In Microsoft 365 news this week, the supplier announced a public preview of a Teams Q&A app that allows for structured discussions during webinars and meetings. Keep reading for more information about that new application and other updates to the Microsoft 365 suite.
New Features
- Chat with users outside your work network with Teams personal accounts
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced a feature that will allow end users to leverage Teams personal accounts to talk to others outside their work networks. With this capability, you can invite other Teams users to chat with their phone number or email address.
- Rollout start: Early December 2021
- Rollout finish: Mid-December 2021
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced a feature that will allow end users to leverage Teams personal accounts to talk to others outside their work networks. With this capability, you can invite other Teams users to chat with their phone number or email address.
- Chat with users outside your work network with Teams personal accounts
- Microsoft 365 compliance center to add continuous compliance assessments
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced plans to improve the automated testing capabilities and evidence generation functionality of Compliance Manager.
- Rollout start: Mid-November 2021
- Rollout finish: Late January 2022
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced plans to improve the automated testing capabilities and evidence generation functionality of Compliance Manager.
- Microsoft 365 compliance center to add continuous compliance assessments
- SharePoint admin center data access governance reports
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the planned addition of data access governance reports to help admins keep track of sharing activity and files with sensitivity labels.
- Rollout start: Early November 2021 for public preview; mid-January 2022 for standard release
- Rollout finish: End of November 2021 for public preview; mid-February 2022 for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft has announced the planned addition of data access governance reports to help admins keep track of sharing activity and files with sensitivity labels.
- SharePoint admin center data access governance reports
- Public preview: Historical versions in Advanced eDiscovery in the Microsoft 365 compliance center
- What’s happening: Microsoft will soon introduce a public preview of historical versions in Advanced eDiscovery. This will facilitate searches across all versions of a document.
- Rollout start: Early November 2021
- Rollout finish: Early December 2021
- What’s happening: Microsoft will soon introduce a public preview of historical versions in Advanced eDiscovery. This will facilitate searches across all versions of a document.
- Public preview: Historical versions in Advanced eDiscovery in the Microsoft 365 compliance center
- Multi-language invite control for Teams meetings
- What’s happening: With this new feature, admins can configure up to two languages to supplant the user preferred language during the Teams meeting invitation creation process.
- Rollout start: Early December 2021
- Rollout finish: Mid-January 2022
- What’s happening: With this new feature, admins can configure up to two languages to supplant the user preferred language during the Teams meeting invitation creation process.
- Multi-language invite control for Teams meetings
- New Teams reactions
- What’s happening: Microsoft Teams will soon allow end users to react to chat messages with any emoji.
- Rollout start: Mid-January 2022 for standard release
- Rollout finish: Late January 2022 for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft Teams will soon allow end users to react to chat messages with any emoji.
- New Teams reactions
- Public preview: Teams Q&A
- What’s happening: Microsoft has introduced a public preview of a Q&A app for Teams webinars and meetings. This feature allows event organizers to lead structured discussions.
- Public preview: Teams Q&A
- Scheduler dynamic recurring meetings for Outlook
- What’s happening: With this feature, Outlook end users can email their virtual assistant and request to schedule a dynamic recurring meeting.
- Scheduler dynamic recurring meetings for Outlook
- Public preview: New Azure and Dynamics 365 assessment templates
- What’s happening: The supplier has introduced a public preview of new assessment templates and controls, in addition to making Zero Trust controls generally available.
- Public preview: New Azure and Dynamics 365 assessment templates
- Discovery of specific versions of files at the time they were shared
- What’s happening: Advanced eDiscovery is adding the ability to discover the exact version of a file that was shared. A new Records Management capability supports this feature by allowing end users to automatically add retention labels to versions of files shared as cloud documents.
- Discovery of specific versions of files at the time they were shared
Updated Features
- Office.com enhancements
- What’s happening: Microsoft will soon improve the Office app for Windows and Office.com experiences. The changes will help end users find relevant content and make it easier to access templates and apps in a single location.
- Rollout start: November 2021 for targeted release; early January 2022 for standard release
- Rollout finish: Mid-December 2021 for targeted release; end of February 2022 for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft will soon improve the Office app for Windows and Office.com experiences. The changes will help end users find relevant content and make it easier to access templates and apps in a single location.
- Office.com enhancements
- “In development for Microsoft Intune” page
- What’s happening: The supplier has updated the “In development for Microsoft Intune” page, which lists features included in future releases.
- “In development for Microsoft Intune” page
Announcements
- Alignment of OneDrive Desktop app (sync app) and Windows support lifecycles
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to align the support lifecycle of the OneDrive Desktop application (sync app) with the Windows support lifecycle starting January 1, 2022.
- Alignment of OneDrive Desktop app (sync app) and Windows support lifecycles
- Delayed rollout of automatic installation of Power BI app for Teams
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement automatic installation of the Power BI app for Teams for end users who utilize the Power BI service in a browser and possess a Teams license. At the same time, Power BI will become available to government clients. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the deployment timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-November 2021 (previously early November 2021)
- Rollout finish: Late December 2021
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement automatic installation of the Power BI app for Teams for end users who utilize the Power BI service in a browser and possess a Teams license. At the same time, Power BI will become available to government clients. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the deployment timeline.
- Delayed rollout of automatic installation of Power BI app for Teams
- Delayed rollout of Teams real-time messaging protocol (RTMP) streaming support
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to allow end users to stream Teams webinars and meetings to large audiences (including custom endpoints) with RTMP. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the rollout timeline.
- Rollout start: Late November 2021 (previously late October 2021)
- Rollout finish: Mid-December 2021 (previously late November 2021)
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to allow end users to stream Teams webinars and meetings to large audiences (including custom endpoints) with RTMP. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the rollout timeline.
- Delayed rollout of Teams real-time messaging protocol (RTMP) streaming support
- Delayed rollout of dynamic e911 for Teams WFH users in the U.S.
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to make dynamic e911 available for U.S. WFH Teams users. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the implementation timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-November 2021 (previously late October 2021) for standard and GCC; mid-December 2021 (previously late November 2021) for GCC-High and DoD
- Rollout finish: Late November 2021 (previously mid-November 2021) for standard and GCC; late December 2021 (previously mid-December 2021) for GCC-High and DoD
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to make dynamic e911 available for U.S. WFH Teams users. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the implementation timeline.
- Delayed rollout of dynamic e911 for Teams WFH users in the U.S.
- Delayed rollout of Azure B2B integration with SharePoint Online and OneDrive
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced the planned general availability of Azure B2B integration with SharePoint Online and OneDrive. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the rollout timeline.
- Rollout start: Mid-January 2022 (previously late July 2021)
- Rollout finish: Mid-February 2022 (previously late November 2021)
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced the planned general availability of Azure B2B integration with SharePoint Online and OneDrive. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has updated the rollout timeline.
- Delayed rollout of Azure B2B integration with SharePoint Online and OneDrive
- Delayed rollout of SharePoint private drafts
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement private drafts for SharePoint pages and news posts. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has changed the implementation timeline.
- Rollout start: Early November 2021 for targeted release; late November 2021 for standard release
- Rollout finish: Late November 2021 for targeted release; mid-January 2022 for standard release
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to implement private drafts for SharePoint pages and news posts. To ensure the best possible customer experience, the supplier has changed the implementation timeline.
- Delayed rollout of SharePoint private drafts
- Timing change for Microsoft Whiteboard migration to OneDrive for Business storage
- What’s happening: Microsoft previously announced plans to move Whiteboard to OneDrive for Business Storage. The opt-in period was originally scheduled to end in September 2021, with the default-on setting to roll out in October 2021. Now, the opt-in period will start in early November 2021 and finish at the end of the month. The default-on setting will start to roll out in mid-January 2022 and finish in late February 2022.
- Timing change for Microsoft Whiteboard migration to OneDrive for Business storage
- Retirement of least-used APIs in Exchange Web Services (EWS)
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to retire the 25 least-used APIs in EWS for Exchange Online. The supplier will send Message Center posts to alert tenants utilizing these APIs in the coming months and recommends switching to Microsoft Graph APIs.
- Retirement of least-used APIs in Exchange Web Services (EWS)
- Retirement of classic Exchange admin center (EAC) mail flow features
- What’s happening: Microsoft plans to retire mail flow features from the classic EAC starting in early December 2021.
- Retirement of classic Exchange admin center (EAC) mail flow features
- Updated OS requirements for Desktop Analytics and Update Compliance
- What’s happening: Due to the addition of support for the new Windows diagnostic data processor configuration, Desktop Analytics and Update Compliance will exclusively support devices running Windows 10 version 1809 or later, starting on January 31, 2022.
- Updated OS requirements for Desktop Analytics and Update Compliance
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.
