Apache Spark started as a research project at a university in 2009, and it grew into the engine most big data platforms still run on today. Azure Databricks is how Microsoft and the people who built Spark turned that engine into a service you can spin up inside Azure.In this episode of Simply Explained you will learn: What Azure Databricks Actually Is Why the Lakehouse Idea Exists Apache Spark, in Plain Words Notebooks, and Where You Actually Work Clusters: The Machines That Do the Heavy Li...

Every Azure story starts the same way, with one subscription, one team, and one bill, so everything feels simple. Then a project needs its own space, so someone creates a second subscription.In this episode of Simply Explained you will learn: Why Azure Turns Into a Mess Without a Map The Subscription Is Where Your Azure Actually Lives Management Groups Are the Folder Above Your Subscriptions How Permissions and Policies Flow Down the Tree What a Good Structure Actually Looks Like Naming, C...

An outside company can manage your Azure setup without ever holding your password. That's what Azure Lighthouse does, and it's Microsoft's fix for a weekly headache.In this episode of Simply Explained you will learn: The Two Houses Problem What Azure Lighthouse Actually Is The Handshake: How the Door Gets Built Who Uses It and Who Approves It The Security Story: Who Really Holds the Keys What Azure Lighthouse Is Not The Recap and One Question Simply Explained by M365.FM breaks down Micro...

Episode DescriptionAnyone with a laptop can send an email that pretends to be your company. Because the email system we all rely on was built to move messages rather than verify who is actually sending them, a fake invoice or a fraudulent note from your manager can easily land in a real inbox with your name on it. Fortunately, three records in your DNS can quietly close that gap—yet a surprising number of organizations only ever set up one of them. In this episode of M365 FM, we break down SPF,...

Normally the cloud bills you after the fact. You start a virtual machine, it runs for a month, and the bill arrives based on what you used.In this episode of Simply Explained you will learn: Why Pay Before You Use It Azure Reservations, Simply Explained Azure Savings Plans, the Looser Option What Each One Actually Covers Which One Fits One Year or Three Where Your Discount Applies The Only Math That Matters The Mistakes That Waste Money A Quick Recap and One Question Simply Explained ...

The tier you pick on Azure App Service decides what your app is even allowed to do. It isn't just about choosing hosting—it's about unlocking a feature set, controlling your billing, and managing how your cloud workloads scale. In this episode of M365 FM, we break down what Azure App Service actually is, how the App Service plan dictates your resources, and the critical traps that catch developers and beginners off guard. Whether you are hosting a small internal web app, building a robust REST ...

Machine learning is a program that finds patterns in examples instead of following rules a person wrote by hand. That's the whole idea.In this episode of Simply Explained you will learn: What Machine Learning Really Is What Azure Machine Learning Actually Does The Workspace Data and Compute Building a Model Turning It Into Predictions Keeping It Working What You'd Actually Build Recap and One Question Simply Explained by M365.FM breaks down Microsoft 365, Azure and modern IT topics in ...

Invoices, contracts, receipts, forms, scanned PDFs, and email attachments contain valuable business information — but most automation still struggles to turn those documents into reliable, structured data. In this episode of M365 FM – Simply Explained, we break down Microsoft Content Understanding, Document AI, OCR, AI Builder, Power Automate, Dataverse, and Power Apps and explain how they work together to transform documents into usable business data and automated processes. You’ll learn why ...

AI was supposed to clear the backlog, accelerate decisions, and give every team a smarter way to work. Instead, many organizations now have Microsoft Copilot, Power BI, Microsoft Fabric, AI agents, and more data than ever before—while important decisions still crawl through meetings because nobody fully trusts the numbers or knows who can act on them. The technology spend keeps rising. The action does not. The problem is often not a lack of AI. It is the absence of an operating model connecting ...

A salesperson updates a customer address in Dynamics 365 Sales. Later, someone in finance opens the same customer and still sees the old address. Which one is correct? When sales, service, finance, and operations work in different applications, shared business data can quickly become duplicated or inconsistent. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Dual-write connects Finance and Operations apps with Microsoft Dataverse so supported records such as customers, address...

A supplier invoice arrives. The goods may already be sitting in your warehouse or the service may already be complete—but what actually needs to happen before money leaves the company? Dynamics 365 Accounts Payable connects vendor records, invoices, purchase orders, receiving, invoice matching, approvals, payment runs, bank accounts, and settlement into one controlled financial process. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Finance manages the complete journey from r...

What happens when your sales team works in Dynamics 365, but inventory lives in a warehouse system, invoices live in finance, and product information lives in an ERP? You could copy all that information into Dataverse, but then you create duplicate records, synchronization jobs, delays, and another place where information can become outdated. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Virtual Tables, formerly known as Virtual Entities, provide live access to external busi...

What happens when sales, purchasing, warehouse teams, and your online store all have different information about the same product? A supplier changes a specification, one spreadsheet gets updated, another system doesn't, and suddenly customers receive outdated information or employees order the wrong item. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Product Information Management (PIM) creates a shared product definition across the business and manages products, product ma...

A customer wants 100 bicycles next month. You already have some finished bicycles in stock, wheels are arriving from a supplier, frames are stored somewhere else, and your production line is booked for the next two weeks. What should you buy, what should you build, what should you move—and when does each action need to happen? In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Master Planning connects customer demand, inventory, purchasing, production, bills of materials, lead ti...

A customer clicks Buy, but the product could be sitting in a central warehouse, a nearby store, another legal entity, or with a fulfillment partner. The customer doesn't care about that complexity. They expect a clear delivery promise and their package to arrive. Dynamics 365 Intelligent Order Management coordinates that journey across sales channels, inventory locations, fulfillment systems, warehouses, carriers, and billing platforms. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Intel...

Dynamics 365 Business Central already provides capabilities for finance, sales, purchasing, inventory, projects, and other core business processes. But no two organizations operate exactly the same way. A company might need specialized shipping, local financial reports, additional approval rules, bank integrations, electronic invoicing, or a connection to another business system. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Business Central extensions add these capabilities without dire...

What happens when someone at work needs a new laptop, raw materials for production, safety equipment, consulting services, or even a cleaning contract? In many organizations, purchasing still involves emails, spreadsheets, approval messages, vendor quotes, delivery notes, and invoices spread across different systems. Dynamics 365 Procurement and Sourcing connects these activities into one controlled source-to-pay process. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Supply ...

You made the sale and sent the invoice—but when does the money actually reach your account, and what happens when it doesn't? Dynamics 365 Accounts Receivable connects customer accounts, invoices, payment terms, incoming payments, settlement, credit management, collections, disputes, and overdue balances inside Dynamics 365 Finance. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters follows one customer balance from the original sale through invoicing and payment—and shows what happens when payment arrive...

Dynamics 365 Warehouse Management turns inventory records into guided physical work on the warehouse floor. Knowing that 200 units exist is only the beginning. Warehouse teams need to know exactly where those units are stored, whether they are available, which customer orders they belong to, and what workers should do with them next. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Warehouse Management connects receiving, put-away, storage, replenishment, picking, packing, ship...

Dynamics 365 Transportation Management connects the movement of physical goods with sales orders, purchase orders, warehouse operations, carriers, routes, rates, loads, and freight costs. Instead of managing transportation through separate spreadsheets, emails, carrier rate sheets, and phone calls, organizations can create a connected transportation plan directly inside Dynamics 365 Supply Chain Management. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Transportation Management works fro...

A conveyor stops in the middle of a shift, a forklift won't start, or a pump suddenly begins leaking. Before anyone can repair the equipment, the business needs answers: Who is responsible? When was it last serviced? Which parts are required? What happened during the previous repair? Dynamics 365 Asset Management provides one central place for this information. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Asset Management helps organizations track physical equipment, preven...

Dynamics 365 Dataverse Integration is easier to understand once you stop thinking about Dynamics 365 and Dataverse as two completely separate systems that constantly need to synchronize customer data. For Dynamics 365 applications such as Sales and Customer Service, Dataverse provides the shared data foundation underneath the applications. Accounts, contacts, leads, opportunities, cases, activities, relationships, permissions, and business rules can all live within this structured environment. I...

Dynamics 365 Inventory Management gives businesses one shared record for the products, materials, parts, and other stock moving through their organization. Instead of purchasing, warehouse, sales, production, and finance maintaining separate versions of inventory information, Dynamics 365 connects quantities, locations, availability, ownership, movements, and financial value. In this episode of M365 FM, Mirko Peters explains how Dynamics 365 Inventory Management works from supplier receipt to cu...

Dynamics 365 Financial Reporting turns the financial data already posted in Dynamics 365 Finance into structured reports that finance teams, managers, auditors, and executives can actually use. Instead of rebuilding financial statements in multiple spreadsheets every month, organizations can use the general ledger, main accounts, financial dimensions, reporting categories, and predefined report structures to create consistent income statements, balance sheets, cash flow reports, trial balances, ...