But Does It Work?

Exporting and Importing a Canvas PowerApp (circa 2022) - Hint the UI has changed completely!

So I am fairly new at trying to export a Power App and import it to a different tennant.  I was looking for an explanation and found old stale content about this everywhere.  When I finally figured it out, I decided to write it up, so other people could benefit. 

Step 1: Assume you have a App open in the the Power Apps Studio:  Click on the "...", then click on "Collections"

 

Step 2: CLick on "Save As" and then This Computer

 

 

We will now open this file in a new tenant.

 

Step 3: In the new tenant open the Power Apps Desiigner, CLick on "New app" and the "Canvas".  Give the New App a name.  I will call it test

 

Step 4:  Once in the new blank app, click on the "..." and then "Open"

 

From here it is easy.  Point to the file you created in step 1.  This will then ask you for connections and you will be up and running.

Pssst.... Where Did the Microsoft Upload Center Go? (I want to clear the Office Cache)

Oy!  Microsoft!!

This is the new way (2022) to clear the Office Cache.

If you have been stuck with an Office file in the Microsoft Cache on your PC and you need to clear the cache, then this short post is for you. Remember the Office Upload Center.  Well it is gone for the Enterprise Users.

Look at these Microsoft posts:

• Microsoft Office Upload Center
• Files Needing Attention FAQ (microsoft.com)

Microsoft Support  told me that this functionality has been moved to the Office Applications in the Enterprise version of Office.  Furthermore, the support person told me that she tried to google the solution.  Turns out that she couldn't find the solution by searching, but her team leader knew the answer.

To clear the office cache you need to do the following:

What about the Delete Cache option in the Upload Center?

This option will now be under File > Options > Save > Cache Settings. 

 

How do you know if you need to clear the cache?  Usually there is a problem saving the file from the full Office Application (Word, Excel, PowerPoint) and only one person is experiencing the issue.  The file can be modified by everyone in Office Online and most people have no issue changing the file with their Office Application.  Also, renaming the file will solve the problem.

 

Issues When Sharing SharePoint and Teams Content with External Users (Guests)

This is important!   Microsoft has positioned SharePoint, M365 Groups, and Teams as a set of tools that are easily used by ordinary citizen users and should not need the help or intervention of IT professionals.  One important aspect of this goal is allowing non-IT end users to share content with other people.  One aspect of this is to make it trivial to share content with external users.   These users may or may not be part of the M365 ecosystem.  As an IT professional with expertise in M365, I spend more time on helping external users gain access to content than any other issue or enhancement.  This is not a sexy new feature, but it is bread-and-butter, and it is high time that Microsoft improve this experience.

There are many use cases for this type of collaboration. Just a few are listed:

• A company wants to share documents with investors
• A company hires various partners, and they need a secure store to collaborate on documents
• Scientists need to collect data from universities
• Financial firms need to gather information in a secure manner from customers
• Outsourced HR firms need to exchange data with clients
• Business Contracts need to be developed and disseminated

I have worked with dozens of clients and their M365 tenants.  In most cases Microsoft gets a failing grade when it comes to making it easy for regular users to share content with external users (guests.)

Some people may argue that this is the nature of the beast.  To those who are skeptical of my critique, I suggest that you try BOX, or Egnyte for sharing with Partners.  I have asked Microsoft to fix these issues since 2015, but to no avail.  (See But Does It Work?: Office 365 External Users: Microsoft, Please Improve! (typepad.com))

My friend and colleague Marc Anderson wrote: “When I criticize Microsoft it’s because I want to hold them to a higher standard than other tech companies.” 

Depending upon how you configure your M365 environment, members may be able to share content.  In the interest of simplicity, I exclusively focus on users who are Owners or have Full Control.  This post catalogs a few key issues plaguing users who need to share with external users.  Keep in mind that both the sharer and the recipient need to have very simple experiences.  In all the cases cataloged below i have found that IT professional intervention is needed.  In many of these cases I find that a screen sharing session helps resolve the problem quickly.

Issue 1: The Recipient User Experience When Accepting a SharePoint Invitation may be Confusing (The Devil’s Choice)

Imagine that you are a user being invited to a SharePoint environment. 

Figure 1 illustrates how a user gets invited

Figure 1: Shows an external user is being invited from a SharePoint site

To drive the point home, I have run this scenario twice.  I have two distinct environments (Tenant 1 & Tenant 2) that I use to invite a user in a third environment (Tenant 3.)  The behavior is slightly different.  This helps illustrate the frustrations that people can experience when inviting external users.  (See Figure 2)

 

Figure 2: Summarizes our two experiences of inviting a user in tenant 3.

 

Figure 3 illustrates two invitations that are received.  (They are separated by the red horizontal separating line.)  I have sent an invitation to the same user in Tenant 3 from Tenant 1 & Tenant 2.  One interesting thing to note is that we see two invitations that look slightly different.

Figure 3: These two screenshots (separated by the red line) illustrate that there are two distinct types of emails that a recipient may receive.  We are not sure why the External User receives one or the other.

 

Most people (9 out of 10) will click on “IT” and if they are logged in to Tennant 3, they will get taken right into the SharePoint site as a guest.  That is great!  If they are not logged in, they will get the standard credential challenge for their M365 environment and once they provide credentials, they will be taken to the SharePoint site as a guest.  The case we are interested in here is the anomaly which happens about 1 of 10 times.  

When we click on “IT” we get taken to the page that I refer to as “The Devil’s Choice” (See Figure 4.)   The recipient has no idea what this is asking.  If they choose the wrong answer, this could doom them for a while, unless they get help from an IT professional. (We will elaborate on this in the section Issue 2.)  By-the-way, you will notice that Microsoft has added the “friendly link”: Rename your personal Microsoft account.  (What does that mean?)

The Devil’s choice is about disambiguating between a Live ID that you have (And you probably don’t know it) and your Organizational account. Similar to Figure 3, there are two distinct pages that the recipient may get taken to.  Both pages are shown in Figure 4 and are separated by the red vertical line.  Not sure why Microsoft is using different terminology in these two pages and why the order of choices is reversed)

Figure 4: Some people may get this dialog when accepting the invitation.  I refer to this as “The Devil’s Choice.”  Again, notice that I received the first page rendering from tenant 1 and the second page rendering from tenant 2.

 

Issue 2: A Citizen Owner (Full Control) Sends an Invitation to an External User, the External User is Rejected.

This problem seems to be tied to something in the inviting tenant.  The issue depends on whether an external user is somehow known in the inviting tenant.  We are using our three-tenant experiment to illustrate the issue. 

In the first case a user in Tenant 1 invites a user in tenant 3 to the IT site.  The user receives the invitation and clicks on the “Work or school account.”  The user is taken to the page shown in Figure 5.  This is one of the 1 out of 10 case.  The recipient is flummoxed.  At this point it usually takes some back and forth between the sharer and the recipient and finally I am called in.

Figure 5: Shows tenant 3's screen after click on the invitation from tenant 1: Note the browser was logged in as the user on tenant 3.

The solution to this is the “Ctrl-Alt-Delete” version of user profiles is the easiest way to deal with this problem.  In tenant 1 we go into the active users find the offending external user and delete the user account.   Then we wait 24 hours (probably didn’t need to wait this long) and reinvite the user. 

This time when the recipient account holder clicks on the link in the invitation email and chooses Organizational Account, everything works perfectly.

 

Issue 3: A Citizen Owner (Full Control) Sends an Invitation the Email is Caught in the Spam Folder

This is a very simple concept.  Microsoft makes sure that the emails that come out of LinkedIn do not get caught by peoples’ spam filter.  However, SharePoint & Teams invitations often get caught by peoples’ spam filters.  Certainly, Microsoft can do something to avoid this.

 

Issue 4: When a Teams Invitation Is Sent Out, the Sharer Does not Receive a Copy of the Invitation

When owners send out an invitation to a SharePoint Group, the sender will be copied on the invitation.  This is great, because the sender can forward the invitation to the invitee if need be.  In the case of Teams invitations, the sender is not copied.  Therefore the sender is never quite sure that an invitation actually went out and they cannot forward an invitation.

Issue 5: If the Guest is Logged in to the Wrong Tenant, the user Cannot Access the Content

Of course, it makes sense that if a user is logged into the wrong system that they shouldn’t have access to content.  The trouble is that the User Experience is quite confusing and especially as it pertains to the Microsoft Office Applications.  Furthermore, it is not always clear-cut how-to login to the correct environment.  Microsoft needs to simplify the process.

Issue 6: Distinct ways of Providing Access to SharePoint Content vs Teams Content.

If owners want to provide external users with read-only access, they must use the SharePoint group “Visitors.”  It means teaching owners two ways of sharing.  Many owners are confused by this.   Furthermore, owners often want the guests to be able to see the other Teams content, but not be able to modify or contribute.  Microsoft needs to find a way to simplify the permissions so that there is one reliable way of doing everything ab owner needs to accomplish.

Conclusion

Microsoft SharePoint and M365 Groups (Teams & Groups) provide a great deal of sharing functionality.  Issues abound that require the intervention of IT experts to help in many cases of sharing with external users.  Other Collaboration services (Egnyte & BOX) are much easier to use.  Microsoft should fix these issues.

 

Inviting External Users to SharePoint Is Painful! Microsoft Please Fix This

I wrote a blog post in 2015:

Office 365 External Users: Microsoft, Please Improve!

 

Since then, not much has improved.  So much so, that often I advise clients to use BOX, Egnyte, Drop Box, or Google Drive, if they need to share heavily with external users.

 

To bring the point home, I recently saw an excellent video made by Shane Young from PowerApps911:

Sharing PowerApps with External Users

Although Shane's focus is on Sharing PowerApps, the external sharing components of this video really overlap with SharePoint external sharing and Shane does an excellent job at showing the painful details of sharing content with external people.

 

 

 

As a SharePoint Consultant, I Hate to Say this, but There are Times When I Recommend BOX and Egnyte, Instead of SharePoint.

Many of my clients are startups and verging on going public.  They need to share files, usually pdf files, with partners and investors.  The same content can be shared with everyone, but the following three requirements are hard and fast:

1. Partners and Investors should not be able to download or print the documents.
2. No external users should be able to see who any of the other users are.
3. Sharing with content needs to be easy for the the sharing company as well as the viewers.

 

Partners and Investors should not be able to download or print the documents & No external users should be able to see who any of the other users are.

Until recently O365 SharePoint Online would not permit users to share pdf files and prohibit the viewers from downloading and printing the documents.  This feature is now supported and to accomplish this guest users must be given SharePoint permissions of "Restricted View."   The picture below shows that I have invited two of my own external email accounts as "Restricted View."

 

The image below shows what my experience was like when I look at a file that cannot be downloaded.  One can see that my other accounts appear as participants and if I hover over these icons, you can see my external email addresses.

The next image shows that I am able to view my resume and I cannot download or print it.  It also shows that I can see all the particpants,

Sharing with content needs to be easy for the the sharing company as well as the viewers

The biggest reason I support using Box and Egnyte for sharing content with external partners is that Microsoft still has not gotten the Sharing Content With External Users to be easy.  Often it works right-away, but frequently I have had to intervene and work with  the invitees.  Now mind you, I have been writing about this issue since 2015.  See my post from June 2015:

Office 365 External Users: Microsoft, Please Improve!

Today's external user issues tend to be two primary issues:

1. The most common reason people have trouble accessing a SharePoint site as guest, is because their browser is logged in to a different O365 tenant.  This is easy to fix by launching a private (incognito browsers window) or properly logging out of the browser before trying to access our SharePoint site.
   
   
2. Users used to have a Microsoft account "[email protected]", because they did not have an O365 account.  More recently their company has signed up for an O365 account and they are know with their Organizational Account: "[email protected]." 
   When people log in, they are usually asked which account they want to use, but they often get it wrong.

Bottom line is that I have seen far to many executives, investors and partners get frustrated with the Microsoft login issues.  It is high time that Microsoft fix these issues once and for all.  In the meantime, neither Box nor Egnyte suffer from these issues.  So there are time when I recommend that companies use Box and Egnyte to share files with partners.  By-the-way, I have heard good things about Google Drive as well.

New Nissan Leaf - Terrible Intermittent Static (Crackling) When iPhones are Connected to Apple Car Play

I recently bought a Nissan Leaf 2021 SL Plus. I love the car, except for one big issue. When we connect our iPhone using a USB cable to Apple Car Play we can get terrible static. I brought the car back to the Nissan dealer and the Service Manager of Boch Nissan South said that I would need to prove that this is happening by making a video. I have decided that I will start a log of Nissan's reactions as I start doing this. In this series of posts I will be keeping track of how well Nissan Service is.

This article details the communications I am having with Nissan around this issue. (Most recent first)

Visits to the Dan O'Brien Nissan Dealership - Culminating in a Find! on 9/16/2021

Dan O'Brien Service is a first class operation.  I brought my car in three times.  They updated my software and after the software update, I was able to reproduce the issue (See this short video on Youtube).

Finally during my third visit to Dan O'Brien, I was able to show Nelly the issue on Wednesday 9/15/2021.  Nelly is mechanic that has been working on my issue.  She texted me the following:

Good afternoon Marcel, this is Nelly getting back to you with an update. So I have done some digging and found that the concern you are experiencing with the static in the speakers, when phone is connected to USB, is a known concern that NISSAN is already aware of. I found numerous reports in our database and as of right now, this is under Engineering review, which means that they are not making any repair recommendation at this time. They are still trying to find a fix. As soon as I hear more about this, I will definitely let you know. Thanks for your patience.

Let's see what happens.  I have a call back into Beverly at Nissan Consumer Affairs with Corporate, (615)-725-7386.

 

Inbound Phone Call 8/30/2021 From Beverly @ Nissan Consumer Affairs (615 725-7000)

Beverly from Nissan Consumer Affairs called me and promised to look into the issue.  Beverley told me that I will be hearing back from her no later than Thursday 9/2/2021.

Phone Call 8/27/2021 With Nissan Consumer Affairs (800-647-7261 option 7)

I spoke to Brenda in the Consumer affairs division.  She opened a case for me.  A regional case manager will be getting back to me by end of day on Monday.

Opened Case 44600120

 

Phone Call 8/27/2021

As a follow-up, I also sent the email shown below to the Salesman who sold me the car, and he said he would forward the email to the Service Manager.

On Friday August 27th I called David Pari to get confirmation.  I got someone else at the Service Desk and he said he would relay the message that I would like confirmation that Dave received my email.

 

Email Sent Thursday August 26

Sent: Thursday, August 26, 2021 11:32 AM
To: [email protected]
Subject: Follow-up on my August 13th Visit to Service
Importance: High

Hi Dave,

I am following up on my visit of August Friday 13^th.  I had come in for service to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix the terrible static that I get intermittently when our iPhones are connected through the USB cable.  We have tried different cables, including a brand new Apple cable.  When I brought in the car, I spent 20 minutes with you and you told me that I need to prove that the static is occurring.  You told me to record this on video.

I have uploaded two videos to YouTube that you can watch:

Video 1: This video exhibits the issue really clearly  (39 seconds)

Video 2: This video exhibits the same scenario, but the phone is connected through Bluetooth.  This proves that the phone is not experiencing the issue (33 seconds)

Please confirm that you have received this email and that you can see the videos.
Let me know what the next steps are

Marcel Meth

 

Starting July 23rd: Thread of Text Messages with the Sales Department that sold me the car

Marcel Wrote:   Couple of things to know:   When I use the micro USB connector we get intermittent extremely bad static while talking in the phone.  I think we may need to get the connector replaced.  How do I go about doing that without losing my car for a long period?   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote  Let me chat with service regarding this. We have been booked up solid but let me see when we have some openings! Ill get back to you shortly   ——— Marcel Wrote:   Thank you   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote No problem!   ——— Marcel Wrote:   JT I am trying to figure out. a pattern and identify the issue exactly.  Then I will reach back out and setup an appointment. .  I'd like to minimize my travel down there.    ———- (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Absolutely Marcel let me know   ———- Marcel Wrote:   Anthony & JT,   I have been trying to diagnose the terrible, but intermittent static that I get in the car when I connect either my iPhone or my wife's iPhone through either the regular USB connection or through the USB-C.    I have tried using several wires and the issue has not gotten any better. We can also use our phones in our subaru Forrester and there is no issue when we use apply play.    I believe the root cause is a bad connector in my new Nissan Leaf.  The issue usually arises when we are driving.  So just plugging the phone in while we are stationary will not exhibit the problem.    Can we make an appointment to leave the car with you , and have it looked at thoroughly. I would like to get the problem fixed the first time.    - Marcel   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote I am sorry to hear that! I will talk with service tomorrow to book an appointment to have that issue diagnosed. I will let you know when our earliest appointments are! I will reach out to you tomorrow.   ——- Marcel Wrote: Looks like other people have experienced this issue. See the response on the Leaf Owners Facebook page       Anthony,   I am getting more responses saying people have the same issue.  I would like to make sure this issue gets resolved. I believe that It will take a patient mechanic to troubleshoot and repair.    There is a lot of information and complaints about this issue   https://discussions.apple.com/thread/251545686   ———- (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote   I am sorry to hear that! When is your earliest availability to bring your leaf into our service department   ——— Marcel Wrote:   Best for me is to bring the car in    Over the weekend and leave it until the issue can be found and resolved.    Do you have loaners?   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote We unfortunately do not have any loaners. Most likely we can diagnose the issue while you are here. If there is any further work that needs to be done the situation can be assessed at that point. We first need to diagnose the vehicle   ——— Marcel Wrote:   Can I come there at 2:30 tomorrow and wait?   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Let me check with service to see if we have any openings. I will get back to you in a moment   The earliest opening we have for a diag is fri -13th at 9am. Please schedule time out to make it as we will have our cert tech for leafs on it   ——— Marcel Wrote: Ok. I will take that.    ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Perfect, when you come in please drive it into our service drive garage doors. An advisor will be there to greet you and assist you. We have wifi if you need to do any work while you are here.   ——- Marcel Wrote: Hi Anthony,   In case you or people in service are not familiar with the static issue, I am including some screen shots from a question I posed in the Facebook group "Nissan Leaf Owners USA".    As you can see there are numerous people experiencing the same issue and this would be a great opportunity for Boch Nissan to be a hero and figure out the root cause.          Just a note, we own a Subaru Forrester with Apple Car Play and our phones work just fine. No issue at all.    ——- (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Our service department will be doing a diagnosis and we will have more info for you. Until our service department takes a look we will not know what route to take. More info once you bring it in. Enjoy your weekend Marcel   ——— Marcel Wrote: great   Anthony,   Can you please put the new floor mats in my car when I bring it in on Friday?   ——- (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Of course    ——- Marcel Wrote: Hi Anthony & TJ,   I wanted to let you know that I am in touch with Dave the service manager about the static on Apple Car Play when using my phone.    If you have an email address, I can keep you posted. Below is the email I just sent to Dave.  I am hoping that Nissan will provide satisfaction.    Hi Dave,   I am following up on my visit of August Friday 13th.  I had come in for service to troubleshoot, diagnose, and fix the terrible static that I get intermittently when our iPhones are connected through the USB cable.  We have tried different cables, including a brand new Apple cable.  When I brought in the car, I spent 20 minutes with you and you told me that I need to prove that the static is occurring.  You told me to record this on video.   I have uploaded two videos to YouTube that you can watch:   Video 1: This video exhibits the issue really clearly  (39 seconds)   Video 2: This video exhibits the same scenario, but the phone is connected through Bluetooth.  This proves that the phone is not experiencing the issue (33 seconds)   Please confirm that you have received this email and that you can see the videos. Let me know what the next steps are   Marcel Meth     Here is a link to video 1   https://youtu.be/Xnza4w8y04Q   ——- (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote Can you forward all correspondence to my email as well - some of your message is not showing in our system here   ——— Marcel Wrote: Yes.  What is your email?   ——— (508) 504 9485 Nissan Sales Wrote [email protected]

 

 

 

 

 

Microsoft Modern Libraries Have and Display "Secret" Information About Creation Dates

As most SharePoint/OneDrive Users know, on Office 365 there are ways of migrating files and folders from one location to another so that all the native metadata (Modified, Modified By, Created, Created By) is maintained and not altered.  There is now a way to detect when files have been touched with (moved, restored, or even tampered)

As an example, if you have a file that resides in a modern library, you can move that file to another folder in the same library or to a distinct library and the metadata values for Modified, Created, Modified By, and Created By will remain unchanged.  The picture below shows how one can initiate a file move without having these values changed.

 

I have discovered, thanks to one of my very sharp clients, that this works fairly well, but not perfectly.

In the figure below you can see that I have now opened the Information Panel that was not showing in the image above.  This picture reveals that the file was "created" 36 minutes ago, and not on or before November 20th.

For those of you who need to do careful forensic work on files and folders, this may be helpful to you.  The same behavior happens when you use tools like Sharegate or Metalogix for migrations or bulk meta data editing.  Furthermore AvePoint for Content restoration also leaves behind this-tell tail sign. 

 

Content Migration from BOX.com to OneDrive/SharePoint: Comparing the tools (Metalogix, Sharegate, and AvePoint)

I was recently asked to evaluate the thee tools (Metalogix [Essentials for Office 365], Sharegate [Migration], and AvePoint [Fly Migration]) for a migration from BOX.com to OneDrive and SharePoint.

This post is a really short and sweet comparison of the three tools.

Spoiler alert:  I liked  Sharegate Migration the best, by far.  Although you must use Powershell scripts, they are not too difficult and Sharegate does a good job explaining what you need to do.  If you are confused by the online documentation, Sharegate's support is superb!

Sharegate was robust, while Metalogix Essentials for Office 365 was not.  Metalogix felt like it was still under development and there were a number of show stopping bugs that I could not get around.

1. Metalogix failed on numerous file naming issues.  Something as simple as have three dots in a row: x...dcox.
2. Metalogix had trouble migrating all the various versions of a file with fidelity.  SOmetimes the versions failed to copy.  SOmetimes they copied, but they were ein the wrong order.
3. Metalogix was quite slow, slower than Sharegate's tool.
4. Metalogix was 6 times as expensive as Sharegate for the content we were migrating.  Furthermore, Metalogix charges you per megabyte of data transferred, Sharegate does not.
5. Sharegate's support was superb.
6. I did not kick the tires very hard on the AvePoint tool.  The major limitation that had me stop was that they only support a migration from BOX.com to OneDrive.  They do not support a migration directly to SharePoint.  AvePoint suggests that you migrate content to OneDrive and then use a different technique to get content over to SharePoint.

 

SharePoint (Office 365) & Microsoft Word - Issues with External Users

Over the years I have had many clients in the Pharmaceutical industry.  They use SharePoint (Office 365) heavily and one of the primary ways of using SharePoint is to collaborate with external partners on writing documents, using Microsoft Word.   Sounds straight forward, but it isn't.

I cannot tell you how many times I have seen issues with external partners not able to open and edit Word files directly from SharePoint.  4 out of 10 times I have to advise the partners to follow the steps:

1. Download the file
2. Edit the file that is on your local machine
3. Upload the file back to SharePoint.

The root causes vary, but there are two primary categories of issues:

1. There is a version mismatch between Microsoft Word and SharePoint  The partner is not using the latest version of Word.
2. 'The partner for some reason is logged into Word with a different account than the account that is logged into SharePoint.

As an example of #2, I just saw the following:  The external partner had a OneDrive and was logged into the OneDrive with a different account than the account used to login to our SharePoint site.  This meant that Word was also logged in with those credentials.

The number of hours lost on these issues is phenomenal.  Many of the companies I work with are ready to make a switch.  They do not experience these issues when the files are stored in BOX, Dropbox, Egnyte, etc...

Please Microsoft fix these issues!