Episodes

This episode frames the ROI conversation around Microsoft Copilot by quantifying the cost of routine work and then walking through the three value pillars from Forrester’s TEI analysis of a 25,000-employee composite organization: • Go-to-Market: small improvements in qualification (+2.7%) and wi…

Agents ≠ automation. Automation is a fixed script (great for repeatable, rule-bound tasks). Agents are adaptive systems that Observe-Plan-Act (OPA): they watch context, make a plan, and take actions—looping with feedback. Real agents have five core parts (Perception, Memory, Reasoning, Learning, Ac…

Azure AI Foundry isn’t “just a big model.” It’s a governed runtime where every interaction is logged and traceable. Agents are built as disciplined “squad leaders” from three gears—Model (brain), Instructions (orders), Tools (capabilities)—and their work leaves receipts via Threads (conversation hi…

Active Directory (AD) is the single crown-jewel system: compromise it and an attacker can own identities, files, mail, GPOs—everything. Breaches rarely hinge on zero-days; they accelerate through identity abuse: one phished user → lateral movement (pass-the-hash/ticket reuse) → privilege escalation…

Your SharePoint isn’t “old” — your legacy workflows are. The episode shows how to modernize without rebuilding: keep your lists/libraries, then layer Power Apps for usable front-ends, Power Automate for reliable approvals, AI Builder to auto-classify/extract from PDFs, and Copilot Studio for conver…

Identity is the real border now. In Microsoft cloud the firewall is no longer the decisive wall — Entra ID is. Modern attackers don’t smash doors; they log in using harvested, phished, or purchased credentials. That’s why a password-only world is effectively a natural-1 on defense. Real protection …

Microsoft Fabric fundamentally changes how Power BI handles data. With OneLake and Direct Lake, Power BI can now query lakehouse tables directly with performance similar to Import mode — without creating duplicate copies or maintaining complex refresh cycles. The winning Fabric pattern is simple…

AI agents are about to feel like real coworkers inside Teams—fast, tireless, and dangerously literal. This episode gives you a simple framework to keep them helpful and safe: manage their memory, entitlements, and tools, and layer prompting, verification, and human-in-the-loop oversight. You’ll lea…

SharePoint Premium with SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) is the governance backbone that keeps Copilot from turning oversharing into a data leak. You’ll learn how to spot risky sites with Data Access Governance (DAG), lock down visibility with Restricted Access Control (RAC), use Site Access Re…

Your first Copilot Studio agent shouldn’t guess policy—it should cite it. This episode shows how to recreate a bad reply in the Test pane, ground answers in real docs, shape a trustworthy persona, and publish a pilot that survives Teams/SharePoint quirks. Treat Studio as sparring, not proof; ground…

If you can paste the exact title of a file into intranet search and still get nothing back, you don’t have a user problem—you have an Information Architecture (IA) problem. This episode shows how to fix the foundations so both humans and Copilot can actually find things. We break IA into six core e…

Rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot is only the tutorial, not the boss fight. Your first agent may look perfect in Copilot Studio, but production exposes the real challenges: grounding answers in authoritative sources, governance to prevent sprawl, monitoring for reliability, and licensing/cost contr…

Most Dataverse Fabric disasters come down to one bad choice: picking the wrong integration tool for the job. Synapse Link = the scalpel — precision, control, storage ownership, sub-hour sync (down to ~15 min) — expensive in Azure compute if you’re sloppy — requires real engineers + governance…

Old-school contact centers feel like permanent firefighting: fragmented channels, missing context, repeat questions, and burned-out teams. Dynamics 365 Contact Center flips that script with sentiment analytics and Copilot. Real-time models read tone, word choice, and pacing to detect frustration ea…

Hard-coding secrets is the “key under the doormat” of cloud apps. This episode shows how to ditch static passwords and move to short-lived, scoped tokens issued by Microsoft Entra ID, so breaches fizzle instead of cascade. We start with the “Doormat Key Problem”—why credentials proliferate across r…

Drowning in a Power BI model stuffed with 500 cryptic measures like M1, rev_calc1, and TestFinal2? That chaos isn’t just ugly—it’s a productivity tax. Analysts waste hours hunting the “right” number, trust erodes, and duplicate logic spreads. The fix isn’t heroic clicking; it’s treating your model …

Most CRMs act like cold storage for contacts; Dynamics 365 Sales acts like a sales HQ. This episode reframes CRM from passive record-keeper to active command center by wiring Copilot, Outlook, Teams, Power Platform, Power BI, and LinkedIn Sales Navigator into one flow. Instead of tab-hopping and ma…

Licensing isn’t a footnote in your BI plan—it’s the jump scare that wrecks budgets when self-service spreads. This episode maps how Microsoft Fabric goes from “empowering” to “expensive” when workspaces, duplicated datasets, and ad-hoc PPU purchases multiply in the shadows. We unpack the Wild West …

We’re promised six clean stages in Azure’s Cloud Adoption Framework: Strategy, Plan, Ready, Adopt, Govern, Manage. Sounds simple, right? Microsoft technically frames CAF as foundational phases plus ongoing operational discipl...

Most orgs say “data-driven,” but day-to-day they’re raiding 47 different dungeons for the same treasure. This episode shows how to stop rolling saving throws against chaos by equipping the legendary weapon you already own: Power BI embedded across Microsoft 365. Instead of alt-tabbing to a separate…

Making your first Dynamics 365 Finance & Operations (F&O) API call can feel like a minefield—wrong endpoints, missing permissions, and opaque token errors that stall you before you start. This episode strips out the guesswork and walks you through a clean, repeatable path to a working call. You’ll …

Microsoft’s branding roulette—Fabric, OneLake, Lakehouse, Warehouse—makes it hard to see what actually matters. This episode cuts through the names and focuses on the real architecture that determines whether your data program thrives or face-plants. We start with OneLake as the single, tenant-wide…

Power Pages validation shouldn’t feel like rolling a natural 1. In this episode, you’ll learn how to pair VS Code + Power Platform Tools + GitHub Copilot Chat (with the @powerpages participant) to fix flaky validations, demystify Liquid, and speed up front-end work without duct tape. We start by ma…

AI isn’t an edge case in your SIEM anymore—it’s a participant. This episode asks a hard question: when Copilot surfaces a confidential file your user can technically access, is that a breach, a policy gap, or “works as designed”? We walk through why AI access alerts don’t fit classic kill-chain thi…