Welcome to the October 15 - 21, 2017 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.
Only a handful of additions to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, but there is a significant one to highlight - "Target Dates on the Public Roadmap". This feature is currently in development, but is a direct result of customer feedback. Based on the roadmap presented at Ignite 2017, release is planned for Q4 2017 (subject to change).
Several new events have been added, including two new customer immersion experiences. The Teams AMA, originally scheduled for mid-October, has been confirmed for Wednesday, October 25th at 12pm ET. Another AMA, focused on Office 365 Message Encryption, will be held on Thursday, October 26th at 1pm ET.
Posts about the new OneDrive for Business Files On Demand feature (Windows 10 Fall Creators Update required) and Visio Online are highlighted in the blogs from last week. Also included are posts for Office updates on Android and iOS, and a recap from the FastTrack deployment and adoption workshop at Ignite 2017.
A reminder about RPC over HTTP deprecation on October 31, 2017, recent updates for Microsoft Teams, and videos on Teams and Office 365 ProPlus round out this week's post. In addition, please be sure to read the announcement about changes to Office Mix coming in May 2018.
OFFICE 365 ROADMAP
Items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week:
Power BI Content Pack for Project Online
Feature ID: 24154
Status: Rolling out
Date Added: October 18, 2017
Description: Explore and monitor key aspects of your PPM deployment such as Projects, Issues, Risks and more Import and analyze data from Project Online in Power BI. The content pack is designed to help you quickly connect to your Project Online tenant in Office 365 and quickly download a variety of data to visually explore and monitor all the key aspects of your PPM deployment such as Projects, Issues, Risks and much more. Note that Project Online Premium is required to access this content pack.
More Info: n / a
Target Dates on the Public Roadmap
Feature ID: 24146
Status: In development
Date Added: October 18, 2017
Description: Per feedback we are working to add target dates to the public roadmap to help you with your planning.
More Info: n / a
Outlook for iOS & Android: Full Support for Office 365 U.S. Government
Feature ID: 24150
Status: In development
Date Added: October 18, 2017
Description: Today, Outlook for iOS & Android does not meet the full data handling requirements for Office 365 US Government Community (GCC). While Outlook is fully delivered through Microsoft services that provide a strong commitment to security, privacy and compliance, we are working to deliver a solution that fully supports the FedRAMP accreditation boundary requirements of Office 365 GCC customers. Until that time, Outlook will not connect to Office 365 GCC mailboxes. However, for many customers, the current setup is an acceptable interim solution until we can deliver an architecture that complies with the FedRAMP boundary commitments for Office 365 GCC. For more details, reach out to your Microsoft account representative.
More Info: Outlook for iOS and Android is now fully powered by the Microsoft Cloud
SharePoint hub sites
Feature ID: 21036
Status: In development
Date Added: October 20, 2017
Description: SharePoint sites are the building blocks of the mobile and intelligent intranet. SharePoint hub sites bring together related sites to roll up news and activity, and to create cohesion with shared navigation and look-and-feel. A hub site can have both team sites and communication sites associated under it.
More Info: n / a
UPCOMING EVENTS
Visualizing, Analyzing & Sharing Your Data Without Having to be a BI Expert
When: Tuesday, October 24, 2017 and Tuesday, October 31, 2017 at 12pm 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.
Productivity Hacks to Save Time & Simplify Workflows
When: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 1pm ET | This 90-minute hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive Windows 10, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. 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) Discover how you can keep your information more secure without inhibiting your workflow, (2) Learn how to visualize and analyze complex data, quickly zeroing in on the insights you need, (3) See how multiple team members can access, edit and review documents simultaneously, and (4) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Microsoft Teams: Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA)
When: Wednesday, October 25, 2017 at 12pm ET | The Microsoft Tech Community will host an ‘Ask Microsoft Anything’ (AMA) from 9:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. PT in the Microsoft Teams AMA Group. 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 engineering team who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback.
Office 365 Encryption: Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA)
When: Thursday, October 26, 2017 at 1pm ET | Join the Office 365 product team for an “Ask Microsoft Anything” (AMA) on Thursday, October 26th, 2017 from 10 a.m. to 11 a.m. PST in the Office 365 Encryption AMA space. At Ignite we announced new capabilities in Office 365 Message Encryption that protect and control your sensitive emails. These enhancements are aimed squarely at helping you better safeguard your sensitive email communications without hampering the ability for your users to be productive and to easily collaborate with those inside or outside of your organization. We talked through these features in our Tech Community Blog and our Ignite session. 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 the Office 365 product team who will be on hand to answer your questions and listen to feedback regarding the recent announcement of the public preview availability. | Add event to your calendar
Transforming your business to meet the changing market and needs of your customers
When: Thursday, November 2, 2017 at 12pm and 3pm ET | This 2-hour hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive Windows 10, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. 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) Use digital intelligence to build personalized experiences across all customer touchpoints, (2) Improve customer service through a single, unified experience that delivers end-to-end service across every channel, (3) Increase customer satisfaction with intelligent scheduling, native mobile support, and remote asset monitoring to help you get the job done right the first time, and (4) Run your project-based business more productively by bringing people, processes, and automation technology together through a unified experience. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Azure Active Directory Webinars for November
When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled from November 7 - 16, 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.
Hands-on with security in a cloud-first, mobile-first world
When: Thursday, November 9, 2017 at 12pm and 3pm ET | 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.
BLOG ROUNDUP
OneDrive Files On-Demand For The Enterprise
OneDrive Files On-Demand has been designed from the ground up for enterprises. Files On-Demand leverages the Windows Fall Creators update to simplify the user experience with cloud storage and sync, bring the power of the cloud into Windows File Explorer, and dramatically limit the network impact of sync on your corporate network. Files On-Demand works with your personal and work OneDrive, as well as your SharePoint Online team sites. As people create and collaborate on more files, take more photos and work across multiple devices, it’s increasingly important to access your important content, both from your work and personal life—all in one place. You shouldn’t have to worry about whether there is enough storage on your device or if you can access your files on an airplane. Files On-Demand works by allowing users to completely browse and manage their files in OneDrive and SharePoint Online team sites without having to pay the cost of disk space. This is critical with team sites and any folder setup for collaboration because your corporate network doesn’t have to pay the cost of thousands of PCs all downloading the same content. In addition to this, Files On-Demand ships with controls for enterprise admins to tailor the Files On-Demand experience to your tenant.
Visio Online and Visio’s new cloud innovations help you unlock creativity
At Ignite 2017, Microsoft presented several new product capabilities that extend the Microsoft 365 solution set—including a greater emphasis on cloud-first technologies. Visio Online is one of Microsoft’s newest solutions that further unlocks employee creativity in the modern workplace. Information workers today want a simple yet powerful way to work visually. As a web-based, lightweight diagramming tool, Visio Online is the perfect solution: with it you can create, edit, and share diagrams online, helping you visualize information in new ways from anywhere. Plus, diagrams are available for anyone in your organization to view—even those without a Visio Online license—so you can get feedback on critical diagrams from all important stakeholders. Visio Online comes with a host of templates for a variety of audiences, including starter diagrams for basic flowcharts, process diagrams, timelines, business matrixes, SDL diagrams, and many more. Visualizing information is easy—just drag and drop shapes onto the canvas, change a shape’s color or the overall diagram theme, and quickly link one shape to another with connectors. Plus, you can securely share web-based diagrams through OneDrive for Business. | Resource: Visio Online FAQ
Blocking invalid From: addresses in Office 365
A couple of weeks ago, we made an announcement in Office 365 that we would be implementing stricter checks of the From: address, starting Nov 9, 2017. You can find details at How Office 365 validates the From: address to prevent phishing. This post describes the background of that decision, as there has been a lot of focus and work on phishing this past year, and one of the tricks that spammers use is to send email with malformed From: addresses.
Office 365 for Android - October 2017 Release Details
On Friday October 13th, 2017, Microsoft released an updated version of Office for Android (build # 16.0. 8625.2046) in 44 languages. If you are an Office 365 subscriber using an Android device (phone or tablet), then you will see the following features when you update to it: 1) Excel now allows you to print an entire worksheet or just a selection. You can also set your scaling, paper size, and orientation. You can now move quickly through a long spreadsheet on your touch device using the new scroll handles, and 2) In PowerPoint you can reopen a presentation and resume working right where you were before. | Resource: What's New for Office 365 Android
Office 365 for iPad and iPhone - October 2017 Release Details
On October 9th, 2017, Microsoft released an updated version of Office for iPad & iPhone to Office 365 subscribers - Version 2.6 in 35 languages. Here are some of the new features included this month: 1) In all applications (Excel, PowerPoint & Word) you can choose a personal set of pens and highlighters for inking. You will be able to express your ideas with flair using metallic pens and ink effects like rainbow, galaxy, lava, ocean, gold, silver, and more. You can now write or sketch out ideas with the new pencil texture. When using a supported stylus, simply tilt to do shading, 2) In Word, you can now see thumbnail previews while you scroll, and 3) PowerPoint now allows you to reopen a presentation and resume working right where you were before. | Resource: What's New for Office 365 iOS
Accelerating Microsoft 365 Deployment and Adoption with FastTrack (Ignite 2017)
At Microsoft Ignite 2017, we conducted the Accelerating Deployment and Adoption with FastTrack workshop. In this full-day event, 14 Microsoft experts engaged with 65 IT Pros on topics that targeted Microsoft 365, Office 365, Windows 10, and Enterprise Mobility + Security. Key content included infrastructure considerations, implementation best practices, deployment blockers, and mitigation strategies. Participants posed great questions, which generated lively discussions; one participant summed up the day with this sketch. In case you weren't able to attend, this post has the workshop materials.
NOTEWORTHY
REMINDER: RPC over HTTP Deprecation - October 31, 2017
As of Oct 31, 2017, RPC over HTTP will no longer be a supported protocol for accessing mail data from Exchange Online. Microsoft will no longer provide support or updates for Outlook clients that connect through RPC over HTTP, and the quality of the mail experience will decrease over time. RPC over HTTP is being replaced by MAPI over HTTP, a modern protocol that was launched in May 2014. This change affects you if you're running Outlook 2007 because Outlook 2007 won't work with MAPI over HTTP. To avoid being in an unsupported state, Outlook 2007 customers have to update to a newer version of Outlook or use Outlook on the web. This change may also affect you if you're running Outlook 2016, Outlook 2013, or Outlook 2010 because you must regularly check that the latest cumulative update for the version of Office that you have is installed. | Resources: Ignite 2017 - Roadmap for Office 365 client requirements and service connectivity – Video / Slides (#15 - #19 specifically)
Release Notes for Microsoft Teams: Updated October 18, 2017
The following features have been added for this release of Microsoft Teams: (1) Control who can post in General channel, 2) New max team size of 2500 members, (3) New keyboard shortcuts for rearranging teams and (4) Disable private chats.
Teams on Air: Ep. 54 Intelligent Communications with Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business
Format: Video (22 minutes) | This week on Teams On Air (formally Skype for Business Broadcast), join host Delanda Coleman and special guest Lori Wright, General Manager of Skype for Business and Microsoft Teams. Delanda and Lori will discuss Microsoft’s new vision for unified communications: Intelligent Communications. If you missed Ignite, or missed a few sessions – don’t miss this episode as Lori will share her insider’s view on the Intelligent Communications vision and how you can learn more.
Channel 9: Taste of Premier - How to manage Office 365 with System Center Configuration Manager
Format: Video (21 minutes) | System Center Configuration Manager (SCCM) has the ability to manage Office 365 client updates by using the Software Update management workflow. You can use Configuration Manager to update Office 365 ProPlus, Visio Pro for Office 365, Project Online Desktop Client, and Office 365 Business. Join Lex Thomas and Jamin Almond for this all demo session on how to deploy, manage and update Office 365 with System Center Configuration Manager.
Migrate your content from Office Mix
Just over three years ago we launched the Office Mix Preview to help everyone from educators to business create and share interactive online recordings of their presentations. Thanks to the positive feedback from our users during the Preview, we are excited to share that we are bringing the best of Office Mix directly into PowerPoint, Microsoft Stream, and Microsoft Forms for Office 365 subscribers on Windows PCs. This new integrated experience in PowerPoint will remove the need for downloading an add-in. You’ll be able to easily access the feature via the Recording tab in PowerPoint after you turn on the feature by customizing your PowerPoint toolbar ribbon. In the coming months, you'll also be able to publish these recordings to Microsoft Stream, which offers a simple way to upload and share videos securely across your organization to improve communication, participation, and learning. This article contains details on how to back up content you currently have on mix.office.com. Please note that all content must be moved off Mix by May 1, 2018, to avoid losing it. If you take no action by that date, your files will no longer be accessible. We will continually update this article as more information becomes available.