Is it a mystery or something quite simple? There are many motivators for the broad group of folks that make the SharePoint community. Sure, the SharePoint community has a passion of modern technology however I think the community’s true strength is a never ending willingness to help others as new people come into the Microsoft and Office ecosystem. This community shows its preverbal heart at user groups, online forums, conferences, community events, school events and it certainly was on display at our most recent SharePoint Saturday in Puerto Rico.

The 2019 SharePoint Conference in Las Vegas will be very special for two attendees thanks to the team at SPC and the SharePoint community.

Luis Charti and Antonio Reyes shown in the left photo, working with Andres Rojas, MVP from Bogota were two of many attendees who won prizes at our most recent SharePoint Saturday event in Puerto Rico. The event space, networking social and prizes were donated this year and speakers went beyond normal travel expenses to make the journey of 1000 miles South of Miami, deep into the Caribbean. Alistair Pugin made the trip from South Africa and Andres Rojas from Columbia.

It was heartwarming to see the conference passes handed to two of the van load of students who traveled over two hours from the South side of the island to attend the event in San Juan. When the students arrived early at 8AM we knew at that moment it would be a special sharing is caring day. Speakers adjusted the various topics and speaking styles to accommodate the students second language and the day was a complete success for everyone involved.

Personally, for me it meant a great deal to distribute the prizes to students and professionals at the event. This year was a struggle for many as local Microsoft Partners and businesses recovered from Hurricane Maria and while we might not have the expertise to repair a building we certainly could be on the island and support the technology communities and local Microsoft Partners.

I’d like to extend a special and warm thank you to Jackie Baillie and the SPC team, Andrew Connell and the Voitanos team, SPTechcon, RealActivity and Melissa Hubbard for the Surface Go, conference passes, training and books. The prize giveaways at M365 Saturday San Juan were well received this year. The SharePoint community has always been near and dear to me and I am very thankful to have work hero’s I can also call friends.

The Microsoft 365 and SharePoint communities continue to grow in Puerto Rico and the event this past November marked our third annual SharePoint Saturday in San Juan. The event team sold out online registrations and as always, the community speakers were professional and inspiring.  I am honored to announce that Alberto Lugo, founder of Nvid Technologies has agreed to manage and organize the group locally and he has joined our Microsoft 365 Saturday planning committee.

During my March visit to launch the Microsoft 365 User Group I had a chance to see a demonstration of how PowerApps, Office 365 and Power BI are being used by the emergency officials and police on the island to help with incident reporting and resource distribution. I am proud to report that Microsoft technology is being widely used by Government and at this time 100% of the Fortune 500 companies on the Island are Microsoft Customers.

I believe in part it’s these community efforts and willingness to give back to not only the technical community but our neighbors and friends that creates a special bond in the beloved SharePoint community and this is the simple answer to any perceived mystery. Really it’s not a mystery at all, these are good people working on good things and giving back to our communities. Really it’s not a mystery at all, we are good people working on good things and giving back to our communities.

SharePoint champions and community, I am humbled, thankful and honored to show our SPC conference pass winners Luis and Antonio around SharePoint Conference 2019 and introduce them to our community so if you see us in sessions, in the hallways or at social events please say hi and show your SPC spirit!

Dear Microsoft technology enthusiasts,

Please spread the word! Submissions need to be in very soon!

summary:

Please help to drive awareness and recruit speakers and volunteers for the 2019 version of http://insiderdevtour.com on June 27, 2019, in Boston (Burlington), MA

We are planning the local Insider Dev Tour in Boston (Burlington), MA for Thursday, June 27, 2019.

The event (http://insiderdevtour.com/) is a “mini version” of Microsoft’s BUILD conference (http://build.microsoft.com) focusing on “M365” technologies (Windows, Office, …).

It is a one day, high-energy event, distilling and condensing what was new at BUILD for local audiences.

With a one hour keynote and talk lengths of 25 minutes, the content is on-topic and focused.

A few important facts:

· Audience is anybody interested in software development trends and technologies on the Microsoft platform (focus on Windows and Office 365)

· It’s a day long free event

· Time approximately 8:00 am-5:30 pm, with the intention to do talks from 9:00 am-5:15 pm

· Event is initiated by Microsoft, but run by community volunteers worldwide

· Hosted at Microsoft’s MTC, Burlington, MA

· Quality content provided by Microsoft Corp

· Delivered by a mixture of local speakers and some Microsoft speakers

· Event will be lightly branded (in the style of the http://insiderdevtour.com website)

· No external sponsors or external branding, which reduces potential conflict of interest

· Catered Food / Beverages

· A Code of Conduct exists and will be enforced

· Registration will start in early May

· There might be an event in another city, that might benefit from your help, keep watching http://insiderdevtour.com

(For NYC, NY, 6/29 or Jacksonville, FL, 6/25 reach out to Andreas.Erben@daenet.com)

You can help in various ways:

1) Help to recruit potential speaker candidates in your network, company, or in local communities and at events. This is very time sensitive

2) Help to recruit volunteers for registration, day of event logistics

3) Help to spread awareness in your communities and networks for attendance (starting in early May when the registration pages go up at http://insiderdevtour.com )

About speaking at the event:

· Attached find an Excel list of sessions and abstracts that we want to cover, a few of them we MUST cover

· Speakers please send us an email with the session numbers you believe you can cover, the level of comfort with the material, and your order of preference. If possible please indicate if you believe you can cover more than one session.

· Speaker candidates will have to provide
– Speaker first name

– Speaker last name
– a short biography (2 – 4 sentences)
– photograph (.jpg) – 400×400 resolution or direct link to download such picture
– Twitter handle if applicable  (@)
– other social links if applicable
… and permission to the event organizers and Microsoft to publish this, or contact us about information what we cannot publish

· If we get enough speakers and space, we aim at trying to do two tracks in parallel in the afternoon

· The session content will be provided by Microsoft: PowerPoint, Demos, Demo scripts and will be available in late May.

· Speakers must commit to practice, including to strictly stay within the time limits

· Great opportunity for new speakers to get their first “speaking wings” as the content will be prepared and provided

· Students or young professionals are encouraged to reach out

· Inexperienced speakers are welcome to speak and will benefit from doing example practice deliveries (video/Skype) – at least one being required

· We specifically welcome speakers from communities who are less represented speaking at technology events and are committed to help those to succeed

· It is possible that a specific session does not happen because of us not being able to have two parallel tracks; or not getting enough speakers to support two full tracks

· Rehearsal dinner tentative for June 26

We can entertain a limited amount community content proposals, both technology or “soft skills” types of talks.
The requirement is that all content that is not from Microsoft needs to be reviewed and approved by Microsoft Corp two weeks before the event.

If you have any questions, we will do our best to get them answered.

Please contact:

Andreas.Erben@daenet.com and pswider@realactivity.com

With kind regards,

Andreas and Paul

Area	Duration	Title	Note
General	1:00	Keynote	Required
Web
	0:25	Developing with the New Edge Browser	Required
	0:25	Myth busting PWAs: The New Edge Edition
	0:25	The Future is Now with ASP.NET Core 3.0
	0:25	Productive Web Development with NodeJS and Microsoft Developer Tools
Graph/Office
	0:25	Introduction to Microsoft Graph Services	Required
	0:25	Connect your Desktop Apps with the Microsoft Graph
	0:25	Use your Web Skills and the Microsoft Graph to build Add-ins for Microsoft Teams	Recommended
Windows/Platform
	0:25	Create Powerful User Interfaces with the Latest Windows APIs and Open Source Libraries	UWP
	0:25	Future-proof your Desktop Apps with .NET Core
	0:25	Build Embedded and IoT Solutions with Microsoft Windows IoT Core
	0:25	Leverage the power of Machine Learning on Windows
	0:25	What’s New and Coming in the Command Line and WSL
General
	0:25	(Insider / Beginner session) (Title coming soon)
	0:25	(Local or community Talk)

Blockchain is big at BUIDL this year! Starbucks is working with Microsoft on a chain for coffee traceability and Vitalik Buterin showed up at build and had a very insightful interview.

@MarkRussinovich and #Ethereum creator @VitalikButerin on public vs private chains.

Starbucks: Read article here

#BUIDL #azure #blockchain

Online Instructor led class and labs (2 Days)

Register now for first run beta discount $1499 (Released live price $1999)

The instructor led online course will have a hard enrollment limit of 20 students. Recorded course and labs available for 30 days following the live class.

Course Description: PowerApps, and Microsoft Flow have made for an amazing trio of business ready applications. Professional Developers are now able to use the common data service, CDS and PowerApps to design line of business applications and Portals faster than ever.

This advanced course focuses on creating real world business portals using PowerApps, Power BI, Flow, CDS, VS Code, Azure and more The class consists of lecture and labs and the step by step labs guide the students through designing and deploying an enterprise model driven business app and secure patient portal for the famous but fictitious Caribbean Healthcare Hospital.

Host and Instructor: Paul Swider is a Microsoft Azure MVP, international speaker, author and the founding CTO of RealActivity a Boston based organization focused on streamlining healthcare using the Microsoft Cloud and proprietary software technology. Paul is an accomplished author of several developer books, speaks at and organizes community technology events around the world and is viewed as an international expert in Microsoft cloud architecture and enterprise blockchain. 

Some of the good peeps in the PowerApps community and friends at Microsoft inspired me to create the Power Platform Developer Bootcamp series and I’m excited to share this new technology with the Microsoft Technical Communities, friends, and Microsoft Cloud enthusiasts! Paul was first certified as a Microsoft Trainer in 1996 and brings over two decades of experience to the bootcamp!

Guest speakers have been known to pop-up for Paul’s courses! -`ღ´-

Intended Audience: This course is intended for technical architects, developers, and administrators of Microsoft 365, Power Platform including Dynamics 365. The course is perfect for PowerApps, Flow, D365, SharePoint, and Teams developers interested in learning how to create first class business apps and portals for both authenticated and anonymous users. Not recommended for end users.

Recommended Prerequisites: Prerequisites are recommendations, and while not required, they are highly advised to ensure a successful learning experience:

• Basic Understanding of Power platform, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Azure is helpful

• Basic concepts and understanding of CDS and business apps

Format: Live lecture and Labs. Bootcamp format

Agenda:

• PowerApps and Portals overview & configuration

• PowerApps, CDS Portals and D365 Portals feature comparisons

• Customization fundamentals

• Authorization and security for PowerApps and Portals

• WYSIWYG Editor

• Branding and design

• Modern client-side development

• Extending portals with Microsoft 365, Graph and SharePoint

• Extend PowerApps and Portals with Azure and Functions

• Integration with Azure Blockchain Service

• Azure Data Platform

• Extend PowerApps and Portals using the Serverless pattern

More on platforms and opportunity in the era of the intelligent cloud and intelligent edge from Satya Nadella, CEO Microsoft.

5 FREE seats available for current CS students. Email pswider@realactivity.com for student registration. Must be currently enrolled in a Computer Science or related program. -`ღ´-

Private and on premises corporate classes email pswider@realactivity.com.

SharePoint friends: Going to SPC19 in Las Vegas? Learn how to create PowerApps CDS Portals and D365 Customer Engagement portals to allow invitations and codes for public and external users to access files and data managed with Microsoft 365 Groups and SharePoint.

Attend my session: Go Public with SharePoint and Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement Portals. Thank you!

Att

This past month has been filled with announcements from the Microsoft Blockchain team. For example, it’s recently been announced that blockchain data can now be easily posted into PostgreSQL and other database stores through the Ethereum Logic App Connector.

Users who have wanted to take ledger information from smart contracts using events can now use Azure Logic Apps to handle events and transmit this data into a SQL database like PostgreSQL or MySQL. Thankfully, now this only requires one of the Ethereum Logic apps supplied by Microsoft in the Logic App Marketplace.

The Ethereum Logic App is connected to the user’s ledger, where the program monitors the user’s information for smart contract events. Once these smart contract events are scanned after a quick query of the contract state, the simple use an Azure function can pass this data into an SQL statement. This can then be pushed into a PostgreSQL database.

MySQL is processed with roughly the same flow, with slightly different trigger patterns that mildly affect the information that is presented. Instead of looking at contracts and contract emit events, users can look at critical data such as service buses or an event grid.

This severely simplifies the processes that users utilize when reviewing ledgers and other relevant contract information for increased speed, efficiency, and transparency. This opens the door to greater micromanagement abilities and more accessible information for relevant parties.

It’s common for users to use back-end systems that push data from messages into a service bus and expect other applications to take action on this. Though it’s optional, users can parse a bus message to classify whether the message is a priority or relevant (similar to PostgreSQL) where a simple query deploys a contract to the current state. This information is subsequently pushed as an SQL statement before being slid into a user’s MySQL database.

One great program that’s recommended for these new tools is the Azure Blockchain Workbench due to its simple and user-friendly UI that makes it ideal for dealing with contracts. That said, any Ethereum-based RPC endpoint can be used to connect and monitor.

A great example of some of these useful new tools is the fact that a user now has the ability to transfer the responsibility of an asset. Once a user selects “Take Action” and then “Submit,” the responsibility will be applied almost immediately. After an action is submitted to a blockchain, it’s then mined and added to a user’s respective block. This information is then illustrated in the user’s interface.

This new tool allows for ease-of-access that drives organizational collaboration and transparency to a whole new level. Relevant contract information, assets, and ledgers can be easily viewable to each of the relevant parties through the blockchain. Additionally, responsibilities can then be much more easily delegated, allowing for another degree of efficient collaboration and transformation of information.

PostgreSQL vs. MySQL

With PostgreSQL, users can add rows based on relevant data like contact information or participating parties. Responsibility can be re-delegated to a new party through a few simple clicks, and many more useful tools are left to be discovered.

MySQL provides much of the same features and processes, albeit with a different database. MySQL offers various counter-parties and information, much like PostgreSQL does. MySQL also provides a continuous history of states, with a running record of what’s happening in real time. This provides an easy framework for heightened security, transparency of the flow of information, and the ability to micromanage to a degree that suits the user.

While the user is only required to mash a few simple buttons, in the background the Logic app flows are triggered where the user is notified for every event that occurs. This means that all the information is pushed to either PostgreSQL or MySQL. The coding and set-up are all laid out for those users interested in the more in-depth, technical perspective through the Blockchain Developer Kit on the GITHUB page below:

• For additional MySQL details, click here.
  
• For additional PostgreSQL details, click here.
  

Excerpt from C365:

In Episode 87, Scott sits down for a cup of coffee with Paul Swider. They discuss the business case for blockchain, including use cases and Paul’s work with healthcare institutions as well as how to get started with Azure Blockchain.

Show Notes

• Paul Swider – RealActivity
  
• From Farm to Blockchain: Walmart Tracks Its Lettuce
  
• Azure Blockchain
  
• Building with blockchain on Azure
  
• Introducing Enterprise Smart Contracts
  

Listen to Podcast.

Watch this complimentary on demand webinar and learn how to get started with pro-tips about the Power Platform architecture, and how to get started with PowerPlatform and PowerApps today.

We’ll explore how Power Platform is a suite of apps, services, connectors and data platform that provides a rapid application development environment to build custom apps for your business needs.

Find out how Common Data Service (CDS) lets you securely store and manage data that’s used by business applications. Data within Common Data Service is stored within a set of entities.

“This Power Platform is the extensibility model for Microsoft 365, it’s the extensibility model for Dynamics 365, and by the way, it can integrate with Salesforce, it can integrate with Workday, it can integrate with SAP or what have you,” -Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella

Happy Summer! Redeem the PowerSummer250 code for any Summer bootcamp and receive a $250 discount on any course OR usePowerSummerAWS code, pay the full course price and receive your discount as a $250 Amazon Store gift card.

When to use CDS over a database is a common source of confusion for new PowerApps developers. Here are 10 great reasons to use CDS over a traditional database. Short and sweet with many links.

1. Solutions framework (DevOps)
2. PowerApps Portals
3. Security roles
4. Record ownership
5. Secure field profiles and DLP
6. Business process flows
7. Server side code
8. Web API/Web Resources
9. Industry accelerators ie: healthcare entities in healthcare accelerator
10. Segmented CDS environments
11. Share with Office 365 Groups.

What is the difference between CDS entities and SharePoint lists? Watch this 3 minute explanation.

A treat coming across this article this morning. I’ve watched the Women in SharePoint group grow through the years, the group inspired and collaborated with Women in Tech at Ignite and the group in this article

Women in Cloud was founded largely in part to the connections made at the Microsoft Ignite conference. Take time to go through some of the names and their accomplishments. Great stuff!

How Women In Cloud is turning the tide for female tech entrepreneurs