Happy Friday, Everyone. It’s Microsoft 356 Update Time!
Updated Microsoft Teams Usage Reports are landing at the end of August to align “active users” with Microsoft’s definition of “daily active users”, which they use for their financial reporting and public disclosures. Microsoft defines active users as “the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in the last 28-day period across the desktop client, mobile client and web client”. What does this really mean? It will provide more detailed reporting and include recently added features, such as priority notifications.
A change for conditional access policies are expected to be rolled out by end of August. New conditional access policies will apply to all client apps, not just browsers and mobile apps. Hence an update to allow targeting modern and legacy authentication clients to ensure policies may be scoped appropriately. Existing policies are unaffected, hence the updates introduced by Microsoft will not have a negative effect on existing conditional access policies in place.
Finally, it’s 1 year until Skype for Business will be retired! Goodbye, Farewell, and Amen! It served its purposed, however, Microsoft Teams is far superior in many ways.
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
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MC219576, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 30, 2020
We are releasing the ability to preview the new Outlook for Mac for all Insider Slow users via a toggle that will be turned off by default. Insider Slow users can turn on the “New Outlook” toggle located at the top right of the Outlook window and experience all of the updates. They can switch quickly between the new Outlook for Mac experience and the current version in production.
Note: If your organization does not use Outlook for Mac or users are not part of Insiders Slow you can disregard this message.
The new Outlook for Mac experience has been updated to enhance performance and elevate productivity, is powered by the Microsoft Cloud, and connects using Microsoft sync technology. It brings updates across Mail, Search, and Calendar experiences that are designed for simplicity, reliability, and customization. The updated experience is carefully crafted and specifically designed with the power of Microsoft Services to provide suggestions and insights that are relevant to you, and simplicity to enable you to customize the experience.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 RoadmapID 27287
When this will happen This will be available beginning on July 30, 2020.
How this will affect your organization
All Mac users that are enrolled in the Insider Slow ring will see a “New Outlook” toggle on the upper righthand side of their Outlook window, which will be off by default. They can select the toggle in order to turn on the new experience and simply select it again when they would like to return to the current version.
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MC219613, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
Usage reports in the Microsoft 365 Center and Teams Admin Center will be updated to align with one another and ensure they are consistent with how Teams “active user” is already defined in Microsoft’s financial reporting and public disclosures. In those disclosures, we define “Daily Active User” as the maximum daily users performing an intentional action in the last 28-day period across the desktop client, mobile client and web client. Examples of an intentional action includes starting a chat, placing a call, sharing a file, editing a document within teams, participating in a meeting, and others. We strip out passive actions like auto boot, minimizing a screen, or closing the app. We also de-duplicate all actions across a single user ID.
With this update, the definition of “active user” in the Microsoft 365 and Teams Admin Centers will align with the definition for “Daily Active User” to include a more comprehensive set of intentional user actions and provide visibility into the use of more recently added features such as priority notifications. The usage reports will include usage of the free version of Teams in addition to users covered by paid licenses, for those organizations that have a combination of free and paid.
These updates to usage reports will provide customers with more accurate and granular visibility into how users in your organization are using Teams. In many cases these changes will result in changed usage numbers than previous reports >were showing.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66163
When this will happen: We will begin rolling this out at the end of August and expect to be complete by mid-September.
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MC219622, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
SharePoint site owners will be able to download their site’s 90-day usage data in an excel report, directly from the Site Usage page.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66395
When this will happen We will begin rolling this out in early August and complete by the end of August.
How this will affect your organization SharePoint site owners will see a new download button available on the Site Usage page. This will allow them to download 90-days site usage data in an excel file. This file will contain all site usage data which is available on the page.
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MC219639, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
We are making changes so all security reports will now be exportable from the security and compliance center.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66360
When this will happen
- We will begin rolling this out for standard and Germany datacenter customers at the end of August and expect to complete by mid-September.
- We will begin rolling this out for Government tenants in mid-September and expect to be complete by early October.
How this will affect your organization Previously, security reports remained unexportable from the security and compliance center which limited security admin in their daily operation of analyzing their tenant security data in workloads such excel. With this new capability, security admin will now be able to directly export whatever information they desire from the reports we offer and not have to manually record data.
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MC219648, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
As announced in MC191153 (Sept 2019) we are retiring legacy protocols in Exchange Online. As part of this effort, new Azure Active Directory (AD) Conditional Access policies will apply by default to all client apps, including both legacy authentication and modern authentication clients.
When this will happen We will begin rolling out this feature in early August and expect rollout to be complete by mid-August.
How this will affect your organization With the general availability of the client apps condition in Conditional Access, new policies will apply by default to all client apps (as opposed to only browsers and mobile apps and desktop clients using modern authentication).
Sign-ins from client apps that use legacy authentication do not support multi-factor authentication and do not provide device compliance information to Azure AD, so they may be blocked by new Conditional Access policies with grant controls requiring MFA or compliant devices.
Existing Conditional Access policies will not be affected by this change, though the configuration toggle for existing policies has been removed to make it easier to see which client apps existing policies apply to.
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MC219651, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
Teams already provides live captions as a way to follow along with what is being said in a meeting. We will soon add speaker attribution to captions so that everyone knows who is speaking.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 65949.
When this will happen We will begin a gradual rollout in mid-August and expect the rollout to be complete by the end of August.
How this will affect your organization Live captions improved accessibility of Microsoft Teams. Identifying who is speaking when there are multiple speakers in a meeting makes live captions more useful and improves comprehension.
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MC219652, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
We’re introducing a new Image column type to lists and libraries. Using this column, list and library users will be able to add a single image file from their computer to an item in a list or a library.
When this will happen We will be gradually rolling this out to Targeted Release customers in early August and expect to complete the rollout to all by mid-August 2020.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 64872.
How this will affect your organization List and library users will see a new column type called Image when adding new columns.
Once an Image column is added to a list or library, users can:
- Add an image using the list or library form.
- View, replace, or remove the image when viewing the item or file properties in the form.
When users are browsing the list on a mobile device, they will be able to upload an image from the mobile device simply by taking a photo with their camera.
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MC219746, Plan For Change, Published date: Aug 3, 2020
We will be retiring the Discover view from the OneDrive Website beginning August 2020. Instead we recommend finding files across your organization by using Search, which is where we will continue to invest in further improvements over time.
Key points:
- Major: Retirement
- Timing: Targeted Release customers in early August, and the roll-out will be completed by the end of September
- Action: review and assess
How this will affect your organization: Users will no longer be able to find the Discover view in the left nav pane of OneDrive when this change is implemented. The screens below illustrate the before and after views.
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MC219641, Plan For Change, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
Major update: Announcement Applies To: All
As Microsoft Teams has become the core communications client for Microsoft 365, this is a reminder the Skype for Business Online service will retire July 31, 2021.At that point, access to the service will end.
Note: Neither the Skype consumer service nor Skype for Business Server deployments will be affected by the retirement of the Skype for Business Online service. Current Skype for Business Online customers will experience no change in service up to the retirement date. Support for the integration of third-party party Audio Conferencing Providers (ACP) into Skype for Business Online will continue through the end of service July 31, 2021.
How does this affect me? You are receiving this message because your organization may be using Skype for Business Online. While your organization will no longer be able to use Skype for Business Online once the service is retired 12 months from now, you may continue to use Microsoft Teams as part of your existing Microsoft 365 licensing agreement.
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MC219570, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 30, 2020
We’ve released updates to the following update channel for Microsoft 365 Apps:
- Current Channel
When this will happen:
We’ll be gradually rolling out this update of Microsoft 365 Apps to users on that update channel starting July 30th, 2020 (PST).
How this will affect your organization: If your Microsoft 365 Apps clients are configured to automatically update from the Office Content Delivery Network (CDN), then no action is required.
If you manage updates directly you can now download this latest update and begin deployment.
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MC219749, Stay Informed, Published date: Aug 3, 2020
We are excited to announce that early access for the 2020 wave 2 release (MC218026) for Microsoft Dynamics 365 applications and Microsoft Power Platform will be available on August 3, 2020. This is a compilation of new capabilities that will be released between October 2020 and March 2021. The new features and enhancements demonstrate our continued investment to power digital transformation for our customers and partners.
How does this affect me?
Starting August 3, 2020, customers and partners will be able to opt-in to early access and validate the latest features in a non-production environment. Starting August 10, 2020, customers that are a part of the Microsoft Government Cloud will have the option available in their administrative portal. These features include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled for users in production environments starting October 1, 2020. The deployment schedule is being finalized and will be available soon for reference.
There are many features available for early access across Dynamics 365 applications and Power Platform. We encourage application administrators to review these changes to understand the impact and determine if change management for new features is required.
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MC219777, Stay Informed, Published date: Aug 4, 2020
Last year, we made it possible for tenant and SharePoint administrators to use PowerShell to override the organization’s expiration policy on a per site collection basis. With this update, tenant and SharePoint administrators will be able to run the same PowerShell to override the anyone link expiration policy on an individual user’s OneDrive.
When this will happen This feature will begin rolling out in early August; we expect rollout to be complete by end of August.
How this will affect your organization Tenant and SharePoint administrators can now override the anyone link expiration policy on an individual OneDrive, choosing to either remove the expiration requirement entirely or set it to a more or less restrictive length.
There is no impact to your users unless a tenant or SharePoint administrator executes this feature via PowerShell.
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MC219629, Stay Informed, Published date: Jul 31, 2020
In May (MC214522), we introduced a new user setting, Only me, that meeting organizers could select when configuring the “Who can bypass lobby?” setting for a Teams meeting. We are now making it possible for you to set Teams meeting defaults in your organization so that only meeting organizers can bypass the lobby.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66463.
When this will happen We will begin rolling this out the end of August and expect to complete the rollout in early September.
How this will affect your organization Currently, the tenant-level default setting for “Automatically admit people?” is Everyone in your organization. The other two options are Everyone in your organization and federated organizations or Everyone (no restriction). Although individuals can limit direct meeting access to the meeting organizer, you cannot currently make that a default setting for a given user or set of users.
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MC219922, Stay Informed, Published date: Aug 5, 2020
We have completed the roll out of proof of disposal for records in SharePoint and OneDrive as we announced in MC212139 (May 2020).
However, to ensure the best experience for our customers, we have paused the rollout of this change for email records in Exchange.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 59217.
When this will happen We will update this post when we have resumed the rollout for email records in Exchange.
How this affects your organization You can see the list of record labels from SharePoint and OneDrive in the ‘Disposition’ section of the Records Management solution within the Microsoft 365 Compliance Center. Under these labels, you will be able to see the list of items in SharePoint and ODB that are disposed automatically or through a disposition review.
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MC219941, Stay Informed, Published date: Aug 6, 2020
For administrators who wish to enable granular control over where intelligent insights are available to their employees, we have released (beta) controls that give you the ability to configure the visibility of Graph-derived insights between users and other items in the Graph (such as documents or sites) across apps and services in Microsoft 365.
This message is associated with Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 66462.
When this will happen These beta controls are now available. We expect to release these into production in the fourth quarter.
How this will affect your organization The new privacy settings will replace existing item insights controls implemented previously with the exception of Delve privacy controls. Over time these controls, any of the privacy controls implemented via Office 365 admin will be replaced.
The new privacy controls respect both the existing Delve settings and these new item-insights settings; the more strict will be applied. This means that during the transition phase, a user is considered as opted out if either the user was opted out by the Delve controls or item insights settings.
After the beta rollout ends, pre-existing Delve settings will only affect the Delve app and new settings will only affect item insights in the Microsoft Graph. The replacement of Delve-related controls will occur approximately six months after production rollout is complete.
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MC219951, Plan For Change, Published date: Aug 6, 2020
We’re adding a PIN-based verification step to our existing phone-based verification process, to better protect your organization. If you contact us from a number not registered with your organization profile, the Microsoft support representative will send a verification code to your registered email or phone in your Admin Center profile. Provide this code to the support representative to grant them access to your organization’s account.
When this change will happen: Thursday, August 20, 2020
How this will affect your organization: We’re adding a PIN-based verification step to our existing phone-based verification process, to better protect your organization. If you contact us from a number not registered with your organization profile, the Microsoft support representative will send a verification code to your registered email or phone in your Admin Center profile. Provide this code to the support representative to grant them access to your organization’s account.