You might have heard the word FastTrack banded about for quite some time now, but do you know what it is and what it means for you?

FastTrack is a Partner Programme run by Microsoft with the goal of helping their clients succeed in their digital transformations, whether this be data migrations, increased consumptions for dedicated workloads or exploring their O365 environment. This initiative is designed to speed-up processes and give benefits to those who have Microsoft subscriptions, for example, allowing a data migration to take place on Exchange at no extra cost to our clients BECAUSE you’re already paying for your Microsoft subscriptions.

Here at risual we are keen on transformation and working with Microsoft simply allows us to provide a wider variety of resources and guidance that will improve our client’s efficiency, consumption and optimise potential.

risual is one of 300 FastTrack Ready partners globally and one of only 20 in the UK!

This means we have gone through strict auditing on our FastTrack documentation, processes and team to see whether we are good enough to provide the highest quality FastTrack Services. And we are!

FastTrack allows risual to help our clients deploy Microsoft cloud solutions, as a benefit of their Microsoft 365, Azure or Dynamics 365 subscriptions. This means no additional expense for the duration of their Microsoft license subscription. With the FastTrack programme you can:

• Discover the latest cloud capabilities, from planning your cloud deployments to exploring the newest tools and products Microsoft has to offer.
• Receive guidance and best practices through your FastTrack journey from Microsoft engineers, FastTrack Managers, risual technical experts and partners all with the aim of making your transform succeed – not just for tomorrow, not just for a year from now but until you see fit to bring in newer technology.
• Through Microsoft’s change management resources risual can help you to achieve your business requirements.

All in all FastTrack allows us to help our clients to accelerate their transformation whether it be cloud, digital or business orientated. Getting our clients where they want to be with less cost, less hassle and a complete successful transformation.

As one of 20 FastTrack Ready Partners in the UK we are determined to drive real business value to our clients. FastTrack has a proven process that I’m going to walk you through during this blog so that you can understand further what it means to be part of the FastTrack initiative…

FastTrack has over 60,000 successful engagements, this is working with customers who have the ability and willingness to be hands on to those who are limited by internal resources and/or technical expertise. It’s a proven process that works time and time again to complete all desired transformations.

Now, let’s take a walk through the FastTrack Journey:

Envision

This is where we work with clients to define their vision, identify possible blockers and prioritise tasks – which is all built into the Success Plan. Within the envision phase is two smaller stages: Plan and Assess.

True to its name ‘Plan’ is all about planning! Developing that Success Plan, defining what the client thinks a successful deployment is, and mapping out the journey the client wants to take.

Assess is where risual will help to identify where the client’s organisation is today and from the Success Plan know where they want to be in 6 months’ time, a years’ time and 5 years’ time. Microsoft, risual and the client will work together to then prioritise the actions that need to take place and assess time periods and technical resources needed.

Onboard

Onboarding is all about completing the tasks that need to be successfully done before the FastTrack team begins their work, advice and guidance is provided by the FastTrack team throughout this process. Any tasks that need to be completed before the FastTrack journey starts but that the client does not have the correct technical resource to carry out will be provided by risual for additional costs. These are called Value Added Services (services that the FastTrack team does not cover but does need to happen in order to finish the complete transformation). This section is also split into two sections: Remediate and Enable.

Remediate is where before tasks are completed. This may be the customer completing prepping work or risual providing Value Added Services to ensure successful delivery.

Once the remediation tasks have been completed, we move into the enable phase. The FastTrack team is now ready to work with the client and risual to enable the cloud solutions.

Drive Value

The final stage is simply one phase: adopt.

This is all around using tools, guides and best practices to execute the success plan confirmed in the Envision stage. Here risual and the FastTrack team will support the customer in getting end users to adopt the new cloud solutions – by leveraging online adoption resources FastTrack will help you drive value by increasing adoption.

Change management is a difficult part of the process but risual and the FastTrack team are here to help. After over 60,000 engagements we have seen average of over 29% faster time-to-value when using FastTrack over just other services. That means it is almost 30% quicker to use FastTrack then just any old company.

Through the FastTrack Journey, FastTrack Managers/Engineers and FastTrack Ready partners will provide guidance through remote support, best practices and tools to help you envision, onboard and drive value our client’s new solutions. risual services are available across the journey to support you in all stages of the rollout, supplementing the FastTrack benefit!

As you all know risual have been shouting about our Azure Expert MSP achievement a lot recently!

We are really proud to have been successful in gaining this competency as it means Microsoft views us as one of their most high-fidelity cloud managed service providers. This badge is intended to give our clients the confidence when selecting a partner to help them meet on their transformaiton goals. Our verified proof of excellence in customer delivery, technical expertise and project management was always clear in the work we’ve done but now we have th emIcrosoft stamp of approval too!

Demonstrated Extensive Skilling

To pass this audit we have to attain the Gold Cloud Platform status and have a minimum of 15 full-time employees who have passed exams designated by Microsoft to demonstrate our technical expertise in Azure.

Delivered Customer Success

We have shown we are committed to customer success on Azure through high-fidelity managed services, validated through customer experience and case studies.

Invested in Advanced Support

We now have access to advanced Microsoft support offerings to help resolve issues more quickly and effectively than ever before.

Validated People, Process and Technologies

We have passed a stringent 64-step audit carried out by an independent auditor which validated our people, processes and technology for delivery robust managed services on Azure.

This global initiative allows risual to be highlighted as one of Microsoft’s most capable partners, allowing our clients to identify us a top partner! risual are in the top 0.02% of all Microsoft partners globally that meets the standards of Azure Expert MSP.

We are ready to share with you our insights into all things business, digital and cloud to help you succeed in your transformations. You know we are your first choice…

The Azure Expert MSP is not just another certification, it is proof that we are experts in transformation. This is a new way of being confirmed an influencer of modern and future technological strategies.

Thanks for reading!

We have recently seen an issue reported whereas following on from the mailbox restore process being carried out on a user account, external users are receiving a bounce-back when trying to email them. When checking the user account in the Exchange Admin portal, we can see exchange errors on the user account, despite the mailbox being created successfully. This issue seems to occur predominantly for user accounts who require their soft deleted mailbox restored due to other exchange issues they are currently experiencing.

What we tend to see is, following on from the mailbox restore, the proxy addresses and target address of the user are as they were previously, which suggests emails should be received successfully. However, the user account is recreated in the Exchange Management Console with the ‘Recipient Type Details’ field showing as ‘Mail User’ rather than ‘Remote User Mailbox’.

In order to resolve the errors seen in the Exchange portal, and for emails to be received successfully, follow the steps outlined below:

1. Load up the Exchange Management Shell
2. Run the command:

• Set-AdServerSettings -ViewEntireForest $True

3. Run the command:

• Enable-RemoteMailbox “user@domain.com” -RemoteRoutingAddress “user@domain.mail.onmicrosoft.com”

Once this has completed, check the Exchange Management Console and the user’s ‘Recipient Type Details’ field should now show as ‘Remote User Mailbox’ rather than ‘Mail User’.

If we check in the portal, the Exchange errors previously seen should no longer be there. It is also worth sending a test email from an external email address to check that a bounce-back is now longer received.

We have recently had an issue with a Barracuda VPN Tina Tunnel. In our case we had one Barracuda in Azure and one on-premise. All of a sudden we started having network latency spikes and drops in the VPN, we hadn’t made any changes to the Barracuda configuration so we were a bit confused as to why this occurred.

After many troubleshooting attempts such as rebooting the Barracuda’s manually, nothing we had tried appeared to work. Weirdly when we rebooted the Azure Box the tunnel seemed to preform a lot better. However this gradually got worse until we were back to where we were originally.

I consulted Barracuda Support to try and assist us, they suggested that we attempt to change the protocol the Tina tunnel/VPN uses. This was originally set to TCP, Barracuda suggested we set this to ESP. As soon as we did this and re-initiated the VPN to replicate our changes, performance was back to normal! My ping tests were also no longer dropping and had little to no latency.

When I asked Barracuda what they thought was the root cause of this issue they believed that Azure sometimes shapes traffic over the TCP port of 691. By changing the policy to ESP this doesn’t appear to be shaped by Azure. This can sometimes be caused if a Azure VM changes its host/instance. This is apparently a known issue.

I have also raised this with Azure Support to try and get a further understanding from their side!

I’m Freya, I’m an apprentice at risual studying the Level 3 Technical Sales NVQ while in the role of Marketing Assistant, and here is my apprenticeship journey so far:

Background

So I came out of High School I knew that I wanted an Office job, I wasn’t too sure what in but I’d always had the image of being in an office as outdoor work or manual tasks didn’t seem to fit with me. A lot of my friends were going of to College or 6th Form but I knew there was an alternate route available… An Apprenticeship!

After experiencing being stuck in a classroom for years with someone talking at me I was excited a the prospect of being able to get hands on and learn things myself. It came to the August of the Summer holidays and I was in my first apprenticeship, at a local Housing Association studying Business Administration.

Whilst working in my new role as the Business Administration Assistant, we were moved every 3 months (over a 12 month course) so it gave me a broad understanding of how a business works, the different ways people work and it gave me an insight in multiple areas of the business. One area I particularly enjoyed was Marketing – and from there my passion for Marketing grew. I loved the creativity, the events/project management and most especially the analytical side of things too.

risual Turned My Head

Before I started at risual I was already following them on their social channels (Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram) and I’d seen the way their company culture worked; from family days, Christmas parties to charity days. It was the kind of culture I wanted to be a part of. I specifically remember, the moment I wanted to apply for a job at risual was a photo I saw at a risual Summit where all the Directors dressed up as superheroes and clambered in through the window – it looked brilliant!

And by December 2018 I was in role as the Sales Operations Assistant, but of course I’ve mentioned that my current role is Marketing Assistant – so what changed?

I was working in the Sales team, working the back-end systems on CRM and managing a few accounts of my own under the Sales Manager. When a position came up in Marketing the Directors and my now Marketing Lead supported my decision to go for the Marketing Assistant role, and thankfully I was successful.

My Journey So Far

As I’ve mentioned previously, I’m studying the IT Technical Sales Level 3 NVQ  and I’m enjoying the work so far, it gives me the chance to reflect on the things I have learnt in my role and hone my communication and editing skills. I am also going to begin studying my independent courses soon, these are 7/8 weeks courses which provide qualifications in their own right but also sit under the apprenticeship banner.

I will be studying Cloud, Networking and Software, then later in my apprenticeship I will be studying a HTML5 course which is the back end code to the website and as the Marketing Team owns this I am sure to find it useful.

Plans for the Future

Moving forward, I would like to complete my apprenticeship and all the courses covered under it. As well as getting a permanent full-time role here at risual HQ to continue my career progression.

Once completing my apprenticeship I am keen to get moving on with the next level qualifications – Level 4,5,6 and 7.

But for now I’m happy and excited to continue progressing forward with my apprenticeship with the backing of the risual fam.

So you know what FastTrack is or if you haven’t already check out the previous blogs to understand what FastTrack is and to get a walk through the FastTrack Jorueny:

But if you are up to date and want to learn more about FastTrack then keep reading!

So to clear up one crucial point, FastTrack is available at no additional cost as part of your subscription with Microsoft… But… If you need services that are not covered by FastTrack then you will have to buy Value Added Services which may cost additional prices.

They’re three main eligibility rankings within FastTrack:

• All customers – FastTrack portal access for self-serve planning and training
• 150+ Seats – Ongoing access to FastTrack engineers or approved partners
• 500+ Seats – Data Migration support

What is Azure Data Share?

1. I want to know who I shared the data with
2. I want to know exactly what has been shared
3. I want to spend the minimum amount of time doing it
4. I want to avoid building infrastructure which adds cost
5. I want it to only go to the intended recipient
6. I want the data to be transferred in a secure manner
7. I want to communicate with the recipient any limitations on data use
8. I want to be able to revoke access
9. I want the recipient to get updates to the data without me having to do any further work
10.  I want to be sure I am sharing the correct data in line with my organisations policy

How does it work?

What are the benefits?

1. You know who each data set has been shared with
2. You know exactly what has been shared
3. Simple management.  Share data in minutes
4. No infrastructure required.  No setting up SFTP servers, no emailing uncontrolled data
5. No open access.  You can only access the data if you have been invited
6. The data is transferred using encrypted data snaphots that never leave Azure
7. Increase data governance by specifying terms of use of the data
8. Access can be revoked at any time
9. Provide updates to the data without any additional work
10. Simple single pane of glass web interface to manage sharing

How much does it cost?

Would you like to know more?

What is G-Cloud 11?

Some of you may have heard the term G-Cloud floating about recently but do you know what it means, and what it could mean to you?

So G-Cloud is a framework that allows UK public sector bodies to choose and buy cloud computing services. This agreement is valid for 12 months, however, the agreement may be extended for a further 12 months in certain scenarios. The G-Cloud framework is also known as the Digital Marketplace – this is where you can buy services covering hosting, software and cloud support on a commodity based, pay-as-you-go service.

But what are the benefits of using this framework over just buying?

• Access to over 30,000 services.
• Scalable services, paying for only what you use, being able to increase or reduce what you need when you need it.
• Quick and easy route into the market.
• Reduced costs and reduced total cost of ownership compared to running your own service in house.
• Suppliers are vetted and reviewed regularly, this saves people time finding suppliers and checking their reliability.
• Access to over 4000 suppliers.
• Buyers get competitive prices because suppliers can sell large volumes of their products and services to UK public sector organisations as though they were supplying a single customer.
• Contracts comply with public sector procurement regulations.
• Standardised contract terms reduce administration.
• Access to the latest technology and innovations with every refresh of the G-Cloud agreement.
• You can change your service provider easily.

Say you did want to use this framework, what’s the process on buying? There’s a six step process on the Digital Marketplace – you don’t need to even register to gain access to this service. All of the documents regarding call-off and framework agreements, schedules and supplier list can be found on the Digital Marketplace.

Who are Automated Intelligence (AI)?

AI provide cloud-based solution, showing a complete view of client’s data estates and brining real-time insights to ensure correct governance over data. They want to help organisations realise their data potential and comply with new laws such as GDPR and risual is proud to be their partner. risual and AI both provide insightful services, however when partnered together they can achieve success in a more stream-lined, more effective and more successful manner.

Did you know that up to 80% of organisation’s unstructured data is DROT (Duplicate, Redundant, Obsolete and Trivial)?

AI’s azure-based solution reduces the risks associated with storing and managing data, allowing organisations to focus on what matters to them as they move to the cloud. AI provide a range of key values and benefits:

• Insights –
  • Performs analysis of content using powerful query capabilities to discover insights about data and plans on how to reduce risks and improve compliance of information stored in disparate sources.
• Remediation –
  • Performs fast, metadata-based identification, and disposal of redundant, obsolete and trivial (ROT) data in existing data systems to provide immediate relief from data congestion.
• Governance –
  • Performs metadata and content analysis to classify data and automatically report on the state of data – where it is being stored, who owns it, and implement retention and disposition policies.
• GDPR –
  • Proactively finds, classifies and acts upon the presence of sensitive and personal data. Manages GDPR requests with workflows to respond to Data Subject Access Requests within hours, rather than days or weeks.
• Migration –
  • Migrates TBs and PBs of data from file systems and other legacy on-premise repositories to the Cloud to reduce on-premise storage or license costs, exit from managed services and enables O365 license utilisation.

Placement, Yes or No?

It is becoming increasingly common for university students to complete a year on placement as part of their university course. Particularly for students doing business-related courses, a placement year is an extremely valuable opportunity to make yourself stand out from the crowd of the tens of thousands of business students that will all be applying for post-graduate jobs when they finish university. After all, there isn’t much use learning books full of theory if you don’t know how to apply it to real life situations.

It was for these reasons that I decided to take the placement route. At university I am doing a Business Management and Marketing course so ideally, I wanted to do my placement in marketing. Luckily an opportunity was presented to me to work for risual Ltd. Through research and word of mouth I had heard that risual was a truly exciting place to work, where hard work, trust and loyalty are heavily rewarded and, so far, I can do nothing but agree. I was also aware that risual ran a very big and a very successful apprenticeship scheme and I have since discovered that a large portion of the people that work here have actually come through the apprenticeship route here at risual! This is great to see as it showcases the devotion and support that risual provide for their staff, from top to bottom.

Despite the prospects of working for such a fast growing and high achieving company, initially I was quite worried about joining risual because, being an IT services company, I had very little knowledge and understanding about what risual did and thought that I would be massively out of my depth. Soon after starting at risual I realised that my lack of experience was not an obstruction to my development but instead an obstacle to overcome. Although I am by no means an expert on the various aspects of risual operations, I have certainly wrapped my head around the basic functions and I am rapidly improving my knowledge every day and that is purely due to the endless support that is part of the package of working at risual.

As the majority of students who have applied for a placement will know, most second year university students have very limited work experience and most experience that you do have is perhaps not valuable to the company you are applying to. I found myself in this position because, despite having plenty of experience in part-time jobs like bar work and general labour, I did not have any specific skills that are labelled as ‘valuable’. A lack of specific skills should not be reason to become deflated and put off though. Any quality company offering a placement will understand that university students won’t always have an abundance of specific skills which is why you need to focus on the more generic skills that you have which can be just as important in a business role.

By generic skills I am referring to how well you are able to lead, how well you are able to communicate and how well you are able to cope under pressure. Companies want to know firstly if you possess these skills and secondly, what evidence you can provide that will prove that you do have these skills.

Taking a year out from university to work was a decision I made before I even went to university as I thought it was a no brainer. To throw away the opportunity to obtain a full year’s worth of experience in a real company seemed ludicrous and every day I work for risual I am reminded that I made the correct decision.

Placement? Yes.

Would you like to know more?

One of the great features available with all the Dynamics modules, is that you can bulk upload data. This means if your currently using a different solution and what to migrate to a Microsoft Dynamics solution you can transfer all your current data over with very little difficulty. This function is available by using Excel worksheets.

In this blog im going to show you how easy it can be to upload bulk data into Dynamics 365 for Talent.

First you need to navigate to the “System Administration” Tab on the left hand side

Once your in there you’ll need to click the the “Links” tab along the top. Then click on the “Excel Workbook Designer”.

Once you know which form you would like to insert the data to you can search for it and click “Create Workbook”

Once the Excel workbook has downloaded, it will open up with the data already inserted on that form along with the Talent Add in for Excel.

You can then insert the data ready to be imported. If any of the data you are trying to import is in the incorrect format then the Talent Add in will show an error message. Once all the errors have been corrected, you can then click on “Publish”. All the data in the workbook will then be imported into the Talent system.

If any data is deleted whilst working in the Excel workbook, then it will be removed from the system when the workbook is published.

risual, Microsoft Partner of the Year 2015 and PSNS Finalist of the Year 2016, helps businesses achieve their full potential by driving transformation which enables organisations to focus on innovation and business goals. With a heritage of Microsoft expertise, risual invests in their people; ensuring our UK-based, full time, security cleared teams are experts in all Microsoft technology and solutions.

But you’ve read the title of the blog so where does risual’s Business Analysis fit in here?

The Business Analysis supports successful implementation of organisation’s business, digital and cloud initiatives. We have extensive experience in delivering Business Analysis engagements to clients, providing detailed analysis of business requirements, processes, tools, technology, and justifications for change.

So what are the benefits?

• Experienced Business Analysis capabilities to enabled knowledge share and risk mitigation.
• Ensures organisations and streamlining of business requirements, aligned to strategy.
• Identifies clear and actionable processes and procedures.
• Shares market knowledge and understanding of suppliers and their benefits.
• Tailors engagement for all business stakeholders.
• Identifies business readiness and change requirements.
• Facilitates successful delivery and support of solutions.
• Clearly outlines organisation skills gap and mitigating activities.

And the features include…

• Provides independent analysis and review of business objectives and requirements.
• Includes thorough, detailed user research and development of user stories.
• Delivered by IIBA registered qualified Business Analysts.
• Delivers data analysis and insights to support project/programme/change initiatives.

risual has over 15 years experience in delivering Business Analysis engagements, so why not let us help you transform?

Quite often, whilst helping customers with migrations from Exchange to Exchange Online, I have come across issues with missing proxy addresses preventing the migration of mailboxes to Exchange Online. This most commonly due to missing <tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com proxy addresses.

When building the Exchange Hybrid with your Exchange organisation, the Hybrid Configuration Wizard (HCW) adds the following proxy address into the email address policies:

• @<tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com

However, some mailboxes may not be inheriting the email address policy, and therefore do not receive the necessary proxy address required for the migration to Exchange Online.

To overcome this issue, you will need to identify the on-premises Exchange mailboxes which do not carry the email address policies, or the required proxy address, and then add the proxy address to the mailbox prior to migration.

To identify the on-premises mailboxes, run the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet, changing the <tenant> in the syntax:

• $NoProxyMailboxes = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | ? {($_.EmailAddressPolicyEnabled -eq $False) -or ($_.EmailAddresses -NotLike “*@<tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com”)} | Select UserPrincipalName,Alias

You can view the results using the cmdlet below:

• $NoProxyMailboxes

Once you have identified the mailboxes which do not have the required proxy address, use the following Exchange Management Shell cmdlet to set the proxy address on the mailboxes:

• $NoProxyMailboxes | ForEach {Set-Mailbox -Identity $NoProxyMailboxes.UserPrincipalName -EmailAddresses @{add=$NoProxyMailboxes.Alias+”@<tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com”}}

To test this, you can use the -WhatIf statement on the end of the cmdlet, like below:

• $NoProxyMailboxes | ForEach {Set-Mailbox -Identity $NoProxyMailboxes.UserPrincipalName -EmailAddresses @{add=$NoProxyMailboxes.Alias+”@<tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com”} -WhatIf}

Finally, once these have processed, you can check the proxy addresses have been added by using the Exchange Management Shell cmdlets below:

• $NoProxyMailboxes = $Null
• $NoProxyMailboxes = Get-Mailbox -ResultSize Unlimited | ? {($_.EmailAddressPolicyEnabled -eq $False) -or ($_.EmailAddresses -NotLike “*@<tenant>.mail.onmicrosoft.com”)} | Select UserPrincipalName,Alias

The only actions you now need to take is to wait for directory synchronisation of the attributes to show in Exchange Online and to re-try the migration!

Most of you will know what CSP is, even if you’re not using it.

CSP is a licensing model developed by Microsoft, its aim to help organisations cut down on un-needed costs and extra hassle which is usually found when licensing subscriptions.

Over 15 years of experience we have found that over 75% of clients overspend on their licensing and have a feeling of no real control or governance over their consumption. risual worked with an international facilities management company and reduced expenditure from £1.1 million to £500k per annum purely on licensing.

Does that sound like the sort of savings you’d be interested in?

Some of our clients struggle with moving away from an EA (Enterprise Agreement), if you feel that may be you then ask yourself:

• Am I getting the value I expected out of this agreement?
• How am I tracking what I’m using (utilisation and consumption)?
• Would you be open to a more efficient way of licensing?

CSP allows clients to consume Microsoft subscriptions, such as Azure, Office 365, Enterprise Mobility and Dynamics amongst others.

It is more of a pay-as-you-go way of licensing, releasing you from being tied down to 1 year, 3 year or many more year agreements with un-wavering contracts and in-flexible providers.

Agile can be such a confusing word at times. It means many things to many people. To the project managers and business analysts, it is a methodology and framework to deliver new technologies in a controlled, but flexible manner. For senior executives, it means being able to adapt to shocks and changes in the market and drive continual success. Further still, for managers, it brings a sense of capability that allows their staff to be agile with respect to working patterns whilst maintaining productivity. So, which is it? Well, all three, as it happens.

Success in any modern organisation is all about one word. Value. To deliver value, there needs to be a mindset across the whole organisation to embrace agile principles. Change is now a constant in all our lives, so we must be prepared to embrace it. Traditional thinking places change as a singularity, only to be opened when there is a marked shift either in technology or business practices. Whilst this may give a sense of complete control, it often doesn’t protect either the people or the bottom line. Therefore, change must be continuous and form an intrinsic part of working life. Where an organisation has a compelling vision that everyone shares, the agile mindset is easier to achieve. It is much more difficult to adapt, when individuals who identify opportunities to add value become entrenched in cumbersome processes that prevent the rapid seizure of the opportunity. To become agile, therefore, requires clear, accountable roles within the organisation, empowering teams and individuals to identify and act upon these opportunities. This in turn, drives a learning culture, where performance is measured on the ability to add value as opposed to just performing the day job.

Enter technology. The accelerating digitisation of the technology base opens significant opportunities for organisations to continually evolve and adapt. The co-creation of value is an important aspect of agile thinking, binding business teams with that of strong IT capabilities to drive rapid, compartmentalised change. When taken singularly, this may not achieve much. However; when all teams are rapidly evolving their business processes, customer interactions and ways of working, value creation becomes an entrenched aspect of day to day working life. In this context, Agile project delivery methods allow teams to deliver value early and often. Where an organisation fully embraces agile thinking, everyone adds value. In today’s environment, organisations and individuals are continually challenged to adopt more flexible, responsive services. In achieving this, there must obviously be some control in how this is achieved. From idea to release, an embedded agile delivery mechanism that offers flexibility for the team, under a set of guiding principles is an essential component to drive success.

At the executive level, constant change across the organisation allows the business to adapt quickly to wider changes in the market. Driving success towards a singular, shared vision by empowering teams to adapt and continually evolve creates a buffer to any major shocks or challenges. Value creation therefore becomes relentless, as teams identify new opportunities, working with others across the organisation to adapt and embed change. For managers, this flexibility helps to embrace and retain talent, as value creation becomes the norm. This gives employees a sense that their contribution is appreciated and unlocks the hidden talent that exists in all social constructs. Allowing all employees to ascertain the health of their individual workspace allows teams to alter their perception of the value they bring, preparing the ground for mindset shift towards agility.

Agility and flexibility are key components to surviving in todays challenging environment. Economic and political shocks should not drive fear. Rather, they should be embraced as opportunities to continually evolve and adapt. Digital transformation allows entire organisations to embrace modern technology, supporting customer interactions or delivering deeper insights into performance. Driving success continually at the team level through digital technologies to meet a shared vision increases value creation, when guided by core principles. Therefore, digital transformation should be embedded across the whole organisation, not just as a singular change cycle.

During some of my engagements, I have come upon an issue where customers running an Exchange Hybrid deployment cannot move mailboxes created in Exchange Online back to the on-premises Exchange organisation. This is usually due to an ExchangeGUID not being stamped onto the on-premises Exchange mailbox at the time it is created. If the ExchangeGUID [...]

Continue reading MigrationPermanentException: Cannot find a recipient that has mailbox GUID When Attempting to Move an Exchange Online Mailbox Back to the On-Premises Exchange Organisation at risual.

DevOps is a term that is becoming increasingly common in businesses around the world, especially those in the IT sector that rely heavily on their Software Developers and their IT Operators. DevOps is said to be ‘the friction-free collaboration between Development and Operations’. This simply means that DevOps is an IT mindset that adopts the communication, collaboration, integration and automation between a company’s software developers and IT operators in hopes for improved speed and quality of delivering software.

DevOps is currently on the rise due to the number of issues that it helps to resolve and the number of business aspects that it helps to improve, one of which is delivering value to customers. No matter the size of a company or the industry it’s in, delivering value to customers is of paramount importance. DevOps provides a way for companies to align technology to core business objectives and a strong DevOps strategy will provide more value to customers by removing or automating repetitive and low-value tasks, thus enabling DevOps teams to get high quality solutions to clients faster.

Linking to this point, by significantly reducing the cycle time from developer to production, the time taken to deliver value to the customer is reduced. Because the DevOps process encourages agility and flexibility, teams are able to make changes to the platform and roll out brand new features as and when they wish. Consistent testing and deployment also make identifying and patching bugs and issues much quicker, meaning that customers feel like they are getting the best care rather than having to wait long periods of time for a solution.

In summary, DevOps aligns a company’s people and resources around the same goals. When these two crucial teams work together, new efficiencies can be driven through increased visibility and communication and teams are centred around rapid action, creating a far more efficient company where problems get solved fast.