What if the assessment ran on its own?                    

RAP as a Service now allows you to schedule data collection. Yes, you can finally schedule the collector tool to collect and upload data. This has been one of the most commonly requested features and opens the door to a lot of great things for our customers.

Why should I schedule?

We know it's difficult to find time to run through an assessment on a monthly basis. The ability to schedule data collection saves you time and allows you to focus on more urgent matters. Doing this enables the following scenarios:

• Validate your fixes. Not only do we analyze each upload for new risks and issues we also automatically mark resolved those that are no longer active.
• We're looking out for you. We'll proactively alert you if we detect certain critical issues that need immediate attention. (We'll share more details on this feature in a future post.)
• Show progress. Easily see how your environment trends over time and stay on top of the latest issues.

How does it work?

We kept it simple. All you need to do is:

1. Download and run the latest version of the RAP as a Service collector tool from the Premier Proactive Services website.

• Download the collector tool from your Get Ready or Assessment Dashboard pages. Upgrade your existing installation and load the new assessment package, if necessary.
  

2. Open the new Schedule screen to configure how often to run the tool.

3. Once scheduled, the collector tool runs through the entire discovery, collection and upload steps hands-free. All you need to do is regularly sign into our website and review the results.

How to set a schedule?

1. After you the update the collector tool and package, complete the Check, Collect and Submit steps.

2. On the Submit screen, click the Schedule button to open the Schedule screen.

3. Once on the Schedule screen, configure how often you want the tool to run then click Create Schedule. Behind the scenes we create a scheduled task using your credentials. (Tip: Be sure to update this whenever changing your password.)

4. You can edit the schedule as needed via this same screen. You can also turn the schedule off/on if you like.

Try it now!

This new feature is available now*. All you need to do is download the latest collector tool and run it. Give it a try now!

Thank you,
The Premier Proactive Services team

NOTES:

• RAP as a Service for SharePoint Server does not support the scheduling feature. We wanted to enable it for SharePoint however its security model doesn't allow us to schedule things the way we need. We'll revisit this based upon demand.
  
• The Scheduling Data Collection knowledgebase article in our support site includes more details on how this feature works.

Hello RAP as a Service Community! Here is a brief description of a change we are making to the RAP as a Service dashboard.

Background

The RAP as a Service Dashboard has a Top Issues area displaying the five top issues for the given technology. The Top Issues are identified for each RAP as a Service solution based on their frequency of occurrence and importance to resolve. The intent of the Top Issues area is to direct attention to the issues that should be resolved first. However, the placement of the Top Issues area in the bottom left corner of the dashboard did not leave enough space to display the full issue title.

Figure 1 - Original Dashboard

Changing the placement of the Top Issues

Given the importance of bringing attention to the Top Issues, the Top Issues area have moved to a more prominent location on the dashboard to increase its visibility and allow the full issue title to be displayed.

Figure 2 - New Dashboard layout

We received feedback from customers that the Issue Benchmark graph was difficult to understand. Therefore, we decided to let the Top Issues take its place. We are evaluating the benefit of reintroducing the Issue Benchmark in an updated version at a later stage.

Future enhancements to Top Issues

Going forward, we are sharpening the alignment of Top Issues with issues known to be the root cause critical situations with severe business impact. It is important to establish the appropriate sense of urgency around resolving such issues, while presenting information that quickly provides an understanding of why and how to resolve them. Moving the Top Issues to a more prominent location on the dashboard is just a small step in that direction.

Wrap-Up

We hope that this change makes it easier to for you to give these important issues the attention they need.

We welcome your feedback on this change on https://ppas.uservoice.com. Please enter your feedback under the "Issues & Risks" category.

Hello RAP as a Service Community! Here is a brief description of a new capability that we have just released.

Background

We have received feedback from customers that they want a way to filter issues that are not applicable to their organization, to enable them to better focus on the applicable issues.  Customers were resorting to tactics such as marking issues as Resolved – even though it was not – to remove the non-applicable issues from the Active Issues view.  Subsequently, this prevented them from re-running the assessment, as another submission would reset the state of any unresolved issues to Active.

Non Applicable Issues

Customers will now see a new Not Applicable tab in the Issues page.  Clicking on this tab will show the guidance below.

Classifying an Issue as Not Applicable

When a customer user looks at the Issues page, a new Issue drop down will appear.

Upon changing the state of Issue, you are prompted with a dialog asking for a description of why you decided that this issue was not applicable to your organization.  This comment will be stored in the Issue Comments section so others will understand why this state changed.

After the issue has been marked as Not Applicable, it will appear in the Not Applicable tab.  Notice that the number of Not Applicable issues is always reflected in the tab title to alert or remind you of issues marked as Not Applicable.

The Microsoft Engineer

The Microsoft Engineer can view the issues that you have chosen to mark as Not Applicable using the Not Applicable tab but cannot mark any issues Not Applicable.

Reporting

Not Applicable issues will still appear as they normally do in all of the reports generated by the Microsoft Engineer.  In the customer generated Excel report, the Not Applicable issues appear separate in their own tab.

The reports generated by the Microsoft Engineer represents Microsoft's point of view of which issues are applicable to your environment, while the customer generated Excel report represents your view. The Engineer retains the ability to include issues in the reports using the In Report check box.

Wrap-Up

We hope that this new capability enables customers to focus on resolving the issues that are most important to their organization, removing any roadblocks that were preventing them from re-running the assessment to get the most up-to-date view of the organizations environment.

What are you waiting for? Visit the Premier Proactive Services website, mark those issues that don't apply to your organization, and resubmit to get a more-up-to-date representation of your current environment risks!

We welcome your feedback on this new feature on https://ppas.uservoice.com. Please enter your feedback under the "Issues & Risks" category.

Great news! French language support is now formally released. This is available for RAP as a Service for Active Directory, Exchange Server and SQL Server.

Try it out

Browse to the Premier Proactive Services website and sign in (registered users only). The website will auto-detect your language or you can click the globe icon in the footer and select your preferred language.

Two major announcements regarding language support on our Premier Proactive Services website.

• Chinese (Simplified) and Korean languages are now formally released.
• French is now available in Preview.

These languages are available for RAP as a Service for Active Directory, SQL Server, and Exchange Server.

We know there's a lot of demand for these new languages so we're very happy to make them immediately available.

Try it out

The website will normally auto-detect your language however you can also click on the globe icon in the footer and select your preferred language.

Feedback

We'd love to hear from you. Please browse to our UserVoice feedback site to tell us about your experience.

Summary

We know a lot of people have been eagerly awaiting the addition of these new languages.  Please sign in to our website and try them out!

Chinese (Simplified) and Korean languages are now available in Preview on our Premier Proactive Services website. This brings our number of supported languages to 5. We now have:

• Languages: German, Japanese, and Spanish + Chinese (Simplified) Preview, Korean Preview
• Technologies: Active Directory, SQL Server, and Exchange Server

Try it out

The website will normally try to auto-detect your language however you can also click on the globe icon in the footer and select your preferred language.

Feedback

We'd love to hear from you. Please browse to our UserVoice feedback site to tell us about your experience.

Coming soon

The team is working hard to enable French as the next supported language. We hope to have something to share around that in the near future. Stay tuned.

Summary

We know a lot of people have been eagerly awaiting the addition of these new languages. Please sign in to our website and try them out!

Workshop Library on-demand Trials are Now Available!

RAP as a Service subscribers can now sign up for a free Trial subscription of Workshop Library on-demand. Workshop Library on-demand is a subscription-based offering that includes hundreds of on-demand video workshops tailored towards enterprises using Microsoft products. The entire library of content is now available to try via a free trial subscription.

Sign up for your free 7 day Trial

Assuming you're not already a Workshop Library on-demand subscriber you'll see a new My education free trial link at the top of the page the next time you sign in into the Premier Proactive Services website. Click the link to learn more about the trial.

From the Try Before You Buy page you can watch a brief introduction video or simply click Get Started! to start your 7 day trial.

Your 7 day trial gives you immediate access to our entire course catalog. You can watch any or all videos throughout the trial period.

Sign up for your free trial now!

Simply sign in into the Premier Proactive Services website, click My education free trial at the top of the page then click Get Started!

Frequently Asked Questions

Q. How do I sign up for a free trial?
A. Simply sign in into the Premier Proactive Services website, click My education free trial at the top of the page then click Get Started!

Q. Who can sign up for the free trial?
A. Any RAP as a Service subscriber that does not already have a Workshop Library on-demand subscription. People that already have a full subscription will not see the free trial link.

Q. How long does the free trial last once I sign up?
A. The free trial lasts for 7 calendar days during which you can watch as many videos as you want.

Q. How do I watch video content after I sign up?
A. Navigate to the Course Catalog page via the My Education tab at the top of the page.

Q. What happens when my trial ends?
A. You will still be able to browse the Course Catalog however you will no longer be able to play videos. Contact your Microsoft Technical Account Manager if you want to upgrade to a full subscription.

Q. How often can I sign up for a free trial?
A. You may only sign up once for a free trial. If you enjoyed the content and want to continue accessing it contact your Microsoft Technical Account Manager to upgrade to a full subscription.

Q. How long will this free trial be made available?
A. We do not currently have an end date in mind. We'll post an update if that changes.

This Preview represents work that is not yet fully finalized. Specific functionality and appearance are subject to change as we progress through the Preview period.

New and Improved Video Viewing Experience

We are pleased to announce the Preview release of an improved Workshop Library on-demand video viewing experience. This updated experience addresses some of the more fundamental gaps in the way customers leverage their Workshop Library on-demand subscriptions. This includes the way they navigate between their courses and videos, and the video player experience itself.

This Preview is available to all current and new Workshop Library on-demand subscribers. Subscribers will retain access once this moves from Preview to final release.

Learn more

Welcoming you is an integrated Learn More experience. This dialog will automatically appear the first time you sign in. Navigate through this experience to learn more about it or close it and jump right in.

Course Catalog

Customers now enjoy a completely new Course Catalog experience to navigate between and watch videos.

Key changes:

• Streamlined navigation.
  • The new filter area on left, with course tiles on right, allows for significantly easier navigation between courses and videos.
• Better filtering.
  • Filtering is now "sticky" which means we remember your previous filtering selections. You no longer need to re-apply your filter every time you sign in.
  • Count of courses allows you to know how many courses are available per category.
  • You can collapse/expand the filter area if you need more or less space for viewing the course tiles.
• Course tiles.
  • Courses appear as tiles with key information at your fingertips.
    • Title, short description, duration, level and more.
  • Click on a course tile to view its videos.

View Videos

Once you've clicked on a course tile you'll see this new video viewing page where the course's modules and videos are displayed on the left, and the video player on the right.

Key changes:

• List of videos.
  • View the list of available videos, per module, on the left.
  • Click the video you want to watch.
• Bigger default video player.
  • We've heard your feedback and made the video player more of the Hero on this page by increasing its default size. You can still expand to full screen if you want an even larger player.
• Watched videos.
  • A green check-mark appears next to any videos you've watched.

Course Overview

Click Course Overview on the left to see the course description and other key information.

Provide Feedback

Click the Preview link on the Course Catalog page to access a direct feedback link to our UserVoice site. Your feedback is always welcome.

Try It Out

We This new and improved video viewing experience is available today to all Workshop Library on-demand subscribers.  Please sign into the website and check it out.

We hope you enjoy this early Preview and look forward to sharing even more about what's coming in the near future.

Jane Lewis,
Program Manager

We're happy to announce the formal release of RAP as a Service in additional languages

• New Languages: German, Spanish, and Japanese
• Technologies: Active Directory, SQL Server, and Exchange Server

This functionality entered broad Preview on August 6th when they were enabled for all RAP as a Service subscriptions. Since then, we've gotten a lot of great feedback. We have been working with our translation vendors to ensure the quality and effectiveness of our translations continue to improve. All of those changes are either already available or will appear very soon.

Availability

All new and existing RAP as a Service subscribers have access to these new features. In fact, besides this formal announcement there is essentially no visible change.

Learn more

Check out this blog post for more information on how support for more languages in RAP as a Service works.

We're happy to announce the formal release of the following features.

• Assessment Dashboard
• Questionnaire
• Issues & Risks
• Collected Data

These features entered broad Preview on August 6^th where we enabled them for all RAP as a Service subscriptions. Since then, we've gotten a lot of great feedback both on the good side (customers have told us they really like the new visual experiences) and around ways to improve them. Especially for the latter, we implemented two dozen fixes or enhancements based on your feedback. All of those changes are either already available or will appear very soon.

Availability

All new and existing RAP as a Service subscribers have access to these new features. In fact, besides this formal announcement there is essentially no visible change except that the "Preview" link on each page will disappear.

Summary

Take advantage of these features right away. Sign in, download & run the latest Collector and go from there.

Learn more

Check out these blog posts for more information on these new features.

Walkthrough Videos

• New Walkthrough Videos for RAP as a Service

Assessment Dashboard

• New Assessment Dashboard

Questionnaire

• New and Improved Questionnaire Page

Issues & Risks

• New and Improved Issues & Risks Page

Collected Data

• New and Improved Collected Data Page