Microsoft 365 Updates: Microsoft Teams suggested replies, reverse number lookup, Islands mode defaulting to Teams Meetings, Retention Policy Changes, SharePoint Online, Yammer, and Office 365
Key Updates and Announcements
Welcome to the long weekend edition of the Microsoft 365 Updates! For those enjoying the long weekend, I hope it’s been a good one.
Microsoft Teams has several announcements and updates this week:
- System messages - Est. time of arrival: Mid-July (Government tenants will be completed by end of August) - Some system message will no longer be displayed in the General channel of each team, including teams membership changes
- Teams mobile suggested replies - Est. time of arrival: End-July - Suggested replies will be available for messages containing questions on Teams mobile to speed up and simplify quick responses
- Teams meeting call and meeting chat size - Est. time of arrival: End-June - Call and meeting sizes will be expanded from 250 to 300 participants
- Reverse number lookup - Est. time of arrival: Mid-June - FINALLY! Additional RNL features extending to user activity feed, call history, and voicemail! This associates a phone number with Azure Active Directory and telco provided Data
- Teams meetings as the default for Islands mode enabled accounts - Est. time of arrival: Early-June (Mid-June for Mac) - Organisations unable to move off Islands mode will have the option to configure a policy to have all meetings scheduled using Microsoft Teams.
- Create, Edit, and Share video from Yammer - Est. time of arrival: End-July - Update allows recording, annotation, editing, and posting of a video from the Yammer mobile app. The year of Yammer continues!
- Exchange Online PowerShell v2 Module - Est. time of arrival: Available - Module contains 9 additional rest-based cmdlets
- SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business retention policy changes - Est. time of arrival: End-August - Changes to retention policies and labels may modify the precedence order of which policy wins, therefore the advice is to review your principles of retention to ensure the right behaviour
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
Shifts Audit Logs available in the M365 Security and Compliance Center
Click here for more information
MC214682, Stay Informed, Published date: May 29, 2020
We’re adding the ability to view Shifts audit logs in the Microsoft 365 Security and Compliance Center.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64476
When this will happen
We will roll out this feature worldwide in early June.
Exact Data Match now supports SharePoint Online for DLP
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MC214683, Stay Informed, Published date: May 29, 2020
Exact Data Match (EDM) is now supported for SharePoint Online for organizations with one of the following licenses:
- Office 365 E5
- Microsoft 365 E5
- Microsoft 365 E5 Compliance
- Microsoft E5/A5 Information Protection and Governance
If your organization does not carry any of the above licenses you can safely disregard this message.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64558
When this will happen
This will be available beginning June 1, 2020
Microsoft 365 Apps on Windows 8 and Windows Server 2012
Click here for more information
MC214691, Plan For Change, Published date: May 29, 2020
As previously announced, Windows 8 ended support on January 12, 2016 and Microsoft 365 Apps ended support on Windows Server 2012/R2 on January 14, 2020 As innovations continue to be released for Microsoft 365 Apps, we would like to remind our customers that new features in Microsoft 365 Apps may create stability and performance issues when running on older or unsupported operating systems.
Note: If your organization is not running Windows 8 or Windows Server 2012 you can safely disregard this message.
New Feature: Change how users Teams in Islands users schedule meetings from Outlook
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MC214700, Stay Informed, Published date: May 30, 2020
Skype for Business users who use Teams in Islands mode can schedule meetings from Outlook with either Teams or Skype. With this new policy, you can specify that meetings scheduled from Outlook will take place on Teams only. If you are not using Microsoft Teams and Skype for Business in coexistence mode, you may ignore this message.
When will this happen?
- This policy will be available in early June for Outlook for Windows, Outlook on the web, Outlook for Android, and Outlook for iOS.
- This policy will be available in mid-June for Outlook for Mac.
Feature Update: Reverse number lookup in activity feed, call history, and voicemail
Click here for more information
MC214702, Stay Informed, Published date: May 30, 2020
We are extending our reverse number look up service to include call records in the user activity feed, call history, and voicemail.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64405
When this will happen
- Your users will begin seeing Caller ID in their activity feed, call history, and voicemail in early June 2020.
- The rollout will be complete by mid-June.
Office What’s New management card available for Microsoft 365 admin center
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MC214709, Stay Informed, Published date: May 30, 2020
When the Office What’s New Management card is available in the Microsoft 365 admin center, global and Office Apps administrators will be able to easily select which new items to display in the end-user “What’s New” section of Help in Office desktop applications.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64337.
When this will happen
We will begin rolling out this feature in mid-June 2020; the rollout will be complete by the end of September 2020.
Office 365 ProPlus became Microsoft 365 Apps
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MC214684, Stay Informed, Published date: May 29, 2020
Office 365 ProPlus was renamed to Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise on April 21. New name, same great value, same price – no change to your existing subscription.
Why is my subscription changing names?
We renamed Office 365 ProPlus together with the following subscriptions to be more reflective of the current range of features and benefits in each:
- Office 365 Business Essentials becomes Microsoft 365 Business Basic
- Office 365 Business Premium becomes Microsoft 365 Business Standard
- Microsoft 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Business Premium
- Office 365 Business becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for business
- Office 365 ProPlus becomes Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise
There are no price or feature changes. The same apps and services are available, only with an updated name. The name of your subscription automatically updated in Microsoft documentation, the Admin Center and your billing statements after April 21, 2020.
(Updated) New hyperlink and date and time editors, improved column editing for SharePoint lists and document libraries
Click here for more information
MC213422, Stay Informed, Published date: May 15, 2020
Updated 5/31/2020: We have updated the links in this message to ensure they resolve correctly. We are improving the hyperlink and date and time field editors in SharePoint lists and document libraries. We are also making it possible to create all column types directly from Quick Edit. All the data in existing hyperlink and date and time fields will be retained and unchanged.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap IDs 63275 and 63277.
When this will happen
- We will be rolling this out to Targeted Release customers in late May; the rollout will be complete in mid-June.
- We will be rolling this out to Standard Release customers in mid-June; the rollout will be complete by the end of July.
M365 Information Governance: Retention improvements for SharePoint Online and OneDrive
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MC214913, Plan For Change, Published date: Jun 2, 2020
Major update: Announcement
We’re improving how Microsoft 365 retention policies and labels work for SharePoint Online and OneDrive. This change will introduce a new retention engine to process these policies aimed at improving scalability and consistency across Microsoft 365 applications.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63061
When this will happen
We will start rolling out this update in July of 2020 and finish rolling it out by August of 2020.
Outlook for Windows introduces cloud settings
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MC214927, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 2, 2020
Outlook for Windows is introducing an option to allow users to save some settings in the Microsoft 365 cloud.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63037.
When this will happen
- We will begin rolling this out to Microsoft 365 Monthly Channel, Targeted, in late May. (This is Insiders Slow Channel which will soon be called Microsoft Beta.)
- We expect to roll this out to the Monthly Channel, Production, in late June
Microsoft 365 Groups supports new methods to hide/show groups in Outlook and the address book
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MC214928, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 2, 2020
Microsoft 365 Groups now supports new ways to show and hide groups in any Outlook client or the address book.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64479.
When this will happen
You can now set visibility of Groups using Microsoft Graph in addition to PowerShell.
(Updated) Feature Update: Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint
Click here for more information
MC209666, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 17, 2020
Updated June 2, 2020: We are updating the roll-out timeline to ensure the best possible experience. Please see change below.
We’re updating the Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint to contain the new Yammer experience. SharePoint pages that use the existing Yammer Conversations web part will begin to display the new experience.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63385 and Roadmap ID 63530.
When will this happen?
- Targeted release: gradual rollout from early May to mid-May
- Standard release: gradual rollout from mid-May to late June (mid-June)
Outlook for Windows Introduces Roaming Signatures
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MC215017, Plan For Change, Published date: Jun 2, 2020
Outlook for Windows is introducing e-mail signatures that will be stored in the cloud rather than being stored locally on the user’s Windows device.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 60371
When this will happen
- We will begin rolling this out to Microsoft 365 Monthly Channel, Targeted, in late July. (This is Insiders Slow Channel which will soon be called Microsoft Beta.)
- We expect to roll this out to the Monthly Channel, Production, in late August.
(Updated) Feature Update: Teams meeting call and meeting chat size to increase to 300
Click here for more information
MC214350, Stay Informed, Published date: May 27, 2020
Updated June 2, 2020: Based on customer feedback we are making some changes to this feature roll-out. Please review the updates below:
We’re increasing the new maximum number of participants for Teams meeting and chats from 250 to 300.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64225
When this will happen
- We will begin rolling this out in early June.
- The rollout will be complete by the end of June.
(Updated) Feature Update: Microsoft Secure Score improvement action updates
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MC213621, Stay Informed, Published date: May 18, 2020
Updated June 3, 2020: We’ve updated the roll-out timeline below.
We’re updating Microsoft Secure Score improvement actions to ensure a more accurate representation of security posture. This feature is related to MC208163 (April 2020).
When this will happen
We’ll be rolling this out to all customers in early-June (previously mid-June); the rollout will be complete mid-June (previously end of June).
The Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module is now generally available
Click here for more information
MC215164, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 3, 2020
The Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module (EXO V2 module), which connects admins to their Microsoft 365 Exchange Online environment to perform fast and highly reliable data retrieval, is now generally available to all Exchange Online environments.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 60528.
When this will happen
The EXO V2 module is available in the PowerShell Gallery.
Microsoft Teams has a new Information pane and pinned posts
Click here for more information
MC215186, Plan For Change, Published date: Jun 4, 2020
We are pleased to introduce two features that should make it easier for your users to find new and relevant information in a channel.
This feature is related to Microsoft Roadmap IDs 64173 and 64334.
When this will happen
- Rollout for standard release tenants will begin the beginning of July and be complete in mid-July.
- Rollout for government tenants should begin in mid-August and be complete by the end of August.
New Feature: Take control of self-service purchases
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MC215245, Plan For Change, Published date: Jun 4, 2020
In January we launched the self-service purchase feature that allowed users in a tenant to purchase Power platform products directly from Microsoft. This feature came with the ability for admins to turn off self-service purchase of individual products via Power Shell. Starting in July, we’re introducing new capabilities for IT Admins to manage information worker subscriptions in their tenant. In particular, IT Admins will be able to move information workers to another subscription or remove a subscription via a button in the Admin Center.
When this will happen
- This feature will gradually roll out beginning in July.
- We anticipate the rollout will be complete by early August.
Updates Available for Microsoft 365 Apps on Monthly Channel (soon to be called Current Channel)
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MC215259, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 4, 2020
We’ve released updates to the Microsoft 365 Apps on Monthly Channel (which will be called Current Channel from June 9th 2020)
When this will happen:
We’ll be gradually rolling out these updates of Microsoft 365 Apps to users starting June 2, 2020.
Mobile Video Sharing from Yammer
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MC215262, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 4, 2020
With a few clicks from the Yammer mobile app, your users can record, annotate, edit, and post an engaging mobile video to Yammer.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 50557.
When this will happen
We will begin the rollout for this feature in mid-June, and it will be complete by the end of July.
New feature: Suggested replies in Teams mobile
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MC215163, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 3, 2020
Suggested replies presents users with an option of three responses to choose from for selected messages and will soon be available for your users in Teams for iOS and Android.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 63671.
When will this happen
We will begin rolling this feature out in early July; the rollout will be complete in mid-July.
(Updated) New Feature: Make All Company feed a connected community
Click here for more information
MC208373, Stay Informed, Published date: Apr 2, 2020
Updated June 5, 2020: To ensure the best possible experience for our users, we are delaying some of our deployments to reduce the amount of change flowing into the services. Please see the updated roll-out timeline below
Live events and Office 365 Resources will soon be accessible to your users in the All Company community if you have enforced connected groups.
- We’ll be gradually rolling this out to all customers in early April.
- The rollout will be complete by the end of June (previously April).
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 62962.
New Feature: Noise Suppression in Microsoft Stream
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MC215351, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 5, 2020
Noise suppression for recorded videos in Microsoft Stream will reach generally availability later this month.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 57301
When this will happen
Noise suppression will begin rolling out to customers in mid-June and will complete by the end of July.
New Feature: SharePoint Auto Digest Email
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MC215356, Plan For Change, Published date: Jun 5, 2020
SharePoint Auto-News Digest sends automated email to employees in you company about the latest News posts that they have not yet read. Using Microsoft intelligence, a curated selection of News posts are shared with employees through an email that comes from SharePoint. This is a great way for employees to catch up on News that they may have otherwise missed. Only published news posts are sent in the digest, and employees will have access to all the news posts that they are sent so rest assumed that employees won’t see news that they don’t have permission to see. If employees want to opt-out of receiving the Auto-News Digest, they can click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email.
Key Points:
- Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID: 64685
- Timing: Targeted release customers in mid-June and complete for all customers by early August.
- Roll-out: User level roll-out
- Control Type: User control
(Updated) Removing some Teams channel system messages
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MC215375, Stay Informed, Published date: Jun 6, 2020
We are making it easier for your users to focus on relevant information in Teams by removing some system messages.
When this will happen
- Rollout for standard release tenants will begin in mid-June and be complete in mid-July.
- Rollout for government tenants should begin in mid-August and be complete by the end of August.