David | swodle.com

Your Microsoft 365 Tech Partner.

Unlimited support, real security monitoring, and practical AI automation. No contracts, just results.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

The cheap part of an automation/AI project is now the building.

The expensive part is someone sitting there using the thing and noticing it doesn't do what it says.

Forty-three passing tests missed a button that had never worked. A person found it by clicking it.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Microsoft 365 prices went up on 1 July.

Business Basic +17%. Business Standard +12%.

Business Premium: unchanged.

Premium is the one with Defender, Intune, Conditional Access. The gap between Standard and Premium just narrowed, permanently.

Worth a look at what you're on.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Admin doesn't slip because people are lazy.

It slips because nothing bad happens the week you skip it.

Then it's 11 unused licences, a leaver whose login still works, and a contract nobody can find.

Automation's edge isn't intelligence. It's that it never has a busy week.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

A client was about to expense a £10/user booking tool.

They already had one — Microsoft Bookings is included in most M365 plans.

Shared booking page, synced to your calendar, auto reminders, Teams link.

Most SMBs aren't missing tools. They're not using what they pay for.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Claude Cowork isn't a chat box. You point it at a folder and it does the work — reads files, reorganises them, drafts documents, runs multi-step jobs.

The shift from "AI that tells you how" to "AI that does it" is the one that matters.

Most small businesses haven't noticed yet.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

We don't do 12-month contracts.

If we're not good enough that you want to stay, you shouldn't have to.

First month free. No lock-in. Just better IT.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Every "quick IT fix" your team handles themselves adds up.

5 mins on a broken email.
10 mins on a slow machine.
15 mins hunting a file.
That's one person's morning. Every week.
It's not an IT problem. It's a productivity leak.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Microsoft is turning off SMS and voice 2FA for M365.

If your team gets login codes via text, that's changing.

Switch to the Authenticator app. It's free, included in your M365 subscription, and significantly harder to compromise than a text message.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Two years ago: £20k and 6 weeks to build a basic internal system.

Now: a day.

If you've been tolerating a manual process because automating it felt too expensive — revisit that assumption.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

Most cyber attacks exploit vulnerabilities that already have patches available.

The attacker didn't find something exotic. They found a machine nobody had updated.

Update your software. Update your OS. That gets you 99% of the way there.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

That's it. 10 technical wins with built in tools

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

M365 Security Sprint: 10 Days to a Hardened Tenant (Basic/Standard Edition) 🛡️

A 10-part series for Microsoft 365 Admins on Business Basic or Standard. No Intune, no Premium licenses—just actionable technical wins using built-in tools.

[David | swodle.com @swodle]

10: Password Spray🛡️

Enable in Entra ID to block attackers before they guess a password. It distinguishes between a legit user forgetting a password and an attacker trying to brute-force it.

How: Entra ID > Protection > Auth methods > Password protection > Set lockout threshold