Welcome to the January 13 - 19, 2019 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.
Last week there were eight additions to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, including new features for Microsoft Planner, Microsoft Teams, Outlook on the web, Flow, MyAnalytics, Microsoft Whiteboard for Education, and Microsoft Bookings.
There are lots of new events, with most various customer immersion experiences. The January 2019 virtual meetup for Women IT Pros is scheduled for Friday, January 25, 2019 at 12pm Pacific.
Blog posts in last week's roundup include a guide to make 2019 the year you shift to a modern desktop, an update on SharePoint modern experiences, and OneDrive Message Center updates for the first half of January 2019. There is also information on a new Office 365 Network Performance Tool and a post with details on the third step in the "Top 10 actions to secure your environment" series.
Noteworthy item highlights include a couple of new Teams IT Pro Academy videos, a Microsoft IT Showcase case study on how Microsoft migrated its largest portal to SharePoint Online, a friendly reminder that Exchange Server 2010 reaches end of support in January 2020, and Outlook Mobile architecture updates for customers that need to meet the highest Federal security and compliance requirements.
OFFICE 365 ROADMAP
Below are the items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week…
| Feature ID |
App / Service |
Title | Description |
Status |
Added |
Estimated Release |
More Info |
| 45625 |
MyAnalytics |
MyAnalytics add-in coming to more Microsoft 365 and Office 365 suites | The MyAnalytics add-in for Outlook will be made available to everyone using Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Business suites that include Exchange Online, specifically Microsoft 365 E3, Business, Office 365 E3, E1, Business Premium and Business Essentials. |
In development |
01/15/2019 |
February CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45668 |
Outlook Web |
New Outlook on the web - Suggested reply with a meeting | As part of suggested replies in Outlook on the web, we will offer the option to schedule a meeting as one of the reply options. With this you can reply with a meeting invite without leaving your inbox. |
In development |
01/15/2019 |
February CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45878 |
Planner Teams |
Planner Task Assignment Notifications in Microsoft Teams | Microsoft Teams users will receive a notification in their Teams Activity Feed when a Planner task is assigned to them by another person. |
In development |
01/17/2019 |
February CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45703 |
Flow |
Out of box Flow templates | After this change takes place, you and your users will be able to create and run Flows directly from OneDrive for Business. Just select a document and click on the Flow button in the command bar, and you'll automatically have the options to Copy as a PDF and to Request approval Flow templates. Run the Flow and with one click you can create a copy of any document or send one off for an approval. |
Rolling out |
01/17/2019 |
January CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45941 |
Bookings |
Microsoft Bookings - booking page search indexability | We are adding a user control in their booking page so they can select when their page can be indexed by search engines. The default behavior stays the same, pages will be indexed by default, but users/page admins will have the ability to turn it off. |
In development |
01/19/2019 |
February CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45944 |
Outlook Web |
Outlook on the web - Suggested Meetings add-in off by default | The Suggested Meetings add-in is currently enabled by default for organizations. An upcoming update to Outlook will change this behavior. The add-in will still be installed, but it will be disabled by default. |
In development |
01/19/2019 |
February CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45942 |
Whiteboard EDU |
Microsoft Whiteboard for Education | Combining the magical simplicity of an analog whiteboard with interactive, collaborative technology, Microsoft Whiteboard for Education gives the whole class a new space to engage, ideate, and create in real time. Teachers and students can brainstorm and grow ideas on this infinite canvas, and work together on lessons and projects from their Windows 10 devices and now iPad. Teachers can also pick up where they left off and never waste time getting back into a lesson by securely saving boards to the cloud. There, they can share them as live links or export them as images! |
Rolling out |
01/19/2019 |
January CY2019 |
n / a |
| 45945 |
Planner |
Planner: Copy plans | Microsoft Planner users will be able to copy a plan. This feature helps users reuse the buckets and tasks to repeat a project or process. |
In development |
01/19/2019 |
Q2 CY2019 |
n / a |
UPCOMING EVENTS
Getting Started with Microsoft Teams
When: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 10am PT | This 60-minute session introduces you to the key activities needed to get started with Microsoft Teams today. From setting your profile, to running a meeting, users will leave this session with the foundation needed to use Teams with confidence. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.
Customer Immersion Experience: Connecting, Organizing & Collaborating with Your Team
When: Tuesday, January 22, 2019 at 9am PT and 12pm PT | During this session, you will have the opportunity to experience Windows 10, Office 365 and Microsoft's newest collaboration tool: Microsoft Teams. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will explore how to use Microsoft Teams and Office 365 to: (1) Create a hub for team work that works together with your other Office 365 apps, (2) Build customized options for each team, (3) Keep everyone on your team engaged, (4) Coauthor and share content quickly, and (5) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Getting Started with Microsoft Teams
When: Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 8am PT | This 60-minute session introduces you to the key activities needed to get started with Microsoft Teams today. From setting your profile, to running a meeting, users will leave this session with the foundation needed to use Teams with confidence. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.
Customer Immersion Experience: Productivity Hacks to Save Time & Simplify Workflows
When: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9am PT and 12pm PT | This 2-hour hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive Windows 10, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will: (1) Discover how you can keep your information more secure without inhibiting your workflow, (2) Learn how to visualize and analyze complex data, quickly zeroing in on the insights you need, (3) See how multiple team members can access, edit and review documents simultaneously, and (4) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Customer Immersion Experience: Hands-on with security in a cloud-first, mobile-first world
When: Thursday, January 24, 2019 at 9am PT and 12pm PT | This 2-hour hands-on session will give you the opportunity to try Microsoft technology that secures your digital transformation with a comprehensive platform, unique intelligence, and partnerships. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will: (1) Detect and protect against external threats by monitoring, reporting and analyzing activity to react promptly to provide organization security, (2) Protect your information and reduce the risk of data loss, (3) Provide peace of mind with controls and visibility for industry-verified conformity with global standards in compliance, (4) Protect your users and their accounts, and (5) Support your organization with enhanced privacy and compliance to meet the General Data Protection Regulation. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
When: Friday, January 25, 2018 at 12pm PT | Join us for a conversation with IT Pro Phoummala Schmitt, also known as the @ExchangeGoddess. Our meetings are open to anyone of all gender identities who wants to support women in the IT Pro field. Please share this with anyone you think might be interested!
When: Tuesday, January 29, 2019 at 9am PT and 12pm PT | This 2-hour hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive the latest business analytics tools. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they can work throughout your organization. During this interactive session, you will explore how to: (1) Locate and organize large amounts of data from multiple sources, (2) Visualize complex data and identify trends quickly without having to be a BI expert, (3) Find and collaborate with company experts on the fly, even if they work in another part of the country, and (4) Gather colleague's opinions easily and eliminate communication and process bottlenecks. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.
Make the switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams: End User Guidance
When: Thursday, January 31, 2019 at 10am PT | Designed specifically for Skype for Business end users, this course offers everything you need to help make the transition to Microsoft Teams. We'll focus on the core communication capabilities you use today, chat and meetings, as well as provide an orientation to additional collaboration functionality Teams has to offer. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.
BLOG ROUNDUP
2019 is the year to make the shift to a modern desktop
At the outset of 2019, we all have personal goals, but most of us also have professional goals for the year ahead. For those of us in IT, this is a time to think about how you deliver the modern, empowering workplace for your business in a cloud-connected world. With Windows 7 end of support coming in one year—January 14, 2020—and Office 2010 close behind, there's an opportunity right now to be proactive about what's next. Changes and upgrades in technology are inevitable, and there's never been a better time to start putting in motion the things you need to do to shift your organization to a modern desktop with Microsoft 365. As you think about this upgrade, this is a time to consider how your approach can set you up for the future to deliver an incredible experience for your users that is empowering and secure. How, exactly, can you do this?
Delivering SharePoint modern experiences
In 2016, we introduced a new "modern" experience for SharePoint, bringing extensibility, accessibility, and responsive design to a complete overhaul of the user experience. Since then, modern has been the center of innovation in SharePoint and OneDrive, although classic mode remains supported and available. We're making it easier for users to get to our latest feature updates. Starting April 1, 2019, it will no longer be possible to restrict an entire organization (tenant) to classic mode for lists and libraries. Lists and libraries may still use classic mode using the granular opt-out switches that we provide at the site collection, site, list, and library levels. Additionally, lists that use certain features and customizations that are not supported by modern will still be automatically switched to classic mode. After April 1, lists and libraries that are in classic mode as a result of tenant opt-out will automatically be shifted to modern. Users will benefit from enhancements and new features such as attention views, PowerApps integration, Flow, column formatting, and the filters pane.
Create and Manage All Your Mind Maps in Microsoft Teams!
Using MindMeister in Microsoft Teams, you easily capture valuable ideas that come up in your conversations and turn them into visual project plans that you can refer back to any time. Mind maps display all the important information around a topic on a single page, making it easy for you to review and update key points. With MindMeister for Microsoft Teams, you can: (1) Create new mind maps from scratch or open existing ones, (2) Add one or multiple mind maps to your team's channels, (3) Collaboratively edit mind maps with your team members, and (4) View mind maps as dynamic presentations. And thanks to our most recent update, you can now also view your entire MindMeister dashboard right inside Microsoft Teams, enabling you to organize and manage all your mind maps without having to switch between the two tools!
OneDrive Message Center Updates: January 1 - 15, 2019
Here are the latest updates to the OneDrive service! We're excited to kick off 2019 with Mac Files On-Demand becoming generally available and OneDrive Sync Client Mass Delete. Initially as Files On-Demand for Mac rolls out, the feature will be on by default for new users on macOS Mojave. This feature will be ramped on for existing users over the coming months. Admins continue to have the ability to disable or enable this feature via a preference. For a device to be eligible for Files On-Demand for Mac, you will need to be on the latest macOS 10.14.2 or higher, and OneDrive version 18.240.1202.0001 or higher. Coming this February, whenever someone deletes more than 200 synced OneDrive or Team Site files at once from their device, the OneDrive sync client will prompt the user to confirm it was intentional. If it was accidental, the user can tap Restore Files to bring them back, otherwise tapping remove will delete them as usual. If a user wants to skip the new behavior, they can select the Always remove files box before tapping Remove to skip the prompt for future mass deletes.
Office 365 Network Performance tool POC release
With the size and scope of Office 365, a deployment can represent significant impact on an enterprise network. Connectivity issues can be complex and there are a variety of aspects to optimize including latency, local egress, WAN routing, open firewall ports, proxy bypass, bandwidth, DNS, DLP devices, cloud security brokers, etc. Available now, a new Office 365 Network Performance POC tool is intended to help Office 365 enterprise customers with network connectivity related testing and connectivity guidance. Our goal is to provide a tool that runs sufficient networking tests that we can provide detailed guidance containing network configuration recommendations about devices between user machines and Microsoft's network. The scope for this includes connectivity for all applications and services in Office 365 and spanning the customers LAN and WAN, proxy servers, firewalls, other perimeter network devices, ISP connectivity, cloud security brokers, and network routing up to Microsoft's network.
Top 10 actions to secure your environment: Step 3 - Protect Your Identities
The "Top 10 actions to secure your environment" series outlines fundamental steps you can take with your investment in Microsoft 365 security solutions. In this post, you'll learn how to define security policies to protect individual user identities against account compromise and protect your administrative accounts. Whether or not you have experienced a security incident in the past, you probably know that it's not a matter of if an attacker will successfully compromise your corporate resources, but when. This is what is meant by an "assume breach" mindset. Preventative measures are critical, but in an "assume breach" world, so are detection and rapid response. Azure Active Directory (Azure AD) Identity Protection can help you rapidly uncover anomalies or suspicious incidents and configure policies that will automate a response. With Azure AD Privileged Identity Management (PIM), you can protect your administrative accounts. The faster you discover a hacker and take back control, the less damage that attacker can do, saving you time, money, and reputation.
NOTEWORTHY
Video: Teams IT Pro Academy - Network Planning for Microsoft Teams
Format: Video (69 minutes) | In this episode of Coffee in the Cloud, watch a Teams Academy session to learn how Microsoft Teams leverages the network. Plan and design your network configuration for the best user experience with Teams.
Video: Teams IT Pro Academy - Call Quality Overview in Microsoft Teams
Format: Video (18 minutes) | In this episode of Coffee in the Cloud, watch a Teams Academy video for IT Pros to learn about the different factors that influence call quality and what IT and end users can do to influence it.
Microsoft IT Showcase: Microsoft migrates its largest portal site to SharePoint Online
Format: Case Study | Published: January 18, 2019 | As part of our digital transformation, Microsoft is migrating our most critical infrastructure and services to the cloud to enable greater scalability, reliability, and agility. We recently moved our largest and most used portal, the Microsoft internal human resources portal (HRWeb), to Microsoft SharePoint Online. HRWeb is more globally accessible, better performing, and easier to navigate and search than ever and it provides us with new opportunities to grow and improve our HR presence.
Modern Workplace Transformation (MWT) Healthcare & Life Sciences Virtual Conference Roundup
During the week of January 7th – 11th the Microsoft Healthcare and Life Sciences team hosted a series of webcasts to help organizations facing a myriad of challenges from security threats, inefficiencies in communications/collaboration, and increased competition. Those webcasts were recorded and materials from the presentations made available. To simplify the process of watching and grabbing the materials, they are all pulled together in a single post here. Sessions include: (1) Microsoft Teams Governance and Adoption, (2) Enterprise Data Governance and Management, (3) Enterprise Data Visualization with Power BI, (4) Protecting High Risk Data with Identity and Conditional Access, and (5) Microsoft Threat Intelligence.
Exchange Server 2010 End of Support is (Still) Coming
Exchange Server, like almost all Microsoft products, has a support lifecycle during which we provide new features, bug fixes, security fixes, and so on. This lifecycle typically lasts for 10 years from the date of the product's initial release, and the end of this lifecycle is known as the product's end of support. When Exchange 2010 reaches its end of support on January 14, 2020, Microsoft will no longer provide: (1) Technical support for problems that may occur, (2) Bug fixes for issues that are discovered and that may impact the stability and usability of the server, (3) Security fixes for vulnerabilities that are discovered and that may make the server vulnerable to security breaches, and (4) Time zone updates. Your installation of Exchange 2010 will continue to run after this date. However, due to the changes and risks listed above, we strongly recommend that you migrate from Exchange 2010 as soon as possible. | Resource: Exchange 2010 end of support roadmap
Outlook mobile meets needs of customers with the highest Federal security & compliance requirements
We're announcing that the recently updated architecture for Outlook for iOS and Android meets the security and compliance needs of Office 365 US Government Community Cloud (GCC) High and Department of Defense customers. In addition to FedRAMP Moderate compliance announced last year, all US government customers can now utilize Outlook mobile. To meet the high level of government security and compliance requirements, we updated the Outlook mobile architecture to use a native Microsoft sync technology. This change intends to reduce latency and will provide access to new enterprise-grade features such as S/MIME as they roll out on the updated architecture over the coming months. We will also be able to extend Enterprise Mobility and Security (EMS) capabilities for Outlook for iOS and Android to GCC High and DoD customers so that they can combine the power of Outlook mobile with Azure Active Directory Conditional Access and Intune App Protection Policies to securely manage email and calendar data on their mobile devices.