Play of the Week

Microsoft Exchange has brought back the new and improved Test-Message Cmdlet feature. This new feature allows tenant admins to independently investigate issues related to the execution of their Exchange Transport Rules (ETR) without engaging Microsoft support for assistance in investigations.

In Development

Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Hourly option for notifications

We are adding a new hourly option to end user notifications, allowing users to be able to rely on prompt notification about quarantined items when appropriate. With this feature users can be rest assured that they will be updated frequently once new items lands on their quarantine folder.

ID: 93304 Tags: Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Exchange – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: April CY2023

Exchange: Test-Message Cmdlet

Last year we disabled the test-message cmdlet for further enhancements. We are happy to announce that we are introducing the new and improved test-message cmdlet for external use. With this cmdlet, tenant admins can now independently investigate issues related to the execution of their Exchange Transport Rules (ETR) without engaging Microsoft support for assistance in investigation.

ID: 100494 Tags: Exchange – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: January CY2023

Outlook: iOS Navigation changes

Outlook for iOS is making it easier to find your contacts, files, and more. A new, customizable navigation bar at the bottom of Outlook is your destination for Mail, Calendar, Feed, Contacts and Files, in whatever order works best for you. The Floating Action Button also gets an update to make creating new items even easier.

ID: 100568 Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: March CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Targeted In-meeting notification

Send in-meeting notifications to specific people in a meeting via a bot.

ID: 101918 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: February CY2023

Microsoft 365 admin center: Send email notifications from your own domain

Notifications that cannot be sent from a user’s email account can now be configured to use your own custom verified domain instead of the Microsoft default domain.

ID: 103628 Tags: PowerPoint, Word, Planner, Microsoft Project, Microsoft 365 Admin Center, OneDrive, SharePoint – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: March CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Review set: List page usability enhancements

Get a detailed view of all the jobs, collections and exports associated with a review set. Group and filter by columns such as date range to quickly take action on the review set of your interest.

ID: 106104 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: February CY2023

Outlook: Bookable time

From Outlook, create bookable time that can be shared with people to book a time with you. This complements the work of Bookings with me.

ID: 106119 Tags: Bookings, Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Loss Prevention – Extend DLP controls to Firefox browser

With this update, you will be able to extend the Microsoft Purview DLP controls to Firefox browsers. DLP admins will be able to set policies to prevent exfiltration of sensitive information through the Firefox browser by preventing actions such as copying data from a sensitive document to another document using the Clipboard, printing a sensitive document, copying to USB removeable media, or copying to a network share.

ID: 106123 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Viva: Elevated Teams Integration

Fully featured Viva Goals app in Team, complete with check-ins within the app.

ID: 106126 Tags: Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Viva: Power BI and Viva Goals integration

Automatically update Viva Goals (Key Results, Projects) with data from Power BI Report.

ID: 109490 Tags: Microsoft Viva, Power BI – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Standard) to eDiscovery (Premium) case migration tool (U.S. Government clouds)

This feature release enables user to move their existing eDiscovery Standard case to eDiscovery Premium’s new case format. Existing search and hold inside the case will be maintained. After migration, user has the ability to continue their work in the migrated case following eDiscovery Premium’s workflow pipeline.

ID: 109542 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, GCC High, DoD Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: eDiscovery (Premium) – Collections options settings enhancements (U.S. Government clouds)

Now eDiscovery admins can define default collection settings, enable eDiscovery managers to customize those defaults for each case and collection, and for each collection the eDiscovery manager can choose from a range of options to ensure the right content is collected per the requirements of the case. These options will include collection of cloud attachments, Teams as conversations, partially indexed items, and more.

ID: 109543 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, GCC High, DoD Release: March CY2023

Minecraft Education: License Management Moving to the Microsoft 365 Admin Center

The Microsoft Store for Education is retiring in the first quarter of 2023. In March 2023, license purchase and assignment for Minecraft Education subscriptions will be moved to the Microsoft 365 admin center.

ID: 109556 Tags: – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: March CY2023

Outlook: Desktop accessibility ribbon

Adding a new Accessibility Ribbon tab will make it easier for authors to make their messages more accessible. All the tools you need to make your message accessible, together in one place, so you don’t need to go find them.

ID: 109563 Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: March CY2023

Azure Active Directory: Cross-tenant synchronization

Admins will be able to automate creating, updating, and deleting B2B users across tenants within an organization.

ID: 109568 Tags: Azure Active Directory – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Secure collaboration on labeled and encrypted documents with user-defined permissions (U.S. government clouds)

SharePoint and OneDrive can process labeled documents that are encrypted with custom permissions, also referred to as user-defined permissions. As a result, these documents can be searched, inspected for data loss prevention, and used with eDiscovery. They can also be opened, edited, seamlessly co-authored, and support AutoSave in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint apps on all platforms (includes Office for the web).

ID: 109570 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, GCC High, DoD Release: August CY2023

Microsoft Viva: Leadership Corner in Viva Engage

this space is an employee’s personalized hub to discover (leader discovery & suggested leaders), see content from (leader stories, activity feed, & sponsored campaigns), and engage with (AMAs & AMA history) their leaders. For more on leadership corner in Viva Engage.

ID: 109575 Tags: Microsoft Viva, Yammer – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: February CY2023

Microsoft Teams: New Class & Lecture Meeting Templates

Class and Lecture Meeting Templates help Educators easily set-up highly secure meetings for their classes and lectures!

ID: 109578 Tags: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: February CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Loss Prevention – Enhancements to DLP capabilities on macOS endpoints

This update provides several DLP capabilities for macOS, including support for Bluetooth, ability to customize notifications, auto-quarantine, tamper protection, ability to create app groups and granular app restrictions policies, and support for Japanese language. These capabilities will be made available by enabling advanced classification on macOS endpoints.

ID: 109585 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023

Rolling Out

Microsoft Teams: Express yourself in Teams meeting for DoD

In addition to virtually raising your hand in a Teams meeting, you can express yourself using emojis that will appear to all participants to help make Teams meetings more inclusive, engaging, and fun.

ID: 83251 Tags: Microsoft Teams – DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Paging on Video Gallery

When you are in gallery view, and there are more videos than what can be shown at once on the meeting stage (the maximum number can vary depending on your device configuration and internet bandwidth), navigation controls and will appear below the Video Gallery to see additional videos of the attendees. You can use these controls to view more video participants.

ID: 86480 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: January CY2023

Outlook: Loop components in Mail

Loop components are live, interactive objects that you can embed across Microsoft 365 canvases such as chats and email to provide real-time collaboration. This feature brings support for loop components in the email messages.

ID: 93234 Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Teams: View video recordings and attendance reports inside LMS

Teachers and students will be able to access video recordings and attendance reports inside their LMS itself. Microsoft Teams Meeting LTI app has enabled availability of these artifacts inside LMS. The feature will be available to use in all the LMSs incorporating Teams Meeting LTI app.

ID: 96402 Tags: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: January CY2023

Microsoft 365 admin center: Windows 365 cloud PC advanced deployment guide

The Advanced deployment guides page in the Microsoft 365 admin center will have a new guide to help admins plan for, deploy, and scale Windows 365 Enterprise in their organization. This guide will have a checklist of Cloud PC configuration tasks and will include best practices, tools, and recommendations based on the tenant’s configuration.

ID: 102406 Tags: Windows 365, Microsoft 365 Admin Center – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: March CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Edit and Delete events support for messages in user: Bot chats

Currently, message events can be accessed by developers. This feature allows developers to access, edit or delete event updates on messages in user:bot chats.

ID: 102620 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Notification Granularity

Admins can use Intune to determine the types of content a user can see in a notification on their mobile lock screen.

ID: 102651 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Teams: Federated group calling

Easily start a group Teams call with federated colleagues outside your organization, including video and screensharing, all over an internet connection without any PSTN usage charges.

ID: 103042 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Automatically view up to 49 videos (7×7) in Teams meeting for GCC-High and DoD

Microsoft Teams Meetings currently supports a maximum of 9 videos (3×3) on the screen by default (i.e., Gallery view). For seeing more than 9 videos, user needs to manually select the Large Gallery view. With this update, users will be able to automatically see up to 49 videos (7×7) on their screen by default without an explicit action. The actual number of videos seen by a user will depend on hardware/device capabilities.

ID: 103612 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC High, DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Project: Grid Conditional Coloring

Conditional coloring allows one to configure rules on various project fields to visually highlight patterns in the project data.

ID: 103638 Tags: Microsoft Project – GCC Release: February CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Support for Co-organizer to manage Breakout Rooms

Co-organizers can create, manage and move between Breakout Rooms like meeting Organizers.

ID: 105014 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High, DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft 365 app: [Android] Shared Device Mode for Front Line Workers (via OneAuth)

Frontline workers such as retail associates, flight crew members, and field service workers often use a shared mobile device to do their work. That becomes problematic when they start sharing passwords or pin numbers to access customer and business data on the shared device. Shared device mode allows you to configure an Android device so that it can be easily shared by multiple employees. Employees can sign in and access customer information quickly. When they’re finished with their shift or task, they can sign out of the device and it will be immediately ready for the next employee to use. Shared device mode also provides Microsoft identity backed management of the device.

ID: 107506 Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Launched

Whiteboard: Attribution for sticky notes

Participants in Teams and on Web can see who added sticky notes to the board.

ID: 66765 Tags: Whiteboard, Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Teams: Disable or Enable all Attendees’ Video for DoD

Ability in DoD to disable and enable videos for all attendees before or during a Microsoft Teams meeting.

ID: 91665 Tags: Microsoft Teams – DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Disable or Enable a Single Attendee’s Video for DoD

Ability to disable and enable a single attendee’s video in a Microsoft Teams meeting.

ID: 91666 Tags: Microsoft Teams – DoD Release: January CY2023

Microsoft Forms: Multiple-question Poll in Teams meeting

Microsoft Forms will support multiple question in 1 poll for Polls app in Teams meeting. This feature will help meeting presenters ask multiple questions in 1 poll with single ‘Launch’, to improve the meeting efficiency and better engage with attendees.

ID: 96952 Tags: Forms – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Forms: Support Image in Polls for Teams meeting

You can now add images to questions in polls from the Polls app in Teams. Images from a local file can be used to increase engagement and better explain your questions to attendees.

ID: 96953 Tags: Forms – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Purview | Data loss prevention: Contextual evidence match for Endpoint DLP

With this update you will be able to see the matched sensitive information type and the context surrounding it (300 characters) as a result of a DLP policy match on your endpoint devices.

ID: 98095 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: March CY2023

Microsoft Teams: View attendance report on Microsoft Teams for Android and iOS for Government clouds

You can now check the attendance information for regular meetings or webinars and also the registration information before webinars on Microsoft Teams for Android and iOS.

ID: 102387 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, GCC High, DoD Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Teams: Language Interpretation for GCC-High and DoD

Language interpretation will allow language interpreters to translate what the speaker says into another language in real time without disrupting the original flow of delivery of the speaker. This will allow more inclusive meetings, where participants who may not speak the same language can fully collaborate with each other.

ID: 102411 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC High, DoD Release: December CY2022

Microsoft Teams: Manage Attendee Audio Permissions for DoD

Meeting organizers and presenters can now manage the audio capabilities of meeting attendees. Before the meeting, organizers can enable or disable the ability for attendees to use their mic (i.e. share audio), and during the meeting both the organizer and meeting presenters can modify attendee speaking capabilities.

ID: 105013 Tags: Microsoft Teams – DoD Release: January CY2023

Canceled

Microsoft Teams: Support for breakout rooms for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android

[This item is being cancelled and will be republished when more information is available.] Ability to consume breakout rooms feature in Teams meetings.

ID: 68745 Tags: Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023