Welcome to the August 20 - 26, 2017 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest. Please see this page for details on a change regarding the inclusion of Message Center notification details in these weekly posts.
There were four items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, including an update for Office Lens on Android, user level controls for Bookings, publishing Yammer announcements on Android mobile, and improvements for Class and Staff Notebook use in Microsoft Teams.
A flurry of upcoming events are listed, including an on-demand webcast for IT transformation using Yammer, an Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) with the Microsoft Flow team and newly added immersion sessions for Power BI and Windows 10 + Office 365 + Microsoft Teams.
There were several Flow-focused blog posts last week as highlighted in the Blog Roundup section, along with posts regarding new notification features in Microsoft Forms, an easier way to access Secure Score, a new and improved Yammer app for iPad and lots of info on gearing up for back-to-school with Microsoft EDU.
Wrapping up this week's Noteworthy items is a reminder about the deprecation of RPC over HTTP at the end of October 2017, an interactive demo site for Microsoft Teams, a look back on Yammer and integration with Office 365, as well as details on Azure Active Directory and Intune support for macOS in conditional access.
OFFICE 365 ROADMAP
Items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week:
Office Lens: Multi-page scan on Android
Feature ID: 20725
Status: Launched
Date Added: August 21, 2017
Description: With this release, our users can seamlessly scan more than one page at a time, bundle as a PDF file and share. Powered by our Optical Character Recognition (OCR) capabilities, text from multiple pages can be extracted and exported to a Word document. Office Lens also allows for users to save it as a PowerPoint or a OneNote file. Users can also choose to save to OneDrive.
More Info: Office Lens on Google Play
Bookings: User Level Controls
Feature ID: 20785
Status: In development
Date Added: August 25, 2017
Description: Office 365 Business Premium subscriptions will get admin level controls to grant/restrict Bookings access at the user level. Rollout will start with First Release customers.
More Info: n / a
Yammer: Publishing Announcements on Mobile (Android)
Feature ID: 20236
Status: In development
Date Added: August 25, 2017
Description: Yammer will add the ability to post announcements from mobile on Android.
More Info: n / a
Microsoft Teams improvements for Class and Staff Notebook
Feature ID: 20757
Status: In development
Date Added: August 25, 2017
Description: Ability to view Class and Staff Notebooks in full-screen with full notebook structure. Ability to access notebook settings within Teams with 'Edit in Browser' support.
More Info: n / a
UPCOMING EVENTS
Free Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Teacher Academy
When: August 21, 2017 through September 29, 2017 at various US locations | Microsoft Innovative Educator (MIE) Trainers are leading fun, professional development sessions this summer and they’re coming to a city near you. Join us for these BYOD workshops showcasing Microsoft’s hottest tools and resources for K-12 teachers, built to empower students to achieve more. Attendees will get to explore tools such as Microsoft Teams, Office Online, OneNote Class Notebooks, Microsoft Forms and Sway, and learn how technology can provide their students with learning experiences beyond the four walls of their classroom, thanks to Skype in the Classroom and the Microsoft Educator Community. Register today and join us at an upcoming Teacher Academy near you!
Free Webcast: Transforming the IT Organization with Yammer
When: On-Demand | Social integration and team communication are at the forefront of employee focus. As internal communication evolves, organizations need to embrace social media and cutting-edge tools to help employees work smarter and collaborate stronger. Watch this on-demand webcast to find out how Yammer completes the Office 365 experience with a powerhouse of communication tools to inspire digital transformation, collaborate across teams, and execute faster while working smarter.
Microsoft Flow: Second Community Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA)
When: Thursday, August 31, 2017 at 11am PT | We are thrilled to announce the second Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) on the Microsoft Flow Community! After hosting our first AMA back in February, we wanted to give you another opportunity to ask questions and share feedback directly with us here at Microsoft. The AMA will take place in the Flow Community AMA board on Thursday, August 31, 2017 from 11:00 A.M. to 12:00 p.m. PST. An Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) is the same as an “Ask Me Anything (AMA)” on Reddit, or YamJam on Yammer. It provides the opportunity for the community to ask questions and have a discussion with a panel of internal and external experts on a particular topic. We look forward to seeing you in the community and at the AMA!
Visualizing, Analyzing & Sharing Your Data Without Having to be a BI Expert
When: Thursday, September 7, 2017 and Thursday, September 28, 2017 at 1pm ET | This 2-hour hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive the latest business analytics tools. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they can work throughout your organization. During this interactive session, you will explore how to: (1) Locate and organize large amounts of data from multiple sources, (2) Visualize complex data and identify trends quickly without having to be a BI expert, (3) Find and collaborate with company experts on the fly, even if they work in another part of the country, and (4) Gather colleague’s opinions easily and eliminate communication and process bottlenecks. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Connecting, Organizing & Collaborating with Your Team
When: Thursday, September 14, 2017 at 1pm ET | During this 2-hour session, you will have the opportunity to experience Windows 10, Office 365 and Microsoft’s newest collaboration tool: Microsoft Teams. 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 explore how to use Microsoft Teams and Office 365 to: (1) Create a hub for team work that works together with your other Office 365 apps, (2) Build customized options for each team, (3) Keep everyone on your team engaged, (4) Coauthor and share content quickly, and (5) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Azure Active Directory Webinars for September
When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled from September 12 - September 20, 2017 | Sessions include Azure AD Connect Health, Getting Ready for Azure AD, Securing Your Identities with Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA), Azure AD Identity Protection and Privileged Access Management, Accessing Your Organization’s Internal Applications via Azure AD App Proxy and more. Each 1-hour or 75-minute 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.
BLOG ROUNDUP
Microsoft Flow: Support for SharePoint Document Library Properties
In a blog post earlier this month, we announced read-write support for Person, Choice, and Lookup fields. This week, we’re pleased to announce another highly requested feature in the SharePoint connector – support for document library properties. This support comes in the form of two new triggers - When a file is created (properties only) and When a file is created or modified (properties only) and three new actions – Get file properties, Get files (properties only) and Update file properties. In this blog post, we’ll walk you through a detailed example of how to use these triggers and actions. We’ll also use this opportunity to introduce you to a couple of additional properties that have been added to ease your flow building experience. | Related: Flow Collections | Updates to flow buttons and new and improved connectors
New notification features in Microsoft Forms - August 2017
To address one of the top user asks for Microsoft Forms, we are releasing the email notification for new responses. Forms designers can now go to "Settings" and enable this feature by checking "Email notification of each response". The forms designers will receive an email notification each time a new response is submitted.
Easily Access Secure Score from the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center
Many of you who follow this blog know that Office 365 Secure Score is a great security analytics tool that you can access at https://securescore.office.com. However not everyone knows how to access Secure Score. We are now making it easier to discover and quickly review your security position by adding a Secure Score widget to the home page of the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center. The widget will show your latest score and the maximum points you can obtain. To get more information about your score you can click the “Go to Secure Score” link and it will take you directly to Secure Score to review the additional details.
The new and improved Yammer app for iPad
At Yammer, we're always looking to build an experience that allows people to easily engage in the conversations happening across their company, no matter which device they're using. We are pleased to announce the re-launch of the new and improved Yammer iPad app. The iPad app now includes a navigational redesign, a new navigation bar on the bottom of the page, an enriched groups experience and improved universal search capabilities. With this set of new capabilities on the iPad, we hope that those of you using Yammer on-the-go will enjoy an easier and more engaging experience. We encourage you to update your iPad app today to take advantage of these new features.
What's new in EDU: Back to School playlist gets our digital classroom ready
Our August edition of What’s New in EDU is ready and here to round up the latest events and product news from Microsoft Education. In our first-ever Back to School LIVE event, the team at Microsoft Education shared a stage with the Microsoft Educator Community to come up with faster, easier ways to prepare your digital classroom. We demonstrated practical techniques and easy examples in a concise series of Facebook Live streams, and answered questions from you about how to trade setup time for more student time. It was a brisk day of school for everyone who participated – and now it’s a video playlist, in case you missed it. The “Live” part may have come and gone, but our team is still here in video form to help you get back-to-school ready with some of our newest tools for the classroom. With setup stress minimized and education tools like Microsoft Teams, OneNote Class Notebook and Minecraft: Education Edition in-hand, you can collaborate seamlessly on projects, learn to code, and let creativity loose from the very first day of school. | Videos: What’s new in EDU for August 2017 | OneNote Class Notebook in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft Educator Community
NOTEWORTHY
REMINDER: RPC over HTTP Deprecation - October 31, 2017
On October 31st, 2017, Exchange Online mailboxes in Office 365 will require connections from Outlook for Windows use MAPI over HTTP, our new method of connectivity and transport between Outlook for Windows and Exchange. In May of 2014, Microsoft introduced MAPI over HTTP as a replacement for RPC over HTTP. RPC over HTTP was a legacy connection protocol that is being deprecated from Exchange Online. Beginning October 31, 2017, Outlook for Windows clients using RPC over HTTP will be unable to access their Exchange Online mailbox. The necessary action depends on the version of Outlook in use in your organization. If you are using Outlook 2007 or earlier, you need to upgrade. Outlook 2007 does not contain support for the MAPI/HTTP protocol. We encourage you to update to the Office 365 ProPlus subscription, or access Outlook via the web browser (which is included in your current subscription plan). Outlook 2010-2016 customers will need to ensure their version of Outlook for Windows is set up to support MAPI/HTTP. At a minimum, you should ensure you have installed the December 2015 update. Lastly, ensure your Outlook clients are not using a registry key to block MAPI/HTTP.
Experience Microsoft Teams through an Interactive Demo
This blog post will walk you through using a new tool as a unique and easy way to not only experience Microsoft Teams, but to also enable you to give successful demos of Microsoft Teams to your team, customer, or organization. The name of the tool is Microsoft Teams Interactive Demo and can be accessed at http://teamsdemo.office.com/. Note: This will only demo the chat capabilities of Microsoft Teams. | Related: Connect / Integrate Yammer into Microsoft Teams | Reduce email with Microsoft Teams
Yammer Time with Adrienne Trudeau
As we approach Ignite 2017, we wanted to take some time to reflect on where we've been since this time last year. Watch this sit down with Adrienne Trudeau, Senior Product Manager on Yammer for a deep dive on our journey to integrate Yammer into Office 365. We cover shared identity, cross-service interoperability, admin functionality and Office 365 groups integration.
Azure AD and Intune now support macOS in conditional access!
Conditional access is one of the fastest growing services in EMS and we are constantly getting feedback from customers about new capabilities they would like us to add to it. One of the most frequently requested is support for macOS. Customers want to have one consistent system for securing user accessing to Office 365 on all the platforms their employees are using. So, we're excited to share that Azure Active Directory and Intune now support macOS platform for device-based conditional access! Administrators can now restrict access to Intune-managed macOS devices using device-based conditional access according to their organization’s security guidelines. With the public preview of macOS device-based conditional access, you’ll be able to: (1) Enroll and manage macOS devices using Intune, (2) Ensure macOS devices adhere to your organization’s compliance policies, and (3) Restrict access to applications in Azure AD to only compliant macOS devices. | Resource: Documentation