Microsoft 365 News 02-25-2021: Teams Adds Support for View-Only Meeting Attendees

In Microsoft 365 news this week, the supplier announced support for view-only meeting attendees in Teams, in addition to a new anonymous presenter option for Teams live events. Keep reading for more new features as well as updates and announcements from Microsoft.

New Features

• • Word for Windows text predictions
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced that text predictions will soon be available in Word for Windows for documents composed in English. This intelligent technology assists with composition and drives efficiency.

• • Teams support for view-only attendees
    • What’s happening: Up to 20,000 meeting attendees will soon be able to access meetings as view-only participants via the Teams desktop and mobile apps, as well as Teams on the web. This feature will be available for clients with E5, E3, A5 or A3 licenses.

• • Teams live events adding anonymous presenters
    • What’s happening: Meeting organizers will be able to permit anonymous presenters during Teams live events.

• • Outlook on the web app bar
    • What’s happening: Outlook on the web will soon have a new app bar which will affect how end users access the To Do, People, Mail and Calendar features.

• • SharePoint app bar
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is introducing an app bar for SharePoint modern communication and team sites. With the app bar, end users will be able to quickly access customizable global navigation, among other intranet resources.

Updated Features

• • Enhanced comments experience in Word for Windows and Mac
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the rollout of a new and improved comments experience for Word. The changes include enhancements to notifications, @ mentions and keyboard shortcuts.

• • OneDrive and SharePoint admin centers to merge
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced plans to consolidate the SharePoint and OneDrive admin centers to improve the admin experience.

• • Updated Teams file sharing experience
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is making changes to the Teams filing sharing and access control experience to make it more consistent with other Microsoft 365 apps. The supplier previously announced the rollout of this feature in fall 2020 but delayed the deployment to deliver the best possible customer experience.

• • Microsoft Forms public groups change
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is altering access behavior for public groups in Forms.

• • Support for DWG file Version History
    • What’s happening: The OneDrive sync client will soon support Version History for DWG files.

• • Updates released to the Current Channel for Microsoft 365 Apps
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has made updates available to the Current Channel for Microsoft 365 Apps.

Announcements

• • New data classification analytics service plan names
    • What’s happening: Microsoft plans to update the service plan for Microsoft 365 data classification analytics. There will soon be two service plans called Information Protection and Governance Analytics – Standard and Information Protection and Governance Analytics – Premium.

• • Retirement of Firstline worker and Firstline manager policy packages
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced plans to retire the Firstline worker and Firstline manager policy packages. The supplier advises relying on the Frontline worker and Frontline manager policy packages instead.

• • Get-UrlTrace report retirement
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced plans to retire the Get-UrlTrace report in Microsoft Defender for Office 365. The supplier advises utilizing the URL protection report instead.

• • Temporary Read Only mode for OneDrive iOS Files App integration
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has identified an issue with the OneDrive iOS Files app integration and is temporarily placing it in Read Only mode while the problem is under investigation.

For more information about Microsoft 365, please take a look at our blog series detailing the business value of the suite. Our expert techs also have extensive experience working with Microsoft 365, as well as other types of IT solutions. To learn more, give us a call at 877-599-3999 or email sales@stratospherenetworks.com.