Managing privacy controls for Office products

This week is all about managing privacy controls for Office products. That includes Office on Android devices, Office on iOS devices, Office for Mac devices, Office for the web, and Microsoft 365 apps for enterprise on Windows devices. Most organizations often already have a good look at the required configurations options for the privacy controls on Windows devices. Office for other platforms, however, are often forgotten. Just like Office for the web. Good thing, though, is that there are nowadays multiple privacy controls available that can be configured for Office on all platforms. For some platforms there are even multiple configurations options. Best part of those configuration options is that there is also an option to configure the privacy controls cross platforms. This post will …

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Creating the path for mobile devices to on-premises resources: A summary

This week a few shorter posts, as my posts this week are extensions of my sessions at the Workplace Ninja Summit 2022. At the summit I did my first session about Creating the path for mobile devices to on-premises resources. During that session I shared information around the architecture and flow of Microsoft Tunnel, I zoomed in on getting up-and-running with Microsoft Tunnel and showed getting insight of Microsoft Tunnel. This post will provide a quick summary of that session by quickly showing the architecture and flow of Microsoft Tunnel and by showing the summary and reminders. The slides (PDF) of that session are available for download here. Architecting Microsoft Tunnel An important part of creating the Microsoft Tunnel infrastructure is a solid architecture. In most cases that …

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Addressing the need for multiple Microsoft Tunnel Gateway servers

This week will focus on addressing the need for multiple Microsoft Tunnel Gateway servers. A single server is easy to setup, and easy to discuss and to describe, but that just a starting point. Often there is a need for multiple Microsoft Tunnel Gateway servers. That could be for providing high availabilty, for supporting the right amount of users and even for providing access to resources on different remote locations. So, it can be multiple servers on the same location and multiple servers on different locations. This post will go through the main scenarios for multiple servers and will focus on the main configurations that should be in place to support and configure those scenarios. No detailed configurations this time. Only descriptions of the main …

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Replacing the TLS certificate for Microsoft Tunnel

This week is a relatively short post that is focused on replacing the Transport Layer Security (TLS) certificate that is used for Microsoft Tunnel. That TLS certificate is used for securing the connection between the mobile devices and the Microsoft Tunnel Gateway and should contain the public name or IP address in its Subject Alternative Name (SAN). Replacing that TLS certificate can be required when the certificate is expired, or when the public name of the Microsoft Tunnel Gateway is changed. Those are a couple of good reasons to replace the TLS certificate. Luckily, those things don’t happen that often, but sadly that also means that it’s always searching for the right actions to perform. This post will walk through the steps that should be …

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Using Microsoft Tunnel for per-app VPN

This week is another mobile focused blog post. This week is al around Microsoft Tunnel. More specifically, this week is all about using Microsoft Tunnel for providing per-app VPN on iOS/iPadOS devices and Android devices. Per-app VPN enables organizations to only allow specifically configured apps to use the configured VPN tunnel. So, not simply pushing all traffice through the VPN tunnel, but only the traffic of specific apps. That provides a solid method for providing access to on-premises resources for only the apps that really need it. This post will start with a quick summary of what should be in place, followed by going through the important per-app VPN specific configurations. Those configurations slightly differ per platform. This post will end by showing the user …

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Using the Microsoft Defender for Endpoint app for connecting to Microsoft Tunnel Gateway

This week is something completely different, compared to the last couple of weeks. This week is back to Microsoft Tunnel. Microsoft Tunnel is the VPN gateway solution for Microsoft Intune that fully integrates with Azure AD (and Conditional Access) for providing access to on-premises resources on iOS and Android devices. In the early stages of Microsoft Tunnel, there used to be a separate Microsoft Tunnel app for iOS and Android devices. One of the challenges with those devices is that there can only be one active VPN at the same time. That’s especially challenging when using it in combination with Microsoft Defender for Endpoint. That makes the combination of both products into a single app, a logic move. That’s been the case for Android already …

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Retiring non-compliant devices with Azure Logic Apps and Adaptive Cards for Teams

This week is another follow-up on the first few weeks of this year. Those weeks the focus was on monitoring the status of the different connectors, certificates, tokens and deployments, while this week the focus is on more than just monitoring. This week will be about non-compliant devices marked to retire. That means querying information and actually performing an action. When looking at device compliance policies, the IT administrator can configure the actions for non-compliance. One of those actions is to configure Retire the noncompliant device. That action, however, won’t actually retire the device and will only add the device to the Retire Noncompliant Devices view. Once added to that view, there is still a manual action required by the IT administrator to actually retire …

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Microsoft Tunnel Gateway: A quick overview

This week my post is a few days later, as my post is an extension of my session at the Nordic Virtual Summit Second Edition. At the virtual summit I did a session about Getting access to on-premises resources with Microsoft Tunnel. During that session I shared the information around the architecture of Microsoft Tunnel and I zoomed in on getting up-and-running with Microsoft Tunnel and getting insight in Microsoft Tunnel. This post will provide a quick summary of that session about the different important components of Microsoft Tunnel and how to get connected to Microsoft Tunnel. Most of that information will be summarized in tables and slides. The slides (PDF) of that session are available for download here. Main components of Microsoft Tunnel The Microsoft Tunnel …

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Simplifying targetting groups of apps with app protection policies

This week is all about the simplification in targetting groups of apps with app protection policies and a followup on my tweet of last week. That tweet provided a quick peak at the new targetting options of app protection policies for Android and iOS/iPadOS devices. The great thing about that simplification is that app protection policies can now be targeted at different categories (or groups) of apps. Those categories of apps are All apps, All Microsoft apps and Core Microsoft apps, and are dynamically updated to include the appropriate apps. That dynamic update will make sure that the already created app protection policies are automatically updated with the latest apps that are available for the different categories and will also make sure that newly created …

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Getting new users quickly up-and-running with Temporary Access Pass

This week is a little follow-up on a post of a couple of months ago and about connecting pieces of the puzzle. That post was around Temporary Access Pass (TAP). Even though that post was focused on Windows devices, it did provide some hints for using TAP on mobile devices (Android, iOS) also. An often seen and heard challenge is related to getting new user up-and-running. Especially when requiring Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) for device enrollment, or when trying to work completely passwordless. Those scenarios introduce chicken-and-egg situations as a device must be registered for usage with MFA and the registration requires MFA, or when trying to work passwordless and an authentication method must be registered to be able to work passwordless. So, to get a …

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