Microsoft Office 365 News 07-01-2020: New and Updated Features for SharePoint, OneDrive and More

In Microsoft Office 365 news this week, Microsoft announces various new features and updates for SharePoint and OneDrive users, in addition to Service health page updates, the retirement of the Outlook People Pane and more.

New Features

• • Power Platform admin center introduction
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is deprecating the Power Automate admin center, Power Apps admin center and Dynamics 365 admin center. The Power Platform admin center will take their place.
    • Rollout date: June 30, 2020

• • SharePoint spaces 360° tour web part
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the addition of a 360° tour web part for SharePoint spaces. Authors will gain the ability to select and add annotations to numerous 360° images.
    • Rollout date: Mid-July 2020 for Targeted Release tenants; Mid-to-late July 2020 for all tenants

• • SharePoint Quick Edit sticky column
    • What’s happening: The far left column will stay in place when you scroll across a list or documentary library.
    • Rollout start: Early July 2020 for Targeted Release users; Late July 2020 for Standard Release users
    • Rollout finish: Late July 2020 for Targeted Release users; End of September 2020 for Standard Release users

• • Public preview of shared OneDrive and SharePoint folder shortcuts
    • What’s happening: End users will soon gain the ability to add shortcuts to shared folders within SharePoint and OneDrive shared libraries. You’ll be able to access these shortcuts via OneDrive.
    • Rollout date: Late July 2020 for the public preview; End of September 2020 for general availability

• • Teams mobile support for native device functionalities
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced that developers building Teams apps that use tabs will gain the ability to enhance the app experience with native device camera and location capabilities.
    • Rollout date: Available in iOS and Android app stores in late July 2020

• • Microsoft Graph connectors for Microsoft Search
    • What’s happening: Microsoft Graph connectors for Microsoft Search are now available to Targeted Release tenants. They will transition from public preview to general availability in the fall.
    • Rollout date: Late June 2020 for Targeted Release tenants; General availability to occur in September 2020

• • Acronym answers for Microsoft Search in SharePoint
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is implementing acronym answers with Microsoft Search in SharePoint Online.
    • Rollout start: Mid-June 2020 for Targeted Release customers; Late August 2020 for Standard Release customers
    • Rollout finish: Early July 2020 for Targeted Release customers; Mid-September 2020 for Standard Release customers

• • Language-aware spellcheck for Teams Desktop
    • What’s happening: End users who write messages in different languages via the Teams desktop app will now have access to language-relevant spellchecking.

• • New policy assignment features for multiple users
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the introduction of support for two new features in the Microsoft Teams PowerShell module: batch policy assignment and policy assignment to a group.
    • Rollout start: Early July 2020
    • Rollout finish: End of July 2020

Updated Features

• • Service health page updates
    • What’s happening: Microsoft will soon get rid of the service listing for “Office Subscription” and converge communications under “Office Client” on the Service health page.
    • Rollout date: Early July 2020

• • Exchange items support for retention labels
    • What’s happening: Exchange items will soon support retention labels with the time period of retention or deletion dependent upon when the item was labeled.
    • Rollout start: Mid-July 2020
    • Rollout finish: Early August 2020

• • Enhanced list and list item sharing
    • What’s happening: Microsoft plans to improve the list item and list sharing experience.
    • Rollout start: Early July 2020 for Targeted Release tenants; Mid-July 2020 for Standard Release tenants
    • Rollout finish: Mid-July 2020 for Targeted Release tenants; End of July 2020 for Standard Release tenants

• • New max file size for SharePoint and OneDrive
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is changing the max single file size from 15GB to 100GB. This applies to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. Additionally, it’s best to upload large files via the OneDrive Desktop client for optimal performance.

Announcements

• • Temporary rollback of SharePoint scheduling feature
    • What’s happening: Microsoft temporarily rolled back the SharePoint page scheduling capability in order to fix a problem with the feature that interfered with correct site scheduling. As a result, page scheduling is no longer available, and you’ll need to publish posts and pages manually.
    • Rollback date: June 29, 2020

• • Retirement of the Outlook People Pane
    • What’s happening: Microsoft plans to get rid of the People Pane, which was previously called the Outlook Social Connector. The supplier recommends that end users turn to the new search experience or the “find related messages” feature instead.
    • Retirement date: Late July 2020, beginning with minimum version 16.0.12712.10000

• • Updated rollout timeline for basic formatting on Company Branding sign-in page text component
    • What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to update the Azure Active Directory sign-in page Company Branding component in order to allow simple formatting as well as hyperlinks. The supplier has updated the implementation timeline.
    • Rollout start: Mid-June 2020 (previously late June 2020)
    • Rollout finish: End of June 2020 (previously late July 2020)

• • Banner notifications for Teams mobile app users
    • What’s happening: Teams mobile app users will see a banner in their activity feed notifying them of new features, including productivity enhancements and the ability to add accounts for personal use (a capability that will become available starting on June 30, 2020).

For more information about the Microsoft Office 365 suite, please take a look at our blog series detailing the business value of the suite. Our expert techs also have extensive experience working with Office 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.