Organizations in a variety of industries face a multitude of obstacles in today’s fast-paced business environment, which limits their capacity to expand and attain long-term financial success.  

These problems are frequently caused by ineffective business processes, a lack of teamwork, bad judgment, and trouble with overseeing remote work arrangements.  

Businesses need to be efficient, innovative, and flexible in order to stay ahead of the curve in the face of ever-changing consumer demands, market trends, and technological breakthroughs.  

In such expeditious environments, it is hard to go from task to mundane task and it is frequently necessary to strategically refocus effort from routine, repetitive tasks to higher-value operations that foster growth and competitive advantage. 

With a full suite of business apps intended to improve communication, empower data-driven decision-making, expedite processes, and enable seamless remote work, Microsoft Dynamics 365 stands out as a potent remedy to these problems. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 goes beyond simply strengthening your operations and decision-making. It serves as a powerful catalyst for achieving a significant competitive edge in today’s dynamic business landscape.  

Listed below are six reasons why you should consider Dynamics 365 as your right-hand in streamlining your business. 

Empowering experimentation and rapid prototyping: Dynamics 365’s cloud-based platform and flexible architecture enable businesses to quickly test new ideas, implement changes, and adapt to market shifts with agility.

Making data-driven decisions easier: Businesses can use real-time insights and advanced analytics to identify opportunities, make informed decisions, and pivot strategies as needed to stay ahead of the competition.

Enabling new business models: Dynamics 365 gives businesses the tools and capabilities they need to explore and implement innovative business models, allowing them to disrupt the market and seize new opportunities.

Microsoft’s reliable security infrastructure: Use Microsoft’s industry-leading security features to secure data against unauthorized access, compliance risks, and cyber threats. 

Data encryption and access controls: Use granular access controls and data encryption protocols to ensure data privacy and regulatory compliance. 

Automated security updates: Receive security updates and patches automatically to stay ahead of emerging threats and keep your environment secure. 

Predicting customer needs and delivering personalized experiences: Leverage AI and machine learning capabilities to anticipate customer needs and offer highly personalized products, services, and recommendations, exceeding expectations and building lasting loyalty. 

Proactively resolving customer issues: AI-powered chatbots and intelligent service tools enable businesses to provide 24/7 support, resolve issues quickly, and build stronger customer relationships. 

Creating a seamless omnichannel experience: Dynamics 365 integrates seamlessly across all touchpoints, providing a consistent and engaging customer experience that builds brand loyalty and drives repeat business. 

Streamlining financial processes: Automate accounting tasks, efficiently manage cash flow, and gain real-time financial knowledge to make informed financial decisions and maximize profitability. 

Simplifying compliance and risk management: Dynamics 365 assists businesses in effectively complying with complex regulations and managing risk, ensuring financial stability and peace of mind. 

Making more informed investments: Businesses can use real-time data and predictive analytics to allocate resources tactically, value investments, and maximize return on investment. 

Scalability and adaptability: The cloud-based platform and modular architecture of Dynamics 365 enable businesses to rapidly grow and adapt to changing market conditions, ensuring a long-term competitive advantage. 

Improved security and data protection: Microsoft’s robust security systems and data protection features protect sensitive information while also ensuring compliance with evolving privacy regulations. 

Creating a data-driven culture: Dynamics 365 fosters a culture centered around data in which employees at all levels have possession of real-time insights, allowing for informed decision-making and constant enhancement throughout the organization. 

Gaining real-time visibility and control: Track inventory levels, monitor production processes, and anticipate disruptions with real-time insights to optimize supply chain efficiency and reduce costs. 

Automating manual tasks: Eliminate manual processes in order fulfillment, inventory management, and production planning to reduce errors and improve operational efficiency. 

Predictive maintenance and proactive interventions: Use machine learning and artificial intelligence to predict equipment failures and proactively schedule maintenance, minimizing downtime and ensuring smooth operations. 

Microsoft Dynamics 365 is not just a business optimization tool, but a strategic asset that empowers organizations to gain a significant competitive edge.  

By strategically utilizing Microsoft Dynamics 365, businesses can unlock numerous benefits. From streamlining operations and enhancing customer engagement to empowering collaboration and ensuring security, Dynamics 365 equips organizations with the tools they need to thrive in the marketplace and achieve sustainable success.  

ITCS, a leading provider of IT solutions and services, is dedicated to assisting businesses in maximizing their productivity with Microsoft Dynamic 365.  

With more than a decade’s experience of proven proficiency, our dedicated team of professionals have extensive knowledge of how our business solutions can streamline your business operations, ensuring a smooth and impactful execution within your organization.  

Don’t wait! Contact us today to schedule a consultation and learn how Microsoft Dynamics 365 can transform your business.  

Coding is a difficult and sophisticated process that requires a thorough understanding of programming languages, algorithms and data structures. For beginners, it can be a frustrating and time-consuming process.  

What if you had an automated assistant at your beck and call, ready to aid you in all types of coding inefficiencies? That dream turns into a reality with Microsoft Copilot, an AI-powered coding assistant that helps developers write better code, faster.  

Revealed at Microsoft Ignite 2023, this revolutionary copilot experience transcends web browsing, PC usage, and work scenarios, reshaping how you effortlessly access skills. Microsoft, your trusted Copilot companion, is on a mission to bring the revolutionary power of Copilot to everyone, reshaping the landscape of both professional and personal tasks. 

As of November 1, 2023, Copilot for Microsoft 365 is now accessible to enterprises far and wide. Esteemed organizations such as Visa, BP, Honda, Pfizer, and Chevron, alongside partners like Accenture, EY,  KPMG,  Kyndryl, and PwC are already harnessing the remarkable capabilities of Copilot. 

The New Work Trend Index reveals that Copilot is not just a tool but a productivity and creativity enhancer, saving valuable time for users. An overwhelming 77 percent of users are reluctant to part with Copilot, citing its positive impact. Experiment results show a remarkable 29 percent overall speed boost in various tasks and a fourfold increase in catching up on missed meetings. 

Bing Chat and Bing Chat Enterprise are now seamlessly integrated into Copilot, making it even more accessible and user-friendly. This fundamental tool includes elements like question answering, content production, data reasoning, and real-time information access via web grounding. Copilot ensures commercial data privacy while logged in with Entra ID, protecting your chat data. 

At Ignite, Microsoft Copilot Studio takes center stage, supplying a low-code tool for customizing Copilot for Microsoft 365 and creating standalone copilots. This adaptable tool combines conversational capabilities such as custom GPTs, generative AI plugins, and manual topics.  

Copilot Studio improves copilot and custom GPT customization, testing, and publishing while ensuring secure management and analytics. Integration with Copilot for Microsoft 365 is currently in preview. 

Three exciting updates were revealed at Ignite: enhanced personalization, advanced mathematical and analysis capabilities, and Copilot’s active collaboration participation.  

Users can now tailor Copilot in Word and PowerPoint to their specific roles and preferences. Furthermore, for mathematical analysis, Copilot in Excel supports natural language interaction. 

New Copilot experiences in Teams will elevate it to a valuable meeting assistant in the coming year. Copilot in collaborative notes captures meeting discussions, and Copilot in Teams channels aids in post synthesis, action item extraction, and key decision review.   

The intelligent recap, integrated into Copilot in December 2023, provides meeting summaries with key points, action items, and decisions. 

Expected in early 2024, Copilot in Outlook helps users prepare for meetings by summarizing invitation details, related emails, and documents. Copilot also streamlines email thread navigation, offering summaries and proposing follow-up actions. It can even assist in scheduling meetings on specific topics, suggesting attendees, agendas, and available time slots. 

Copilot in Loop, integrated with Microsoft Loop, supplies intelligent page creation and workspace status, offering insights into the team’s progress and upcoming deadlines. 

Soon, Copilot in Word will support catchup and comments for quick document revision insights, while Copilot in PowerPoint will leverage a brand asset and image library for AI-generated visuals. 

The Microsoft Copilot Dashboard, powered by Viva, is now in preview. It offers insights into Copilot adoption, usage metrics, and its impact on productivity across Microsoft 365 apps. 

Topics in Copilot enable businesses to effectively distribute knowledge. The Windows App introduces new preview features that connect users to Windows in the cloud across multiple platforms. In early 2024, Copilot for Microsoft 365 will be seamlessly integrated into the Windows desktop.  

Look into the most recent GPU support in Windows 365, with AI capabilities providing Cloud PC resizing recommendations. With Windows Autopatch, streamlined update management is now a reality, covering frontline worker devices and integrating updates across Windows devices, Windows 365, Microsoft 365 apps, Teams, and Microsoft Edge.  

ITCS, a leading provider of IT solutions and services, is dedicated to assisting businesses in maximizing the capabilities of Microsoft Copilot. With more than a decade’s experience of proven proficiency, our dedicated team of professionals has extensive knowledge of Microsoft Copilot deployment, training, and support, ensuring a smooth and impactful execution within your organization. 

Don’t wait. Partner with ITCS now and experience the transformative power of this groundbreaking tool. 

Companies, that are built to last beyond the founder’s lifetime, have one thing in common. They are both efficient and effective. They optimize the bottom-line outcomes by utilizing their resources in a way that is unique, smart, and cost-effective. 

Now in the post-modern contemporary age, we see businesses equipping themselves with all sorts of innovative tools that are not only acting as the support system for the business but also a way to make processes faster, create an ease of access and generate efficiency.  

Traditionally, these high-end productivity tools were employed solely by large corporations, now although the inflection point has passed, Small Medium Business Enterprises ought to deploy these productive suites to remain relevant and thrive. 

The recent induction of Generative AI and Deep Learning mass adoption and rolling out in the consumer markets, its use cases are yet to be explored fully, but it remains foreseen and anticipated that organizations be they small or large will only propel further as leaders if they incorporate it in their core and augmented dimensions of businesses. 

Microsoft being a leader and staunch expert in AI, as is evident from the fact that they have funded the Open AI projects most notably “Chat Gpt”, and it intends to make these features available in their productivity suite. 

 As quoted directly from Microsoft official announcement:   “SMBs are rapidly becoming the new adopters of AI. Businesses are using AI-powered tools for sales and marketing automation and business operations automation. In fact, in a recent survey of 550 businesses with fewer than 200 employees, 72 percent said they are familiar with AI tools, with 48 percent using them daily.” 

And these numbers are expected to grow by far and large sooner than thought! 

Microsoft 365 offers a remarkable range of tools like Customer Voice, Dynamics 365, and Power Platform. These tools empower you to collect valuable customer feedback, streamline your processes, and even automate operations.  

It’s like having a personal assistant who can handle all your administrative tasks, so you can focus on what requires your most attention: running your business. Microsoft 365 is sort of like that personal assistant, but for your SME.   

“There are 11 million SMBs that now rely on Microsoft 365 solutions to help them achieve more than ever.” 

— Microsoft, 2023 

If we scour the blueprint of successful enterprises, we see Microsoft 365 services being avidly used in all of those spaces, enhancing the way businesses operate. From retail to telco to services, Microsoft 365 is helping businesses in every industry thrive.  

Retail businesses around the globe are improving their operational efficiency, customer satisfaction, and overall business performance using Microsoft 365 which is essentially enabling them to work better, serve customers better and sell more. Whereas in the service industry, Microsoft 365 helps service businesses give great customer service, work together easily, and make better decisions with their data, so they can serve their customers even better. 

So whether you’re in retail, hospitality, or the booming delivery industry, Microsoft 365 is your secret weapon to deliver outstanding customer service.  

If you’re looking for ways to reach and exceed your business goals, Microsoft 365 is a great place to start. With its wide range of tools and services, Microsoft 365 can help you improve your business in every way.  

Ready to streamline your business for the future? Connect with ITCS today to get your business equipped with Microsoft 365! 

1. Create a folder on your hard drive and name it ODT. For this example, we’ll create it on the c:\ drive, like so: c:\ODT.
2. Download the Microsoft 365 Deployment Tool from the Microsoft Download Center. Select Save As and save it to your downloads folder.
3. In your downloads folder, double-click the Office Deployment Tool exe file to install it.
4. If you see the User Account Control prompt that says, Do you want to allow this app to make changes to your device?, click Yes.
5. Accept the Microsoft Software License Terms, and then click Continue.
6. In the Browse for Folder dialog, select the ODT folder you created in earlier, and then click OK.

Visit to https://config.office.com/deploymentsettings 

• Select version of windows 32/64 bit which you want to deploy

• Select which products and apps you want to deploy (Choose office Application e.g Office Apps / Visio / Project or any other application option).
  
• Select Current Channel & Latest Version.
  
• Select Desired Applications and click Next.
  
• Choose your language and click Next.
  
• Do not make any changes in Installation option and click Next.
  
• Do not make any changes in Update and upgrade option and click Next.
  
• Do not make any changes in License & Activation option and click Next.
  
• Provide your organization name in General Field and click Next.
  
  
• Do not make any changes in Application Preferences option and click Finish.
  
• Click Export and download Configuration in XML format.
  
  
• After downloading Configuration.xml file replace this file in ODT folder.

T

Thunderbird is a free email application that’s easy to set up and customize – and it’s loaded with great features. Thunderbird will need to be updated to version 77.0.b1 or higher in order to work with Office 365. You can download the latest version of Thunderbird here.

Pre-requisites

You need to ensure that you have already configured app registration in Azure Active Directory and granted users access to use the application. If not please follow steps in our earlier blog here.

Setting up Thunderbird

• Launch Thunderbird. Select +New, Existing Email Account from the ‘hamburger’ menu.
• Enter your name and e-mail address. You can leave the password empty. Press Continue to have Thunderbird figure out where your mailbox is hosted. This should discover your account in Office 365.
  The settings you see should be:

Username: username@domain.com
Password: Office 365 password
Protocol: IMAP
Incoming (IMAP): outlook.office365.com SSL
Outgoing (SMTP): smtp.office365.com STARTTLS

• Click Done to confirm the creation of your account. If you are prompted for your password, hit Cancel.
• Navigate to Account Settings -> Server Settings.
• Under Authentication method, select OAuth2.
• Navigate to Account Settings -> Outgoing Server.
• Under Authentication method, select OAuth2.
• Close the Account Settings. Select your Inbox, and you should be prompted with the Office 365 login page.

Manual Server Information

Username: username@domain.com
Password: Office 365 password

Incoming: IMAP
Server: outlook.office365.com
Port: 993
SSL Enabled: Yes
Authentication: OAuth2

Outgoing: SMTP
Server: smtp.office365.com
Port: 587
SSL Enabled: STARTTLS
Authentication: OAuth2

Microsoft has disabled Basic authentication for most Exchange Online protocols. Microsoft has documented the requirements and configuration steps to use OAuth with POP/IMAP in Microsoft 365 in this article: Authenticate an IMAP, POP or SMTP connection using OAuth | Microsoft Docs. You’ll see details about the registration of the required Azure AD applications and the permissions required for the access token to give Exchange Online the authorization of the mailbox access request.

OAuth 2.0 Authentication

Microsoft 365 (formerly Office 365) supports two kinds of OAuth 2.0 authentication:

• Delegated authentication is suitable for desktop, mobile or web applications with signed-in user present.
  This mode is described in detail in another article.
• App-only authentication is suitable for services or daemons with no user present. Instead, these unattended applications authenticate using client secrets (application credentials) to receive an access token, which is then used to gain access to a mailbox using IMAP, POP3 or EWS protocols.

Register your application

In Azure Portal ⇒ expand the left menu ⇒ select Azure Active Directory ⇒ select App registrations ⇒ click + New registration. (Azure Portal is constantly evolving, so if you cannot find this page, use the search bar.)

Name your application, choose which kind of accounts are going to use it, and click Register.

Once you successfully register your application you can view its associated IDs. Some of them will be needed later to obtain an OAuth 2.0 token.

Set up client secret (application password)

In the left menu, select Certificates & secrets ⇒ click + New client secret.

Provide some description for this secret, choose expiration period, and click Add.

Immediately copy and save the newly created client secret’s Value (not Secret ID). You will not be able to view the Value later anymore.

Add app permissions

In the left menu, select API permissions ⇒ click + Add a permission.

Navigate to APIs my organization uses tab ⇒ type Office 365 Exchange in the search bar ⇒ click Office 365 Exchange Online entry.

Click Application permissions ⇒ type AccessAsApp ⇒ check IMAP.AccessAsApp and/or POP.AccessAsApp ⇒ click Add permissions.

The newly-added IMAP.AccessAsApp and POP.AccessAsApp permissions have to be approved by your organization’s administrator. Ask them to grant consent to your application by clicking Grant admin consent for [organization].

Add mailbox access permissions

Before you proceed, make sure you have AzureAD and ExchangeOnlineManagement PowerShell modules installed. If not then run the commands below to install them.

Install-Module -Name AzureAD
Install-Module -Name ExchangeOnlineManagement

Next we need to fetch the principal ID for the application we just created using the Azure Portal. Fill in the App ID and Tenant Id and run the following:

$AppId = "YOUR_APP_ID_HERE"
$TenantId = "YOUR_TENANT_ID_HERE"
Import-module AzureAD
Connect-AzureAd -Tenant $TenantId
($Principal = Get-AzureADServicePrincipal -filter "AppId eq '$AppId'")
$PrincipalId = $Principal.ObjectId

Now we need to register the service principal for your application

$DisplayName = "Service Principal for IMAP/POP3"
Import-module ExchangeOnlineManagement
Connect-ExchangeOnline -Organization $TenantId
New-ServicePrincipal -AppId $AppId -ServiceId $PrincipalId -DisplayName $DisplayName

Add FullAccess mailbox permissions to all mailboxes you want to access from your application using:

Add-MailboxPermission -User $PrincipalId -AccessRights FullAccess -Identity "mailbox.1@domain.org"
Add-MailboxPermission -User $PrincipalId -AccessRights FullAccess -Identity "mailbox.2@domain.org"
Add-MailboxPermission -User $PrincipalId -AccessRights FullAccess -Identity "mailbox.3@domain.org"

At this point you have registered an application for accessing Office 365 mailboxes via IMAP or POP3 protocol and received its Application (client) ID, Client secret and Directory (tenant) ID.

These strings are going to be used by your application to authenticate to Microsoft 365 via OAuth 2.0 and receive an OAuth token. This token is then used to authenticate to Exchange Online using IMAP or POP3 protocols.