Play of the Week

With page difference visualization, you can see the version history of a modern page or news post and compare versions in SharePoint, including comparing changes visually on the page. You can see when a page was changed and who changed it. You can also see when properties (information about the file) were changed. If you need to, you can restore a previous version or delete a previous version.

In Development

Outlook on the web – default-on online meetings

When you create a meeting and you use Teams or Skype for Business as your online meeting provider, Outlook will automatically create it as an online meeting. Users can disable the online meeting toggle per meeting or for all meetings in Calendar Settings under “Events and invitations.”

ID: 63383    Tags: Exchange – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: April CY2020

Outlook on the web – end events early

Similar to Outlook for Windows, we are adding the option to have the meetings you create end 0-15 mins before the regular scheduled times. You can set this up in Settings/Calendar/Events and invitations/End_appointments_and_meetings_earlier.

ID: 63384    Tags: Exchange – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), Education Release: April CY2020

Microsoft Teams – Private Channels in Office 365 government tenants

Limit which team members can see the conversation and content within a particular channel. You can right-size channel participation and exposure without having to create discrete teams to limit visibility.

ID: 60719    Tags: Microsoft Teams – DoD, GCC High, GCC Release: Q1 CY2020

Intune role management coming to Microsoft 365 admin center

We are adding Intune role management experiences to the Microsoft 365 admin center, where you can assign roles, compare roles, and search for roles.

ID: 63551    Tags: O365, Admin Center – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: April CY2020

Updates to Office 365 Quarantine Notifications and Alerts – Shared Mailboxes

With this change, end-user-spam notification will be integrated with shared mailboxes. End-Users with access to shared mailbox will be able to take actions such as release messages.

ID: 63553    Tags: O365, Microsoft Information Protection – All environments Release: May CY2020

Outlook for iOS: Block unmanaged data in emails and calendar events

Support for the Microsoft Intune app protection policy that blocks file attachments and switching from personal to work accounts in new emails or calendar events with attachments from unmanaged apps.

ID: 61130    Tags: Outlook – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: Q3 CY2020

Outlook for Android: Block unmanaged data in emails and calendar events

Support for the Microsoft Intune app protection policy that blocks file attachments and switching from personal to work accounts in new emails or calendar events with attachments from unmanaged apps.

ID: 61131    Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), Education Release: Q3 CY2020

Outlook for Android: Availability in Office 365 operated by 21Vianet

Outlook for Android will be available to customers in China through certain app stores and the services and support of Office 365 operated by 21Vianet.

ID: 63432    Tags: Outlook     Release: May CY2020

Schedule SharePoint pages & news posts

You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future.

ID: 62892    Tags: SharePoint – All environments  Release: April CY2020

Improved SharePoint page/news publishing experience

A new pre-publish panel that gives authors an overview of key information about their pages or news posts – including the site name, thumbnail, and any missing required properties – before they confirm publish. Additional improvements related required properties for pages and pages library take effect.

ID: 63257    Tags: SharePoint – All environments Release: May CY2020

SharePoint: Updated Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint

We are updating the Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint that contains the new Yammer experience. SharePoint Sites that use the Yammer Conversations web part will start displaying the new Yammer Conversations web part experience.

ID: 63385    Tags: SharePoint – All environments Release: May CY2020

SharePoint lists and libraries – Conditional show or hide columns in a form

This feature allows users in lists and libraries to show or hide columns in a list form based on another column’s value by specifying a formula; equations that perform conditional checks on values in a SharePoint list or library. Users can click “Edit conditional formula” in the “Edit columns” list form pane to configure.

ID: 63518    Tags: SharePoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2020

SharePoint lists and libraries – configure header, footer and body of a form

This feature allows users in SharePoint lists and libraries to add a custom header and a footer to the associated form. In addition to this, users can also customize the body text area with sections. Users can click “Configure layout” in the property form or the details pane to begin configuring the form.

ID: 63519    Tags: SharePoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: Q3 CY2020

Yammer: Updated conversations webpart for SharePoint

We are updating the Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint that contains the new Yammer experience. SharePoint Sites that use the Yammer Conversations web part will start displaying the new Yammer Conversations web part experience.

ID: 63530    Tags: Yammer – All environments Release: May CY2020

Add an image of your diagram to other documents

Copy your entire diagram—or a subset of it—and paste it as an image in your process documentation, presentation, or other documents you are working on.

ID: 53960    Tags: Visio – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)  Release: April CY2020

Pinch and zoom to focus on elements in your diagram

Use the pinch and zoom functionality to focus on certain areas in your diagram. Zoom in and out of the diagram by using your fingers on your touch-enabled device.

ID: 62353    Tags: Visio – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: April CY2020

Rolling Out

Microsoft Teams – update default Teams meeting policy to enforce lobby in meetings for external users

We are updating the default meeting policy to automatically enforce lobby for all external users who join a Teams meeting, including attendees joining via Audio Conferencing. This policy change will only impact those tenants who have not modified the default meetings policy.

ID: 63388    Tags: Microsoft Teams, O365 – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: April CY2020

Microsoft Teams – assign a policy package to a batch of Teams users

Batch policy package assignment will allow Teams admins to use cmdlets to assign policies to groups of users.

ID: 63390    Tags: Microsoft Teams, O365 – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)O365, Microsoft Teams   Release: April CY2020

Microsoft Teams – new policy to prevent upload of profile picture

Teams desktop and web experiences will honor the Outlook on the Web mailbox policy setting that can control whether users are able change their profile pictures.

ID: 63389    Tags: O365, Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), Education Release: April CY2020

[Web] Live Presentations in PowerPoint

Live Presentations enables every audience member to view your presentation on their own device, like their laptop, tablet, or phone. Each audience member can turn on live captioning and choose subtitles from more than 60 languages. They can even navigate between slides, so they don’t miss a single, important detail from your presentation. The audience is engaged throughout your presentation by sending reactions in real-time. And after your presentation, the audience can provide specific feedback on the content and delivery of the presentation, which you can use to improve your presentation skills over time.

ID: 51121    Tags: PowerPoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: May CY2020

Updated SharePoint start page experience

The SharePoint start page, previously known as SharePoint home, is getting a UX refresh. We are also adding new experiences to the start page to help users discover and get back to their content.

ID: 54821    Tags: SharePoint – All environments   Release: Q1 CY2020

SharePoint: Stock Images

Free to use stock images will be available in the SharePoint image file picker.

ID: 59834    Tags: SharePoint – All environments Release: April CY2020

Information barriers (private preview)

Not only in governance, we are also evolving our Compliance controls for highly regulated verticals like Finance, Healthcare, etc., FINRA like compliance regulations for finance vertical require controls in place to avoid insider trading between different department users in the organization. You can now achieve these advanced regulations with the Information Barriers scenario in SharePoint and OneDrive. Sign up if you are interested in joining any of the above security private previews: https://aka.ms/SecurityPreviews.

ID: 57313    Tags: SharePoint, O365 – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: Q1 CY2020

SharePoint lists – rename “Flow” to “Automate”

As announced at Microsoft Ignite 2019, Microsoft Flow is being renamed to “Microsoft Power Automate” to better align with the Microsoft Power Platform. You will start to see Microsoft Flow be replaced by Microsoft Power Automate throughout the service. These changes will start to become visible in Microsoft documentation, Admin center, etc. in the near future. And for OneDrive and SharePoint, you’ll see this primarily in lists and libraries – listed as “Automate” in the top command bar.

ID: 62855    Tags: SharePoint, O365 – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: April CY2020

Launched

New Microsoft 365 admin center experience available for Office 365 operated by 21Vianet

The new Microsoft 365 admin center experience is rolling out soon to Office 365 operated by 21Vianet. The new Microsoft 365 admin center is built for IT teams as a simplified way to manage your Microsoft 365 and Office 365 services. The admin center provides a tailored experience based on the unique needs of your role or organization, improves efficiency for everyday tasks, and provides actionable insights that help you make data-driven decisions to deliver a better experience for your users.

ID: 63268    Tags: Admin Center, O365 Release: April CY2020

Microsoft Bookings – group bookings

Group bookings will allow a business to provide a service where multiple users can book an appointment with a single staff member.

ID: 53548    Tags: Bookings – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: Q1 CY2020

Targeted communications in Microsoft Teams

Targeted communication allows team members to message everyone in a specific role at the same time by @mentioning the role name in a post. For example, you could send a message to all cashiers in a store or all nurses in a hospital.

ID: 57651    Tags: Microsoft Teams, O365 – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: Q1 CY2020

New Tenant Admin Privacy Controls for Microsoft Whiteboard Clients

New privacy controls are available for Tenant Admins to manage organization privacy levels for Microsoft Whiteboard client applications.

ID: 58252    Tags: Microsoft Whiteboard    Release: Q4 CY2019

Announce when PSTN participants join/leave the meeting

Any user who schedules a Teams meeting will now see a new setting in Meeting Options page of a meeting to control the announcement sound when a PSTN/dial-in participant joins or leaves the meeting.

ID: 59919    Tags: O365, Microsoft Teams – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: April CY2019

Microsoft Teams – background effects in Teams meetings

We are building upon the heavily popular background blur feature in Teams meetings with background effects. This new feature in Teams allow meetings attendees to customize their background from a list of pre-selected images. We will continue to iterate and enhance this new feature to include the ability for users to upload their own custom images in May.

ID: 62890    Tags: O365, Microsoft Teams – Education, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: April CY2020

SharePoint lists & libraries – Automate flows can run on individual items

This SharePoint list and library update allow people to build Microsoft Power Automate flows that can run on individual items contained within a document library or list.

ID: 62856    Tags: O365, SharePoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: April CY2020

Outlook for iOS: Availability in Office 365 operated by 21Vianet

Outlook for iOS will be available to customers in China through the services and support of Office 365 operated by 21Vianet.

ID: 59920    Tags: Outlook    Release: Q1 CY2020

SharePoint: Image Resize

With this update, page editors will also be able to resize images in the image web part.

ID: 57812    Tags: SharePoint – All environments)   Release: Q1 CY2020

SharePoint: Page Difference Visualization

With page difference visualization, you can see the version history of a modern page or news post and compare versions in SharePoint, including comparing changes visually on the page. You can see when a page was changed and who changed it. You can also see when properties (information about the file) were changed. If you need to, you can restore a previous version or delete a previous version.

ID: 57813    Tags: SharePoint – All environments Release: Q1 CY2020

New connection experience in Visio for the web

Visio Plan 1 and Plan 2 users can now create connectors from any point on a diagram shape to any desired point on the same shape or another shape—and create multiple parallel connectors from a shape’s edge. With an intuitive interface, users can move the connection point on a shape to allow better alignment of connectors and also create as many connection points on a shape as needed.

ID: 43873    Tags: Visio – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant)   Release: Q1 CY2020

Canceled

File activity in list view

In the activity column, users can see the activities happening on their files from the files view, helping them hone in on the files that are most important to them.

ID: 27545    Tags: OneDrive for Business – All environments   Release: Q1 CY2020