11th MVP Award Rewarded

I am actually on vacation, but as I sit here under the summer sun, toes in the pool and a cold drink within reach, I have been waiting for that email confirming that I’ve been awarded my 11th Microsoft MVP Award! As last year, I am being awarded in both the Teams and Copilot category. To say I’m humbled would be an understatement. Being part of the global Microsoft MVP community for over a decade now has been an incredible journey, filled with learning, sharing, speaking, and connecting with passionate technologists from every corner of the world. What is the Microsoft MVP Award? The Microsoft Most Valuable Professional (MVP) award is given to technology experts who share their knowledge and real-world expertise with communities. With fewer than 4,000 MVPs worldwide, it’s an honor to be part of such a vibrant and dedicated group. MVPs contribute through speaking engagements, writing, open-source contributions, and helping others online and offline. You can learn more about the progra...

Best practice configurations dashboard in Teams

For me, this is a tale as old as time, at least as long as I have been working with real-time media. Large organizations typically have complex networks with switches, routers, and firewalls. These networks can be challenging to troubleshoot when issues arise.

There are various reasons for failures, and sometimes resolving one issue leads to the emergence of another. Microsoft aims to help administrators in understanding these issues better by collecting end-user diagnostics and presenting them in a new tool called the "Best Practice Configuration Dashboard."

In my opinion, this tool will not solve all your problems, and you will still need to identify where in the network the issues may lie. However, it will provide a better understanding of some of the most basic issues. The Dashboard currently offers insights into client versioning (suggesting updates), explains which ports are being blocked for end-users (causing failures or reduced quality and functionality), and detects if VPNs are in use, suggesting split tunneling where appropriate.

This feature is mentioned in Roadmap ID 421185 and is expected to roll out at the end of this month and onward.