Microsoft 365 Updates: Microsoft Teams meeting updates, SharePoint, Office 365, and Exchange
Key Updates and Announcements
Happy Friday! I have two weeks worth of updates as I decided to kick back and relax during the Easter break. Here’s a few of the changes that have my interest:
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Teams Meeting experience improvements! Most people who have participated in a Teams meeting this week most likely would have been a part of the shenanigans of people applying new background effects. Perfect timing to rollout this change as so many people are working from home who want to block out the visual noise caused by working in make shift offices. For me personally, I prefer not to be locked in a room away from everyone, hence the ability to work amongst my family and still have the ability for my meetings to look presentable is a big plus.
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Raise a virtual Hand in Teams meetings allows meeting participants to make it known they have a question, query, or have input they’d like to have a meeting without the need to speak over another participant. Will be very helpful for teaching environments. Expect this feature to be rolled out by late May 2020.
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Changes to video layout in Teams meetings increases the number of participants that can be viewed simultaneously from 4 to 9 and will be available by late May 2020. Microsoft are working to expand these capabilities further in the coming months.
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SharePoint Admin Center has a few changes to assist with management of the term store and content type galleries. Additional, new tagging options in the managed metadata columns will become available. These changes should be rolled out to tenants by early to mid May 2020
List of Updates
Note: Please ensure you’re signed into your Office 365 Administration portal to access the links referenced below. Also note, some tenants may not have all the below updates currently published to them
New Feature: Teams/Skype Consumer chat and calling interop
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MC205801, Stay Informed, Published date: Mar 7, 2020
Updated March 11, 2020: Updated instructions to access the setting. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Your Teams and Skype for consumers users will soon be able to chat and make Voice over IP (VoIP) calls to one another.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out at the end of March 2020.
- The rollout will be completed by the end of April.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 53935
Microsoft docs has more information here.
Known Issue: Intune Primary User (Preview) UI and reporting issue
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MC208837, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 7, 2020
We recently released a new feature – Primary User – in preview. We’ve confirmed a few UI and reporting bugs whereby the incorrect Primary User (Preview) information is displaying in the admin >console. We wanted to make you aware of this, since many customers are now using Primary User. A solution is rolling out in the 2004 (April) service update to correct these issues.
Microsoft’s tech community has more information here.
Teams Meeting experience improvements
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MC208577, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 3, 2020
Major Update: Announcement Applies To: All
Updated April 7, 2020: We have provided additional details in bold.
We are pleased to announce the following features will be available to improve your Teams Meeting experience:
- Background effects in Teams meetings – Roadmap ID 62890 – Rolling out beginning in mid April
- New experience for launching instant channel meetings - Roadmap ID 62904 – Rolling out starting in late April
- Improved Teams meeting join launcher experience - Roadmap ID 62905 – Rolling out starting in late April
Updated - New Feature: Enable Bing Image search and YouTube search in one combined setting for Forms
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MC200395, Stay Informed, Published date: Jan 16, 2020
Updated April 8, 2020: To ensure the proper experience we have updated the roll-out timeline for this feature. We apologize for any inconvenience.
Use one toggle to allow end users in your organization to add images from Bing search as well as videos from YouTube search to Forms.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out in mid-February 2020.
- The rollout will be completed by the end of April 2020 (previously mid-March).
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 60191.
New Feature: Modern experience for managed metadata services, tagging and filtering
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MC208986, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 8, 2020
We will be gradually enabling modern experiences for SharePoint managed metadata services (MMS) which will include:
- A modern term store manager in the SharePoint admin center
- A modern content type gallery in the SharePoint admin center for creating and managing content types stored in the content type hub
- New tagging and filtering options for end users as well as a new tree view
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 57315.
Microsoft’s tech community has more information here.
New Feature: Raise a Virtual Hand in Teams Meetings
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MC209022, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 9, 2020
The new raise hand feature in Teams allows meeting attendees to identify that they wish to speak by toggling the hand icon in the meeting control bar, making it easier to actively participate in meetings. Raise hand will be available initially for PC, Mac, and web-based clients. Support for mobile applications will follow.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out in mid-April.
- Expect feature support in government environments in late-May.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 62755.
Updated Feature: Microsoft Forms eDiscovery export format change
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MC209012, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 9, 2020
If your tenant does not use eDiscovery, you can safely disregard this message.
We are changing how eDiscovery, the process of identifying and delivering electronic information that can be used as evidence in legal cases, presents search results in Forms.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out in mid-April.
- The rollout will be completed by late April.
Content query web part performance banner
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MC209149, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 11, 2020
On a classic page, the Content Query web part is a tool for finding and displaying information. However, this web part can affect page performance. Consequently, we are adding an alert for classic publishing portals that use Content Query web parts.
When this will happen
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out in late April.
- The rollout will be complete in late May.
New service plan, Common Data Service, added to enable future Office features
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MC209158, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 11, 2020
A new service plan, Common Data Service, is being added to Office subscriptions to enable future features.
Once this service plan is in place and you have a Project license (Project for the web), your users will be able to view projects and roadmaps with the new feature, Office 365 user view to Project and Roadmap.
If your tenant does not have a Project license, the new feature, Office 365 user view to Project and Roadmap, will not apply to you.
The feature roll out will begin in mid-May and be complete by the end of August 2020. This feature is associated with Microsoft Roadmap ID 60646.
Updated - Feature Update: Get files and items from folders and subfolders
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MC208464, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 3, 2020
Updated April 13, 2020: We are pleased to announce that this feature has completed rolling out and should now be available for your organization.
Users can create flows that run on folders and target specific files in the folder using the “Get Files (property only)” action in Power Automate.
Similarly, users can create flows that run on folders and target specific list items in the folder using the “Get items” action in Power Automate.
Basic Authentication and Exchange Online – April 2020 Update
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MC208814, Plan For Change, Published date: Apr 6, 2020
Major Update: Announcement Applies To: All
In response to the unprecedented situation we are in and knowing that priorities have changed for many of our customers we have decided to postpone retiring Basic Authentication in Exchange Online (MC204828) for those tenants still actively using it until the second half of 2021. We will provide a more precise date when we have a better understanding of the impact of the situation.
New Feature: Changes to video layout in Teams meetings
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MC209274, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 13, 2020
We are pleased to announce that the number of participants that can be viewed simultaneously during a Teams meeting will increase from 4 to 9. Additionally we are working on increasing this limit even further so that more participants can be viewed simultaneously.
We’ll begin rolling this out in late April and expect to be complete by early May.
This change is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 63341
Updated Feature: Streamlining the recipient experience for links shared with “specific people”
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MC209098, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 10, 2020
We are streamlining the recipient experience for SharePoint and OneDrive links made to specific people in your organization.
We’ll be gradually rolling this out in early April, and the rollout will be completed by early May.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63220.
Updates to Outlook for iOS and Android
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MC209415, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 15, 2020
We are providing support for S/MIME with automated certificate delivery for Outlook for Android. We are also introducing updates that separate work and personal experiences in Outlook for iOS and Android.
These updates are related to Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs:
- Automated certificate delivery for SMIME in Android (59644)
- Visual cues by account in iOS (57767)
- Work and personal contact separation in Android (56759) and iOS (56758)
Teams updates to provide enhanced meeting and administration controls, and security enhancements
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MC209349, Plan For Change, Published date: Apr 14, 2020
Major Update: Announcement Applies To: All
We are pleased to announce the following updates to provide additional controls on how Teams meetings are accessed and experienced as well as additional administration and security enhancements:
- Update default policy to enforce lobby in meetings, Roadmap ID 63388 – Rolling out mid-April
- Assign a policy package to a batch of Teams users, Roadmap ID 63390 – Rolling out mid-April
- Control profile picture settings in Teams, Roadmap ID 63389 – Rolling out mid-April
- Set a default policy for “Who can present” in Teams meetings, Roadmap ID 63206 – Rolling out early May
- Change in meeting join experience, Roadmap ID 63355 – Rolling out end of April
- Providing privacy for participants who call in to a meeting via PSTN, Roadmap ID 63309 – Rolling out early May
Update available for Office 365 ProPlus on the Monthly Channel, Semi-Annual Channel and Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted)
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MC209485, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 15, 2020
We’ve released updates to the Office 365 ProPlus Monthly Channel, Semi-Annual Channel and Semi-Annual Channel (Targeted).
We began gradually rolling out these updates of Office 365 ProPlus to users on these Channels beginning April 14th, 2020.
Update: Priority Notifications promotion extended to April 1
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MC199161, Stay Informed, Published date: Dec 31, 2019
Updated April 15, 2020: We are extending the period that unlimited Priority Notifications in Microsoft Teams will be available for all users.
- We are extending the promotion to July 1, 2020 from its previouis end date of April 1, 2020.
- After July 1, 2020, licensed users will be able to send Priority Notifications according to the terms of their subscription.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 51448.
Microsoft’s tech community has more information here.
Update - New Feature: Global reader experience in new SharePoint admin center
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MC198602, Stay Informed, Published date: Dec 19, 2019
Updated April 15, 2020: To ensure a proper experience we are extending the roll-out timeline for this feature. The SharePoint admin center will soon support the global reader admin role. Users who are assigned this role will have read-only access to all info and settings in the new SharePoint admin center. This feature is related to the global admin role introduced in MC191391 (September 2019).
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release customers in mid-March 2020.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out to production and GCC in early April (previously March).
- The roll out will be complete by the end of April (previously March).
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 59984.
Update - Feature Update: Secure by Default
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MC208307, Plan For Change, Published date: Apr 1, 2020
Major Update: Announcement Applies To: All
Updated April 15, 2020: We are updating the roll-out timeline to ensure the proper experience.
We’re implementing another phase in Secure by Default, which will affect any domains which fail authentication although they are implicitly allowed in your anti-spam policy.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out in mid-May (previously April).
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 62398.
New Feature: New rich-text editor for text fields with SharePoint lists
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MC209530, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 16, 2020
Users will soon have access to a new rich-text editor (RTE) on multi-line text fields with when editing a SharePoint list or library.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63176.
