Welcome to the May 12 - 18, 2019 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.
There were five additions to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, all for Microsoft Teams and Outlook on the web, including a new cloud document sharing experience.
There is one new event, also this week's spotlight event, which is the SharePoint Virtual Summit on Tuesday, May 21, 2019 at 12pm Pacific.
Blog posts in this week's roundup include information on the availability of Planner notifications in Microsoft Teams, recent updates to Outlook mobile, general availability of the Yammer conversations web part in SharePoint, and the enablement of "Section" in Microsoft Forms.
Noteworthy item highlights include a Microsoft IT Showcase article on improving employee engagement with live events in Microsoft 365, a quick look at Supervision policies in Microsoft 365, the removal of the 16-character limit for passwords in Azure Active Directory, and the public preview of Azure Active Directory conditional access for combined registration experience for Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Self-Service Password Reset (SSPR).
OFFICE 365 ROADMAP
Below are the items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week…
|
Feature ID
|
App / Service
|
Title |
Description |
Status
|
Added
|
Estimated Release
|
More Info |
|
49152
|
Outlook
Web
|
Outlook on the web - bold calendar event colors |
Users will be able to choose between bold and light colors for their calendar events in Outlook on the web. Users can toggle bold event colors in the Calendar settings by going to the gear icon or in Outlook settings. |
In development
|
05/17/2019
|
May CY2019
|
n / a |
|
51234
|
Teams
|
Microsoft Teams - Improved Channel File Tab Experience |
We continue to bring the power of SharePoint into Teams. The new experience in the file tab of a channel includes the ability to sync files to your computer, more view options, and lifecycle signals. Additionally, you can pin and check out files. |
In development
|
05/17/2019
|
June CY2019
|
n / a |
|
51452
|
Teams
Office ProPlus
|
Microsoft Teams desktop app coming to existing installs of Office 365 ProPlus and Microsoft/Office 365 Business/Business Premium |
In the second phase of an effort to improve and streamline users initial experience with Teams, we're making an enhancement so that the desktop Teams client will now be downloaded by default when new existing users with Office 365 ProPlus, Microsoft 365 Business, and Microsoft 365 Business Premium apps. With this change your users will no longer need to do a separate installation of Microsoft Teams in order to use Teams functionality. We'll begin rolling this feature out soon. |
In development
|
05/17/2019
|
June CY2019
|
Deploy Microsoft Teams with Office 365 ProPlus |
|
51464
|
Teams
|
Microsoft Teams - Per-team and Cross-team analytics |
Get more insights into how you and your colleagues are using Teams. As an individual, you can see activity data for all teams that you are part of in a single view. Cross-team analytics are found in "Manage teams" below the list of joined teams. Per-team Analytics, found in "Manage team" after clicking on the ellipsis alongside a specific team name, provides temporal-based charts for message and active user counts, plus deeper breakdowns of user types and activity trends. |
In development
|
05/17/2019
|
June CY2019
|
n / a |
|
51553
|
Outlook
Web
|
Outlook on the web - new cloud doc sharing experience |
Outlook on the web is updating how you share cloud docs from OneDrive and SharePoint. Now when you paste a the link for a OneDrive or SharePoint file in a message, it will replace it with the name of the file and the corresponding Office app icon. That link will also allow you to manage permissions for the file using a new sharing dialogue. |
In development
|
05/17/2019
|
June CY2019
|
n / a |
UPCOMING EVENTS
Upgrade 101: Managing your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams (Part 1)
As an existing Skype for Business customer, we understand that upgrading to a new technology can be confusing and are committed to supporting you on your journey to Microsoft Teams. Through our two upgrade classes, you will find everything you need to plan and implement your upgrade. Part 1 is focused on upgrade planning and user readiness. Targeting project stakeholders with accountability for Skype for Business to Teams upgrade success and user readiness/change managers, this session serves as the foundation for your upgrade planning, including: (1) An overview of our proven, upgrade success framework, (2) Real-world customer examples, (3) Insights into facilitating user readiness and upgrade acceptance, and (4) Orientation to key upgrade guidance resources.
Upgrade 101: Managing your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams (Part 2)
As an existing Skype for Business customer, we understand that upgrading to a new technology can be confusing and are committed to supporting you on your journey to Microsoft Teams. Through our two upgrade classes, you will find everything you need to plan and implement your upgrade. Part 2 is understanding coexistence and interoperability. Designed for the IT Pro/technical experts implementing the migration from Skype for Business to Teams, this session will arm you with the information you need to know before migrating your users, including: (1) End user experiences during the upgrade, (2) Available journey options an organization can take from online or on-premises as the starting point, and (3) Routing and federation experiences.
Make the switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams: End User Guidance
Designed specifically for Skype for Business end users, this course offers everything you need to help make the transition to Microsoft Teams. We'll focus on the core communication capabilities you use today, chat and meetings, as well as provide an orientation to additional collaboration functionality Teams has to offer. The session is also available on demand at https://aka.ms/fromskypetoteamsondemand.
Getting Started with Microsoft Teams
This 60-minute session introduces you to the key activities needed to get started with Microsoft Teams today. From setting your profile, to running a meeting, users will leave this session with the foundation needed to use Teams with confidence. The session is also available on demand at https://aka.ms/teamsgettingstartedondemand.
Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks (Part 1)
Designed for those who are already familiar with Microsoft Teams, our Tips and Tricks sessions offer insights, best practices and advanced functionality to help optimize how Teams can work for you. Each session will also include a few real-world examples of how customers are using Microsoft Teams today. Part 1 is focused on tips for conversations and meetings. Many of our interactions start as a simple chat. Learn how you can take those conversations to the next level, including: (1) Formatting messages to help increase response rates, (2) Managing conversations to easily track and follow-up, (3) Organizing conversations, keeping important and active chats front-and-center, (4) Expanding conversations into a full meeting experience, and more. Prefer to watch this session on your own time or simply want a refresher after attending the live training? Access the consolidated on-demand version of Tips and Tricks here: https://aka.ms/teamstipsandtricksondemand.
Microsoft Teams Tips and Tricks (Part 2)
Designed for those who are already familiar with Microsoft Teams, our Tips and Tricks sessions offer insights, best practices and advanced functionality to help optimize how Teams can work for you. Each session will also include a few real-world examples of how customers are using Microsoft Teams today. Organizing your workflow and projects in Teams can really help simplify productivity. Join us for Part 2 of this series, where you'll learn tips including: (1) Implementing effective strategies creating and managing teams and channels, (2) Leveraging best practices for channel-based conversations, (3) Utilizing a personal team to manage your own productivity, (4) Designing your workspace to quickly find relevant content in Teams, and more. Prefer to watch this session on your own time or simply want a refresher after attending the live training? Access the consolidated on-demand version of Tips and Tricks here: https://aka.ms/teamstipsandtricksondemand.
Maximizing Teams Meetings
The average employee spends approximately 30% of their working life in meetings. But meetings in Microsoft Teams are designed to be flexible and enable different types of connections for all the ways that work needs to get done. For users who are familiar with Microsoft Teams but want to better understand and optimize the Teams meeting experience, this session provides guidance into how to create spontaneous and scheduled meetings, leverage the pre, during and post-meeting features, identifying supported devices, and more.
Customer Immersion Experience: Simplifying your data privacy & compliance journey
Join us for a hands-on introduction to Microsoft 365 Compliance features and an opportunity to experience powerful solutions across the data lifecycle of assess, protect and respond. During this 2-hour interactive session, you will explore how to: (1) Understand your compliance from a single pane of glass, (2) Make identity the new perimeter, (3) Discover and govern sensitive data across clouds, devices and apps, (4) Recognize attacks, detect breaches, and recover quickly using automation, and (5) Streamline your operational processes and understand your security posture. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Azure Active Directory Webinars for May
When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled from May 14 - 22, 2019 | Are you looking to deploy Azure Active Directory quickly and easily? We are offering free webinars on key Azure Active Directory deployment topics to help you get up and running. Sessions include Getting Ready for Azure AD, Azure AD Connect Health, Streamlining Password Management Using Azure AD, and more. Each 1-hour webinar is designed to support IT Pros in quickly rolling out Azure Active Directory features to their organization. All webinars are free of cost and will include an anonymous Q&A session with our Engineering Team. So, come with your questions! Capacity is limited. Sign up for one or all of the sessions today! Note: There are also some sessions available on-demand.
SharePoint Virtual Summit
When: Tuesday, May 21, 2019 at 12pm PT | At this year's event, we'll bring you the live coverage of the opening keynote at the 2019 SharePoint Conference. We'll share our vision, roadmap, and latest innovations across SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer, Microsoft Teams, Stream, and Microsoft 365. You'll hear from Microsoft Corporate Vice President Jeff Teper on how SharePoint and Microsoft 365 can connect you, your teams, and your organization. We'll explore how customers are bringing people, content, and applications together to engage their employees and empower teamwork. After attending, you'll understand how SharePoint and Microsoft 365 can help you drive digital transformation in your workplace.
Microsoft Security Intelligence Report (SIR) Webinar
Want us to walk you through the most important insights from our Security Intelligence Report (SIR)? In the 24th edition of the SIR, we have shared key findings on threats based on our research and observations during the past year, covering topics such as cloud-based attacks, endpoint threats, phishing, and supply chain compromises. In addition to actionable insights, you'll learn about the brand new interactive web site that allows you to easily filter the data for threat trends by country and time period to share with your peers and customers. We will be posting recordings of the webinar on our community at https://aka.ms/SIRRecordings.
Microsoft Teams Spring Adoption Series: End User Training
When: Friday, May 24, 2019 at 11am PT | We have to help users adopt a self-service mindset to learning and discovery in order to keep up with changes in Cloud services. Guided learning sessions delivered by the project team or an appropriate champion can reinforce by sharing tips on getting started and best practices. In this session, we'll review a typical one-hour orientation session and how to deliver it. We'll then review the end-user training resources available to your organization and discuss how to promote them, including in-app prompts and guidance, learning from peers, and published learning resources. Join live, or add the event to your calendar. Note: The top-level link has information and links to the recording for previous sessions in this Spring Adoption Series.
May 2019 v-meet up for Women IT Pros - Building your personal brand with storytelling with Miri Rodriguez
When: Friday, May 24, 2019 at 12pm PT | Have you been thinking about building your personal brand but don't know exactly how or where to get started? Miri Rodriguez, Storyteller for CSEO and Brand Coach, will help you craft your "why" and brand prototype using the design thinking method to help you get started on your personal brand journey. A distinctive story helps define and successfully communicate unique personal and business attributes. Storytelling has become a powerful business tool in today's digital age because it drives an immersive and emotional experience for stakeholders and audiences, inspiring them to action. In this dynamic and interactive session, Miri will share practical tools to help you become a skilled storyteller and tell your story in a compelling way.
Microsoft Teams Spring Adoption Series: Measuring and Communicating Success
When: Thursday, May 30, 2019 at 11am PT | This week we'll discuss how to collect and communicate success stories, qualitatively and quantitatively. Qualitative success stories are anecdotal points of feedback from stakeholders, champions, and users. These may be examples of improved collaboration, reduced internal email, faster team member onboarding, and similar stories. Quantitative success examples come from the Office 365 Microsoft Teams usage reports built into the Office 365 Admin portal. This information can show the usage of Microsoft Teams in your company. Communicating real-world examples and quantitative data is critical to reinforcing project success and getting buy-in and additional resources from leadership. In this session we'll walk through several examples of one-page or one-slide summaries you can create, and how to secure the data and examples you'll use to reinforce the message. Join live, or add the event to your calendar. Note: The top-level link has information and links to the recording for previous sessions in this Spring Adoption Series.
10 time saving tips and tricks with Outlook mobile
When: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9am PT | Outlook mobile brings together your email, calendar, contacts, documents and more in one fast, fluid experience so you can accomplish the most important tasks in just a few seconds. All backed by enterprise-grade security you can trust. Join the Outlook mobile team for a webinar that will highlight cool tips and tricks that save you time and spark joy. You also get to ask any questions and share feedback with the team directly. In this webinar, you will learn: (1) Why Outlook mobile is the right choice for you, (2) Best practices for getting started, (3) Cool tips and tricks that spark joy and let you accomplish the most important tasks in just a few seconds, and (4) Ask questions or share your feedback directly with the Outlook team. There are also sessions from previous months that can be viewed on demand.
Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA): Microsoft Planner
When: Thursday, June 6, 2019 at 9am PT | We are very excited to announce a Microsoft Planner 'Ask Microsoft Anything' (AMA). An AMA is a live online event similar to a "YamJam" on Yammer or an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. This AMA gives you the opportunity to connect with members of the product teams who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback. Join in the Planner AMA space, or add the event to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!
Microsoft Teams Spring Adoption Series: Ongoing Adoption - Tips and Best Practices
When: Friday, June 7, 2019 at 11am PT | As your user base becomes more comfortable with teams, they'll start to explore functionality beyond basic Chat and Collaboration. "Where should I put my files in Office 365" will become a recurring question as they use Teams, SharePoint and OneDrive. When more Teams come online, best practices like Favoriting a Team, Following a Channel, and using the Activity Feed will help users get the most out of Teams. Your core Project Team should begin to transition from initial enablement to service management and monitoring for service changes and usage issues. Being able to rely/leverage your Champions community for ongoing "best practices" sessions, tips, and communications. Join live, or add the event to your calendar. Note: The top-level link has information and links to the recording for previous sessions in this Spring Adoption Series.
Customer Immersion Experience: Hands-on with security in a cloud-first, mobile-first world
This 2-hour hands-on session will give you the opportunity to try Microsoft technology that secures your digital transformation with a comprehensive platform, unique intelligence, and partnerships. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will: (1) Detect and protect against external threats by monitoring, reporting and analyzing activity to react promptly to provide organization security, (2) Protect your information and reduce the risk of data loss, (3) Provide peace of mind with controls and visibility for industry-verified conformity with global standards in compliance, (4) Protect your users and their accounts, and (5) Support your organization with enhanced privacy and compliance to meet the General Data Protection Regulation. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Microsoft IT: Speaking of Security - Privacy Compliance
When: Thursday, June 20, 2019 at 10am PT | During this webinar, the speakers will discuss the Microsoft security teams approach to privacy compliance. We'll address how we approached the topic and new requirements from GDPR. We'll answer your questions and talk about governance, compliance, and transparency, including all of the elements necessary to build a privacy program. Finally, we'll share some of the key things we learned on our journey. There are other sessions now available on demand at the Speaking of Security webinar series site.
BLOG ROUNDUP
Get notifications about your Planner task assignments in Microsoft Teams
We're happy to announce the availability of Planner notifications in Microsoft Teams. These notifications ensure you won't have to leave Teams to stay on top of your work. We've heard you're feedback about using the Planner tab in Teams, which is the hub for teamwork in Office 365, and we're excited to power up the Planner-in-Teams experience with notifications. If you're an Office 365 Enterprise or Office 365 Education customer, you'll receive Teams notifications whenever you're assigned a Planner task (so long as that Planner plan has a tab in Teams). Your assignment notifications will appear in your Teams Activity feed and the Teams Chat pane. You'll receive Teams notifications no matter where your task is assigned from, whether that's the Planner mobile app, Planner on the web (tasks.office.com), or our SharePoint web part. Teams notifications are not replacing Planner's existing mobile push and email notifications. You'll continue to receive both in addition to the notifications in Teams. | Resource: Use Planner in Microsoft Teams
Stay connected to your VIPs with Outlook mobile
Our time, attention, and people in our lives are precious. We need to stay connected, organized and do so in a way that keeps us focused on what matters while keeping sensitive information secure. We are pleased to announce the capability to customize your Outlook mobile email notifications from your favorite people (VIPs), enhancements to Outlook for Android Contacts, and additional use of intelligent technology from Office Lens. Outlook mobile is designed to help you focus on what matters and stay connected with your important people, so you can organize and get things done, safely.
Yammer conversations web part for SharePoint now generally available!
In December we announced that the Yammer conversations web part for SharePoint was in preview for target release customers. Now, we are excited to announce that it is generally available, making it easier than ever to bring a fully interactive Yammer experience into any SharePoint page, news article, or SharePoint site. The new Yammer conversations web part can integrate conversations from any Yammer group, topic, user, or home feed, and compliments the Yammer Highlights web part already in production. | Related: Behind the scenes of building Yammer: Focus on the movie, not the picture
Section is available in Microsoft Forms
Recently, we have enabled Section for all customers. Section is one of the top asks from Microsoft Forms UserVoice community. With section, customers could organize their forms in a better way. When customers fill a form with sections, they could navigate all questions in pages, with additional description or multimedia context. Customers could create section from the "…" menu of the "Add New" action bar. They could use the same capability to add and edit title, description, images and video. Additional management functions could be found in the "…" menu in section header.
NOTEWORTHY
Microsoft Mechanics: Monitor inappropriate communication through Microsoft 365
Format: Video (7 minutes) | Join us for a quick look at the new and improved Supervision policies in Microsoft 365. Learn how to create policies to help enforce corporate communications policies, monitor risk management, and meet regulatory compliance requirements. Use custom and intelligent policy conditions, such as the offensive language data model, to capture and flag all email and Microsoft Teams communications. Learn how to easily review and classify captured messages with the new management and reporting experience in the Security & Compliance Center.
Microsoft IT Showcase: Improving employee engagement with live events in Microsoft 365
Employee engagement is a major contributor to workplace satisfaction, loyalty, and productivity at any company, and Microsoft is no exception. Interactive live events allow program leaders to effectively communicate business updates, training opportunities, announcements, and more in a way that makes an impact on the daily lives of employees and fosters ongoing collaboration and knowledge-sharing. With the new live event capabilities in Microsoft 365, the Core Services Engineering and Operations (CSEO) team at Microsoft began offering event producers a modern, seamless event-production solution for employee engagement. From small-team webcasts to all-hands meetings involving thousands of attendees, the solution increases the size and types of events that Microsoft employees can host, and improves employee engagement across organizational and geographical boundaries.
Outlook for iOS and Android Default App Signature App Configuration Policy Enhancement
Several customers, especially in the government sector, have requested the ability to remove the default app signature, "Get Outlook for iOS" or "Get Outlook for Android". For these customers, the default signature may act as an endorsement of a technology and/or provider, which may violate regulatory compliance requirements. Building on our announcement in March regarding general app configuration support for Outlook for iOS and Android, we're pleased to announce the availability to disable Outlook's default app signature through app config. Like with the previously announced general app configuration settings, the default app signature is delivered through the Managed App Configuration for iOS or the Android managed configurations allowing deployment by any MDM solution. Like with our other app configuration experience, Intune's App Configuration Policy experience has been updated to include this new setting for both iOS and Android Enterprise managed devices. In addition, we also added the "Allow user to change setting" for "Require Biometrics to access app" for iOS managed devices.
Removal of the 16-character limit for passwords in Azure AD
Many of you have been reminding us that we still have a 16-character password limit for accounts created in Azure AD. While our on-premises Windows AD allows longer passwords and passphrases, we previously didn't have support for this for cloud user accounts in Azure AD. We are pleased to announce that we have changed this limit, allowing you to set a password with up to 256 characters, including spaces. You can see more details on password requirements in our password policy documentation.
Conditional access for the Azure AD combined MFA and password reset registration experience
More and more organizations are using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) to protect their access and self-service password reset (SSPR) to reduce support costs and empower their users to manage their credential recovery. Our internal studies show that customers can cut their risk of account compromise by 99% by enabling MFA, so we're REALLY happy to see this growing trend. With this increasing usage, we also heard loud and clear that you want to control the conditions in which security sensitive MFA or SSPR information can be registered. This helps ensure it's the right user—not an attacker—registering this security sensitive info. We are excited to announce the public preview of Azure AD conditional access for our combined registration experience for MFA and SSPR. Many of our largest customers have already been using this while it was in private preview to simplify rolling out MFA and SSPR and we're looking forward to making it more broadly available as part of Azure AD Premium P1 subscription.
