Microsoft Office 365 News 04-15-2020: Microsoft Introduces Teams Hand-Raising Feature

In this week’s Microsoft Office 365 news, Microsoft has postponed the retirement of Basic Authentication in Exchange Online until the second half of 2021, due to the upheaval many clients are dealing with because of the current public health crisis. Additionally, a Teams hand-raising feature will soon become available, Microsoft Bookings gets announced as a new feature, and more.

New Features

• • Teams hand-raising feature in meetings
    • What’s happening: Teams meeting attendees will soon have the ability to indicate their desire to speak by toggling a hand icon in the meeting control bar. This capability will be available for Mac, PC and web-based clients at first. Mobile app support will come later.
    • Gradual rollout start: Mid-April 2020. Feature support is expected to be implemented for government environments in late May 2020.

• • Modernized SharePoint managed metadata services (MMS)
    • What’s happening: Microsoft will soon gradually implement modern experiences for SharePoint MMS. This will include a modern term store manager in the admin center, new tagging and filtering options for end users, a new tree view, and a modern content type gallery in the admin center.

Updated Features

• • Streamlined SharePoint, OneDrive link recipient experience
    • What’s happening: For SharePoint and OneDrive links shared with specific people, Microsoft has announced plans to improve the recipient experience.
    • Rollout start: Early April 2020
    • Rollout finish: Early May 2020

• • Microsoft Forms eDiscovery search results presentation update
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is updating how eDiscovery – a process that pinpoints and pulls electronic info that can be leveraged as legal evidence – shows search results in Forms.
    • Rollout start: Mid-April 2020
    • Rollout finish: Late April 2020

Announcements

• • Retirement postponed for Basic Authentication in Exchange Online
    • What’s happening: Due to the unprecedented upheaval many businesses and Microsoft clients are dealing with because of COVID-19, the supplier has decided to postpone the retirement of Basic Authentication of Exchange Online until the second half of 2021, for those who are still actively leveraging it.

• • Performance alert for Content Query web part
    • What’s happening: The Content Query web part helps find and display info on classic pages but can also hurt page performance. As a result, Microsoft is implementing an alert that will display in classic publishing portals that use this tool.

• • New app: Microsoft Bookings
    • What’s happening: A new Office 365 web app – a self-service scheduling tool called Microsoft Bookings— will soon become available.
    • Rollout date: Mid-May 2020

• • New service plan for Office subscriptions
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is adding a new service plan – Common Data Service – to Office subscriptions. Under this service plan, for those with a Project license (Project for the web), the Office 365 user view to Project and Roadmap feature will allow users to see projects and roadmaps.
    • Rollout start: Mid-May 2020

• • Additional code updates for Outlook on the web Files view feature
    • What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced the planned rollout of the Files view in Outlook on the web. The supplier has decided to make changes to the code before completing implementation.

• • Updated rollout timeline for Forms Bing Image search, YouTube search toggle
    • What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced the rollout of a single toggle that allows end users to add videos from YouTube search and images from Bing search to Forms. The supplier has updated the implementation timeline to ensure the best possible user experience.
    • Rollout finish: End of April 2020 (previously mid-March 2020)

• • Known issues with Intune Primary User (Preview) feature
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has identified UI and reporting bugs in the Primary User feature that result in inaccurate Primary User info showing up in the admin console. The supplier will fix these problems with the 2004 (April) service update.

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