Take a look at some of the best bits for the improvements and enhancements to Microsoft 365 throughout February:

SharePoint

SharePoint Migration Tool updates

The SharePoint migration tool now supports migrating content types and managed metadata term stores for SharePoint Server 2013. Global tenant admin permissions are required to do so.

Also, many of the on-premises SharePoint web parts can be migrated into Microsoft 365. Examples being blogs, chart viewer, content search, list form, list view media plus many more.

You can now pretty much migrate every element of a SharePoint site that is most important to you such as web parts, pages and site navigation.

Find out more: full list of supported web parts
Find out more: new and improved features of the SharePoint Migration Tool

Drag and drop to re-order the left-hand site navigation

You can now re-arrange the order of your site navigation elements with a nice, user friendly drag and drop gesture. This removes the multiple clicks involved in he ellipsis, move up or down options of old. This new gesture also works for dragging/dropping into a sub-navigation location.

*Drag and drop the left-hand site navigation*

Bulk check in/out

This one I’ve been waiting for awhile for! You will soon be able to check in/out multiple files at the same time form the modern ribbon in a document library.

File signals

File signals or status icons are being added into SharePoint to add visual clues regarding the status of a file, such as check-out status, sharing, DLP blocks or missing metadata. This applies to modern lists and libraries.

Column totals

A revamp of an old favorite, column totals and subtotals are coming to modern lists and libraries. These totals and subtotals are displayed in the footer. This is a welcome change from the old total count in classic views!

Add columns between columns and drag and drop

You can now insert new columns in place between existing in and modern list or library view, plus move a column around by simply dragging the header to a new location in the view.

*Adding a column between an existing column in a modern SharePoint list or library*

Smarter file hover cards

The file hover card gives you a sneak peek into your most important files. Now, as soon as your hover over a file you will be able to see important stats like number of views, who’s viewed and who’s modified. This functionality is now being extended to almost all file types.

This new experience will also appear for files listed in your Shared by Me view.

Find out more: file hover cards are getting smarter and is now available for all file types!

*Hover over a file in a SharePoint library or OneDrive folder to see more information about a file*

Microsoft Teams

Priority notifications and message delegation

Priority notification alerts will notify a recipient to an urgent message on their mobile and desktop devices and repeat the alert every two minutes for up to 20 minutes, until a response is received.

Also coming soon is message delegation. Message delegation enables a recipient to delegate messages to another colleague when they are unavailable.

Priority notifications are currently in private preview.

Find out more: New capabilities in Microsoft 365 empower healthcare professionals

Microsoft Authenticator

Microsoft Authenticator allows you to receive security notifications for important events on your personal Microsoft Account. When you receive a notification, you can quickly view your account activity to take action if needed.

Microsoft Authenticator can be used to add two-step verification for added security if needed. It supports fingerprint, face ID or PIN authentication.

Find out more: Microsoft Authenticator app now sends security notifications

Links and resources

The SharePoint Community Blog – SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop February 2019
New in Microsoft 365 – Update for February 2019

Updated

I’ve wrote part two on this issue with my full resolution steps here:

SharePoint and Nintex workflows failing on start – part two

The problem

I had this issue myself in the last week where EVERY SINGLE workflow across the farm on premise stopped working. SharePoint Designer and Nintex workflows all reported “Failed to start” when triggered to run.

The workflows stopped working due to a series of .NET security updates Microsoft released in September 2018. Microsoft released a public KB article on this – with resolution steps which can be found below:

https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4465015/sharepoint-workflows-stop-after-cve-2018-8421-security-updatehttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4465015/sharepoint-workflows-stop-after-cve-2018-8421-security-updatehttps://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4465015/sharepoint-workflows-stop-after-cve-2018-8421-security-update

But also this msdn blog post contains all the solution scripts and steps that includes Nintex workflows also (transcript below):

https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/rodneyviana/2018/09/13/after-installing-net-security-patches-to-address-cve-2018-8421-sharepoint-workflows-stop-working/

I noticed shortly after the fix was implemented that some of my SharePoint designer workflows were exhibiting odd behaviour. For example the screenshot below shows a SharePoint desinger workflow that previously worked without issue or errors in the history after the fix was applied:

Someone on reddit had already spotted this which drew my attention to the common issue, this only presents itself for workflows with pause steps!

https://www.reddit.com/r/sharepoint/comments/9koq2y/further_issues_around_paused_workflows_and/

I will update this post with my findings once this latest fix is applied.

Symptom

After applying .NET Security Only patch to resolve CVE-2018-8421 (Remote Code Execution Vulnerability) , all SharePoint out of the box Workflows fail to execute and the log will show an error like this:

09/13/2018 01:59:07.57 w3wp.exe (0x1868) 0x22FC SharePoint Foundation Workflow Infrastructure 72fs Unexpected RunWorkflow: Microsoft.SharePoint.SPException: <Error><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″ Text=”Type System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not marked as authorized in the application configuration file.” /><CompilerError Line=”-1″ Column=”-1″…

The error suggest that System.CodeDom.CodeBinaryOperatorExpression is not in the authorized types.

Cause

Workflow Foundation (WF) will only run workflows when all the dependent types and assemblies are authorized in the .NET config file (or added explicitly via code) under this tree:

<System.Workflow.ComponentModel.WorkflowCompiler>

However, after the update, the following lines are necessary for SharePoint 2013 and beyond:

And for SharePoint 2007 and 2010, use these lines:

Solution

The solution is to add explicitly the types to all web applications’ web.config:

Or (for SharePoint 2007 and 2010):

Please notice that sometimes SharePoint Timer Service (SPTimerV4) runs workflows. If you notice that the application showing the error is ULS logs in OWSTIMER.EXE, you should also include the authorized types in [SharePoint Hive Folder]\bin\OWSTIMER.EXE.config. The Hive Folder will change by version of SharePoint. For SharePoint 2016, it is normally at c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\16. For 2013, at c:\program files\common files\microsoft shared\web server extensions\15.

Additional Information

My colleague Joe Rodgers, who is Sr. PFE, put together this PowerShell script: https://gist.github.com/joerodgers/2302b394796c865818839d843bae2dad

There are two scripts. Normally, the only necessary script is:

Add-CodeDomAuthorizedType.ps1

Uncomment this line to make the changes:

Add-CodeDomAuthorizedType

If you have Nintex workflows you should run like this:

Add-CodeDomAuthorizedType -IncludeNintexWorkflow

To undo the changes, run:

Remove-CodeDomAuthorizedType

The script needs to run only once on any WFE. All web.config files related to SharePoint on all servers will be modified. New web applications created after that will also include the changes. Even if a new WFE is added to the farm, the entries will also be included in web.config. The change is a permanent requirement from now on since the WF patch. You do not need to undo the change before applying the SharePoint patch addressing it.

There is a second script to update OWSTIMER.exe.config. This one should only run if you see the symptoms in ULS logs with process OWSTIMER.EXE. Otherwise, you do not need to update. if you have the problem though, you need to rerun the script if a new machine is added to the farm. No line needs to be uncommented for this one. The script name is:

Add-CodeDomAuthorizedTypeToOWSTimerConfig.ps1

Note

Microsoft is aware of this issue and patches for SharePoint 2010, 2013 and 2016 are being worked as of 9/17/2018. I will update when we have an ETA. I had confirmation from the product team on 9/18/2018 that this information and solution on this post is in the line with the future patch and it is the recommended action plan until the patch is out. If anything change, I will update the post.

Note 2

Some people using third-party workflows (like Nintex) need to also include this:

Using the script, you need to add to the line defining types (line 24):

CodeTypeReferenceExpression

Example:
$typeNames = @( “CodeBinaryOperatorExpression“, “CodePrimitiveExpression“, “CodeMethodInvokeExpression“, “CodeMethodReferenceExpression“, “CodeFieldReferenceExpression“,“CodeThisReferenceExpression“, “CodePropertyReferenceExpression“, “CodeTypeReferenceExpression”)

Note 3

Joe updated his script to add a switch for Nintex workflows.

Call this way to include the extra type required by Nintex: