Play of the Week

Microsoft Purview Compliance Portal is adding a new update to its Data Lifecycle Management feature. The latest update will expand admins’ permissions to apply retention labels to support static include/exclude and adaptive policy scopes in SITs (Sensitive Information Types) within Exchange. This feature will be rolling out worldwide in August 2023.

In Development

Microsoft Viva: Configure learning academies

Admins can create and manage learning academies in the Viva Learning Admin tab.

ID: 99167 Tags: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Viva: DOD support for Connections

Vica Connections will be made available to use for DoD.

ID: 117431 Tags: Microsoft Viva – DoD Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Viva: Personalized activity feed

With this release, Users especially non OKR owners will land on their activity feed page that is prioritized with updates from leaders, people they work with regularly and OKRs that are relevant to help them stay informed on the status, progress, comments/reactions from people of the goals they care about. Users can comment/react to the post in the activity feed.

ID: 124781 Tags: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Stream: Organize & share video and audio files with a playlist template from Microsoft Lists

This feature will allow users to organize their video and audio files into a playlist for easy organization, sharing and playback. Users can add any video and audio files to a playlist that they have edit access to. People with access to the playlist and to the files in the playlist can view the videos in order or skip back and forth between items in the playlist.

ID: 124797 Tags: Microsoft 365, Microsoft Stream, SharePoint – DoD, GCC High Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Stream: Playlists in the SharePoint List webpart

This feature will allow you to display playlists on SharePoint pages using the List webpart. The playlist will display video titles and thumbnails, and people with access to files in the playlist can click on the thumbnails to view the videos.

ID: 124808 Tags: Microsoft Stream, SharePoint – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Syntex: pay as you go billing for content assembly

Content Assembly will support pay as you go billing where customers will be charged for the number of documents generated. Customers need to have a valid Azure billing subscription and they will be able to see and download their bills from Azure billing portal.

ID: 124812 Tags: – GCC, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

SharePoint: Microsoft Lists – User experience (UX) update

This update improves overall performance of Microsoft Lists and introduces new features, like the ability to add ratings to any list, drag and/or paste images directly into a list, see who collaborating with you – and where – in real-time, switch views by clicking tabs, and more.

ID: 124867 Tags: SharePoint – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Intune: Anomaly detection device cohorts

Leverages Frequent Pattern Mining AI models looking for device cohorts correlated with a higher positive rate of a given anomaly type to help with the investigation process.

ID: 124874 Tags: Microsoft Intune – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: August CY2023

Microsoft Intune: iOS ADE enrollment

When enrolling corporate Apple devices with ADE (setup assistant with Modern Auth), admins want to ensure that device config policies and apps (macOS only) are on the device prior to the device being released from SA for the IW to freely use. This can be accomplished though Apple MDM Command called AwaitingConfiguration. This item delivers this Apple MDM command to iOS and ipadOS devices using ADE.

ID: 124883 Tags: Microsoft Intune – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023

Outlook: Availability of Microsoft To Do

Microsoft To Do will be the default task manager app for Outlook on the web. If you were using the tasks module in Outlook on the web, when this change happens you will see Microsoft To Do as your new task manager. This change gives users more features and tasks that sync across Microsoft 365.

ID: 124891 Tags: Microsoft To Do, Exchange, Outlook – DoD, GCC High Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Edge: Updated Microsoft Root Store policy

Support has been extended for the MicrosoftRootStoreEnabled policy. The policy will now be supported through and including Microsoft Edge version 114.

ID: 124901 Tags: Microsoft Edge – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Auto-labeling policy supports excluding locations (U.S. Government clouds)

Auto-labeling policy supports excluding specific locations in SharePoint, OneDrive, or Exchange.

ID: 124908 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, DoD, GCC High Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Search: Answer Analytics

Microsoft Search Answer Analytics provides insights into how editorial content like Bookmarks, Acronyms and Q&A are performing within the organisation.

ID: 124910 Tags: Microsoft Search – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Audit Custom Activities Search

The Audit Custom Activities Search enables customers to search for specific operations in the audit log. Instead of having to use PowerShell queries to search for a specific activity or select from the events in the Activities drop-down menu, admins can use the custom search bar to search for several audit log events directly.

ID: 124912 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Auto-labeling support OneDrive users and group scoping

Service side auto-labeling now supports scoping of OneDrive workload to OneDrive users and groups vs Site URLs. Existing policies configured with Site URLs will still work but can’t be edited to add more Site URLs. Existing policies can remove Site URLs from location to trigger the new OneDrive user and group picker.

ID: 124914 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Auto-labeling support OneDrive users and group scoping (U.S. Government clouds)

Service side auto-labeling now supports scoping of OneDrive workload to OneDrive users and groups vs Site URLs. Existing policies configured with Site URLs will still work but can’t be edited to add more Site URLs. Existing policies can remove Site URLs from location to trigger the new OneDrive user and group picker.

ID: 124915 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – GCC, DoD, GCC High Release: October CY2023

Microsoft To Do: Auditing for Microsoft Project, Planner and ToDo

Identify data risks and manage regulatory compliance requirements while using Planner, Project and To Do with audit log retention and access to crucial events that help determine scope of compromise.

ID: 124916 Tags: Planner, Microsoft Project, Microsoft To Do – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Lifecycle Management – Support for static and adaptive policy scopes for auto-apply retention labels targeting SITs in Exchange

Auto-apply retention labels targeting sensitive information types in Exchange will now support static include/exclude and adaptive policy scopes. Previously admins could only target all Exchange mailboxes.

ID: 124920 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: August CY2023

Microsoft Teams: work hours and location

Set your work location for the day so your team can learn about your availability for in-office and remote collaboration. Click on a user’s avatar or profile photo anywhere in Teams and get an overview of their online status, the next available calendar slot in Outlook, work hours, local time, and work location (remote or office).

ID: 125375 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Compact chat list

A new chat density setting will enable users to condense their chat list and have more chats visible on the screen. This setting does so by hiding message previews.

ID: 126428 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: June CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Manage Surface Hubs as Teams devices from Teams admin center (GCCH)

Admins can manage the end-to-end lifecycle of their Surface Hubs as Teams devices from Teams admin center, available in GCC High.

ID: 127471 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC High Release: June CY2023

Rolling Out

Outlook: Integration with other Microsoft 365 apps

We are adding a way for users to quickly access To Do, Org Explorer, Yammer Communities, and Bookings directly inside Outlook. You can also customize this experience by pinning preferred Outlook and Microsoft 365 apps.

ID: 88968 Tags: Outlook – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Defender for Office 365: End user reporting for suspicious messages in Microsoft Teams

End users will be able to report suspicious Microsoft Teams messages as a security threat just like they do for emails – to help the organization to protect itself from attacks via Microsoft Teams.

ID: 100160 Tags: Microsoft Defender for Office 365, Microsoft Teams – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Data Loss Prevention – DLP Policy tips revamp for Outlook for Windows

Expand the functionality of DLP Policy Tips in Outlook for Windows to support additional top predicates and exceptions for all customers, and also advanced classification for E5 customers.

ID: 109589 Tags: Outlook, Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Change call queue and auto attendant greetings and announcements by authorized users

To adapt to changing environments, Teams users need to make adjustments to their call queue/auto attendant greetings and announcements. This is required more frequently than what the IT helpdesk can typically handle. Introducing user managed CQ/AA greetings for Teams end users. Now, authorized users, as identified by Teams tenant admins, can change greetings and announcements for their respective call queues and auto attendant without leaving Teams.

ID: 116739 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, DoD, GCC High, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Together Mode Usability Improvements

We are bringing new usability improvements to Together Mode. Participants in Together Mode will now have name labels attached to their videos. Name labels will also support status icons that indicate microphone, active speaker, spotlight or pin within the meeting. Second, your own video in the gallery will now be removed while Together Mode is active to avoid duplication of the self preview. Lastly, Together Mode will now display raised hands and reactions within the view.

ID: 122127 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Teams: Create offline meetings in Teams

Create a meeting in Teams and turn off the online toggle when setting up calendar events for personal appointments, lunch break slots and more. These offline events will not have chat thread or other Teams online meeting artifacts.

ID: 122483 Tags: Microsoft Teams – GCC, DoD, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant), GCC High Release: May CY2023

Launched

Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Information Protection – Optical character recognition (OCR) in Exchange Online and Teams DLP

Optical character recognition (OCR) support extracts text from images and will help discover and protect sensitive data in images being shared in Exchange Online (EXO), and Teams Data Loss Prevention (DLP) policies.

ID: 88860 Tags: Microsoft Purview compliance portal – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Viva: Automatic Topic Relationships available in GCC

The ability for AI to suggest relationships between topics will be available for customers in our Government Clouds. These suggested related topics appear on the topic card, page and answers.  This is already available for standard worldwide customers.  This feature deployment has changed and the roadmap item has been updated to reflect those plans.

ID: 106765 Tags: Microsoft Viva – GCC Release: May CY2023

Microsoft Edge: v.113 – Switch from Microsoft Autoupdate to EdgeUpdater for macOS

Microsoft Edge for macOS will begin using a new updater called EdgeUpdater. This change only affects Microsoft Edge on macOS. If you use update preferences for Microsoft Autoupdate to prevent browser updates, you will need to transition to the new EdgeUpdater UpdateDefault policy before Microsoft Edge 113 to prevent future automatic updates.

ID: 114512 Tags: Microsoft Edge – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: May CY2023

Canceled

Whiteboard: Import ADO/Jira work items

[This feature has been indefinitely postponed.] Import ADO/Jira work items onto whiteboards to collectively brainstorm & ideate with your colleagues. (Note: The initial release will only provide support for work/school accounts & will allow importing existing work items but neither updating them nor creating new ones).

ID: 117395 Tags: Whiteboard – GCC, DoD, GCC High, Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: July CY2023

Microsoft Viva: Viva Goals Workplace integration

[This feature has been postponed indefinitely] Users can receive OKRs updates and check-in reminders within Workplace.
ID: 117461 Tags: Microsoft Viva – Worldwide (Standard Multi-Tenant) Release: June CY2023