February 2021

Feb 26, 2021   |   Cody Bay

Automating expense reporting at Microsoft boosts employee experience

Automating expense reporting is saving the day at Microsoft. Like everywhere else, filing expenses has long been a chore most employees at Microsoft sought to avoid. And the numbers back that up. Instead of spending their time developing new technologies, Microsoft employees spend more than 500,000 hours per year itemizing and filing expense reports. That’s...

Feb 23, 2021   |   Douglas Gantenbein

Microsoft Azure Firewall protects Microsoft's network with Azure Firewall Manager

Microsoft Azure Firewall is the superhero of the internet. It prevents malware from entering corporate networks, blocks phishing attacks, and protects business-critical data. Given how it takes network protection one step further, Azure Firewall Manager is also essential. That’s because maintaining firewalls—which date back to the early days of the internet—can be a headache. They’re...

Feb 19, 2021   |   Cody Bay

Procurement automation enables Microsoft to outfit employee home offices

Thanks to a procurement automation effort being underway at Microsoft when the COVID-19 hit, the company was able to smoothly supply its employees with the equipment they needed to suddenly outfit their home offices. Microsoft responded to a companywide work-from-home order to quickly build out a work from home buying program that could provide device...

Feb 16, 2021   |   Aleenah Ansari

Powering decision making at Microsoft by analyzing data with Microsoft Power BI

Microsoft’s drive to make more and better data-driven decisions is fueled by analyzing data with Microsoft Power BI. But how is it getting employees to analyze their data and build their own visualizations? They’re teaching them. As the saying goes: if you teach someone to fish, you’ll feed them for a lifetime. That’s exactly what...

Feb 11, 2021   |   Douglas Gantenbein

How auto-scaling SAP on Microsoft Azure is benefitting Microsoft

Microsoft has implemented auto-scaling SAP on Microsoft Azure to help its SAP workloads run more efficiently. Why? Like many enterprises, Microsoft runs on SAP. It uses the software to run everything from tracking servers in its supply chain to making sure the company’s 140,000 employees are paid on time. It has one of the largest...

Feb 8, 2021   |   Douglas Gantenbein

Boosting productivity and security at Microsoft with a move to Microsoft Azure

Editor’s note: We’ve republished this blog with a new companion video. Everyone loves progress. But no one loves change. That goes for any manner of things—including how people work. Nonetheless, Microsoft Digital has made big changes that are winning over its employees. As a leading provider of cloud services such as Microsoft Azure, Microsoft has...

Feb 5, 2021   |   Cody Bay

Everyone can approve of the new Microsoft Approvals platform

The Microsoft Approvals platform, which is used by everyone at the company to get stuff done, has a new look and feel that everyone at Microsoft can approve of—at least until it is replaced by something better. Sumeet Deshpande, principal engineering manager for the Microsoft Approvals team in Microsoft Digital, is wrapping up his team’s...