Microsoft Office 365 News 12-17-2019: Flow Becomes Power Automate, Clutter Retirement Postponed and More

This week in Microsoft Office 365 updates, Microsoft Flow will become Microsoft Power Automate, the retirement of Clutter for Outlook gets postponed, the Microsoft Teams Exploratory experience replaces the self-serve Teams Commercial Cloud Trial and more.

New Features

• • Proof of disposal and retention labels for records
    • What’s happening: Users will soon have a new way to view disposed records in Records management.
    • Rollout start: Early January 2020
    • Rollout finish: End of February 2020

• • Option to add participants to private Teams meetings chats
    • What’s happening: Users in private meeting chats in Teams will gain the ability to add users to the chat.
    • Rollout date: Mid-December 2019

• • Public preview: Advanced Threat Protection (ATP) campaign views
    • What’s happening: Microsoft has announced it has started rolling out Office 365 ATP campaign views as a public preview.

• • Option to install Outlook as a progressive web app
    • What’s happening: Soon users with Chromium-based browsers will have the ability to install Outlook on the web as a progressive web app.
    • Rollout start: Mid-December 2019
    • Rollout finish: End of January 2020

• • File Upload for Microsoft Forms
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is introducing a new feature called File Upload for Microsoft Forms.
    • Rollout start: Early December 2019
    • Rollout finish: End of December 2019

Updated Features

• • My Account experience
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is updating the user account management experience. This applies to My Account in Office web apps and Office.com.
    • Rollout start: Late January 2020
    • Rollout finish: End of March 2020

• • Teams for Semi-Annual Channel clients with existing ProPlus installs
    • What’s happening: Microsoft will add the Teams desktop app to existing installations of Office 365 ProPlus for Semi-Annual Channel customers.
    • Installation date: Jan. 14, 2020

• • Microsoft Search Q&As
    • What’s happening: Based on customer feedback, Microsoft is removing the set of suggested Q&As provided to assist with Microsoft Search set-up.
    • Removal date: Jan. 10, 2020

• • Microsoft Teams Exploratory experience to replace Commercial Cloud Trial
    • What’s happening: The Microsoft Teams Exploratory experience will replace the self-serve Teams Commercial Cloud Trial. This development means existing Azure Active Directory (AAD) users who aren’t licensed for Teams will be able to start trials.
    • Rollout start: January 2020

• • Updated FindTime back-end service
    • What’s happening: Microsoft is updating FindTime’s polling data storage method.
    • Rollout start: Mid-December 2019
    • Rollout finish: End of March 2020

Reminders

• • Flow to become Power Automate
    • What’s happening: As previously announced at Microsoft Ignite 2019, to better fit with the Power Platform, Microsoft Flow will be renamed Microsoft Power Automate.

Delays

• • Clutter for Outlook retirement
    • What’s happening: After receiving customer feedback, Microsoft has decided to postpone the retirement of Clutter for Outlook, which was previously set for Jan. 31, 2020. Although users can keep using Clutter, Microsoft will no longer invest in it and suggests transitioning to Focused Inbox, where the company will concentrate its development efforts.

For more information about Microsoft Office 365, please take a look at our previously published blog series about the suite. Our team of expert techs can also assist you if you have any questions or would like to learn more about the solution. Contact us today by calling 877-599-3999 or emailing sales@stratospherenetworks.com.