In Microsoft 365 news this week, the supplier announced plans to introduce a new anonymous join policy for Teams meetings. Keep reading for details about the policy and other updates to the Microsoft 365 suite.
New Features
- New email system and formatting
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to switch to a new email system in early December 2021. This will involve minor alterations to aspects of formatting such as font type and subject lines.
- New email system and formatting
- Teams audit log: Meeting Activities
- What’s happening: Microsoft is enhancing your ability to respond to security incidents with the addition of Meeting Activities to the Teams audit log.
- Teams audit log: Meeting Activities
- Viva Connections app
- What’s happening: The Viva Connections app in Teams is now generally available. The app is part of Microsoft Viva and offers a customizable dashboard.
- Viva Connections app
- SharePoint: Modern lookup columns
- What’s happening: The new lookup columns feature will give you the ability to connect lists to columns from other lists on your site. After establishing this connection, you can “lookup” info to include on your new list.
- Rollout start: Late November 2021 for targeted release; late December 2021 for standard release
- Rollout finish: Mid-December 2021 for targeted release; late January 2022 for standard release
- What’s happening: The new lookup columns feature will give you the ability to connect lists to columns from other lists on your site. After establishing this connection, you can “lookup” info to include on your new list.
- SharePoint: Modern lookup columns
- Teams anonymous join policy
- What’s happening: With the implementation of this new per-organizer policy, administrators will have control over anonymous users’ ability to attend Teams meetings.
- Rollout start: Mid-November 2021
- Rollout finish: Late November 2021
- What’s happening: With the implementation of this new per-organizer policy, administrators will have control over anonymous users’ ability to attend Teams meetings.
- Teams anonymous join policy
Updated Features
- Improved Microsoft Teams Store
- What’s happening: Microsoft has redesigned the Teams Store. Changes include an optimized landing page to promote discoverability, intelligent app recommendations, and curated surfaces displaying app collections applicable to common scenarios.
- Improved Microsoft Teams Store
- Teams view-only attendee guidance
- What’s happening: Microsoft has updated its guidance concerning the best experiences to utilize for events and meetings with over 1,000 users.
- Teams view-only attendee guidance
- Exchange Mail Flow status summary report
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to merge the Funnel view and Tech view into a single “Mail flow” view to make it easier for admins to see how emails travel through the filtering system.
- Rollout start: End of November 2021 for standard release; early December 2021 for government clouds
- Rollout finish: Early December 2021 for standard release; early January 2022 for government clouds
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to merge the Funnel view and Tech view into a single “Mail flow” view to make it easier for admins to see how emails travel through the filtering system.
- Exchange Mail Flow status summary report
- Updates release to all channels for Microsoft 365 Apps
- What’s happening: The supplier has issued updates for Microsoft 365 Apps for the following channels: Current Channel, Monthly Enterprise Channel, Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel (Preview), and Semi-Annual Enterprise Channel.
- Updates release to all channels for Microsoft 365 Apps
Announcements
- Retirement of “Related content” in Classic Yammer
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to retire the “Related content” feature from Classic Yammer on December 20, 2021.
- Retirement of “Related content” in Classic Yammer
- Microsoft 365 Apps admin center: Retirement of Security Policy Advisor
- What’s happening: The supplier began retiring Security Policy Advisor on November 8, 2021, and recommends leveraging the Office cloud policy service instead.
- Microsoft 365 Apps admin center: Retirement of Security Policy Advisor
- Delayed rollout of Praise history in Microsoft Viva Insights
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to introduce Praise history in Viva Insights. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has modified the deployment timeline for this feature.
- Rollout start: Early December 2021 (previously mid-November 2021)
- Rollout finish: End of January 2021 (previously end of November 2021)
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to introduce Praise history in Viva Insights. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has modified the deployment timeline for this feature.
- Delayed rollout of Praise history in Microsoft Viva Insights
- Delayed rollout of automatic archiving for items in Purges, Versions and Discovery Holds
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement an update that would automatically move items in the Discovery Holds, Versions and Purges folders to the archive mailbox each day. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has changed the rollout timeline for this update.
- Rollout start: Mid-October 2021
- Rollout finish: End of November 2021 (previously end of October 2021)
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement an update that would automatically move items in the Discovery Holds, Versions and Purges folders to the archive mailbox each day. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has changed the rollout timeline for this update.
- Delayed rollout of automatic archiving for items in Purges, Versions and Discovery Holds
- Delayed rollout of new SharePoint site templates
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to introduce new SharePoint site templates for healthcare organizations, non-profits and retail clients. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has altered the rollout timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-November 2021 (previously mid-October 2021) for targeted release; early December 2021 (previously early November 2021) for standard release
- Rollout finish: Late November 2021 (previously late October 2021) for targeted release; mid-December 2021 (previously mid-November 2021) for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to introduce new SharePoint site templates for healthcare organizations, non-profits and retail clients. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has altered the rollout timeline.
- Delayed rollout of new SharePoint site templates
- Delayed rollout of SharePoint custom list templates
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to add custom list templates to SharePoint. To ensure the best possible experience, the supplier has altered the rollout timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-January 2022 (previously mid-October 2021) for standard release
- Rollout finish: Mid-February 2022 (previously November 2021) for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to add custom list templates to SharePoint. To ensure the best possible experience, the supplier has altered the rollout timeline.
- Delayed rollout of SharePoint custom list templates
- Delayed rollout of Play My Emails in Brazilian Portuguese for Outlook mobile
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to expand Play My Emails to Brazilian Portuguese on Outlook for Android and iOS. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the deployment timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-January 2022 (previously mid-November 2021)
- Rollout finish: Late February 2022 (previously late January 2022)
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to expand Play My Emails to Brazilian Portuguese on Outlook for Android and iOS. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the deployment timeline.
- Delayed rollout of Play My Emails in Brazilian Portuguese for Outlook mobile
- Finance and operations: Delayed release of October 2021 downloadable virtual hard disk (VHD) environment
- What’s happening: After discovering areas that need improvement during the validation process, Microsoft has delayed the release of the downloadable VHD environment to early 2022.
- Finance and operations: Delayed release of October 2021 downloadable virtual hard disk (VHD) environment
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 and other types of IT solutions. To learn more, give us a call at 877-599-3999 or email sales@stratospherenetworks.com.
