Blog · Field notes

The writing behind the checklists.

Context, trade-offs, and the “why” behind each checkpoint PDF. No fluff, no AI-generated listicles, if I haven’t done it myself, I don’t write about it.

Each post is paired with a checklist

Posts here are companions to the downloadable migration PDFs, one email, one checklist, no drip sequence.

See all checkpoint PDFs

Topics

Plan

Power Pages vs SharePoint sites: who the audience is decides it

SharePoint sites are for people inside your tenant. Power Pages is for everyone outside it. One question, who needs to use this, settles almost every case. Here's the honest split.

Jun 5, 2026

Govern

Restricted Content Discovery: the Copilot safety switch you shouldn't flip everywhere

Restricted Content Discovery hides a sensitive site from Microsoft 365 Copilot and org-wide search. It's a genuinely useful brake, but Microsoft warns that overusing it degrades search and Copilot, so it pays to be picky about which sites get it.

May 21, 2026

Execute

SharePoint Quick Steps vs Power Automate, the no-code button that replaces half your simple flows

SharePoint Quick Steps puts one-click action buttons on every list row, no flow required. Here's the honest decision framework for when a button beats a Power Automate flow, and when it doesn't.

May 19, 2026

Execute

SharePoint 2013 workflows died April 2, recovering the ones you lost

Missed the migration window? Your SharePoint Online approval and notification workflows have already stopped. Here's how to recover them: inventory, triage, rebuild.

May 17, 2026

Plan

Your SharePoint approval workflow stopped on April 2, rebuild it in Power Automate

SharePoint 2013 approval workflows were retired from SharePoint Online on April 2, 2026. Here's the fast version: why it broke, and the step-by-step rebuild as a Power Automate flow.

May 16, 2026

Discover

SharePoint Server vs SharePoint Online: should you just move to the cloud?

A plain-English read on what an SMB actually loses and gains by moving off SharePoint Server, and why your customization list, not your user count, decides the migration.

Apr 23, 2026

Plan

Run a permissions audit before you migrate SharePoint

A pre-migration permissions audit is cheap insurance. Skip it, or rush it, and you discover broken inheritance, orphaned access, and dropped grants one mystery support ticket at a time after cutover.

Apr 15, 2026

Execute

What one SharePoint cutover weekend actually looks like (hour by hour)

The hour-by-hour runbook for a single SharePoint Online cutover weekend. Lock the source, run the final delta, migrate in waves, and make the go/no-go rollback call at the 6-hour mark, before you're too tired to make it well.

Apr 8, 2026

Validate

The post-migration failures that wait until day 30

Most silent failures after a SharePoint migration don't show up the morning after cutover. They surface around day 30, exactly when everyone has moved on. Here's the three-pass validation schedule that catches them.

Apr 2, 2026

Govern

Turn on Copilot without leaking your HR folder

Microsoft 365 Copilot only shows users what they could already open, so a salary sheet shared to 'everyone' in 2019 isn't a Copilot leak, it's an oversharing leak Copilot finally made findable. Here's what to fix before you flip the switch.

Mar 25, 2026

Newsletter

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One short email each time a new checkpoint PDF goes live. No drip sequence, no upsell, unsubscribe in one click.

Plain English, dated, and pulled from real engagements. Written by Geri Crroj, Microsoft 365 consultant, Ontario.