessary conversations.

Customization

Microsoft Teams is extremely flexible and can be customized to meet the needs of any user.  The software promotes connectedness among staff and can be displayed using the branding of a business for unique personalization.

Collaboration

Collaboration is more than a buzzword; it is the new way of doing business.  Rarely are decisions made solely by one individual, so having the ability to quickly come together and collaborate increases the likelihood of decisions being made together and more quickly than ever before.

If your company is still deciding on whether to adopt Microsoft Teams, take it from us and get started.  Not only will it provide improvements in communication, but it quickly will become your go-to business tool providing sleek and easy communication and transparency of information.

Download our free Microsoft Teams Whitepaper to better understand the platform and how 6^th Street Consulting’s talented group of developers and architects can help you maximize the resources of your first-line staff.

The post Real World Advice for Incorporating Microsoft Teams into Your Business appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.

1: Assess
Managing compliance is c.o.m.p.l.i.c.a.t.e.d. You have to operate under multiple varying standards, shift your regulatory landscape and take note of variations by both industry and country.

Get this – 47 percent of executives were unsure of what data standards their organizations had to comply with. That shows just how detailed this process is.

But you can simplify this journey with ongoing risk assessments, actionable insights, and streamlined compliance workflow.

Microsoft offers a Compliance Manager that can help with all of those things. You’ll want a Compliance Score, something that reflects your overall compliance across different platforms. For example, the responsibility you have when your IT is on the premises vs. the responsibility you have over data in the Cloud. The Compliance Manager will also give you a step-by-step guide to help you improve your business’ data protection capabilities.

2: Protect
You can’t protect something without knowing where it is. So before you can guard your sensitive data, you need to know where it resides, where it travels, and which portions of your data are going where. Classify, label, locate > PROTECT.

Easier said than done. In the modern workplace, corporate data has few travel limits. Something exacerbated by something that also helps us: the increase of mobility and cloud services.

So with data out there in so many places, you’re going to want a single, simple interface to help you keep track of it all. Microsoft 365.

3: Respond
It sounds reactive, but it’s proactive. And we don’t mean responding to a breach. We mean responding to all of the other requests that happen before you get to that point.

What we mean by this, is responding to the routine AI maintenance requests. This helps you pinpoint your most relevant data – so you can reduce the amount of data you need to review.

Microsoft 365 has a rich, built-in, platform-wide tool to help you search and discover your most important data. The biggest thing this helps with: since it’s interface-wide, you don’t have to continuously copy your data to other spots, which can pose another threat and violate your compliance demands. This helps you reduce risk, reduce cost, and review and annotate before you officially export/send your data off.

The post How to achieve a forward-thinking compliance strategy: Three steps appeared first on 6th Street Consulting.