The European SharePoint, Office 365 & Azure Conference (ESPC 18)—Europe’s largest independent conference on Microsoft technologies— is just around the corner. This year’s event (November 26-29) will draw over 2,000 guests to Copenhagen. At harmon.ie, we are excited to be attending, where we will be discussing how Office 365 is changing along with what the future holds for SharePoint and Azure.
harmon.ie at ESPC 18
While Office 365 has revolutionized the way we work, the multitude of new Office 365 tools and services also risks exposing us to information overload. Earlier this year, we investigated the effects of too many apps in the workplace and found that workers can lose up to 25% of their time switching between apps.
While new and cutting-edge technology is generally a benefit to organizations, the challenge becomes how best to take advantage of it all without getting overcome by information overload and confusion for your end users.
One of the conference sessions you should mark in your diary is “Overcome Information Overload with Office 365: The Key is the Microsoft Graph” hosted by harmon.ie’s VP of Product Strategy, David Lavenda. David will discuss the new challenges introduced by the growing Microsoft app market. He will focus on leveraging the Microsoft Graph and Graph Connect to reduce information overload in Office 365, helping enterprises get the most out of their Microsoft investments. harmon.ie will also host a ‘Lunch and Learn’ session with leading European enterprises who will share their SharePoint journeys and will be on hand to answer questions from the audience.
Get up to date with Office 365
The obvious place to begin at ESPC 18 is with Microsoft’s keynote speech, which will discuss the potential of Office 365. Not only will there be more about the Microsoft Graph and Azure, they’ll also discuss the future of the SharePoint platform.
This session will be a great way to explore the potential integration solutions that Office 365 provides. A talk about the effect of Office 365 on the modern workplace will also open up great discussions about employee culture and personal relationships with technology. This talk will deal with employee burnout, an important topic in the industry.
The future of the Microsoft Graph
Darrel Miller, Senior Program Manager at Microsoft will host a talk exploring what’s in store for the future of the Microsoft Graph. The platform integrates multiple services, making it an essential tool for intelligent apps. Creating workflows, managing documents, and tracking employee information are just a few features. It’s an industry giant, hosting data for 90% of all Fortune 500 companies. David Pann, General Manager of Global Search Business at Microsoft, pointed out at the SMX East event that the Microsoft Graph collects data from the whole Microsoft ecosystem, so it’s only going to become more powerful in the future.
You can also attend a session about Microsoft Graph integration and APIs for some background about Graph integration with OneDrive and SharePoint.
Why Azure is essential
One of Microsoft’s keynote speeches will discuss Azure and its coming developments. Azure is the key to accessing and using Office 365 data via Microsoft Graph data connect. The cloud allows us to structure data from multiple apps by auto-generated topics, which helps eliminate information overload for workers.
It’s essential that smart applications can harness and structure cloud data, so stay up to date with Azure news during ESPC 18. Microsoft announced Azure IoT Central this month, which means other new capabilities are on the horizon. Another session will feature some of these ideas in a demonstration of the potential of Azure IoT, Office 365, and cognitive services.
What’s next for SharePoint?
As expected at a marquee event for the platform, the future of SharePoint will be a vital topic for discussion at this year’s conference. A range of key sessions will explore how SharePoint benefits teamwork and what’s on the horizon for one of Microsoft’s key solutions.
During Microsoft Ignite 2018 SharePoint was featured heavily. Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper also nodded towards the future potential for AI and mixed reality integrations for SharePoint. With the release of SharePoint 2019 scheduled for this month, we’re sure much more will be revealed at ESPC 18.
Get prepared for harmon.ie 10
In May, we announced the very first Microsoft Graph application: harmon.ie 10.
harmon.ie 10 will be available for general release at the end of this year, but you can join us and register for our Early Access Program now. We’d also love to find out what you think at ESPC 18, so if you’re attending, make sure you come and say hi!
