My PowerShell scripts are now available on GitHub

Ever since I first started sharing scripts on my blog, I've had a bunch of people reach out to me with stories of how they've used my code in their projects or offering to collaborate with me on future versions. My intention has always been to make my scripts easily downloadable and ready to run - one of the reasons why I sign the code with a code signing certificate, but I've come to realize that there is no reason why I couldn't do both.

Over time my own development and version control methodologies have matured and I've been very successfully using git to manage my own projects. After a recent conversation with fellow MVP Michel de Rooij about his use of GitHub as a repository for his scripts, I decided to follow suit and have created a public GitHub repositories for each of my scripts. You can find these here.

I will continue to make code signed versions of my scripts available in the TechNet gallery for those who prefer to just download and use them. Links to those are below:

TCA Podcast Episode 7: “The cloud can make a real fool of you”

Change can be difficult for any organization. Changing the working culture of your user population and driving product adoption can seem overwhelming, especially when applying traditional principles and adoption practices to today's cloud world. Nic and I sat down with Patience Wootton from Dentsu Aegis Network at Ignite recently to understand what it means to be an Office 365 Product Owner and talk about change, driving user adoption and being an early Microsoft Teams adopter.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud. We are also available on your favorite podcast app:

TCA Podcast Episode 6: "I like OneDrive, but…"

OneDrive for Business has come a long way since it was initially launched and has earned it's place as a leader in Gartner's Magic Quadrant for Content Collaboration Platforms. Nic and I sat down with Stephen Rose from the SharePoint/OneDrive team at Ignite recently to talk about some of the exciting new things that will be coming to OneDrive soon.

For more information on The Cloud Architects podcast, check us out on SoundCloud. We are also available on your favorite podcast app:

The Cloud Architects Podcast

Better late than never.. I'm delighted to annouce that I'll be joining The Cloud Architects Podcast as a co-host. Started by fellow MVPs Nicolas Blank and Warren du Toit, the Cloud Architects podcast is about best practice, guidance, news and cutting edge Microsoft cloud technologies - I'm really excited to be involved.

Microsoft Ignite gave us a great opportunity to connect with and talk to some really interesting people - those episodes will be published soon, but in the meantime, we recently recorded in introductory episode where we talk about some of the complexities of adopting cloud technologies at scale:

 

For more information about the podcast, visit us on the web or twitter. We are still getting started and experimenting with show formats, etc. and would love feedback so feel free to get in touch and let us know how we are doing.

Office Servers and Services MVP 2017!

The last few weeks have been incredibly busy.. I spent a week in Europe and presented a couple of sessions at Office 365 Engage in The Netherlands and after a quick laundry stop at home I headed off to Washington D.C were I presented two sessions at a small technology conference for overseas schools (K-12). That’s two conferences and four sessions in two weeks – I was pretty exhausted at the end of it all but was super excited when I received an email from the Microsoft MVP program informing me that I had been awarded my fourth Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) Award.

I’m truly honored to be part of this great community and have some ambitious plans for the next year, so stay tuned!

Dank je wel, Haarlem!

Last week, I was fortunate enough to speak at the inaugural Office 365 Engage conference in Haarlem, Netherlands. I had been looking forward to it for months, not only because it was my first time visiting the Netherlands, but I had heard about how picturesque the city was and had been told that the conference venue, the Philharmonie, was something quite special. I can honestly say that no description could do it justice, it really is the nicest conference venue I’ve ever seen.

The conference itself was extremely well organized and I definitely have to compliment the organizers for the level of thought that went into every detail. There were more than 40 speakers, 31 of which were Microsoft MVPs. We were encouraged to call on our real world experience and be independent voices so this was a true technical conference and not just another marketing junket. There were 6 tracks with plenty of great content to go around:

  • Azure Infrastructure
  • Exchange Online
  • Office 365 Administration
  • Office 365 Applications
  • Office 365 Development
  • SharePoint Online

My sessions on Office 365 management and mobile device management were well received and I even managed to pull off an elaborate demo using a couple of devices. A special thanks to MVH for helping me getting around the need for multiple HDMI inputs, it definitely made the demo flow more smoothly.

After a few great days, I can only imagine that Office 365 Engage 2018 will be even better. If you are looking to build your skills and network with some of the best in the business, I’d definitely encourage you to check out Office 365 Engage in 2018 – I hope to see you there!

I am speaking at Office 365 Engage!

I’m really excited to announce that I’ll be speaking at Office 365 Engage in Haarlem, Netherlands 19-22 June 2017.

Office 365 Engage is Europe’s foremost conference on Office 365 and will be hosted at the Philharmonie Theatre in the energetic picturesque city of Haarlem.

I am thrilled to be one of more than 30 Microsoft MVPs speaking at the event so if you are interested in learning all about Micrsoft Office 365, it isn’t too late to register today!

Use discount code ‘SPRCG378’ to receive a 20% discount when registering.

Script: Connect-365.ps1 - Connect to Office 365 services using remote PowerShell

I'm excited to announce the release of Connect-365! Back 2012, I put together a basic script with a GUI to simplify connecting to Exchange Online via remote PowerShell. I had never intended to make the script publicly available and it was just something I used myself. After a couple years I realized that it had been shared with so many colleagues and clients that I decided to clean it up and publish it on the TechNet gallery. Connect-EXO was born! Here's a screenshot of the original first version:

Over time the script matured into what Connect-EXO is today. One of the challenges in the early version was that I used WPF for the GUI, this was problematic for older versions of PowerShell so I made the decision to port it to Windows Forms for backward compatibility. Forms is old and added a lot of bloat and since backwards compatibility is no longer a concern, I decided to move back to WPF. Connect-365 is essentially the next version of Connect-EXO, I renamed it so more accurately reflect it's purpose and this will allow me to continue to maintain Connect-EXO.

Connect-365 features a GUI that will prompt for your tenant credentials and then connect to various Office 365 services using remote PowerShell. The built-in prerequisite checker will check to ensure that the correct modules are installed and provide a download link for those that are not.

The current version of the script allows connectivity to:

  • Exchange Online
  • Azure Active Directory (using v2 module)
  • Office 365 Security & Compliance Center
  • Skype for Business Online
  • SharePoint Online

Requirements:
This script will work natively in PowerShell 4.0+

Usage:
There are no parameters or switches, simply execute the script: .\Connect-365.ps1

Execution Policy:
This script has been digitally signed and will run just fine under a "RemoteSigned" execution policy

Screenshots:

Roadmap:

  • Support Azure AD v1 and v2 - Removed as v1 is depreciated
  • Support for Exchange Online MFA (via module) - Done!
  • Derive SPO Admin URL
  • Auto-install prerequisites
  • Much more..

Download:
I have published it to the TechNet Gallery, it can be downloaded by clicking here…