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
• Teams
• Power Apps
• Power Automate
• Power BI

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: What’s next for SharePoint?, Renaming File viewer web part to ‘File and Media’, New List Templates with Approvals, SharePoint supports the Loop app, review recent site actions, what’s new for SharePoint server, Microsoft Edge to replace built-in PDF engine with Adobe Acrobat PDF engine

What’s next for SharePoint – join the event this May!

The next step of SharePoint’s journey at the Microsoft 365 Conference in Las Vegas, NV in early May.  Join an in-person celebration of SharePoint’s past, present, and future – and build new connections with a full return of a vibrant in-person community event.

Find out more: What’s Next for SharePoint

Renaming File viewer webpart to ‘File and Media’

Microsoft are renaming the Files webpart to File and Media to make this webpart inclusive of more file types like videos. Users will see the new name for the webpart. Functionally, nothing changes w.r.t. the capabilities of the webpart. Note: Image files are not supported in the File and Media web part. However, if you want to insert an image on your page, you can use the use the Image web part.

Find out more: Use the File and Media web part

New List Templates with Approvals

We are introducing two new list templates that embed the Approvals app (service) into the Lists experience. With this change, two Microsoft Lists templates appear – specifically Travel Requests with approvals and Content Scheduler with approvals; both bring integration with the Approvals app in Microsoft Teams. You’ll see the new list templates within the Create list experience.

Note: This is an optional feature that users can leverage by using one of the two new list templates. If they opt out of the Approvals integration when creating the list, the value of each template carries through – minus the added approval functionality.

Find out more: Roadmap ID 100502

 SharePoint supports the Loop app – Components, pages, and workspaces

The Loop app is now in public preview, and SharePoint provides the underlying storage and collaboration technology for Loop:

• Tree Structured Storage – Optimizing for innovation and performance, SharePoint has moved from a traditional file stream architecture to tree-structured storage. Leveraging B-Tree graph nodes allows us to unlock powerful collaboration capabilities and unmatched flexibility in a data structure that works for existing file types but also natively supports Fluid Framework, the underlying tech for Microsoft Loop.
• Performance Optimizations – The Loop experience sets a new bar in editing and real-time collaboration, especially for speed and scale. This drives performance improvements – not only in core SharePoint – throughout our partners in Azure on Blob, SQL, Networking, as well contributions to Windows and Chromium http stacks.
• Personal and Work – Today’s Loop announcement is a major milestone because it is simultaneously available for both personal (MSA) and organization (AAD) accounts. This is the direct result of work inside SharePoint to support both authentication models.  
• Security and Compliance – By building on the core SharePoint platform, Loop components, pages, and workspaces inherit all of SharePoint’s industry-leading work on compliance and security.

Find out more: The SharePoint storage platform supports the Loop app – Components, pages, and workspaces

Review recent site actions

You can now review the most recent site changes you made from the SharePoint admin center in the last 30 days from the SharePoint admin center.

Find out more: Review recent SharePoint site actions

What’s new for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition – March 2023

Here’s the latest feature updates for SharePoint Server Subscription:

• Unified patches – To simplify the process for updating your SharePoint Server Subscription Edition environments, we’re introducing a single update each month for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, starting with the March 2023 public update. 
• Support for SharePoint Framework (SPFx) version 1.5.1 – To expand the customization scenarios that SharePoint Server Subscription Edition supports, the 23H1 feature update adds support for SharePoint Framework (SPFx) version 1.5.1. 
• New PowerShell cmdlets for variations feature – SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H1 introduces 4 new PowerShell cmdlets that will replace the functionality of the “stsadm.exe -o variationsfixuptool” command. 
• SharePoint Server recompiled with Visual C++ 2022 – Microsoft have recompiled SharePoint Server Subscription Edition with the newest Visual C++ compiler: Visual C++ 2022.
• Private key management in certificate management – SharePoint Server Subscription Edition introduced a new certificate management feature that allows SharePoint farm administrators to directly manage the deployment and lifecycle of SSL/TLS certificates in their SharePoint Server farms.
• Support for wildcard host header bindings – SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H1 adds support for specifying a wildcard host header binding for a web application. 
• Expanded usage of modern sharing dialog – To deliver a more intuitive sharing experience, these sharing entry points have been updated to use SharePoint’s modern sharing dialog.
• Column totals in modern list views – SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H1 adds support for displaying column totals in modern list views just like in classic list views. This option can be enabled in the “save view” feature.
• Enhanced Quick Chart web part – SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H1 enhances the Quick Chart modern web part by adding a “Get data from a list or library on this site” option. Users can now configure the Quick Chart web part to consume data from a list or library within the site.
• Improved file picker – The Quick Links web part file picker can now support more file types such as PDF, TXT, MP4, M4V, MP3, OGG, and WAV. The File Viewer web part file picker can now support PDF files.
• New product servicing policy for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition – Starting in January 2023, each public update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition will be supported for one year after its release date (until the second Tuesday of the same month in the following year).
• Antimalware Scan Interface integration comes to SharePoint Server 2019 – Our 22H2 feature update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition first introduced Windows Antimalware Scan Interface (AMSI) integration to SharePoint Server. 
• SharePoint 2013 reaches end of support on April 11, 2023 – As a final reminder for those customers who haven’t migrated to SharePoint Online or upgraded to a newer version of SharePoint Server yet, SharePoint 2013 will reach end of support on April 11, 2023. 

Find out more: What’s new for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition – March 2023

Microsoft Edge to replace built-in PDF engine with Adobe Acrobat PDF engine

As part of the Adobe and Microsoft collaboration to re-envision the future workplace and digital experiences, Microsoft are natively embedding the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine into the Microsoft Edge built-in PDF reader. With the use of the Adobe Acrobat PDF engine, users will have a unique PDF experience that includes higher fidelity for more accurate colors and graphics, improved performance, strong security for PDF handling, and greater accessibility – including better text selection and read-aloud narration. 

Find out more: Adobe and Microsoft collaboration 

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Teams

In Teams: New desktop app, collaborative notes, speaker coach, avatars, new channel experience, updated files app, video filters, closed captions in PowerPoint Live, Whiteboard innovations, auto-lowering of a users raised hand, meeting toolbar improvements, ultrasound howling detection, disable chat for anonymous or unauthenticated users, live transcript in all languages, expanded view for profile card

Dynamics emergency calling updates, busy-on-busy settings, user managed call queue, click-to-call, hotline phones, simplified call delegation, shared device license for Teams mobile Android, Teams phone devices UI updates, virtual front desk, PSTN support for Breakout Rooms DoD, GCC High, SIP Gateway support, leave meeting on all devices

Teams Management
Education
Government
Frontline workers

Teams (non-premium)

New Teams desktop app

At Enterprise Connect 2023 earlier this month, Microsoft unveiled the new era of Teams, including the introduction of a new Teams desktop app in public preview for Windows. New Teams is a reimagining of the app from the ground up to be faster, simpler, and more flexible. Follow the announcements at Enterprise Connect to learn more about new Teams. From some independent benchmarking, they found the new Teams app:

• Launch app up to 2X faster
• Join meetings up to 2X faster
• Switch chats/channels up to 1.7X faster
• Consume up to 50% less memory
• Consume up to 70% less disk space

Find out more: Introducing the new Microsoft Teams, now in preview

Collaborative notes in Microsoft Teams meetings

Coming to Public Preview in April, Collaborative notes ensure that each meeting helps you to drive your work forward with a collaborative agenda, co-edited meeting notes, and follow up tasks that sync with ToDo and Planner. The best part is these notes are Loop components, that can be copy/ pasted to places like Teams chat and Outlook.

Find out more: Roadmap ID: 101509

Speaker Coach in Teams Meetings

Speaker Coach provides private, personalized feedback on your speaking and presentation skills in both real-time as well as post-meeting in a summary. Now available in preview. Live insights are only seen by you and are not saved in recorded meeting transcripts.

Find out more: Preview: Speaker Coach in a Teams meeting

Avatars

A day of hybrid meetings can be exhausting, especially when you are distracted by how you or your background looks. Avatars for Microsoft Teams gives you a much-needed camera break, while still allowing you to collaborate. Represent yourself with customizable avatars and reactions. Maximize engagement by including more people in the conversation— whether they need a break due to video fatigue, are joining from a different time zone, or just feel more comfortable with their video off. Add a new layer of choice to your meetings. 

Find out more: Avatars for Microsoft Teams in Public Preview

New channel experience

Last year, Microsoft announced a new channels experience, built with an intuitive design that allows teams to focus, stay on task, brings everyone up to speed, actively engages real-time. Coming June 2023:

• The compose box and recent posts will appear at the top of the page.
• You can navigate to a conversation view that makes the discussion more engaging and synchronous, just like a chat. You can also pop out the post, keep an eye on the discussion, while continuing to work on other topics.
• Hashtags referencing Viva Topics will provide context right in the channel on organizational topics without having to ask anyone else.
• A streamlined information pane will include all the important contextual information like channel’s members and pinned posts so new team members can quickly on-board and for all members to find the information they need, right in the channel.
• Pin posts to make it easy for everyone to know what’s important in the channel and quickly reference it.
• Simplified badging is making it easier for users to understand when there are new unread activities in teams. In addition, the simplified design helps users focus on the specific channels which requires the most attention, like channels in which the user was @mentioned.

Find out more: Enhance collaboration with Microsoft Teams chat and channels features for the hybrid workplace

Updated files app

Whether editing a Word document or collaborating in PowerPoint with a team, a new files app experience with an updated navigation panel enables you to quickly discover, access and share your files from your chats, channels, or meetings:

• Home: Get back to your recently accessed files.
• My files: Access your personal files saved in your OneDrive.
• Shared: Find files shared with you and files you have shared with others across M365.
• Downloads: Locate files downloaded from Teams on your computer.
• Quick Access: Pin a Teams channel file tab or SharePoint document library to access quickly.

This new file experience brings consistency and familiarity with how files are stored, shared, and accessed across Microsoft 365 and OneDrive.

Find out more: Roadmap ID: 97677

Video filters in Meetings

Video filters in Teams meetings allow you to remove unwanted distractions and better express yourself by bringing your personality to each meeting. The filters enable participants in Teams Meetings to augment their video stream with visual effects ranging from animated frames to styles changing the video’s hue. You can apply these filters even before you join a meeting from the lobby.

Find out more: Introducing Video Filters in Microsoft Teams Meetings

Video Closed Captions in PowerPoint Live

Closed Captions in PowerPoint Live aim to help those who are Deaf or hard of hearing, have difficulty processing auditory information, have a language barrier, or who are simply joining the meeting from a loud environment, to better understand the auditory content being shared. Meeting attendees will now have the option to turn on closed captions for any video that includes a closed captions file.

Find out more: Introducing Closed Captions in PowerPoint Live for Microsoft Teams Meetings

Whiteboard innovations

During the meeting enjoy a breadth of Whiteboard innovations including the ability to open your existing whiteboard in Teams meetings, quickly set up your whiteboard using one of the 60+ templates, invite others to follow your viewpoint as you navigate, identify collaborators through sticky note attribution, automatically resize your sticky note text, and format it as you see fit.

You can also copy and paste Loop components into Whiteboard from Teams chat and soon from Outlook mail and Word for the web. The whiteboard you and your participants collaborated on, as well as shared comments, can be accessed in the Teams chat under the Whiteboard tab following the meeting.

Find out more: What’s new for Microsoft Whiteboard – November 2022

Automatic lowering of a user’s Raised Hand after speaking

To reduce the number of stale raised hands in meetings, Teams will now suggest you lower your raised hand after we detect they spoke in the meeting. You will be able to choose to keep their hand raised. If the you doesn’t take any action on the suggestion notification, we’ll automatically lower your hand. This should ensure smoother meeting facilitation for organizers and presenters.

Find out more: Now in public preview: Automatic lowering of a user’s Raised Hand after speaking

Meetings toolbar improvements

The updated Microsoft Teams meeting toolbar makes navigating meetings and discovering new features and capabilities easier than ever. For example, you are now able to raise your hand from the meeting toolbar with the dedicated raise hand button, you can navigate the More menu easier from sub-menu groupings, as well as navigate the More menu easier from sub-menu groupings.

Find out more: Now in public preview: Meeting Toolbar Usability Improvements

Ultrasound Howling Detection

When multiple people join a meeting in the same room then a feedback loop is created which causes an echo and in many cases the echo quickly escalates to howling (like when a musician holds the mic too close to a loudspeaker). If you a meeting with multiple other people on laptops join from the same location, we notify you that another Teams Device is detected in the vicinity and is already joined with audio to the current meeting. We will automatically mute the mic and speakers of the person who has joined after a you and has audio on.

Find out more: Now in public preview: Ultrasound Howling Detection in Teams Meetings

Disable chat write access for anonymous or unauthenticated users

IT admins can now disable chat write access at the policy level for non-federated users and unauthenticated users who join Teams meetings through a link that must be used in conjunction with disabled meeting chat policy to provide additional security against data exfiltration.

Find out more: Disabling Chat Write Access in Teams Meetings for Anonymous Participants

Live Transcript in all available languages in Teams Meetings on Web

During any Teams meeting, you can start a live transcription of the proceedings. The text appears alongside the meeting video or audio in real time, including the speaker’s name (unless they chose to hide it) and a time stamp. Live transcription can make your meeting more productive and inclusive for participants who are deaf or hard-of-hearing or have different levels of language proficiency. Participants in noisy places will also appreciate the visual aid. People can choose not to be identified in meeting transcripts.

Find out more: View live transcription in a Teams meeting

Expanded view for profile card

Microsoft are introducing an expanded view of the profile card in Teams, giving you the ability to view details and build stronger connections with your collaborators. From Teams chats, channels, calls or meetings, you can easily look up richer profile data and learn more about who you are collaborating with including, contact information, job title, organizational chart, and their LinkedIn profile. Insights like birthdays, career updates, suggested tasks will also be included in your profile card, helping form personal connections by celebrating important milestones.

Find out more: Profile cards in Microsoft 365

Dynamic emergency calling enhancements on Teams Phone

If you are in the US, you can now easily set your emergency location in the Calls app on Teams with location recommendations. Next quarter, you will be able to set the emergency location on your Teams Phone devices without needing to rely on administrators to set the emergency location.

Find out more: Plan and configure dynamic emergency calling

Busy-on-busy settings

If you are busy in a call or meeting, you can minimize distractions with the ability to manage how incoming calls are routed. Busy-on-busy settings can be set directly from your Calls settings in the Teams app. Choose from the option to allow calls to come through, play a busy signal, or to redirect the call based on your unanswered call routing preference. Next quarter, you will be able to set busy-on-busy settings on Teams phone devices as well.

Find out more: Busy on busy when in a call

User managed call queue and auto attendant greetings

To adapt to changing environments, you may need to adjust their call queue/auto attendant greetings and announcements. This is required more frequently than what the IT helpdesk can typically handle. To solve this, we introduced user managed call queue and auto attendant greetings. Next month, if you are an authorized user, as identified by Teams tenant admins, you can change greetings and announcements for their respective call queues and auto attendant without leaving Teams.

Find out more: Now in public preview: User-managed call queue and auto attendant greetings

Click-to-call

In a world where everything and everyone is connected, customers’ expectations have evolved. Customers want quick answers and seamless interactions. Click-to-call makes it easy for customers to reach your sales and support teams directly from your webpage or app. Developers can add, customize, and program the widget to connect customers to a specific Teams user, call queue, or auto attendant. Click-to-call will be available in public preview next quarter.

Hotline phones (Private Line Automatic Ringdown)

Next quarter, you will be able to program Microsoft Teams certified phone devices to directly dial a pre-configured phone number or contact, such as emergency services in a manufacturing plant or help desk in your organization. The hotline can be set up directly through the device settings or the Teams admin center. The device will need to be enabled with a Teams Shared Device License and set to common area phone mode.

Simplified call delegation UI and feature enhancements

Shared line appearance lets a user choose a delegate to answer or handle calls on their behalf. Next quarter, we will be launching a simplified experience in the Calls app and on Teams phone devices for users who have set up call delegation. Delegators will be able to view and join active calls handled by the delegate and grant delegates permission to join active calls.

Teams Shared Device license on Teams mobile app for Android

The usage, importance, and range of experiences conducted on shared devices continues to evolve. Mobility is becoming a must have and many segments of the workforce rely on mobile devices to keep their business connected. To support mobile and flexible work styles, later this year the Microsoft Teams Shared Device license will be available on the Teams mobile app on Android. This will enable Android phones to be set up as shared devices. Walkie Talkie, call queues, auto attendants, cloud voicemail, call park and all other features currently supported for common area phones will be available through the Teams Android app. 

Find out more: Microsoft Teams Shared Devices licensing

Teams phone devices UI updates

We are continuing to simplify the UI for Teams phone devices. Next quarter, we will be launching a redesigned dial pad to help with reducing unnecessary mistakes while dialing a phone number and offers a new dial pad only view in landscape mode if you primarily use their devices for placing outbound PSTN calls. The updated meeting experience and navigation will enabled you to more quickly join meetings and help them easily navigate across applications on their phone device.

Leave a meeting on all my devices

When you join a meeting using multiple personal devices, you can encounter friction when leaving the meeting, including forgetting to leave the meeting on one of their many devices. This functionality allows you to leave a meeting from all your devices with a single tap.

Find out more: TEAMS: LEAVE A MEETING FROM ALL OF YOUR DEVICES

Teams Management

The following features are currently available for the Teams Management Platform (admin center):

• Teams Admin Center: Simplified navigation – The new Simplified Left Navigation feature allows administrators to pin their preferred menu options to the navigation panel, reducing clutter and streamlining the process of finding the information they need. 
• View users and groups assigned to a policy – Admins can view the list of assigned users and groups for a policy.
• Teams Advisor guidance for Phone system deployment – Teams administrators can use Deployment Advisor for tailored guidance on deploying Teams Telephony to their organizations.
• Export Teams list from Teams Admin Center – Administrators can export Teams list as a csv file from Teams admin center.

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):

• SIP Gateway for GCC – SIP Gateway is now available for Government Community Cloud customers to enable core Teams calling functionality on legacy devices. For organizations with investment in SIP devices, SIP Gateway provides calling, meeting dial-in, voicemail and other core telephony features.

Frontline workers

• Virtual Appointments in Microsoft Teams – Virtual Appointments is a new Teams meeting type tailored for B2C meetings with people outside of your organization. Guests will get a meeting invitation that includes important appointment details and enables an easy join experience via SMS or email from any device—no need to install Teams. The Virtual Appointment app provides a single location where professionals and admins can create and manage scheduled and on-demand appointments as integrated with Bookings. It is further enhanced with Teams Premium, which unlocks a snapshot of the queue of appointments, a summary of appointment analytics, and options to manage appointments.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Copilot, Enhanced security for shared connections, modern controls for canvas apps, selection checker enforcement, CoE starter kit backed by self-serve data, new Power Fx formula bar, request a premium license, CLI February update, tenant switcher in mobile, design data driven cards in Teams, admin-configured welcome experience, pipelines GA

Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps

Microsoft announced  a next-generation AI copilot in Microsoft Power Apps that will transform how we build and interact with software applications this month. With the power of large language models, we are advancing to the next step in the evolution of code abstraction—moving from custom code, to low-code, to natural language authoring where human and machine work side by side to build applications together.

Find out more: Announcing a next-generation AI Copilot in Microsoft Power Apps that will transform low-code development

Enhanced security for implicitly shared connections

The Power Apps team have announced an enhanced security for implicitly shared connections in Power Apps. With this feature, connections are no longer directly shared with the users of a Power App. Instead, a proxy connection object that only grants access to the underlying resource (e.g., a specific SQL Server table) is shared. End user authors cannot create new applications with either the connection or the proxy connection. This feature also limits the end-user to the actions (get, put/patch, and delete) that are defined in the corresponding Power App.

Find out more: Overview of connectors for canvas apps

Modern controls coming to canvas apps

Following on from the launch of the new look for model driven apps, the Power Apps team are making the same modern controls available to canvas apps through an opt in preview. The new controls bring the following improvements: 

• Modern – A focused and less cluttered design that supports richer interaction states and elevation, provides a higher usability baseline to build your low code apps from. These controls are based on Microsoft’s own Fluent design system which powers majority of Microsoft experiences across all products like Microsoft Teams, Word and more.
• Fast – Built for performance. We are making critical investments for this new suite to ensure your apps are fast and fluid. 
• Accessible – These controls are WCAG 2.1 compliant with accessibility built in by default. We will provide a comprehensive set of properties for our developers to configure. 
• Theming – Designed with theming in mind. Although not part of the initial launch, support for theming and per control styling is coming to the preview soon. 

Power Apps developers can turn on modern controls feature in Power Apps Studio by navigating to list of preview features in settings dialog.

Find out more: Overview of modern controls in canvas apps (preview)

Solution checker enforcement in Managed Environments

The Power Apps team have announced the public preview of solution checker enforcement, a new feature in Managed Environments that gives admins much more control over the customizations in their environments! Solution checker enforcement allows you to block or warn on solution imports with critical severity violations, as defined in the solution checker rules. There are two modes you can choose for solution checker enforcement:

• In Block mode, solutions can only be imported if they were checked with solution checker and they contain no critical violations. Solutions containing non-critical violations won’t be blocked.
• In Warn mode, solutions can be imported even if they weren’t checked with solution checker or if they contain critical violations.

Find out more: Solution checker enforcement in Managed Environments

improved barcode reader control general availability

Scanning barcodes is a critical part of many frontline worker workflows – whether you are managing shelves in a retail store, inventorying goods in a warehouse, managing assets on the factory floor, or accessing records in a hospital. We are excited to share the immediate general availability (GA) of the improved barcode reader control. Workers will now be able to scan barcodes quickly, accurately, and flexibly on their Android and iOS devices.

• Select to scan – Select which of the visible barcodes you want to be scanned, instead of only being able to automatically scan the first visible code.
• Multiple scan – Within a single barcode reading session, scan as many barcodes as you want, returned as a table output property.
• Better user experience – See what you are scanning and have scanned with barcode tracking indicators and a dropdown drawer showing your scan history.

Find out more: Digitally transform physical workflows by turning the devices you already have into cost-efficient scanning tools

CoE Starter Kit backed by data from self-serve analytics data export (preview)

The Power Apps team have announced that the CoE Starter Kit can now use data provided by self-serve analytics as a foundation for inventory and telemetry, enabling rich insights built for scale. The experimental preview of the CoE Starter Kit using data provided by the Data Export feature is a foundation for inventory and telemetry. You can export Power Platform inventory and usage data directly into Azure Data Lake Storage using the Data Export feature in the Power Platform Admin Center.

Find out more: Now in preview: CoE Starter Kit backed by data from self-serve analytics data export

New Power Fx Formula Bar in Power Apps Studio

The Power Apps team have announced a new formula editor is available an experimental feature that we encourage you to turn on in your apps and try out!  The new editor is based on the powerful Monaco shared code editor component which allows us to provide you with better performance, a consistent editing experience across Studio, and additional error highlighting improvements.  

Find out more: Try the new Power Fx Formula Bar in Power Apps Studio

Request a Power Apps premium license from org admins

Power Apps is excited to share that users can now request a license from their admin – directly in product! If a user is trying to run an app that requires a license, they will see the option to ‘Request a license’, in addition to the buy a license or start a trial option (if eligible). Once a request is submitted, a confirmation message will appear at the top of the page saying the request was successfully sent to their admin.

Find out more: New: Request a Power Apps premium license from org admins

Tenant Switcher in Power Apps Mobile

Tenant switcher in Power Apps mobile allows users to easily switch to a different directory, when using Power Apps on phones or tablets without logging out. Users see the list of directories they have access to on the profile page, and they can pick any directory to see apps shared with them as a guest user.

Find out more: Announcing Tenant Switcher in Power Apps Mobile

Cards for Power Apps can be sent automatically via flows

Cards for Power Apps is a recent addition to the low code lineup, announced as public preview in September, that empowers business users and developers alike to create interactive, embeddable, data-driven, lightweight mini-apps that bring context and actions directly into Teams conversations.

Now, cards for Power Apps can be sent automatically via flows using our new connector and the updated Teams connector! The cards authoring experience has also been significantly improved, making it easier to design cards that suit your business processes. With these new features, anyone can use cards to bring conversations and workflows together like never before.

Find out more: Easily design and automatically send actionable, data-driven cards in Teams

Admin-configured maker welcome experience in Power Apps

Admin-configured maker welcome content is now available for the Power Apps maker portal. Today, admins rely on sending welcome emails, creating wikis, and setting up internal portals to educate makers. Since this information can be presented in so many different places, makers may miss important communication.

With the maker welcome experience, admins can customize content that is displayed to users in the maker portal, proactively communicating information such as security policies, knowledge bases, the environment’s purpose, and support information to makers.

Find out more: Announcing admin-configured maker welcome experience in Power Apps

Pipelines in Power Platform is Generally Available

Pipelines within Power Platform are now generally available. Pipelines aims to democratize application lifecycle management (ALM) for Power Platform and Dynamics 365 customers by bringing deployment automation capabilities into Managed Environments in a manner that’s more approachable for all makers, admins, and developers.

Find out more: Pipelines in Power Platform is Generally Available (GA)

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Copilot in Power Automate, 2 new verified + 11 independent publisher connectors, dataverse solutions by default, Power Automate connector for updates in Teams

AI Builder and Copilot in Power Automate

Power Automate will make it possible for you to not just describe a flow to create, but also improve and iterate on your flows with AI-driven conversations. This next-generation AI based Copilot in Power Automate will sit right inside of the flow studio and help out with every flow that’s being built or changed.

Copilot in Power Automate will allow open ended and conversational experiences while authoring your flows. As you build, you’ll be able to ask questions and get assistance making improvements and changes. You won’t need any special knowledge of how Power Automate works – simply by using natural language you’ll be able to build and enhance everything from a simple flow to a complex, robust enterprise-wide process.

Find out more: Automate smarter than ever before with AI Builder and Copilot in Power Automate

2 new verified, 11 new independent publisher connectors

There were 2 new verified and 11 new independent publisher connectors released in the past few months. These connectors have solutions and tools for Communication, Marketing, Collaboration, Productivity and much more.

Find out more: 2 New Verified Connectors and 12 Updates released in February 2023 | 11 New Independent Publisher Connectors in February 2023

Dataverse solutions by default capabilities for Power Automate

A new environment setting is available to administrators that ensures that all cloud flows will be created in Dataverse and added into the Default solution, when Dataverse is available in the environment.  There are multiple ways to create cloud flows. The following table summarizes which entry points are currently supported by the switch for create in Dataverse solutions by default:

ENTRY POINT	AVAILABLE?
Create a cloud flow from blank in portal	Yes
Create a cloud flow from template in portal	Yes
Create a cloud flow from Power Automate Management connector	Yes
Create a cloud flow from PowerShell	Yes
Create a cloud flow from Power Automate mobile app	Coming soon
Create a cloud flow from OneDrive	Coming soon
Create a cloud flow from SharePoint	Coming soon
Create a cloud flow from other integration points, such as the Excel add-in	Coming soon

Find out more: More manageable cloud flows with Dataverse solutions by default

Power Automate connector for Updates in Microsoft Teams

Updates is a Microsoft Teams app which allows you to create, submit, and review employee updates, surveys and work reports in one place, to keep your team on track for success. The Power Automate connector for Updates which allows Power Automate users to leverage Updates and address use cases like daily update, project progress, shift handoff, checklists, inspection, store visits, etc. as a part of their flows. For example, a common scenario is to collect inventory count during a store walkthrough. With this connector in place, when a frontline/store worker submits a daily or weekly update for store inventory in the Updates app, the Updates connector will automatically trigger the embedded workflow which can automatically aggregate all the inventory into a dashboard. 

Find out more: Automate workflows with Power Automate connector for Updates in Microsoft Teams

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Power BI

In Power BI: Pin workspaces, on-premises data gateway, analysis services server properties GA, Power BI March 2023 Feature Summary, On-object, Power BI data from different regions, Scanner API, Power BI org apps with multiple audiences, Power BI & PowerPoint, query parallelization

Pin workspaces

The Power BI team have announced that the pin workspace feature is now available! You can pin your workspaces on top of the list. And unpin them anytime as needed. This functionality enables you to easily navigate to the workspaces that are most relevant to you without searching through the workspace list. 

Find out more: Create a workspace in Power BI

On-premises data gateway March 2023 release

The Power BI team have announced the March 2023 update for the on-premises data gateway (version 3000.166.9).

Find out more: On-premises data gateway March release

Analysis Services server properties in Power BI Premium are now in general availability

Analysis Services server properties in Power BI Premium are now in public preview. At this time, we’ve transitioned this capability to general availability with full support in Power BI Premium and Power BI Embedded. As mentioned in the public preview announcement, the Analysis Services (AS) server properties gives administrators granular control to optimize and alter query behavior in their workspaces.

Find out more: Analysis Services server properties in Power BI Premium are now in general availability

Power BI March 2023 Feature Summary

In this month’s release there are updates for the On-object interaction, updates to the way you can apply slicers on your reports using a new Apply All Slicers button, Multiple Audiences in the Power BI app and more.

Find out more: Power BI March 2023 Feature Summary

On-object | Public Preview (Opt-in)

Introducing On-object! The new way to build and format your visuals releasing with March 2023 Power BI Desktop. Aligning to our new “Office-like” strategy we bring you, on-object. A new way to build and format visuals directly on the visual.

Find out more: On-object | Public Preview (Opt-in)

Use Power BI data from different regions in your Power Apps solution

The Power BI team have announced that its now possible to use the capabilities of the Power App Solutions/Power BI integration even when the Power Apps environment and the Power BI workspaces it’s integrating with are located in different geographic regions. 

This Power Apps Solutions/Power BI integration is controlled by two admin feature switches – one in the Power Platform admin center and the other in the Power BI admin portal. Both switches are enabled by default. Both switches must be enabled to allow cross-geo operation. 

Find out more: Use Power BI data from different regions in your Power Apps solution

Scanner API now includes even more data

The Scanner API is part of the Power BI admin API. It enables administrators to efficiently and automatically retrieve valuable information about their organization’s Power BI assets, such as inventory, metadata, and lineage. To further meet your needs and follow up on your requests, the Power BI team have added several new capabilities over the past few months, inlcuding:

• Artifact metadata
• RDL data source properties
• Dataset sub-artifact metadata content
• RLS configuration
• Dataset sub-artifact coverage
• Datamarts

Find out more: The Scanner API now includes even more metadata, such as scheduled refresh settings, RDL, RLS configuration, and more

Power BI Org Apps with Multiple Audiences Generally Available

The Power BI team announced the launch in Public Preview of Multiple Audiences for Power BI org apps in August 2022. This feature is now generally available and with this, the multiple audience feature will now be supported by Power BI Mobile.

Find out more: Power BI Org Apps with Multiple Audiences now Generally Available

Power BI integration with PowerPoint Generally Available

Power BI and PowerPoint are now better together than ever before. We’re excited to announce the general availability of the Power BI integration with PowerPoint, which brings the world’s most powerful data visualization tool to the world’s most popular presentation program. The value of this integration is clear: it lets people easily add interactive Power BI data visualizations to their PowerPoint presentations, making them more interactive, more informative, and more engaging.

Find out more: Power BI and PowerPoint: A Powerful Combination for Data Visualization is now generally available

Query parallelization helps to boost Power BI dataset performance in DirectQuery mode

The Power BI team have announced significant query processing improvements in the Power BI engine around query parallelization in DirectQuery mode, which can help to accelerate query response times, specifically for DAX and MDX expressions that generate multiple storage engine (SE) queries. 

Find out more: Query parallelization helps to boost Power BI dataset performance in DirectQuery mode

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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
• Teams
• Power Apps
• Power Automate
• Power BI

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM), Workflow Manager, Stream on SharePoint: Create, View & Share Playlists, External File Request, SharePoint email notification rules update, Dropbox migrations, Export list as a dataset, Yammer becomes Viva Engage, Viva Topics integrations into Engage

Microsoft Syntex | SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM)

Microsoft have announced the general availability of SharePoint Advanced Management (SAM) add-on, a new set of advanced security and content management capabilities. SAM helps when working with advanced access policies for secure content collaboration and advanced sites content lifecycle management.

• Advanced access policies for secure content collaboration
  • Data access governance (DAG) insights for SharePoint sites
  • Restricted access control (RAC) policy for SharePoint sites
  • Restricted access control (RAC) policy for OneDrives
  • Conditional access policy for SharePoint sites and OneDrives
  • Secure SharePoint Document Libraries
• Advanced sites content lifecycle management
  • Sites lifecycle management policy for inactive sites
  • Recent SharePoint Admin Actions
  • Sites history
  • Block download policy for SharePoint sites and OneDrives

Find out more: Microsoft Syntex – SharePoint Advanced Management overview

SharePoint Workflow Manager for SharePoint Server

Microsoft recently announced the release of SharePoint Workflow Manager, a new workflow engine to power the SharePoint 2013 Workflows platform for SharePoint Server and replace Service Bus and Microsoft Workflow Manager. Compatible with SharePoint Server 2013, 2016, 2019, and Subscription Edition, Microsoft recommend that all SharePoint Server customers using SharePoint 2013 Workflows upgrade to SharePoint Workflow Manager as soon as they’re able to.

Microsoft will focus all future investments and maintenance on SharePoint Workflow Manager rather than Microsoft Workflow Manager, including providing support beyond the year 2026. 

Find out more: Announcing the release of SharePoint Workflow Manager for SharePoint Server

Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint): Create, View and Share Playlists

This feature allows users to organize their video and audio files into a playlist for easy organization, sharing and playback. Playlist creators can share their playlist with others, and people with access to the playlist and to the files in the playlist can watch/listen to the video/audio files in order or skip back and forth between items in the playlist – along with the full player capabilities with chapters, closed captions, playback speeds, and more.

Stream playlists are both built and accessed via Microsoft Lists and can use other Lists capabilities. Playlists can be created directly from Stream and via Lists creation flows across Office, SharePoint, and Lists. Users can add any video and audio files to a playlist that they have access to. Playlists can be accessed from stream.office.com or from the Microsoft Lists home page in Microsoft 365.

Find out more: Use Playlists to create collections of video or audio files in Microsoft 365

External File Request in SharePoint Document Library

Initially, this feature was released for OneDrive, but the Microsoft team have announced this secure way to request and obtain files from anyone is now here for SharePoint document libraries. Just choose a folder in a SharePoint Document Library where others can upload files to – this accomplished with a unique, secure share link that you share with them.

Recipients who upload files to you upon your request can only upload files; they can’t see the content of the folder, edit, delete, or download files — or even see who else has uploaded files. To use this feature in the SharePoint Document Library: 1) Admin enables Anyone links at the tenant level, and 2) Admin configure view, edit, and upload permission for Anyone links.

Find out more: Create a file request

Update to Rules Email Notifications for SharePoint Lists and Libraries

Rules can be created for lists and libraries to send automatic email notifications based on events in the target list or library. Previously, these email notifications were sent from SharePoint Online <no-reply@sharepointonline.com>. To improve the security of the rules feature, email notifications will now be sent from the email account of the user who last modified the rule. If the rule was newly created, this will be the creator’s email address.

Find out more: Create a rule to automate a list or library

Migration Manager: Dropbox migrations

Microsoft have announced an expanded set of capabilities to allow moving content from Dropbox into Microsoft 365. When you’re ready to move your content, click on the Migrate tab in the SharePoint admin center to start scan discovery, assessment, and migrate. You’ll get detailed reports and the rest in a seamless transition of files and folders to Microsoft 365 (OneDrive, SharePoint, and/or Teams).

Find out more: Migrate Dropbox to Microsoft 365 with Migration Manager

Export list as a dataset to Power BI

Microsoft are adding a new option under the “Export” menu for Microsoft Lists: Export to Power BI. With this feature, users can easily and quickly create a dataset based on their list in the Power BI service, in their environment of choice. Datasets are sources of data that are ready for reporting and visualization in Power BI. This adds to the options of inline reporting with Power BI in Lists, and now the ability to export list data as datasets and use them in the Power BI app.

Find out more: Create a Power BI dataset directly from a SharePoint list

Yammer becomes Viva Engage

Microsoft announced the rebranding of Yammer into Viva Engage this month. This change will happen across all existing Yammer surfaces – including web, mobile, and integrations (Embed, SharePoint, and Outlook) and will occur throughout 2023. In the coming months you can expect Yammer to become Viva Engage through the update of brand elements like logo, app icon and name.

Find out more: Yammer is evolving to Viva Engage

Viva Topics brings new integrations with Viva Engage

Engage is integrating with and adopting Viva Topics to make community-sourced knowledge easily accessible across an organization and support a consistent experience in Microsoft 365. Among others, this brings: 1) Topic cards will show in Engage when you hover over a highlighted topic, and 2) Topic pages and cards will include content from Engage such as questions and answers, and conversations from the relevant community. 

Find out more: Viva Topics brings new integrations with Yammer

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Teams

In Teams: Premium: Teams Premium, intelligent recap, live translation, meeting templates, branded meetings, org backgrounds, customer user policy packages, watermarking, sensitivity labels for meetings, registration waitlist + custom start/ end times, virtual green room, virtual appointments (premium) updates

In Teams: Tab support for guest users in meetings, in-meeting notifications, virtual appointments (basic) updates, picture-in-picture, co-organizer breakout rooms, presenter window improvements, authentication improvements, survival branch appliance, Android support for Teams Rooms Pro Management, chat with groups, edit/ delete bot chats, schedule send suggestions, mention everyone, missed call notifications,

Teams Management
Education
Government
Frontline workers

Teams (Premium)

Teams Premium is a more personalized, more intelligent, and more protected version of Microsoft Teams. Here are the latest features released this month for Teams Premium:

Intelligent Recap

With Intelligent Recap, you can now save time spent reviewing meeting recordings. Available now, AI-generated chapters based on PowerPoint Live divide the meeting into sections using the contents from the presentation, so it’s easy to pick and choose the segment most relevant to you. Intelligent Recap also will automatically generate meeting chapters based on the meeting transcript in the future.

Find out more: Intelligent recap in Microsoft Teams Premium

Live translation

With live translations for captions in meetings, now available in Teams Premium, you get AI-powered real-time translations in 40 spoken languages. By default, regular closed captions are displayed in the language that’s spoken during the meeting. Live translated captions allow you to see captions translated from the spoken language into the language you’re most comfortable with, saving money and making meetings more productive and effortless. Only the meeting organizer needs to have Teams Premium for all meeting attendees to enjoy live translations for captions in meetings.

Find out more: Use live captions in a Teams meeting

Meeting templates

Now with Teams Premium, IT admins can create customized meeting templates—like a client call, brainstorming meeting, or help desk call— to automatically include the correct settings, reducing the time and thought process it takes to create and get the meeting right. Also with templates, leaders can ensure that their meetings adhere to company best practices and policies.

Find out more: Overview of custom meeting templates in Microsoft Teams

Branded meetings

With Teams Premium, you can unlock advanced personalization experiences, which can help your organization have a professional and unified impact in meetings. Branded meetings let everyone see the logo and colors of your company when you join the meeting and allow your brand colors to be infused in the meeting itself.

Find out more: Meeting themes for Teams meetings

Organization backgrounds and organization together mode scenes

During the meeting, you can enable brand-approved organization backgrounds and organization together mode scenes, so that what makes your company—and your people—unique will shine through in every part of the meeting.

Find out more: Custom Together Mode scenes in Teams

Custom user policy packages

Just like meetings are not “one size fits all,” different Teams policies often are assigned based on your groups or departments. Assigning meetings, messaging, and app policies individually can be a complex task. But with custom user policy packages now available, IT can save time by creating a customized bundle of policies for users with similar roles in the organization. It’s a simplified, streamlined tool that provides consistency when managing policies for groups of users across your organization.

Find out more: Managing policy packages in Teams

Watermarking

Watermarking is a new meeting option, can help to deter leaks when sharing sensitive or confidential meeting content. Meeting organizers can leverage a unique watermark over attendee screen shares and video feeds to confidently present and display sensitive information.

Find out more: Watermark for Teams meetings

Who can record

With who can record, you have additional protections to keep discussions private and can limit who can record specific meetings. Find out more: Record a meeting in Teams

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) for online meetings

For those rare, extremely sensitive meetings that require disabling core meeting features like recording for an advanced encryption option, you can apply end-to-end encryption (E2EE) to the meeting. As a reminder, data exchanged during Teams calls or meetings always is secured using industry-standard encryption in transit and at rest. Find out more: Use end-to-end encryption for Teams meetings

Sensitivity labels for Teams meetings (for Microsoft 365 E5 customers)

Microsoft 365 E5 customers with Teams Premium can now enable Microsoft Purview Information Protection sensitivity labels for Teams meetings. Meeting organizers can leverage sensitivity labels to automatically apply the most relevant and important meeting options based on the sensitivity of meeting content. Compliance admins can configure this integration with Teams meetings in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal to determine which meeting options should be enforced if the label is used in a meeting. Find out more: Sensitivity labels for Microsoft Teams

Advanced webinars: Host events with seamless registration and customized experiences

Teams Premium includes webinars to easily host these events while also saving you time and money by eliminating the need for add-on solutions or working across different platforms. Find out more: Advanced Webinars

Registration waitlist and manual approval

Once registration is set and invites are sent to attendees, you can enable registration waitlist and manual approval to make it easier to manage registration ahead of a webinar. Enabling the waitlist will keep webinar registration open even after the event has reached the capacity set by the organizer. This allows additional people to register and be automatically added to the list. As new spots open up, people will be automatically moved to the pending approval state, which enables the organizer to review their registration information and manually approve or reject each of the registrants.

Find out more: Manage webinar registration

Customize registration start and end times

Webinar hosts also have the ability to customize registration start and end times to specify when you want registration to start and end, making it easier to plan for and manage your event. Find out more: Manage webinar registration

Virtual green room

Webinars allow presenters to join the virtual green room so that preparation before the webinar is seamless. Presenters have the time and space to connect and do a quick briefing or test run without disturbing attendees. While attendees wait for the event to start, they can engage with the presenters and one another through chat and Q&A.

Find out more: Green room for Teams meetings

Manage what attendees see

During a webinar, presenters can more effectively manage what attendees see. These host controls create more professionally produced events and make it easy to create more dynamic engagement for presenters and attendees.

Find out more: Manage what attendees see in Teams meetings

RTMP-in (Real-Time Messaging Protocol)

To elevate your presentation and deliver more dynamic content, integrate different external media feeds into your webinar using RTMP-in. By leveraging an external encoder and enabling RTMP-in, you’ll be able to livestream a custom RTMP source, whether it’s a professionally produced video or high-quality screen sharing, to all attendees in the meeting.

Find out more: Broadcast audio and video from Teams with RTMP

Microsoft eCDN: Improve live event experiences

To improve live event experiences within your organization, Microsoft eCDN (Enterprise Content Delivery Network) is now included in Teams Premium. With Microsoft eCDN, you can seamlessly and securely live stream global meetings, all-hands gatherings, and town halls and distribute company-wide training using Teams Live Events. Microsoft eCDN helps reduce the load on the corporate network, helps prevent connectivity failure and poor video quality, and does not require any additional installation on your endpoints and devices. Find out more: Scale video delivery and monitor network traffic by using eCDNs with Microsoft Teams

Advanced Virtual Appointments: A new Teams Meeting type for business-to-customer (B2C) meetings

Virtual Appointments is a new Teams meeting type tailored for B2C meetings with people outside of your organization. When using Virtual Appointments, guests will get a meeting invitation that includes important appointment details to make joining easy via SMS or email. They can join from any device—no need to install Teams—and experience a comfortable pre-appointment virtual lobby until they are ready to begin. To learn more about the entire solution, check out this Microsoft Tech Community blog.

Virtual Appointments app

This app provides a single location where professionals and admins can create and manage scheduled and on-demand Virtual Appointments in Microsoft Teams. It includes a comprehensive dashboard that gives a quick view of an employee’s schedule as integrated with Bookings. It is further enhanced with Teams Premium, which unlocks a snapshot of the queue of appointments, a summary of appointment analytics, and options to manage appointments. Download the Virtual Appointments app today through the Teams app store.

Queue view of scheduled and on-demand appointments

Enable employees to manage and service Virtual Appointments in one location with advanced capabilities to track wait times, check on the status of a meeting, and more. Scheduling admins and staff conducting virtual appointments can monitor incoming requests and process them appropriately. Scheduling admins also can set up an on-demand entry point for customers to request services and appointments on demand through a hosted, self-service website with company branding.

Custom virtual lobby for Virtual Appointments

Create a custom waiting room for your external attendees so they receive a branded, first-class experience from the start. This virtual lobby can be customized with your company’s logo, branding, and more.

Virtual Appointments individual and departmental analytics

Individuals or departments can focus on key metrics—no-shows, wait times, and calendar-level analytics—to drive business outcomes and improve customer experiences. Reports include trends over time and the ability to drill down into individual appointment data.

Virtual Appointments organizational level analytics

As a Virtual Appointments admin or operations supervisor, you can view aggregated analytics across your department and the entire organization. You also can see detailed activity for appointments created and conducted through multiple scheduling entry points and date ranges. Reports also include active user information for capabilities unlocked in Teams Premium, including SMS, two-way waiting room chat, and queuing. This data can be easily exported into Excel for additional analysis.

Teams (non-premium)

Teams Management

The following features are currently available for the Teams Management Platform (admin center):

• Manage Surface Hubs as Teams devices from Teams admin center – As an admin, you can manage the entire lifecycle of Surface Hubs as Teams devices from the Teams admin center. Available features include remote restart, download of logs, configuration of settings, and detailed device information.
• Notification granularity – You can use Intune to determine the types of content users can see in notifications on their mobile lock screens.
• Ability for Teams users to manage their third-party app subscriptions from within Teams Client – Teams users now can view and manage in a single place all third-party app subscriptions purchased in the Teams app store—all without leaving the Teams client. This allows users to easily add more licenses for purchased subscriptions, cancel, upgrade and downgrade subscriptions, and access invoices.
• Delete or rename files in a channel and in your OneDrive folder in Teams – To rename or delete a file in a channel, go to the files tab and find the file you want. Then select “more options” (the three dots) on the file. To rename or delete a file from your OneDrive, select “more” at the bottom of the app, then select “files.” Once you find the file you want, select the three dots, and choose to rename or delete it.
• Surface Message Actions by most recently used menu – This feature surfaces the most recently used Message Actions into the level one menu for you to access quickly.
• License management in Microsoft Teams and Teams admin center for SaaS offers built by ISVs – With Microsoft’s license management solution for SaaS offers built by independent software vendors (ISVs), customers can easily assign, use, and track SaaS licenses in Teams and the Teams admin center. This also provides ISVs with a ready-to-use solution without the need to develop their own license management and enforcement system.
• Upload files to your approval request via Power Automate portal – Files that you upload within the Power Automate portal will now be shown within the view details window of an approval request within Teams.
• Enhanced flyout design for app engagement and discovery – Enhanced visual layout helps you quickly launch apps that you have in addition to discovering new ones to help you complete your day-to-day tasks in Teams.

Education

These features are currently available for Teams for Education customers:

• Invite parents via SMS for Communication – To enable parent-teacher communication, admins can now choose either email or SMS as their preferred Parent Connection invitation channel. Learn more details here. 
• Parent-teacher meetings – This enables teachers to easily schedule virtual meetings with parents or guardians of students through Teams.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Simple and scalable portal navigation, call Dataverse in Power Fx, Wrap wizard, new look model driven apps

Power Apps portal left navigation pane

Microsoft have announced the new and simplified left navigation pane is now available to our makers. With this new experience, you get to see your most used items pinned to your left nav., customize those items by reordering them based on need, unpin items from the left navigation pane, discover a list of features available to you in Power Apps and so much more.

Find out more: Discover the breadth of the Power Platform with simple and scalable navigation

Call Dataverse actions directly in Power Fx

Microsoft have announced direct access to Dataverse actions in Power Fx formulas as an Experimental release. As a part of the Power Fx language, authors can now directly invoke a Dataverse action within a formula. A new Power Fx ‘Environment’ language object that authors can add to their app enables access to Dataverse actions. It is available with Power Apps release version 3.23022.

Find out more: Connect to Microsoft Dataverse

Wrap for Power Apps wizard (Public Preview)

Turn your Power Apps app into a native mobile app with the new wrap for Power Apps step-by-step wizard, available to all makers in Public Preview! The step-by-step guided wizard can “wrap” any existing canvas app(s) into a native mobile app shell and produce an Android or iOS mobile package that is ready to be digitally signed and distributed.

New look model driven Power Apps (Public Preview)

Microsoft have announced a public preview of the new model driven app experience and providing an update on new controls coming to canvas apps in the spring timeframe. The initial preview is launching with updates to the most heavily used model app experiences. The pages included in this initial launch cover 70% of scenarios in use today and we will be frequently updating the preview over the coming months.

Find out more: The new look for model driven Power Apps is available now in preview

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Desktop flow activity GA, desktop flows in Dataverse updates, February 2023 Power Automate desktop, 11 new verified, 9 independent connectors

Desktop flow activity (Generally Available)

Desktop flow activity is now generally available. Desktop flow activity is the new area in Power Automate to monitor in real-time your desktop flows automations. Three new pivots —  “Last runs”, “Machines” and “Current runs” — have been added these last weeks to get more control on your RPA automations and orchestration.

Find out more: Monitor your RPA automations with desktop flow activity (Generally Available)

Power Automate desktop flows in Dataverse updates

Power Automate desktop flows are stored in Microsoft Dataverse, which lets you securely store and manage data that’s used by business applications. This enables you to leverage features like Solutions for Application Lifecycle Management (ALM). However, we have received feedback from customers that the way data is stored can be difficult to work with.

A new storage schema for desktop flows in Dataverse (v.2) has been implemented. This will be much easier to work with when you are using Dataverse APIs and will enable future product enhancements with Power Automate for desktop. This new storage schema is publicly available along with the February 2023 application release (v.2.29).

Find out more: Power Automate desktop flows in Dataverse updates

Power Automate desktop – February 2023 update

The February 2023 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.29) has been released! This version includes:

• Regions have now been introduced in the designer
• You can now bring your own connection in SharePoint actions

Find out more: February 2023 update of Power Automate for desktop

11 verified, 9 new independent publisher connectors

In January 2023, Microsoft launched 11 new verified connectors and 18 updates from different service owners. These connectors have solutions and tools for Communication, AI, Business Management, Sales and CRM, Commerce. In addition, 9 new Independent Publisher connectors were published in January. These connectors have solutions and tools for IT Operations, Productivity, Lifestyle and Entertainment, Communication, and much more. 

Find out more: Starting the year of 2023 with 11 New Verified Connectors and 18 Updates | 9 New Independent Publisher Connectors in January 2023

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Power BI

In Power BI: Power BI February 2023 feature summary, Power BI Datamart – February 2023 Feature Summary, multi-tasking in Teams & Power BI, streaming dataflows retirement, on-prem data gateway update, export to excel improvements for matrix visuals GA, SSRS migration tool expansion, Power BI embedding capabilities, new report color themes, new workspace metadata for excel

Power BI February 2023 Feature Summary

In this month’s update Microsoft have added TypeScript support in the developer playground sandbox, several new formatting features for reporting, and so much more.

Find out more: Power BI February 2023 Feature Summary

Power BI Datamart – February 2023 Feature Summary

Microsoft have shared a list of features that we’ve shipped for Datamarts during the month of February 2023, including:

• Manage default dataset
• Visualize results
• Keyboard shortcuts
• Open with Azure Data Studio
• Header updates – Sensitivity label

Find out more: Power BI Datamart – February 2023 Feature Summary

Multi-tasking in Microsoft Teams with Power BI

Microsoft have announced several enhancements to multitasking for the Power BI app for Microsoft Teams, Outlook, and Office have started rolling out now, these include the ability to go back to a previous Power BI app in Teams, Improved back stack navigation and more.

Find out more: Multi-tasking in Microsoft Teams with Power BI is getting better

Announcing the retirement of Streaming Dataflows

Streaming dataflows allows authors to connect to, ingest, mash up, model, and build reports based on streaming, near real-time data directly in the Power BI service. Microsoft have announced that starting mid – March of 2023 they will no longer support the creation, editing or running of streaming dataflows.

Find out more: Announcing the retirement of Streaming Dataflows

On-premises data gateway February release

Microsoft have released the February 2023 update for the on-premises data gateway (version 3000.162.9). This update brings the on-premises data gateway up to date with the February 2023 release of Power BI Desktop.

Find out more: On-premises data gateway February release

Export to Excel Improvements for Matrix Visuals (General Availability)

Microsoft have announced that the export to Excel improvements for Matrix visuals feature is now generally available (GA). This feature allows you to export data to Excel from a Power BI matrix visual while keeping the structure of the data intact in Excel.

Find out more: Export to Excel Improvements for Matrix Visuals (GA)

Expansion of the SSRS Migration Tool to Power BI

Microsoft have announced the expansion of the migration tool functionality for SQL Server Reporting Services (SSRS). The migration tool is now available in SSRS 2019 – version 15.0.1102.1047 and SSRS 2017 – version 14.0.601.20. You can download the updated application from the download center.

Find out more: Announcing Availability Expansion of the SSRS Migration Tool to Power BI

New Power BI embedding capabilities

There is a new form of Power BI embedded analytics that enables you to embed an interactive data exploration and report creation experience in your applications. With this solution, you’ll be able to provide your users a similar experience to our integrations in Dynamics 365 and SharePoint.

Find out more: Empower your application users to quickly explore their data with the new Power BI Embedding capabilities

Better, accessible reports with new color themes

Five new color themes have been released to support accessibility (Accessible Default, Accessible City park, Accessible Tidal, Accessible Neutral, Accessible Orchid). These new themes make it easier than ever to create stunning reports with accessibility in mind.

Find out more: Create stunning and more accessible reports in minutes with our new color themes!

New Workspace Metadata for Excel Scenarios

Microsoft have announced additional improvements that helps you and your organization easily track usage of live Power BI content in Excel based on where the content is saved. New metadata has been added to the Power BI activity logs that enables you to easily filter activity events by workspace name. This saves you valuable time while ensuring your organization continues to meet its compliance requirements and other data auditing needs.

Find out more: Power BI Activity Logs: New Workspace Metadata for Excel Scenarios

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