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What’s the Delta with Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse?  

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Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse

What is Microsoft Fabric Lakehouse? That is a great question that can only be answered if we get some definitions straight: Delta Lake – a low-cost data storage framework that stores data in open-source, generic file formats such as Parquet and their metadata, typically in the cloud. Parquet – a data storage file format that organizes and compresses data as columns within groups of rows to optimize query time. Delta – a data storage format combining Parquet files with corresponding JSON metadata to enhance data use and traceability. Lakehouse architecture – a pattern of organizing data that prioritizes data management and optimization features such as ACID transactions (Atomicity, Consistency, Isolation, … Read more

Avoiding the Cliff of Success: When to Back Out of Software Projects   

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software projects

Imagine you’re in a car on a road trip. Everything starts off smoothly and you make good progress. But as you are driving, the four-lane highway becomes a two-lane, then a dusty gravel road, and finally little more than a dirt track that winds up a steep hill. Somewhere along the way you’ve made a wrong turn or two. Now, the car you’re driving isn’t really meant to be off-roading, and the engine light is on, and it is leaking fluid badly. To make it up the last steep slope, you put the pedal to the floor and careen over the last few bumps and the fallen branch of a … Read more

Creating and Configuring Power Platform Pipelines: An Overview  

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Configuring Power Platform Pipelines

Pipelines in Power Platform aim to automate and democratize the execution of the Application Life Cycle Management (ALM) process to allow for the deployment of solutions by citizen and professional developers alike. It simplifies the ALM process by reducing the domain knowledge and effort required to implement life cycle management for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 solutions. This blog will give you an overview of the process of creating and configuring Power Platform Pipelines. Prior to the introduction of Pipelines, citizen developers had to conduct ALM by manually exporting solutions from the development environment and importing into the UAT environment. Then export from UAT to Production or any other target … Read more

Creating Visualizations Using D3 

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Creating Visualizations Using D3

Creating visualizations for applications can be overwhelming and difficult without using the correct tools. Recently, I faced a challenge where I needed to modernize a visualization from a legacy application that used a recursive function to display data dynamically. Creating visualizations for D3 allowed me to overcome that challenge.  What is D3?   D3 is a JavaScript library that allows you to create dynamic and interactive visualizations using built-in templates or creating completely custom visualizations. D3 makes use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG) to allow it to work with HTML and CSS. This also makes it easier to customize and configure as you can do so directly in a CSS stylesheet.  … Read more

Idle Session Timeout: What it is and How it Affects Security & Productivity

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Idle Session Timeout

In today’s digital age, many organizations are now using cloud-based productivity suites such as Microsoft 365 to streamline their operations and enhance collaboration. While Microsoft 365 offers a wide range of tools and features, it also emphasizes security to protect sensitive data and ensure a safe working environment. One important aspect of security management in Microsoft 365 is idle session timeout. In this blog, we’ll explore what it is, why it matters, and how you can configure it to balance security and productivity.  What Is Idle Session Timeout?  Idle session timeout is a security feature that automatically logs out users from their Microsoft 365 accounts after a period of inactivity. … Read more

Adapting to Change: How to Do It and Why It’s Essential  

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Adapting to Change

Some organizations are risk averse which often means they avoid change to reduce risk. This is a false economy, in my opinion. Sometimes, clients ask Imaginet to help them with failed and delayed projects, and for us to be successful, often we need to facilitate cultural change within the organization. When we have the right support in the organization, adapting to change can happen.   When an organization avoids change, especially in software projects, they keep the same code and ignore technical debt, and continue using older versions of components, along with whatever workarounds (hacks) that have been put in place. At some point, they are forced to make changes … Read more

The Imaginet Difference: Boutique In Size with Big Results  

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Adapting to Change

Since 1997, Imaginet has been a proud Microsoft Partner. We offer a variety of Microsoft-related consulting, implementation, and design services for the Microsoft tech stack. Some of these services include enterprise content and records management, data architecture and engineering, application development, SharePoint migration, and more. Despite the numerous services we offer, we have always been boutique in size.   Our full-time staff is spread out across North America – we don’t hire contractors, nor do we ever outsource our work. Why is our boutique size important? How does this make us unique? We provide services similar to other Microsoft Partners across North America, yet our approach is completely different: we prioritize … Read more

QR Code Phishing Attacks: Are You Protected?

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QR Code Phishing Attacks

QR code phishing attacks or “Quishing” are on the rise, and it’s crucial to raise awareness about this evolving threat. Scanning these codes has become second nature to many of us, but have we fully considered the potential risks they pose?  The use of QR codes have become increasingly popular due to the events of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it is easier to access information, websites, and services all while minimizing the risk of spreading germs. Since QR codes are more common than ever, it has led to the rise of QR code scams. It’s essential to be aware of the risks they pose and to be able to identify … Read more

Virtual Workspaces Are Here! How Will You Use Them? 

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My YouTube feed has been full of reviews of the Apple Vision Pro since it became available in the US on February 2. In one of the videos, the content creator used the Vision Pro for working on his script, and several other tasks around his house (See video). This intrigued me and I wondered what it would be like to code in a virtual environment and create virtual workspaces. I don’t have $4k lying around and the Vision Pro isn’t available in Canada yet. So, my ability to try it was rather limited.  For Christmas 2023, I bought myself a Meta Quest 3 headset. Thanks in part to our … Read more

SharePoint Embedded: Full Featured SharePoint Inside a Custom Application 

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SharePoint Embedded

Custom applications that require a lot of document management have always been a challenge to build. Historically, we would build an ASP.NET application and then pass content back and forth to Azure blog storage or make the document available for immediate download (but not store the document in the application after the download is complete). Microsoft has released SharePoint Embedded, a new way to store and manage content in custom applications. SharePoint Embedded offers a headless, API-only pattern to build content apps that integrate management capabilities like collaboration, security, and compliance into any app by storing content inside an enterprise’s existing Microsoft 365 tenant.  Enterprises can use SharePoint Embedded to … Read more