The Microsoft 365 monthly update includes updates and recently recent features across all of Microsoft 365. You can take a look back at previous monthly updates here, plus take a look at our weekly roadmap roundup.
SharePoint
SharePoint Premium: Translation Generally Available
Microsoft have announced a new, powerful way to translate files instantly and at scale. This milestone means translation is available for all commercial regions, globally. You can easily create a translated copy of a selected file (or a set of files) in a SharePoint document library among dozens of languages – all while preserving as much of the original format and structure of the file(s) as possible.
Find out more: SharePoint Premium translation – now generally available!
Copilot Studio Sample – deploy copilot to SharePoint with single sign-on
Microsoft have recently shared an addition to the Copilot Studio Samples repository – a code sample that demonstrates how to publish a custom copilot to a SharePoint site, with – as the name implies – a seamless single sign-on experience.
The component included in the sample allows copilots created with Microsoft Copilot Studio to be wrapped and published to SharePoint sites as a floating widget. The component also supports SSO, so users would not have to provide their credentials or use the validation code required by the standard copilot canvas.
Find out more: Deploy a custom copilot to SharePoint, with a seamless single sign-on experience
Custom document library templates
This leverages the existing PowerShell-based tooling and methods for creating custom list templates. As a Global Administrator or SharePoint Administrator you can establish what your organization needs, specific to your business.
Find out more: Creating custom list templates
Lists performance updates and more
This first improves the overall performance for all Lists creation and consumption entry points. It also introduces new features, including the ability to add ratings to any list, drag and/or paste images directly into a list, see who is collaborating with you in real-time, switch views by clicking tabs, and more.
Find out more: Microsoft Lists: Easier, Better, Faster, Stronger
Teams
Teams
New Copilot experience in Microsoft Teams Chat
If you have a Copilot for Microsoft 365 license, you will see a new Copilot app pinned above your chats. This improved version of the Copilot App offers additional benefits over the app formerly known as Microsoft 365 Chat:
- Improved prompts with details relevant to you (e.g. people you work with, your meetings, your files, etc.)
- View your Copilot Chat history
- Access to a library of prompts via Copilot Lab
Find out more: Introducing the new Microsoft Copilot experience in Teams
Remove items from activity feed
You now have the option to remove items from your activity feed, so that you can concentrate on the most relevant notifications.
Find out more: Explore the Activity feed in Microsoft Teams
Control activity notifications from the activity card
You now have more control over what shows in your activity feed. By selecting the ellipsis from an activity card and choosing notification settings, you can change the settings for sound, display and more.
Find out more: Manage notification settings
Hide general channels
Alike other channels, now you will be able to hide general channels in your teams, helping you focus on the channels that matter most to you.
Note, if general is the last channel in the team, then the team will get hidden as well. If the general channel is hidden by the user, the channel will no longer show in their teams and channels list. They will still be able to show the channel by going to the hidden channels in the teams and channels list or manage teams > channels tab > and select “show for me”.
Find out more: https://www.microsoft.com/en-US/microsoft-365/roadmap?filters=&searchterms=324840
New layout for content sharing in Together mode
With this new layout, you can see the video participants in Together mode at the bottom of the screen. All participants share a common background on a horizontal plane.
Find out more: New layout available for Together mode in Teams
Meeting options update for Webinars and Town halls
Organizers for webinars and town halls can edit meeting options in an inline window within the scheduling form in Teams. This ensures a continuous workflow for the organizer to stay within the event setup while configuring meeting options for the event.
Find out more: Overview of meetings, webinars, and town halls
Registration form updates in Webinars
Organizers can rearrange the sequence of registration form questions that are presented to attendees during the webinar registration process. The questions available for reordering include address, city, state, zip/post code, country/region, job title, organization, industry, and custom questions.
Find out more: Overview of meetings, webinars, and town halls
Teams now supports Android Auto
Microsoft Teams now supports Android Auto, an app that allows Android phones to connect to the car’s infotainment system. This feature will enable you to join meetings from the Teams calendar view, quickly call your speed dial contacts and see your recent Teams calls while in your car.
Add Teams app shortcuts to your home screen on Android
You can now create a shortcut of any app you like in Teams and put it on your device home screen for easy launch. You can use this feature by pressing and holding any app icon in Teams to see more options.
Find out more: Adding Home screen shortcuts on Android
Use sensitivity labels to protect your data when you join a Teams meeting on a mobile device
To improve the security and compliance of your collaboration space, you can choose sensitivity labels for Teams meetings when you work together on a mobile device. The labels will follow all the settings that the administrators have selected, and they will impact the users in the tenant.
Find out more: Sensitivity labels for Microsoft Teams
Private line on Teams Phone
Administrators can now enable a private second phone number for a user so they can receive incoming calls directly, bypassing delegates, admins, or assistants. Calls to the private line are distinguished by a unique notification and ringtone.
Find out more: Configure private lines in Microsoft Teams
Select IP phone models from Snom compatible with SIP Gateway
Select IP Phone Models from Snom are now compatible with SIP Gateway. Enjoy the benefits of making and receiving calls on Teams telephony making it easier than ever to stay connected with your team.
Education
These features currently available to Microsoft’s Education customers:
- Using generative AI to create rubrics in Assignments – With generative AI integrated into Assignments, you just need to enter what you want the rubric to assess, and Assignments will suggest criteria for you and complete the rubric for you. You have the control as the educator, and you can add more levels or criteria and let AI fill out a first draft for you.
- Using generative AI to create instructions in Assignments – For Assignments Instructions, we are examining the information and giving multiple suggestions for how to enrich the content, such as adding more details, adding learning objectives, emphasizing key concept and even making your assignments more interesting.
- Using generative AI to create modules in Classwork – With AI enabled Classwork module generation, educators can get assistance creating a course outline and drafting modules and descriptions based on the subject, student grade level, and class learning objectives. The educator is always in the driver’s seat and can choose to edit, delete, or regenerate modules before adding them to Classwork.
- Admin Controls for generative AI features – The IT Administrators can control the educators’ access to these generative AI features. A new control will be available in the Institute settings tab under Education Section of the Teams admin center.
- Check-in with students using Reflect as they complete their assignment – When students submit their work, they will be automatically asked how they felt about the assignments. The educator can see the students’ responses directly inside the Assignments Grading experience, to track the changes over time for a student and how the whole class felt about the assignment in the together view.
- Reuse of Modules – Available now, you can now reuse your modules between Class Teams. Whether you are looking to teach the same class again, are teaching multiple instances of a class, or want to hand off curriculum to another educator, Classwork will allow you to reuse content including Assignments, Files, and Links easily. Simply make sure you are the owner of the Class Team the content is coming from, and then click “Reuse from existing” in the new Team.
Frontline workers/ Vertical solutions
These features currently available to Microsoft’s frontline worker customers and vertical solutions:
- Deploy frontline operational hierarchy in Teams admin center – Admins can now set up their frontline operational hierarchy to map their organization’s structure of frontline teams/locations to a hierarchy in the Teams admin center. Admins can also define attributes for their teams that range from department to brand information.
- Automatic targeting based on roles for frontline – Target important announcements to the right frontline employees based on location, department, and job role information. Targeted announcements will surface on the Teams home experience so your frontline employees will never miss an important communication.
- Microsoft Graph API for SMS notifications in Virtual Appointments – This allows developers to programmatically send confirmation, update, reminder, and cancellation SMS notifications to customers. Developers send the “notification type”, “customer phone number”, and “reminder mins ahead” properties in the payload to configure the SMS notifications. The API support for SMS notifications is currently available in the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada: notifications can be sent to phone numbers in these countries. Note, while the API is not part of Teams Premium, for the SMS notifications to be utilized, it requires the appointment organizer to be licensed with Teams Premium.
Power Apps
Access Dataverse audit log using Synapse/ Power BI generally available
To comply with auditing requirements, security officers or internal auditors can use their own Synapse workspace to access Dataverse audit data. They can use Power BI to create and monitor for auditing events. You can enable auditing in each Dataverse environment to audit all user access requests, environment configuration changes, and record updates.
Find out more: Access Dataverse audit logs using Synapse workspace | Microsoft Learn
Announcing preview for blocking unmanaged customizations
Microsoft have announced public preview of capability to block unmanaged customizations. This is an environment setting that allows Power Platform system administrators to prevent unmanaged customizations in Microsoft Dataverse environments.
By blocking any unmanaged customizations and import of unmanaged solutions, you can ensure that any changes to your environment, specifically your test and production environments, are only going through approved application lifecycle management (ALM) processes that have reliability, safety, and auditing.
Find out more: Announcing preview for blocking unmanaged customizations | Microsoft Power Apps
Building new apps and tables with Maker Copilot is now available in 8 languages worldwide
Microsoft have announced that the Build apps through conversation capability is now available in 8 languages on make.powerapps.com, including English, Dutch, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish.
Find out more: Build apps through conversation
Power Platform Prompts Library
Explore a collection of prompts that you can use in Power Apps Copilot, Power Automate Copilot, Power Pages Copilot and AI Builder.
Find out more: powerplatform-prompts/prompts at main · pnp/powerplatform-prompts · GitHub
Add new Power Platform Dataflows to Solutions
Power Platform Dataflows (PPDF) were used to bring data into Dataverse for apps and solutions, but they were not originally a built-in part of Power Platform solutions. Users could only add an existing PPDF to a solution, and PPDF couldn’t be exported and imported as part of the solution.
With this new feature, we have made PPDF a core part of the solution. When you include your dataflows in a solution, their definitions become portable, making it easier to move them from one environment to another, saving time required to create the dataflow.
Find out more: Dataflows in solutions – Power Query | Microsoft Learn
Call SQL Server stored procedures directly in Power Fx
Microsoft have announced that you can now directly call SQL Server stored procedures in Power Fx. You no longer need to call a Power Automate Flow to use a stored procedure. This feature is in preview and currently in all regions.
The ability to call stored procedures for the SQL connector directly is an extension to the existing tabular model and gives users access to tables, views, and stored procedures. This feature extends our ongoing support of SQL Server as a primary development target for Power Apps.
Find out more: Call SQL Server stored procedures directly in Power Fx (Preview) | Microsoft Power Apps
Draft with Copilot in canvas apps
Microsoft have announced the Public Preview release of Draft with Copilot for canvas apps used in a browser. With no app or configuration changes needed, Copilot will now work alongside users to help them draft well-written text for the text input fields within their apps. Draft with Copilot will be gradually rolling out to premium users in the US region over the next few weeks.
Find out more: Copilot now helps users draft text input in canvas apps | Microsoft Power Apps
General Availability for Shared Device Mode for Power Apps on iOS
Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of Shared Device Mode (SDM) for Power Apps Mobile App on shared iOS devices This now compliments the already released for Android devices, completing the SDM feature availability for Power Apps mobile.
Find out more: Announcing General Availability for Shared Device Mode for Power Apps on iOS | Microsoft Power Apps
Copilot assistance for filling forms in model-driven apps
Microsoft have annonuced Copilot assistance for form filling in model-driven Power Apps. This new feature uses AI to generate suggestions for fields in main forms, making it easier and faster for you to enter data. Say goodbye to tedious data entry and hello to a more efficient and accurate way of filling out forms.
Find out more: Copilot assistance for form filling in model-driven apps – Power Apps | Microsoft Learn
Power Automate
Power Automate desktop update February 2024
Microsoft have announced the February 2024 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.41) has been released, with new features and updates including:
- Picture-in-Picture run mode is now available in preview
- Power Fx now supports interpolated strings in Power Automate for desktop
Find out more: February 2024 update of Power Automate for desktop
Custom processing for invoice and document field types generally available
AI Builder new capabilities for automated custom invoice processing and data extraction are now generally available. These enhancements aim to streamline AI model configuration and improve processing precision in Power Automate for both structured and unstructured documents.
Find out more: Create a document processing custom model
Power BI
Power BI Feature Summary February 2024
In this month’s feature update there are some great new capabilities, including:
- Visual calculations make it easier than ever to do calculations that were very hard or even impossible.
- The Power BI home provides a centralized location for all your Power BI desktop activities.
- Fabric Copilot for Power BI can now add measure descriptions to your semantic model measures.
- The Power BI add in now supports shareable links to make it easier for people to consume reports.
- The new Explore feature gives you a better understanding of what’s in the data you’re exploring.
Updates and enhancements for reference labels
The latest Power BI enhancements for reference labels focuses on the card visual. It includes improvements to the accent bar, background color, flexibility in label placement, a tabular style option, broader transparency feature, customizable settings per card, and more.
Find out more: Updates and enhancements for reference labels
Retirement of legacy Power BI Apps (pre-audiences)
Legacy Power BI apps, the versions of apps before the release of apps with audiences, will no longer be supported as of May 1, 2024. Microsoft encourage you to upgrade or rebuild your Power BI apps using Power BI apps with audiences.
Find out more: Announcing the retirement of legacy Power BI Apps (pre-audiences)
Deprecation of creation of machine learning models in Power BI using Dataflows V1
Creation of Power BI Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) models for Dataflows V1 will be retired starting March 28th. AutoML is a great feature in Power BI that lets users create and use machine learning models for predictive analytics. We’ve heard from users that they want more control and flexibility over the AutoML process.
Microsoft are introducing an AutoML solution based on Synapse Data Science in Microsoft Fabric to offer a more powerful and customizable experience, with access to advanced tools and features.
Find out more: Announcing the deprecation of creation of machine learning models in Power BI using Dataflows V1
Copilot for Power BI chat-based capabilities: summarize, inquire, analyze (Public Preview)
The Copilot pane in Power BI is now available in public preview in view and edit mode and offers new capabilities. You can now ask Copilot for summaries, insights, and answers from your report content.
Copilot assists users in exploring data effectively, enabling them to comprehend reports swiftly and address inquiries promptly. Regardless of one’s expertise level, Copilot’s user-friendly design streamlines the process of data exploration.
Find out more: Summarize a report page in the Copilot pane
Power BI app improvements for 2024
After listening to customer feedback in 2023, Microsoft have make the following updates to Power BI apps that were asked for:
- The ability to copy item links from authoring view
- A setting for granting access to hidden content
- Increasing the maximum number of audiences to 25 (previously 10)
- Plus, the previous roll out of custom messaging for handling app access requests.
Find out more: Improvements to Power BI apps, an increase in audiences and access control for hidden content
Additional enhancements for columns, bars and ribbons
With the February 2024 Power BI update, there are enhancements that elevate data storytelling, enhancing visual appeal, and embracing IBCS standards. From dynamic columns to refined ribbons, this months update brings some new enhancements for columns, bars, and ribbons that you don’t want to miss.
Find out more: Additional enhancements for columns, bars and ribbons
Leveraging pure Direct Lake mode for maximum query performance
Microsoft have announced a new Direct Lake semantic model property to control Direct Lake behaviour. Direct Lake, by default, will transparently fallback to DirectQuery whenever a DAX query exceeds the limits on a SKU or uses features not supported by Direct Lake mode, such as SQL views from the Warehouse.
Find out more: Leveraging pure Direct Lake mode for maximum query performance
TMDL in Power BI Desktop developer mode (Preview)
After launching Power BI Desktop developer mode with Power BI Project files (PBIP) in conjunction with Fabric Git Integration, a new, preview improvement is being added, Tabular Model Definition Language (TMDL) as the semantic model file format for the Power BI Project files.
Find out more: TMDL in Power BI Desktop developer mode (Preview)
Visual calculations (preview)
Visual calculations are DAX calculations that are defined and executed directly on a visual. A visual calculation can refer to any data in the visual, including columns, measures, or other visual calculations.
This approach removes the complexity of the semantic model and simplifies the process of writing DAX. You can use visual calculations to complete common business calculations such as running sums or moving averages. Visual calculations make it easy to do calculations that were previously very hard or even almost impossible to do.
Find out more: Visual calculations (preview)
Granular access control for all data connection types general availability
Microsoft have announced the general availability (GA) of granular access control for all data connection types, a security feature that enables organizations to have more control over who can bind semantic models to organizational data sources on-prem and in the cloud.
Find out more: Enabling granular access control for all data connection types
Generate measure descriptions with Copilot (preview)
We are excited to announce the public preview of generating measure descriptions with Copilot! Adding descriptions to the model measures in your semantic model is an important model documentation step allowing report authors to understand what these measures do and how they should be used when creating reports. It is also a time-consuming task! Here the Fabric Copilot can help by generating the measure description for you to review and add to each measure in your semantic model!
Find out more: Generate measure descriptions with Copilot (preview)
Improvements for creating new Direct Lake semantic models
As part of Microsoft’s continued tooling improvements, they have enhanced the experience for creating Direct Lake semantic models in Microsoft Fabric. This applies to semantic models created by clicking the New semantic model button from the Lakehouse (as in the below screenshot) or Lakehouse’s SQL analytics endpoint as well as from Data Warehouses.
Find out more: Improvements for creating new Direct Lake semantic models
VNet Data Gateway for Fabric and Power BI is now Generally Available
VNET Data Gateway for Fabric and Power BI is now Generally Available! The VNET Data Gateway is a network security offering that lets you connect your Azure and other data services to Microsoft Fabric and the Power Platform. You can run Dataflow Gen2, Power BI Semantic Models, Power Platform Dataflows, and Power BI Paginated Reports on top of a VNET Data Gateway to ensure that no traffic is exposed to public endpoints.
Find out more: VNet Data Gateway for Fabric and Power BI is now Generally Available
Accelerating Embedded Analytics for Your Application
Microsoft have announced the availability of embedded analytics accelerators developed by our partners. These accelerators significantly shorten the time-to-market for self-service analytics experiences that are integrated into customer-facing applications.
Find out more: Accelerating Embedded Analytics for Your Application
Copilot
Experience Copilot support for more languages
Microsoft are adding support for an additional 17 languages, further expanding access to Copilot worldwide. We will start rolling out Arabic, Chinese Traditional, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, Hebrew, Hungarian, Korean, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese (Portugal), Russian, Swedish, Thai, Turkish and Ukrainian over March and April. Copilot is already supported in the following languages: English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN), Spanish (ES, MX), Japanese, French (FR, CA), German, Portuguese (BR), Italian, and Chinese Simplified. Check the public roadmap and message center to track roll out status.
Copilot in Excel (preview) is currently supported in English (US, GB, AU, CA, IN) and will be supported in Spanish (ES, MX), Japanese, French (FR, CA), German, Portuguese (BR), Italian, and Chinese Simplified starting in March.
Begin your Copilot journey and build new skills with Copilot Lab
Copilot Lab helps users get started with the art of prompting and helps organizations with onboarding and adoption by providing a single experience that meets Copilot users where they are in their journey. Today, we’re expanding Copilot Lab by transforming the current prompts library into a comprehensive learning resource that helps everyone begin their Copilot journey with confidence and to take greater advantage of Copilot in their daily work.
Copilot now available in the Microsoft 365 mobile app
Microsoft are extending Copilot to the Microsoft 365 mobile app and to the Word and PowerPoint mobile apps. With the new Microsoft 365 app look and feel, you can easily find Copilot alongside your content, apps, and shortcuts.
Find out more: Copilot now available for the Microsoft 365 mobile app
Introducing Copilot in Forms
Use Copilot to make creating surveys, polls, and forms easier. Go to http://forms.microsoft.com, click New, and provide your topic, length, and any extra details. Copilot will suggest relevant questions. Then, you can adjust the draft by adding more details, editing text, or deleting content. After creating a strong draft with Copilot, customize the background with one of the many Forms style options.
Find out more: Introducing Copilot in Forms: Redefining Your Forms Creation
Extract information quickly from your files with Copilot in OneDrive
Copilot in OneDrive gives you instant access to information contained deep within your files. Initially available from the OneDrive web experience, Copilot will provide you with smart and intuitive ways to interact with your documents, presentations, spreadsheets, and files. You can use Copilot in OneDrive to:
- Get information from your files: Ask questions about your content using natural language, and Copilot will fetch the information from your files, saving you the work and time of manually searching for what you need.
- Generate file summaries: Need a quick overview of a file? Copilot can summarize the contents of one or multiple files, offering you quick insights without having to even open the file.
- Find files using natural language: Find files in new ways by using Copilot prompts such as “Show me all the files shared with me in the past week” or “Show files that Kat Larson has commented in.”
Find out more: Copilot in OneDrive: A New Wave of File Interaction
Include quick summaries when sharing documents
Add Copilot-generated summaries when you share documents with your colleagues. These summaries, included in the document sharing notification, give your recipients immediate context around a document and a quick overview of its content without needing to open the file. Sharing summaries helps users prioritize work, increases engagement, and reduces cognitive burden.
Find out more: Share a Word document with a Copilot-generated summary
Get instant video summaries and insights with Copilot in Stream
By using Copilot in Microsoft Stream, you can quickly get the information you need about videos in your organization, whether you’re viewing the latest Teams meeting recording, town hall, product demo, how-to, or onsite videos from frontline workers. Copilot helps you get what you need from your videos in seconds. You can use it to:
- Summarize any video and identify relevant points you need to watch
- Ask questions to get insights from long or detailed videos
- Locate when people, teams, or topics are discussed so you can jump to that point in the video
- Identify calls to action and where you can get involved to help
Find out more: Introducing Copilot in Microsoft Stream
Admin
Take a look at some of the latest features we launched in the Microsoft 365 admin center this month and how they can help you get things done:
- New services available on the cloud.microsoft unified domain – This month, the following services have become available on the new domain: Microsoft 365 Service Health Status Page: status.cloud.microsoft, Microsoft Setup: setup.cloud.microsoft.
- Enhancements to Network Connectivity now generally available – New enhancements include the ability to show network providers in use at the tenant and location level, a performance and availability assessment that includes details on what could be negatively affecting performance, and a Network Provider Index chart (currently for the US, and soon for the rest of the world) that shows top performing network providers at a given location.
