The Microsoft 365 monthly update includes updates and recently recent features across all of Microsoft 365. Press a button to read about an individual technology or continue reading for more. You can take a look back at previous monthly updates here, plus take a look at our weekly roadmap roundup.
SharePoint
In SharePoint: My feed web part update, Viva Topics: Syntex taxonomy, pair Teams channel & SharePoint folder name
New content scenarios for My Feed Web Part on SharePoint
The My feed web part is the pathway to a very personalized experience in your intranet. The feed knows who is signed in and shows them content and activities relevant to them. The new content types are Suggested Tasks, People Highlights, Meetings out of routine and files shared in groups.
Find out more: Use the My feed web part
Viva Topics: Use Syntex taxonomy to generate topics
Microsoft Viva Topics and SharePoint Syntex customers can build on their existing investments in classifying and organizing content with the ability to use the taxonomy service in Syntex and SharePoint to generate topics.
This new integration uses the term names, including those you are already using with SharePoint Syntex, descriptions, synonyms and tagged files to create topics that the AI can use as a seed to discover additional connections with people and files.
Find out more: Use SharePoint taxonomy terms to create topics in Microsoft Viva Topics
Pairing the channel and the corresponding SharePoint folder name
This new release enables simultaneous rename of the corresponding folder in SharePoint sites whenever a channel in Teams is renamed – applicable to Teams desktop and web. NOTE:
- For legacy Teams channels that were renamed prior to this rollout – There will be no change in experience. When a legacy channel is renamed after this release, it will simultaneously rename the corresponding SharePoint folder.
- Upon renaming a channel, the new folder name will only reflect the same name in the corresponding OneDrive sync client when the whole document library has been synched. When only the channel folder is synched, the new name will not be reflected in the OneDrive sync client.
Find out more: Change a channel name in Teams
Teams
In Teams: Pin/ hide your video, open-text question polls, companion mode for iOS, Walkie Talkie, Teams panels check in, check in “knock knock”, Teams Rooms on Android, meeting improvements on Android, Wallpapers on Android, HDMI ingest, far end camera control, pairing the channel & SharePoint folder, mute notifications, local time, in chat messages, chat density, respond to group approval requests, mandatory comments, E2EE for 1-1 Teams calls, tag management
Teams (Government)
Teams (Education)
Pin or hide your own video
You can now pin or hide your own video in meetings. You can see your own video in the increased size on your screen. Inversely, you also can hide your own video during a meeting on others’ screens. This will reduce distractions during calls while still having your video available for other participants.
Find out more: Hide your own video in Teams meetings
Support for open-text question polls for Teams meeting
For Microsoft Forms polls in Teams meetings, there is a new option for engaging with your attendees – Word Cloud Poll. You can use this type of poll to collect attendees’ open-ended responses before, during, or after a meeting, and the results will be automatically aggregated and displayed as a word cloud.
Find out more: Poll attendees during a Teams meeting
Updated companion mode for iOS users
Now with a single tap you can join a meeting on both your iOS device and Microsoft Teams Rooms. Audio on your device will be automatically turned off to ensure echo does not happen. The landing experience on the iPhone will be optimized for engagement activities to make it easier to raise a hand or react, chat, see all participants, and access Microsoft Whiteboard.
Find out more: Join a Teams meeting on a second device
Walkie Talkie
You can use an instant push-to-talk communication that allows you to press and hold a button to speak to colleagues and release the button to listen. Walkie Talkie on Teams phone devices can only be used to communicate with colleagues that are part of the same Teams channel. Add Walkie Talkie to the App Set up Policy assigned to users from the Teams admin center to enable Walkie Talkie on Teams phone devices.
Find out more: Get started with Teams Walkie Talkie
Teams panels check in and room release
IT admins can now configure Teams panels to release reserved conference rooms that are not being used. Meeting attendees can claim their reserved meeting room by tapping the “Check in” button on the panel. If no one checks into the room, it will be released—allowing for others to reserve and use the room.
Find out more: Get started with Teams panels
Check-in “knock-knock” notification on front-of-room display
When a Teams panel is paired with Microsoft Teams Rooms, the new “Check in” button on the panel can be used to send a notification to the front-of-room display—informing people in the room that their reservation has ended, and others are waiting for the space.
Find out more: Get started with Teams panels
Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android update
A new update with features including improved meeting experiences, content sharing, new reactions, and more is now available for Teams Rooms on Android. This update can be deployed via the Teams Admin Center and will be available to all Teams Rooms on Android devices.
Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft Teams devices
Meetings improvements on Android
Several updates are being added to the meeting experience on Android, including more videos on screen, multiple spotlighted participants, new reactions, and many others. Most notably, with the new and improved meeting experience, videos of remote participants span both screens (in meeting rooms with dual screens) when content is not being shared.
Find out more: Get started with Teams Rooms on Android
Wallpapers on Android
You can now customize the home screen for Teams Rooms on Android devices with five built-in wallpapers. These wallpapers will apply to the front-of-room displays in single and dual screen configurations. IT admins can set them from device settings, with Teams Admin Center support coming soon.
Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft Teams devices
HDMI ingest and sharing
HDMI ingest sharing during and outside of a meeting is now available to all capable certified Teams Rooms on Android. You can now plug in an external device via HDMI into your Teams Room on Android and content will start sharing automatically.
Find out more: Microsoft Teams Rooms requirements
Far end camera control
Remote meeting participants can control the zoom and orientation of a camera in Teams Rooms on Windows, using PTZ Camera Controls (pan-tilt-zoom) during a meeting. Attendees can control a variety of mechanical pan-tilt-zoom cameras by sending control signals to the camera, as well as, offering 2.5X zoom for most other cameras via digital pan-tilt-zoom in Teams.
Pairing the channel and the corresponding SharePoint folder name
This new release enables simultaneous rename of the corresponding folder in SharePoint sites whenever a channel in Teams is renamed – applicable to Teams desktop and web. NOTE:
- For legacy Teams channels that were renamed prior to this rollout – There will be no change in experience. When a legacy channel is renamed after this release, it will simultaneously rename the corresponding SharePoint folder.
- Upon renaming a channel, the new folder name will only reflect the same name in the corresponding OneDrive sync client when the whole document library has been synched. When only the channel folder is synched, the new name will not be reflected in the OneDrive sync client.
Find out more: Change a channel name in Teams
Mute notifications during meetings
Users will be able to mute notifications during meetings thereby helping focus during meetings. A user can choose to mute notifications for all meetings or per meeting basis.
To turn off notifications during all meetings, go to settings -> notifications-> meetings and calls and toggle the Mute Notifications during meeting button. To turn off notifications during a specific meeting, click on the ellipsis and choose mute/allow notifications.
Find out more: Suppress notifications during calls/meetings
Local time added to people profile
We often work in distributed teams. To help you with scheduling messages, quickly check your colleague’s time zone, right from their contact card, enabling you to time your messages to get faster responses, while being considerate of your colleagues’ schedule.
Find out more: How Microsoft Teams Displays Local Time in User Profile Cards
Pin chat messages
Pin a Teams chat message to drive awareness and provide the chat members with quick access to important content. Pinning will help your team stay in sync on what’s relevant in a timely manner. Simply hover over the message you want to pin, click the ellipsis (…) and select the Pin option.
Find out more: Start and pin chats
Chat density
Whether you want to optimize to see more text at once or read less text at a more comfortable level, Teams lets you customize the chat density to suit your needs. Click on ‘settings’ -> ‘general’ and choose the right spacing for you.
Chat density feature lets you customize the number of chat messages you see on the screen with different settings. Compact setting lets you minimize the need to scroll up and down by fitting 50% more messages on the screen.
Find out more: Change the spacing of your chat messages in Teams
Respond to group approval requests within Teams Approvals app
Teams users will now be able to respond to approval requests that were sent to a group of approvers using Power Automate right from Teams Approvals app. We are committed to continue and expand this capability, and in a later release Teams users will be able to send an approval request to their Office 365 groups directly from Teams.
Find out more: Respond to an approval from a chat or channel
Mandatory Comments within the Teams Approvals app
As a team owner or admin, you can now make your approval templates have mandatory comments for when a user responds to a request, creating transparency behind the approver’s decision. Admins can set all approval requests to have mandatory comments from the Teams Admin Portal settings. This will affect simple approval requests, and templated approval requests.
Find out more: Respond to an approval from a chat or channel
End-to-end encryption (E2EE) option for one-to-one Teams calls for mobile
Microsoft have announced that E2EE for one-to-one Teams calls is now generally available for iOS and Android Teams mobile apps. End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, is the encryption of information at its origin and decryption at its intended destination without the ability for intermediate nodes or parties to decrypt.
Find out more: Use end-to-end encryption for one-to-one Microsoft Teams calls
New tag management settings in Teams admin center
This feature will update default tag management settings in the Teams Admin Center to include ”Team owners and members” and not just “Team owners,” reducing the burden of creating and maintaining Tags solely on Team owners. Now all team members can create, edit and adjust tags to fit their team’s needs. You can still update this to only “Team owners” at the tenant level and override the default.
Find out more: Manage tags in Microsoft Teams
Teams (Government)
These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):
- Tags in DoD: Tags are available in DoD. Tags in Teams let users quickly reach a group of people without having to @mention or type out everyone.
- Press to unmute: You can now use a shortcut to unmute by holding down the Ctrl+Space keys (Windows) or Option+Space keys (macOS), then release the keys to go back to muted state again. This feature is on by default.
- Updated companion mode for iOS users: Now with a single tap you can join a meeting on both your iOS device and Microsoft Teams Room. Audio on your device will be automatically turned off to ensure echo does not happen.
- Music mode for Teams: High-fidelity music mode enables Microsoft Teams users to experience richer sound experiences when sharing non-speech content such as live music, songs through other applications, or medical signals during a virtual appointment with a physician.
- Mirror my video: You no longer have to see the text in your video flipped. Imagine a primary school teacher with a small whiteboard in hand, or you have a virtual background with text in it. While the meeting audience sees the text correctly,
- Pin or hide your own video in Teams meetings: We have now expanded the ability to pin your own video on the meeting stage. This way, you can see your own video in the increased size on your screen.
OneDrive
In OneDrive: OneDrive support for Apple silicon GA, KFM for macOS Public Preview, files on-demand on macOS update
Apple silicon support in GA
OneDrive sync for macOS will now run natively on Apple silicon. This means that OneDrive will take full advantage of the performance improvements of Apple silicon. This will be generally available starting with build 22.022 and users will be automatically updated over the next few releases.
Find out more: Apple silicon support in GA and KFM for macOS in Public Preview
Known Folder Move support for macOS now in Public Preview
The OneDrive team have announced that Folder Backup (Known Folder Move) support for macOS is now in Public Preview. People using OneDrive on macOS Monterey 12 will be able to move their Desktop and Document folders to OneDrive.
Find out more: Apple silicon support in GA and KFM for macOS in Public Preview
File On-Demand on macOS updates
A new version of OneDrive sync (22.002) on macOS 12.1+ was released in January 2022 with an updated Files On-Demand experience. Prior to this release, OneDrive used a kernel extension for Files On-Demand which is deprecated as of macOS 12.3. Updates include:
- Removing conflicting icons for locally available files and enabling apps like Spotlight or Time Machine to index files
- Enabling a preference to sync all content locally
- Improving the experience when syncing to external drives
Find out more: Updates to Files On-Demand on macOS
Power Apps
In Power Apps: Power Apps portals as mobile apps GA, tenant-level analytics, Dataverse auditing features, Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1, portal support for query data Web API, code components GA, modern advanced find, localizing content on a custom page
General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals as mobile apps
Microsoft have announced the General availability of portals as a progressive web app that was first introduced as a preview feature, enabling makers to enable portals into apps with native app like look & feel right from portal studio in just few steps.
Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals as mobile apps
Tenant-level hygiene analytics
To better accommodate the rapid expansion of Power Platform adoption across the enterprise, service administrators require resource hygiene management tooling to avoid accumulating bloat in the system. The latest updates to the Tenant-level analytics include interactive controls that make it a snap to identify stale and orphaned Power Apps deployed across multiple environments or the entire tenant.
Find out more: Announcing Tenant-level hygiene analytics for Power Apps
New Dataverse auditing features
A new set of auditing features have been released to help Dataverse administrators to stay compliant with internal and external auditing requirements and to manage log capacity at the same time. These include:
- Audit data is now also stored in a separate physical log storage so an organization’s audit log can grow to many terabytes in size without limiting available physical database storage.
- The auditing feature logs changes that are made to customer records and user access so you can review the activity later.
- Administrators can select an audit retention period from a dropdown menu or specify a custom retention period.
- Flexible audit data management.
Find out more: Announcing new Dataverse auditing features
Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 updates for Model-driven apps
The Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 for Model-driven apps is now available. This release includes: Power Apps grid, modern advanced find, in app notifications, co-presence in records plus lots more.
Find out more: Try out the Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 updates for Model-driven apps!
General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API
Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API that was introduced in November 2021 release as a preview feature. The feature includes the ability to query records, apply system query options, request specific properties, plus lots more.
Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API
General Availability (GA) of code components for portals
Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of code components for portals that was introduced in April 2021 release as a preview feature. This feature provides the following:
- Replace fields on portal forms with code components.
- Liquid template tag for code components.
- Code components with Portal Web API support.
Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of code components for portals
Modern advanced find with enhanced view management in model-driven apps
The Power Apps team have announced the availability of modern advanced find that not only replaces the legacy experience but also adds new enhancements to view personalization to help you be more productive with model-driven apps.
Using the global search bar in the header, you can now choose any table in the app to perform a structured search. Choosing a table navigates you to the familiar grid page, with filter options immediately available to work with.
Find out more: Modern advanced find with enhanced view management in model-driven apps
Localizing content on a custom page
Localizing custom pages will help you build multi-language Power Apps that align model-driven apps with custom pages that are needed for cross-regional deployments. We are excited to bring this capability as it will ensure you can seamlessly deploy a Power App that uses both model-driven forms and custom pages with multiple languages enabled by admins and set by your users.
Find out more: Localizing content on a custom page
Power Automate
In Power Automate: Power Automate desktop – Feb update, tenant-level analytics for cloud flows, new features for process advisor, 20 new connectors,
Power Automate for desktop – February 2022 update
The February 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.17) has been released! You can download the latest release here. Some of the new features include flow designer performance improvements, new ‘display custom form’ action, convert a file to base64 and much more.
Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – February 2022 update
Tenant-level analytics for Power Automate Cloud flows
Tenant-wide analytics are built on service telemetry data derived from Power Platform apps, bots, and services. These solutions allow environment admins to effectively monitor activities related to Cloud flows across the organization. This update includes an expansion to the Data Export pipeline making Usage & Inventory metrics for Cloud flows available to Power Platform customers.
Find out more: Announcing Tenant-level analytics for Power Automate Cloud flows
New features from Process advisor task mining
The Power Automate team have made several enhancements to Process advisor in January 2022 to make it even easier and faster to visualize your processes and get to insights with task mining:
- Auto create activities from recordings
- Removal of “Ready to analyze”
- Link back to Process advisor from recorder
Find out more: Get to insights even faster with new features from Process advisor task mining
20 New Independent Publisher Connectors in November and December
Independent Publisher connectors are connectors developed, tested, published, and supported by connector developers that are independent from the backend service or API. 20 new Independent Publisher connectors that were published in November and December. Here’s a look at them:
- AfterShip by Taiki Yoshida – this connector allows a user to track and receive notifications on shipments and integrate with other services such as Dynamics 365 and third party services.
- Carbon Intensity by Hasan Ünlü – Uses Carbon Intensity API to provide an indicative trend of the regional carbon intensity of the electricity system in Great Britain.
- Chuck Norris IO by Daniel Laskewitz – This connector is an API provided by ChuckNorris.IO and will provide you with a Chuck Norris fact when you ask for it.
- Clearbit by Troy Taylor – Clearbit is the marketing data platform behind the fastest-growing B2B companies.
- Coinbase by RoyPaarMS – A connector to the Coinbase platform to fetch cryptocurrency market rates and exchange rates.
- Federal Reserve Economic Data by Troy Taylor – FRED aggregates economic data from a variety of sources- most of which are US government agencies.
- icanhazdadjolke by Daniel Laskewitz – With this connector you can get a random dad joke or search for a dad joke.
- Icon Horse by Troy Taylor – Get any site’s favicon with Icon Horse. Confidently use Icon Horse and get bulletproof favicons with fallbacks if no icon exists.
- Launch Library 2 by Troy Taylor – The Launch Library 2 API is a product by The Space Devs with an up-to-date database of Spaceflight events.
- Loripsum by Troy Taylor – Loripsum.net has an API to generate placeholder text. Sometimes you need lists, headings, long paragraphs, etc.
- MailboxValidator by Troy Taylor – MailboxValidator API is easy to integrate and use for email validation.
- Mensagia by AfriSR – Mensagia offer reliable SMS, Email and Voice for business automation communication.
- Microsoft D365CE v9 OnPrem by RoyPaarMS – Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE v9 Web API for interacting with on-premises D365 CE data from cloud D365 CE.
- New York Times by RoyPaarMS – The New York Times allows anyone to search articles by keyword, date, section, and popularity. This connector allows a user to pull this data into their app, flow, or report.
- ORB Intelligence by Aaryan Arora & Ankita Singh – Orb provides with a framework of API calls to use the Orb database for various use cases.
- Square Business by Troy Taylor – This connector contains actions for the following endpoints: Loyalty, Gift Cards, Bookings, Business, Team, Financials, Online and Auth.
- The Weather Channel by RoyPaarMS – This connector allows a user to pull this data into their app, flow, or report.
- Unix Timestamp by Troy Taylor – Converts Unix timestamps to DateTime objects and DateTime objects to Unix timestamps.
- Zoom Meetings by Akuthota Deekshith – This Connector will help to automate Zoom Meeting Operations.
Find out more: 20 New Independent Publisher Connectors in November and December
Power BI
In Power BI: On-prem data gateway, Power BI desktop February feature summary, new mobile formatting options, export Power BI report to file API GA, new Admin APIs
On-premises data gateway February 2022 update
The Power BI team have announced the release of the February update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.114.6). Updates include:
- All certified connectors can be used via the gateway
- Amazon OpenSearch Service (New Connector)
- OpenSearch Project (New Connector)
- Digital Construction Works Insights (New Connector)
- Azure Databricks (Connector Update)
- Plus lots more!
Find out more: On-premises data gateway February 2022 update is now available
Power BI February 2022 desktop feature summary
This months summary includes new features such as new mobile formatting options, Dynamic M Query Parameters support for more data sources, deployment pipeline enhancements and lots, lots more.
Find out more: Power BI February 2022 Feature Summary
Introducing the visual formatting pane in mobile layout
As part of the Power BI Desktop February release, the Power BI team have announced the public preview of mobile-optimized Power BI reports with mobile layout’s new visual formatting pane.
Find out more: Create stunning, mobile-optimized Power BI reports with mobile layout’s new visual formatting pane (Preview)
Export Power BI report to file API General Availability
Export Power BI report to file API allows you to export Power BI reports to the following file formats: PDF, PPTX (PowerPoint) and PNG, by using a REST call. This feature is now generally available based on Premium/Embedded Gen2 capacities.
Find out more: Announcing general availability of Export Power BI report to file API
Admin APIs to retrieve email subscriptions and widely shared reports
The Power BI team are adding new APIs to provide an inventory of reports and dashboards that are delivered via email subscriptions, shared with the entire tenant, or published to web.
Find out more: Announcing new Admin APIs to retrieve email subscriptions and widely shared reports
BONUS! Even more updates
Core Visio capabilities added to Microsoft 365
Microsoft have announced that a lightweight version of the Visio web app in Microsoft 365 to bring visual diagramming and collaboration to all teams—both of which are especially important in this hybrid work environment. But the best part? It’ll be available, at no additional cost, for all commercial license subscribers.
Find out more: Bringing Visio to Microsoft 365: Diagramming for everyone
Labels in Microsoft Project
The Project team have announced that labels are currently rolling out in Microsoft Project. This new feature allows users to add up to 25 different coloured labels to your tasks in Project for the web for better visual organization.
Find out more: February Update Blog
OneNote Live Captions
Now, rolling out OneNote Live Captions lets students listen to a lecture, presentation or other meeting while live streaming captions in any of 100+ languages right within OneNote. OneNote Live Captions fuses the free Microsoft Translator with OneNote, to let educators set up a Translator session that any student with OneNote can then connect to, and allows each student to choose from 100+ available languages to translate the lecture into.
Find out more: Inclusive and accessible Microsoft Education updates with OneNote Live Captions and Immersive Reader
Azure AD multi-stage access reviews
Now in Public Preview, Azure AD multi-stage access reviews allows you and your organization to enable complex workflows to meet recertification and audit requirements calling for multiple reviewers to attest to access for users in a particular sequence. It also helps you design more efficient reviews for your resource owners and auditors by reducing the number of decisions each reviewer is accountable for.
Find out more: Achieve a least privilege model using Azure AD’s new multi-stage access reviews
SharePoint Stuff 