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Notes from the Wired desk.

Practical guidance on getting more out of your Microsoft stack — security, ERP, automation, and compliance, written for the people who run growing businesses.

103 articles in total

Your month-end close in Business Central: a repeatable checklistMonth-end shouldn't be a fresh adventure every time; here's the close, in order, as a checklist you can run in Business Central and hand to the next person.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 24, 2026Power BI for the boardroom: tiered reporting off a consolidation platform with row-level securityWhen a consolidation platform's native dashboards fall short, Power BI can deliver board-ready, mobile reporting where shareholders, directors, and operating units each see only their slice.Power BI & FabricExplainerJun 24, 2026Do you need a local Microsoft partner to implement Business Central?The wish for a partner 'down the road' is really a fear of being stranded with software no one can run; for a cloud ERP, the safety net is the support model, not the zip code.Business CentralBuying GuideJun 23, 2026Your first Power BI report off Business Central data, end to endReplace the weekly export-and-rebuild with a Power BI report that refreshes itself, from a blank canvas to a published, shareable report off Business Central data.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 23, 2026When to graduate off QuickBooks OnlineQuickBooks Online is excellent at what it is for. The trouble starts when your business grows past what it was designed to do. Here are the ceilings to watch for, and how to move without disruption.Business CentralBuying GuideJun 23, 2026Set up SPF, DKIM, and DMARC for your domain, step by stepThe highest-leverage hour in email security: set up the three DNS records so your real mail lands and spoofed mail in your name gets rejected.Microsoft SecurityHow-To GuideJun 22, 2026Build your first Power Automate flow: auto-file incoming documents to SharePoint and notify the teamBuild a no-code flow that watches a shared inbox, files every attachment into SharePoint with a clean name, and posts to Teams.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 21, 2026Dimensions and account schedules for management reporting in Business CentralSet up financial dimensions and build financial reports in Business Central so you can slice the general ledger by department, project, or location and run budget-vs-actual and year-over-year comparisons.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 20, 2026Why your deskless team ignores email but reads TeamsIf you are still broadcasting to your field and shop-floor crews by email, your message is probably not landing. The reason is simple, and so is the fix.Microsoft 365ExplainerJun 20, 2026Build versus buy: customizing Business Central or licensing an industry add-onWhen your industry has a gap that the platform does not cover out of the box, you can build the missing piece or license it from a specialist. The right answer depends less on the feature than on the math and the maintenance.Business CentralBuying GuideJun 19, 2026Customer prepayments and deposits in Business Central: a configuration walkthroughConfigure sales prepayments in Business Central and learn when to use a simpler ad-hoc deposit to a liability account instead, so customer money up front lands in the right place and clears cleanly at final invoicing.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 19, 2026Running multiple companies in one system: consolidation in Business CentralIf you run more than one legal entity, you know the month-end spreadsheet that stitches them together. Business Central can do that work for you, in currency, with an audit trail.Business CentralExplainerJun 18, 2026The open-orders control pack in Business Central: catching shipped-but-unbilled revenueBuild a simple monthly control in Business Central that surfaces shipped-but-not-invoiced orders and undelivered orders, so revenue you've earned actually gets billed before it ages to year-end.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 18, 2026Landed costs and tariffs in Business Central: a practical guide for importersYour purchase order price is rarely the true cost of an imported product. Here is how to layer freight, brokerage, and tariffs onto inventory value so your margins reflect reality.Business CentralExplainerJun 17, 2026Lot and serial tracking setup in Business Central (make the system enforce it)Set up lot and serial number tracking in Business Central and configure it so the system blocks a post when tracking is missing, plus how to require expiration dates and run a full trace.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 17, 2026FSMA 204 and lot traceability: what food and produce distributors need from an ERPFSMA 204 makes lot traceability and standardized product identifiers non-optional for higher-risk foods. Here is what that means for your ERP, and the build-versus-buy choice that comes with it.Business CentralComplianceJun 16, 2026Permission sets and security groups in Business Central: locking down who can do whatControl access in Business Central using permission sets and security groups linked to Entra ID groups, including how to tailor a custom permission set, what the Team Member license can and can't do, and how to safely test a user's access.Business CentralHow-To GuideJun 16, 2026Power BI data modeling 101: star schema, relationships, and why your measures are wrongHow to model Power BI data as a star schema with fact and dimension tables, set relationships and cross-filter direction correctly, and mark a real date table so your totals and filters stop lying.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 15, 2026Teams phone for 24/7 on-call: auto attendant, call queues, and rotating the after-hours lineIf your after-hours emergency line is really just someone's personal cell phone, you have a fragile system. Teams Phone can replace that scramble with structured routing that survives a vacation.Microsoft 365ExplainerJun 15, 2026The project we told a client not to buyThe most valuable thing we ever told a client was no. Here is why we recommended against a large implementation, and why a paid discovery phase is the best money you can spend before a big systems decision.Cross-platformBuying GuideJun 15, 2026Your AI-vibecoded app has no backend: why a pretty prototype isn't a systemTeams use AI to build slick internal-tool frontends, then discover there's no database underneath; here's why the prototype is the easy 20% and how to build the rest.Azure & AIExplainerJun 14, 2026Your first DAX measures in Power BI: SUM, CALCULATE, and YTD vs last yearA click-by-click walk through your first Power BI DAX measures: a SUM, a CALCULATE with a filter, year-to-date and same-period-last-year time intelligence, a year-over-year percentage, and how to debug a wrong number.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 14, 2026Approval workflows in Business Central: route the right transactions to the right peopleGood financial controls do not have to mean bureaucracy. Business Central can route only the transactions that need a second look to the right approver, automatically.Business CentralExplainerJun 13, 2026The licensing discount is the bait: why implementation is the real cost of an ERPA fiscal-year-end license discount feels like a win, but ERP cost lives in implementation, so locking the platform before pricing the work leaves you with no leverage.Cross-platformBuying GuideJun 13, 2026From manual export to scheduled refresh in Power BI: Power Query and dataflowsHow to stop re-exporting spreadsheets by shaping data in Power Query, parameterizing the source, promoting the logic to a reusable dataflow, publishing, and setting up scheduled and incremental refresh.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 13, 2026Standard, FIFO, or average: choosing a costing method in Business Central (and why timing matters)Picking an inventory costing method in Business Central is not just an accounting preference. It is a decision you need to get right before you post, because it is not easy to change later.Business CentralExplainerJun 12, 2026Connecting Power BI to on-prem data: install and run the On-Premises Data GatewayHow to download, install, and register the standard on-premises data gateway, bind an on-prem SQL Server source, choose scheduled refresh versus DirectQuery, manage credentials, and fix the common failures.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 12, 2026The post-incident Microsoft 365 hardening checklistAfter a Microsoft 365 account compromise, getting back in is only step one. This is the checklist for locking the door, evicting the intruder, and not leaving a way back in.Microsoft SecurityExplainerJun 11, 2026Row-level security in Power BI, step by stepHow to set up Power BI row-level security: a static role with a DAX filter, dynamic RLS using USERPRINCIPALNAME against a mapping table, testing with View as, assigning people to roles in the service, and the mistakes that leak or block data.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 11, 2026Capturing daily snapshots in Power BI when your source only shows todayWhen a source system overwrites today's numbers and keeps no history, you can append a dated copy each day so you can report trends over time.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideJun 10, 2026Migrating from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365: what actually happensMoving from Google Workspace to Microsoft 365 is very doable, but the difference between a smooth cutover and a painful one is sequencing. Here is what really moves, and why doing it all in one night is the wrong plan.Microsoft 365Migration & ImplementationJun 10, 2026vCISO retainer or embedded analyst? Staffing a multi-year compliance buildSmall firms bidding regulated work default to a full-time security hire, but the right answer is usually a senior retainer first, then an embedded analyst once scope and the award firm up.Microsoft SecurityBuying GuideJun 10, 2026The Microsoft 365 Business Premium setup checklist: from \"bought it\" to \"configured it\"A phase-by-phase runbook for actually turning on the security in Microsoft 365 Business Premium, in the right order: identity, then devices, then email, then data.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 9, 2026Capitalizing equipment you build for your own use in Business CentralWhen you build an asset for your own use, the parts and labor live in your manufacturing module but the asset belongs in your fixed-asset ledger. Here is how to bridge that gap in Business Central.Business CentralExplainerJun 9, 2026Passing the cyber insurance questionnaire: the controls underwriters make you attest toCyber insurance is underwritten against a controls checklist, and one unmanaged machine can turn an honest attestation into a denied claim.Microsoft SecurityComplianceJun 9, 2026When the fraud targets your client, not you: stopping wire-transfer email compromiseBusiness email compromise often never touches your tenant; attackers spoof a lookalike domain to insert fake wiring instructions between you and your client.Microsoft SecurityCautionary TaleJun 9, 2026Enforce MFA and retire password expiration in Microsoft 365, the right wayTurn on multi-factor authentication for everyone, switch on self-service password reset, and stop forcing periodic password changes, then verify there are no quiet exceptions.Microsoft SecurityHow-To GuideJun 8, 2026Right-sizing Microsoft 365 licenses for a field workforceIf you put the same Microsoft 365 license on your office staff and your field crews, you are almost certainly overpaying. Matching the plan to how each person actually works can cut real money.Microsoft 365Cost & LicensingJun 8, 2026Conditional Access starter policies for a small businessA safe starter set of Conditional Access policies in Microsoft Entra ID: require MFA for all, block legacy authentication, require compliant devices for sensitive apps, and protect a break-glass account.Microsoft SecurityHow-To GuideJun 7, 2026Enrolling your first Windows laptops in Intune (and setting up Autopilot)Set the MDM authority, build a compliance policy and baseline configuration profiles, enroll a Windows laptop, then register devices for Autopilot so a new machine provisions itself on first boot.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 6, 2026Preview posting in Business Central: see the accounting impact before you commitBefore you post a transaction in Business Central, you can see exactly which ledger entries it will create. It is the simplest habit for building confidence and catching mistakes early.Business CentralExplainerJun 6, 2026Configuring Defender for Office 365: Safe Links, Safe Attachments, and anti-phishingA click-by-click walkthrough to turn on the right email protection in Microsoft Defender for Office 365, from preset policies to custom impersonation rules and the quarantine queue.Microsoft SecurityHow-To GuideJun 5, 2026Getting off paper: ERP for small regulated manufacturersFor a small regulated manufacturer still running on paper and spreadsheets, moving to an ERP is as much a change-management project as a software one. Here is what the system needs to enforce, and how to bring the team with you.Business CentralComplianceJun 5, 2026Customer deposits aren't receivables: posting down payments to a liability account in Business CentralWhen a customer pays before you've invoiced, that cash is a liability you owe, not a receivable, and Business Central has two clean ways to post it correctly.Business CentralExplainerJun 4, 2026Structuring SharePoint and Teams for a small company: sites, security groups, and inheritanceA practical plan for laying out SharePoint and Teams the right way: sites by team, permissions set at the top and inherited down, sane external-sharing defaults, and a first sensitivity label.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 4, 2026The hidden trap when you upgrade frontline workers to Business Premium: OneDrive lights up overnightUpgrading a web-only cohort to Business Premium silently provisions OneDrive for hundreds of users you never meant to enable, so the license change needs to be choreographed.Microsoft 365Cautionary TaleJun 3, 2026The Microsoft 365 user onboarding and offboarding runbook (manual, before you automate)The manual, click-by-click steps to onboard and offboard a Microsoft 365 user the right way, the runbook you have to nail before automation is worth building.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 3, 2026The distributor that runs like a manufacturer: ERP without the MRP overheadSome distributors do not make anything, yet they manage lead times, engineered orders, and supplier coordination like a manufacturer. They need an ERP's muscle without the weight of full material requirements planning.Business CentralBuying GuideJun 2, 2026Five Power Automate patterns every business should stealFive copy-and-adapt Power Automate flow shapes (approvals, scheduled reports, overdue reminders, form intake, and Teams alerts) with the trigger, key actions, and one gotcha for each.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 2, 2026A Microsoft 365 Copilot prompt playbook for everyday workA practical playbook for prompting Microsoft 365 Copilot in Outlook, Word, Excel, and Teams, with the anatomy of a good prompt and ready-to-use examples.Microsoft 365How-To GuideJun 1, 2026Get your SharePoint ready for Copilot: a cleanup and permissions workbookA step-by-step prep workbook for cleaning up oversharing, restructuring libraries, and labeling content so Microsoft 365 Copilot returns safe, accurate answers.Microsoft 365How-To GuideMay 31, 2026Build a document-extraction pipeline with Azure AI Document IntelligenceA step-by-step build for extracting fields from invoices or forms with Azure AI Document Intelligence, using confidence scores to auto-pass clean results and route the rest to a human.Azure & AIHow-To GuideMay 30, 2026Automate onboarding: trigger a Microsoft 365 account, license, and welcome sequence from HRA step-by-step build that turns a new hire in your HR list into a fully provisioned Microsoft 365 account, license, group memberships, and a welcome sequence, with no manual ticket.Microsoft 365How-To GuideMay 29, 2026Business Central's project jobs or Dynamics 365 Project Operations? How to chooseMicrosoft gives project-based businesses two ways to track work; the requirement that usually decides between them is whether you need a real project schedule.Dynamics 365 Project OperationsBuying GuideMay 29, 2026Build a real internal app on Power Apps and Dataverse (not a vibecoded dead end)A step-by-step build for a durable internal app on Power Apps and Dataverse, with a real data model, role-based security, and notifications, the opposite of an AI prototype with no backend.Azure & AIHow-To GuideMay 28, 2026When spreadsheets stop scaling: what Dynamics 365 Project Operations actually doesFor project-based businesses, Dynamics 365 Project Operations carries a deal from quote to plan to billing in one system, where a plain CRM only covers the front of the process.Dynamics 365 Project OperationsExplainerMay 28, 2026Turning on and tuning the Business Central payables agentA step-by-step walkthrough for enabling the Business Central Payables Agent, pointing it at your invoice mailbox, working the review queue, and setting guardrails so a person always approves before posting.Business CentralHow-To GuideMay 27, 2026Turning on Microsoft Defender for Business: from onboarding to your first alertA click-by-click walkthrough for standing up Microsoft Defender for Business: onboard Windows devices, set antivirus and EDR policies, turn on attack surface reduction rules, and work your first alert.Microsoft SecurityHow-To GuideMay 26, 2026Should your sales team enter orders in the CRM or the ERP?When you run a CRM and an ERP side by side, you have to decide where sales orders are born. The right answer usually comes down to one question: does your sales team need to see live inventory?Business CentralBuying GuideMay 26, 2026Setting up approval workflows in Business Central, step by stepA complete walkthrough for configuring approval users, amount limits, workflow templates, and notifications so purchases and payments route for sign-off automatically.Business CentralHow-To GuideMay 25, 2026Configuring item charges for landed costs in Business CentralHow to roll freight, brokerage, and duty into inventory value using item charges, choose an allocation method, and handle a freight invoice that shows up weeks after the goods.Business CentralHow-To GuideMay 24, 2026Sharing Power BI without overspending: workspaces, apps, and who needs ProA walkthrough of Power BI workspace roles, publishing a polished App to a wide audience, who actually needs a Pro license to view versus build, and how Fabric capacity changes the math.Power BI & FabricHow-To GuideMay 23, 2026Dynamics 365 Customer Service, explained: cases, knowledge, and the Copilot that drafts the answerDynamics 365 Customer Service turns a shared support inbox into a real case system, and the Copilot now built in drafts answers, summarizes cases, and routes tickets.Dynamics 365 Customer ServiceExplainerMay 22, 2026Your 30-year-old ERP is dying and your data is trapped: retiring it without losing historyThe scariest part of an ERP migration is often losing fast access to decades of history; archiving the old data to Microsoft Fabric keeps it queryable after the system is gone.Power BI & FabricMigration & ImplementationMay 21, 2026Tracking projects in Business Central: when a dimension beats the whole project moduleTracking projects in Business Central doesn't always mean turning on the full project module; often a project dimension is enough, and it can drop your license tier.Business CentralExplainerMay 19, 2026Your tenant has a thousand forgotten guests: building a guest-expiry workflow that has exceptionsExternal-collaboration sprawl leaves SMBs with hundreds of guests who never lost access; a default auto-expiry with a ticket-based override cleans it up without cutting off real partners.Microsoft 365ExplainerMay 18, 2026Business Central or Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations? How to tell which Microsoft ERP you needMicrosoft sells two cloud ERPs and buyers conflate them; the real divider isn't company size, it's how complex your transactions actually are.Business CentralBuying GuideMay 14, 2026Your CRM is not a billing system: when a services firm needs PSA softwareStretching a CRM into a billing engine costs services firms a week or two per cycle in manual rework; the fix is usually a category they've never heard named: PSA.Dynamics 365 SalesBuying GuideMay 13, 2026Why a Business Central quote comes back at four times your budgetThe gap between a buyer's gut number and a real ERP quote is a work-stream-by-work-stream story, and integrations are usually the heaviest, most negotiable line.Business CentralCost & LicensingMay 11, 2026Heat-number traceability in Business Central: when the system won't let you postLot and heat tracking in Business Central can block a posting until the operator records which material was used, replacing a side-of-desk spreadsheet ahead of an ISO audit.Business CentralExplainerMay 8, 2026AI in Dynamics 365 Customer Service: what the 2025-2026 updates mean for your support teamThe 2025 and 2026 Customer Service updates put Copilot between your customers' questions and your reps' keyboards; here's what that changes, and what decides whether it pays off.Dynamics 365 Customer ServiceProduct UpdateMay 7, 2026The revenue you shipped but never billed: closing the order-to-invoice gap in Business CentralA distributor clawed back roughly $200K of work it had shipped and never invoiced, the kind of leak an order-to-invoice control in Business Central is built to stop.Business CentralCautionary TaleMay 6, 2026Why your passwords won't sync: connecting on-prem Active Directory to Entra IDWhen an on-prem Active Directory and an Entra ID tenant run unconnected, staff get two identities and IT does every hire and departure twice; directory sync ends the double entry.Microsoft 365ExplainerApr 29, 2026Who holds the keys? When a departing IT provider locks you out of your Microsoft 365 tenantIf your only global administrators belong to your IT provider, a soured relationship can lock you out of your own Microsoft 365 tenant; here's how to recover and prevent it.Microsoft 365Cautionary TaleApr 27, 2026The American outpost: how a US subsidiary gets IT autonomy from its foreign parentA US subsidiary can get its own support, file control, and scoped admin rights without the parent feeling exposed, using delegated Microsoft 365 administration.Microsoft 365ExplainerApr 24, 2026AI is taking over the top of your sales funnel: what the 2025-2026 Dynamics 365 Sales updates meanMicrosoft is automating the top of the sales funnel; here's what the Sales Qualification Agent and Copilot updates mean, and the data and adoption work that decides whether they pay off.Dynamics 365 SalesProduct UpdateApr 23, 2026CMMC level 2 for small defense suppliers: wall off your CUI instead of moving the whole companyWhen controlled data touches only a slice of your work, you can shrink CMMC Level 2 scope by walling CUI into a governed enclave instead of dragging the whole company in.Microsoft SecurityComplianceApr 22, 2026Your staff are already using AI. For a HIPAA-regulated org, governed Copilot beats banning it.When staff paste protected health information into public chatbots, you can't ban your way out; a governed Microsoft 365 Copilot keeps the data in your tenant.Microsoft 365ComplianceApr 16, 2026Drop-shipping in Business Central: the inventory-item trap that creates three of everythingIf you drop-ship, loading products as inventory items in Business Central is the setup mistake that quietly spawns duplicate records you can never delete.Business CentralExplainerApr 14, 2026The Business Central payables agent: AP automation that's already in the boxIf you're live on Business Central and still keying vendor invoices by hand, the Payables Agent that ships with the platform is probably the fastest win you're not using.Business CentralExplainerApr 10, 2026Redundancy is not backup: why RAID and a NAS won't save your dataRAID keeps you running through a single drive failure, but it's not versioned backup or disaster recovery, and without alerting you won't know a drive even died.Cross-platformExplainerApr 9, 2026What the 2025-2026 Business Central updates actually mean for your finance teamThe 2025 and 2026 Business Central waves are mostly noise, but the new AI agents, built-in expense management, and smarter invoice matching are worth a finance team's attention.Business CentralProduct UpdateApr 8, 2026FDA validation just changed (CSV to CSA): keep your quality system out of your ERPThe FDA's move from computer system validation to Computer Software Assurance, plus keeping quality management out of the ERP, can shrink the biggest cost in a regulated ERP project.Business CentralComplianceApr 7, 2026Live on Business Central but barely using it: rescuing a botched go-livePlenty of companies go live on Business Central and then limp along entering only orders and invoices; the fix is usually turning on what the original partner never configured.Business CentralExplainerApr 2, 2026Your inbox routing runs on one PC in the corner. Move it to the cloud.When a business-critical routing rule depends on one always-on desktop running Outlook, it belongs in Exchange Online as a server-side mail-flow rule instead.Microsoft 365ExplainerMar 30, 2026Locking sensitive data to a Virtual Desktop: Azure Virtual Desktop and Conditional Access for a BYOD teamA contractor-heavy, bring-your-own-device workforce can be moved onto Azure Virtual Desktop, with conditional access ensuring sensitive files are only reachable from inside it.Azure & AIExplainerMar 26, 2026Clean up SharePoint before you put Copilot on top of itCopilot only returns good answers when it sits on a structured, permissioned SharePoint; point it at an unmanaged file store and it confidently returns wrong ones.Microsoft 365ExplainerMar 25, 2026Putting federal and state excise tax on the invoice in Business CentralBeverage-alcohol sellers can calculate and print excise taxes (per gallon for wine, per proof gallon for spirits) on a locked delivery invoice in Business Central with a small customization.Business CentralExplainerMar 24, 2026Confidence scoring, not just OCR: using Azure Document Intelligence to shrink a manual-review teamThe breakthrough in automating document-heavy work isn't better text extraction, it's the per-field confidence score that lets humans review only the exceptions.Azure & AIExplainerMar 18, 2026Microsoft 365 and Copilot in 2025-2026: from a chatbot to agents that do workMicrosoft 365 Copilot is shifting from a chatbot to agents that take action, which is a productivity gain and a new governance responsibility for SMBs.Microsoft 365Product UpdateMar 12, 2026Ask your MSP one question: "if we leave in a year, what do we have to rip out?"Whether an IT provider builds on the Microsoft 365 you already own or layers proprietary tools is a portability question most buyers never think to ask, and it reveals soft lock-in.Cross-platformBuying GuideMar 10, 2026Device management you're already paying for: Intune and Autopilot in Business PremiumBusiness Premium includes Microsoft Intune and Windows Autopilot, so you can manage, lock, or wipe devices and ship self-configuring laptops, if someone turns it on.Microsoft 365ExplainerMar 5, 2026"We're already on Microsoft, so shouldn't we just use Dynamics?" How to actually choose a CRMBeing on Microsoft 365 isn't a strong enough reason to pick Dynamics; here's a simple framework for choosing a CRM by how custom your process really is.Dynamics 365 SalesBuying GuideMar 3, 2026The security stack you already own: Defender for Business and Defender for Office 365Business Premium already includes endpoint detection and response and enterprise email security, often the exact tools SMBs are paying a third party to provide.Microsoft SecurityExplainerFeb 19, 2026Power BI and Microsoft Fabric in 2025-2026: what's worth your attentionAI-assisted reporting in Power BI is no longer enterprise-only, the Copilot entry point dropped dramatically, and a few legacy features are sunsetting.Power BI & FabricProduct UpdateFeb 12, 2026Sharing dashboards with clients: Microsoft Fabric capacity vs per-user Power BI licensingSharing Power BI dashboards externally doesn't always mean a five-figure capacity bill; for a modest number of viewers, per-user licensing is dramatically cheaper.Power BI & FabricCost & LicensingFeb 11, 2026Dynamics GP is being retired: how a small finance team should plan the move to Business CentralDynamics GP has a published end-of-life timeline, and the smart move for a small finance team is to plan the Business Central migration around the fiscal year, not the panic.Business CentralMigration & ImplementationFeb 5, 2026From frantic to predictable: automating onboarding and offboarding between HR and Microsoft 365When IT learns about new hires the day they start and departures days too late, an HR-to-Microsoft 365 automation closes both the chaos and the security gap.Microsoft 365ExplainerFeb 4, 2026Stop forcing password resets every 90 days: what Microsoft and NIST now recommendForced periodic password changes are now discouraged by both Microsoft and NIST; here's what to turn on instead so retiring them doesn't weaken your security.Microsoft SecurityExplainerFeb 4, 2026The security tools that used to require an enterprise license: Defender and Purview suites for SMBsIn 2025 Microsoft made its top security and compliance tools available as Business Premium add-ons, putting real endpoint detection and data-loss prevention within SMB reach.Microsoft SecurityProduct UpdateJan 28, 2026What's already in Microsoft 365 Business Premium (and why it's the backbone of co-managed IT)Most SMBs use a fraction of Business Premium; the security and device-management stack they're paying for is usually switched off, and turning it on is most of what co-managed IT does.Microsoft 365ExplainerJan 22, 2026The identity controls hiding in Business Premium: Conditional Access, MFA, and Single Sign-OnThe most valuable security tool in Business Premium is identity: Entra ID Plan 1's MFA, conditional access, and single sign-on shut the front door most attacks walk through.Microsoft SecurityExplainerJan 15, 2026Business Central or NetSuite? A side-by-side comparison for a growing manufacturerTwo strong ERPs that are mostly even on features, so the real decision comes down to ecosystem, reporting, and a couple of specific workloads.Business CentralBuying GuideJan 14, 2026
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