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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: Site template history panel, page section templates, calendar view item drag and drop, Mover.io to be retired, view & edit video/ file info in Stream, Inspiration Library in Microsoft Viva Insights

SharePoint site template history panel

The site template history panel is new to site settings for site owners to view the history of any site templates applied to their site, along with the ability to review related site script actions. Site owners simply go to the Site information panel and then select View template history.

• Find out more: Apply and customize SharePoint site templates

Section templates for pages and news

Authors of SharePoint Pages and News will now be able to access section templates from the plus menu in a new tab next to the sections tab. Users will be able to choose and add templates at the section level instead of just at the page level. Although users will still have access to blank sections, there are six templates to make section design easier and faster.

Find out more: Make designing SharePoint pages easier with section templates

Microsoft Lists: Calendar view item drag and drop

Now it’s easy to reorganize list items in a calendar view. Users will be able to reschedule items – changing the date – by dragging and dropping them from one day to another, or by pulling an item from the ‘Unscheduled’ pane that appears on the right, within Calendar view.

• Find out more: Create a calendar view from a list

Mover.io legacy website to be retired

On July 1st, 2022, Microsoft will be retiring the legacy Mover tool’s ability to migrate from Google Drive, Dropbox, Box, and Egnyte. If you are currently in the middle of a Mover migration, you may continue using Mover until you finish your migration. However, you will not be able to create new moves. FastTrack led migrations are not impacted at this time.

The Microsoft Migration Manager now has the ability to move files and folders from third-party storage providers into Microsoft 365. This is Microsoft’s recommended tool for file migrations to OneDrive, SharePoint, and Teams.

Find out more: Mover.io retirement timeline

View and edit of video and/or audio file information in Stream

Now it’s even easier to adjust things like title, description, and thumbnails for people who have owner permissions for a video or audio file.

• About will enable users, with edit permissions, to add and edit a title/description on their video or audio file. Viewers will be able to see this information along with non-editable fields like upload date, owner name, filename, and area path.
• Custom thumbnail, located in Video Settings, will allow users with edit permissions to change the default thumbnail by uploading an image or selecting a frame from the video. This custom thumbnail will be used throughout Microsoft 365.

Find out more: Current features and upcoming roadmap for Microsoft Stream (on SharePoint)

Inspiration Library in Microsoft Viva Insights

The Inspiration library is a new feature available in preview through the Viva Insights app in Teams. It turns insights into action with access to curated content and best practices from top sources like Harvard Business Review and Thrive.

Find out more: 3 ways to meet new hybrid expectations with Microsoft Teams and Microsoft 365

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Teams

In Teams: Choose your own status for a meeting, Mandatory Comments for Approvals App, Data export within Approvals App, additional language support for suggested replies, Together mode for everyone, brightness/ soft-focus video filters, VDI improvements, Direct Guest Join for Teams Rooms on Android, Horizontal participant gallery, enhancements to app usage report/ activity log

Government
Education
Front line workers

Choose your own status for a meeting

Organizers and participants of Teams meetings can choose a Calendar Show As status feature such as free, busy, or OOF to reflect their status for scheduled meetings. In addition, organizers can select private meeting functionality, which will allow users to hide meeting details from other users when their calendar is shared.

Find out more: Change your status in Teams

Mandatory Comments for Approvals App

Teams admins and approval template creators can enable mandatory comments for when an approver responds to a request. Team admins can go through the Teams Admin Center under Managed Apps and select the corresponding setting.

Find out more: Teams Approvals app availability

Data export within Approvals App

Through the approvals app, you can now export your personal approval data easily into an Excel file within a selected time period.

Find out more: Teams Approvals app availability

Additional language support for Suggested Replies for mobile

Suggested replies are now supported in Spanish, Dutch, Portuguese, Swedish, French, Finnish, German, Hungarian, Italian, Chinese, Hebrew, Japanese, Norwegian, Russian, Korean, Czech, Danish, Turkish, and Polish. The auto replies are on by default but can be turned off.

Find out more: Use suggested replies to respond to messages without typing

View Together mode for everyone

Together mode creates a virtual shared space in which attendees feel like they are sitting in the same room. Now, meeting organizer and presenters can start Together mode for all of a meeting’s participants. Previously, this view could only be enabled for your own personal view.

To enable this feature, simply check the Select Together Mode for Everyone option after you choose a scene. All meeting participants can then join this immersive experience together. This is currently only available for Teams Desktop users.

Find out more: Select Together Mode for everyone

Adjust brightness and soft-focus video filters

Enhance the video quality when lighting is poor by turning on the Adjust brightness filter. You also can use Soft focus to apply a subtle smoothing effect. Both filters are now available before joining meetings, as well as during meetings. Simply navigate to the device settings to enable these filters. Currently, Soft focus is not available for EDU tenants.

Find out more: New Microsoft Teams Filters Enhance Personal Appearance in Video Meetings

VDI improvements

Multi-window support for Teams for VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware – Teams multi-window support is available for virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for Azure Windows Desktop, Windows 365 and VMware. 

Background Blur for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 – Background blur effects are now available for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365. Users on Teams for VDI on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 can make meetings more personalized and avoid unexpected distractions by applying background effects. 

Give and Take Control for Teams on VDI for Citrix – Give and Take Control allows a meeting participant to control the presenter’s shared content during screensharing. 

Dynamic Emergency Calling for work from home on VDI for VMware – Dynamic Emergency Calling is now enabled for Teams on VDI for VMWare, allowing users to make emergency calls (E911) while working from home. It also lets users to validate (and if necessary, edit) the address that will be communicated to emergency responders. Learn more how to configure dynamic emergency calling.

Direct Guest Join for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android

Zoom meetings can now be joined directly through Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android devices. To use this feature, simply schedule a new meeting on Zoom or forward an existing meeting to your Microsoft Teams Room, and it will appear on the calendar. Click on “Join” from your Teams Rooms device to enter the meeting.

At this time, support is limited to controls such as camera and microphone, but additional functionality will be integrated in the future. Supported devices are currently the Poly Studio X30 and Poly Studio X50, with support for additional device manufacturers coming soon. 

This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).

Find out more: What’s new in Teams devices

Horizontal participant gallery

To increase the flexibility of the meeting stage, the orientation of participant video feeds can be displayed horizontally and located below the meeting stage when content is shared, or participants are spotlighted. You can change the location of the participant gallery through the layout chooser experience on the Teams Rooms console.

This feature is available as part of the May 2022 update (App version – 1449/1.0.96.2022051102).

Find out more: What’s new in Teams devices

Education

These features are currently launched, or rolling out to Microsoft Teams for Education customers:

Reading Coach –  Reading Coach builds on Reading Progress by identifying the five most challenging words for each individual student and presenting those words with tools to support the learner in practicing independently.

Setting Language or Locale for a Reading Progress passage – Microsoft have now added an Edit Language feature to make changing a language or locale from, for example, French (France) to French (Canada), as easy as a couple of clicks.

Fifteen new auto-detect languages – Microsoft have announced that we have added support for fifteen new auto-detect languages in Reading Progress, bringing our total to 116. To see the full list of supported languages, please visit this site.

Assignments and Grades support for up to 1000 students – The Assignments and Grades features, Teams has now added support for classes up to 1,000 students and has updated the functionality to allow educators to return all submissions to their students, without needing to wait for the work to be complete.

Rubrics updated for Educators & Students on mobile devices – With this new upgrade, you can now create and edit rubrics directly from your mobile devices, and students can more easily read rubrics on their mobile devices, as well.

Apps Support in Grading Pane – Microsoft have now updated the Grading pane in Assignments to also support apps. This allows the educator to launch the app directly from the Grading pane if there is work the student has done within that particular app. Whenever there is an app added to an assignment, it will now be shown in the Grading pane.

Improved Educator Dashboard navigation – To create an easier entry point for drilling into this student data and reports, Microsoft have created a more intuitive navigation bar to the Insights tab app. To learn more, please check out this video.

Moodle LMS integration with M365 – In addition to integration with Canvas and Blackboard, Microsoft has now partnered with Moodle to deliver more seamless integrated learning experiences. Microsoft Teams Classes LTI and Teams Meeting LTI apps are now available within Moodle.

Find out more: What’s New in Microsoft Teams for Education | June 2022

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 Defence (DoD):

Together Mode in Teams Meetings on Web – Web users are now able to change the Teams meeting layout to Together mode by clicking the more options ellipsis […] in their meeting control bar. With Together mode, participants are digitally placed in a shared background, making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room even when you are apart. Available in DOD.

Anonymous meeting join across clouds – Join meetings in other clouds anonymously from your Teams desktop app. Previously, if you wanted to join a meeting hosted in a cloud different from your tenant’s, you were directed to use the Teams web experience. Now, DOD users will be able to join meetings in Commercial, GCC, and GCC-High clouds from your desktop, enabling an improved meeting experience. This feature leverages your existing Allow anonymous users to join meetings settings. If you already have these settings configured, no additional changes are required. Available in DOD. Learn more.

Presenter mode: Controls to move and resize presenter video – There is a new enhancement to the Presenter mode feature. Now, a presenter can choose whether to show up on the left or right side of the content and resize their video feed while automatically adjusting content size accordingly. This can be applied to all modes on Desktop or Window sharing, including standout, side-by-side, and reporter. Available in GCC and GCC-High.

Mirror my video – You no longer have to see the text in your video flipped. Imagine a primary school teacher with a small whiteboard in hand, or you have a virtual background with text in it. While the meeting audience sees the text correctly, you see the text flipped. By providing you with the option to un-mirror, you will be able to see the text correctly. Go to your Device Settings and toggle off “Mirror my video.” Available in GCC-High and DOD.

Music Mode – High-fidelity music mode enables Microsoft Teams users to experience richer sound experiences when sharing non-speech content such as live music, songs through other applications, or medical signals during a virtual appointment with a physician. High-fidelity music mode enables significantly improved audio quality in Teams calls and meetings. The optimized experience in Teams applies to signals captured by microphones, as well as audio played while sharing an application or desktop. Available in GCC-High. Learn more.

Support of Live Caption for Teams on VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix – Live captions are now generally available in Teams on virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix. Teams on VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop and Citrix (pre-requisite required) can detect what’s being said and who is saying it with real-time captions. See use live captions in a Teams meeting on how to get started. Available in GCC and GCC-High.

New default settings when opening Office files For Government clouds – Users can set their default preference as Browser, Desktop, or Teams when opening Office (Word, Excel, and Power Point) files that are shared in Teams. Desktop setting can be selected if the latest Office clients are installed and activated. The process of updating default settings is fairly simple. Learn how to set it up here.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Express Design, Power Pages, RTE for portals, Power Platform command line updates, modern app designer GA, Access migration GA, new data sources for the virtual connection provider

Express Design

The Power Apps team have announced the preview of express design in Power Apps: the ability to instantly generate low-code apps directly from design files and images. Power Apps express design is like an AI-powered co-pilot helping create apps alongside you. Here’s how it works:

• Get going with a variety of content types: Start with a paper form, PowerPoint, PDF, a screenshot of a UI from a legacy app, or even a picture of a hand-drawn app that you’ve sketched out on paper. Or point to a design file in Figma. 
• Advanced AI will scan your file: Using cognitive AI models that are trained to recognize common application elements, Power Apps will automatically generate an app with a working user experience and data schema in Microsoft Dataverse.
• Tune the model to get exactly what you need: From the AI-generated starting point, make quick inline adjustments. Need a dropdown control, or maybe a date picker? No problem.
• Seamlessly connect to all of your data: Easily adapt and configure the application using low code. Use more than 675 prebuilt connectors to integrate with your existing systems including SAP, Salesforce, and SQL.
• Add as many screens as you like: If you want to add more screens to the app, simply upload additional files, or create them easily in the low-code Power Apps Studio.

Find out more: New: turn images and designs into apps using AI-powered express design

Power Pages (Preview)

The Power Apps team have announced the preview of Microsoft Power Pages, the fifth product in the Microsoft Power Platform family. Power Pages empowers anyone, regardless of their technical background, with an effective platform to create data-powered, modern, and secure websites.

In addition to being low-code, Power Pages extends far beyond portals former capabilities to enable organizations of any size to securely build websites with exciting new aesthetic features such as a versatile Template Hub, Design Studio, and other advanced capabilities for customization with pro-dev extensibility.

Find out more: Announcing the preview of Microsoft Power Pages

Rich text editor for Power Apps Portals

Rich text editor (RTE) can now be used with Power Apps portals starting with version 9.4.3.x. This feature provides the following capabilities:

• Use the control with your text fields and allow your portal users to author and view rich formatted content.
• The rich text editing capabilities are powered by the same code component that is available for Power Apps.

Find out more: Announcing rich text editor for Power Apps portals

Power Platform command line updates (April refresh) v1.15.x

Here are the new and updated features as part of the April refresh of Power Platform command line:

• Solution command updates – In this release pac solution unpack and pack will also unpack Canvas apps using the parameter –processCanvasApps.
• Packaging updates – The packaging construct within Power Platform allows a user to bundle multiple solutions into a package and can be deployed all together as one unit.
• Administration improvements – For the administration commands, you can now create, update, and delete Microsoft Teams environments.

Find out more: Power Platform Command Line: New Updates (April Refresh) v1.15.x

Power Apps modern app designer general availability

The Power Apps team have nnounced the general availability of the modern app designer, enabling a seamless, intuitive way to build robust model-driven apps with Dataverse grids, forms, and custom pages with just a few clicks. The modern app designer is now the default designer for model-driven apps and is at full feature parity with the classic designer.

Find out more: Announcing the general availability of the Power Apps modern app designer

Access Migration to Power Apps and Dataverse general availability

Microsoft Access users can migrate their data into Power Apps and Dataverse. Customers who have the current or monthly channel for Microsoft 365 and Office can update their Microsoft Access to build 16.0.15128.20248 or later to make use of the Dataverse Connector and migration tool.

The Access migration tool and connector provided within MS Access streamlines the process of migrating tables, relationships, and data with setup taking just a few minutes, and migration handled for you.

Find out more: Access Migration to Power Apps and Dataverse is released to General Availability

New data sources for the Virtual Connection Provider

The Power Apps team have announced they are adding Excel and SharePoint to the virtual connection providers for virtual tables. Virtual tables connect to existing data outside of Dataverse allowing Power Apps and the Power Platform to treat it like local data. If you have a list that stores all of your product data in SharePoint, a virtual table lets you access that data within an app and also provide relationships between Dataverse tables and the SharePoint lists. 

Find out more: Announcing New Data Sources for the Virtual Connection Provider

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: New capabilities for AI Builder, Power Automate pane, process advisor updates, restore deleted flow, doubled chatbot coverage, 14 new verified. 36 independent publisher connectors, desktop update May 2022, bulk resubmit & cancel for cloud flows

New capabilities for AI Builder

Announced during Microsoft Build 2022, the following new and upcoming capabilities are coming to AI Builder:

• Unstructured document processing: Microsoft are expanding Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) capabilities for Power Automate by adding support for unstructured document processing.
• Model performance metrics for structured documents: A re-designed and re-structured document model page to include a global accuracy score.
• General availability of Image Classification: Now generally available, Lobe is a free, easy-to-use app from Microsoft that helps you build image classification models on your own computer.
• To improve transparency of AI Builder credits and facilitate capacity management, the Power Platform Licensing guide has been updated to include individual credit consumption rates for each AI Builder scenario.
• AI Builder learning and training materials have been updated in the AI Builder in a day Lab. New training courses come complete with sample code and data sets to get you started building your first AI models easily.
• Text Recognition: Support for up to 164 languages. The pre-trained model allows you to extract printed or handwritten text from images, such as photos or street signs and products, as well as from documents.
• AI Builder is now available in South Korea

Find out more: Exciting new capabilities for AI Builder

Power Automate pane in Power Apps

The new Power Automate pane in the Power Apps Canvas Studio is now available. Without leaving your app, you can now create, edit, view, or add an already built flow from the Power Automate pane.

Find out more: Introducing the new Power Automate pane in Power Apps

Process advisor updates

Take a look at the following new and upcoming capabilities are coming to process advisor:

• Seamlessly generate Cloud flow Insights: With a few easy clicks, you can visualize your flow’s performance, identify bottlenecks and optimization opportunities, and monitor for business drifts.
• Easily onboard data with Templates: With templates like Azure Dev Ops, Power Apps and Desktop Flows you can now visualize and manage the processes that are central to running your organization in a matter of clicks.
• Visualize your process and act with deeper insights: With the new time analysis report you can drill down into time bottlenecks to understand the root cause and take the best action to optimize and automate your process.
• Collaborate to amplify impact from learnings: For data processes, the viewer role grants the invited user read access to the process analytics and the ability to invite others with the viewer role. Recording-based processes have roles focused on managing recordings.
• Get to Insights faster with Auto generated grouping: Process advisor now supports auto creating activities from the recording.

Find out more: Discover exciting new experiences and capabilities in process advisor

Restore deleted flow

The Power Automate team have announced the capability to restore a flow (outside of a solution) with the latest version of the PowerApps Administration cmdlet. As an admin, you can now use PowerShell to restore a flow you deleted or on behalf of someone in your company without having to file a support ticket with Microsoft.

Restore-AdminFlow -EnvironmentName Default-55abc7e5-2812-4d73-9d2f-8d9017f8c877 -FlowName 4d1f7648-ad60-4871-91cb-b77d7ef3c239
 //To view examples: Get-Help Restore-AdminFlow -Examples

Find out more: Restore deleted flows with PowerShell

Doubled Power Virtual Agent chatbot content coverage

The Power Virtual Agents chatbot in the left navigation of the web site can answer even more of your questions! With this update, if the chatbot cannot find the answers to the questions you asked, it now provides a dropdown with all the topics and scenarios in Power Automate for you to get help from. 

Find out more: Doubled Power Virtual Agent chatbot content coverage

14 new verified and 36 new independent publisher connectors released in April 2022

In April 2022 there were 14 new verified connectors and a record breaking 36 new Independent Publisher connectors were published in April:

Verified connectors

• App Power Forms – he easiest way to include external stakeholders in your business processes.
• Autodesk Forge Data Exchange – connect design and make data between Revit and the tools of your choice.
• BuildingMinds DigitalTwin Core – empowers customers to build a resilient and data-driven future for their real estate businesses.
• CyberProof Actions – next generation incident management and response platform for building Security Operations Centers (SOCs).
• IA-Connect JML – easy and robust automation solution for your Joiner, Mover, Leaver processes.
• Jedox OData Hub – the world’s most adaptable planning and performance management solution.
• Knowledgeone RecFind6 – RF6Connector, was designed specifically to integrate RecFind 6’s powerful EDRM functionality with SharePoint On-premises and Online
• Lansweeper App For Sentinel – Integration of Lansweeper app on the MS Sentinel Platform implements the investigative actions.
• nunify – nunify is a DIY Event Tech & Event App Builder Platform.
• Replicon – self-driving professional services automation solution that uses advanced technology to analyze real-time data,
• Revelation helpdesk – create and update items in your helpdesk such as tickets.
• TrueDialog SMS – integrate text messaging (sending & receiving) into your business processes in a couple of clicks.
• Verified – Automated and integrated solutions for e-signing enables smoother sales processes.
• YakChat – Add SMS to your automated flows with the YakChat Power Automate Connector. 
• Datamotion – bridges Power Automate’s capabilities with our secure message delivery API functionality.
• SurveyMonkey – automate critical workflows for a wide range of use cases and flow feedback data into key business apps.
• Timeghost – includes the option for users to set up time tags and project tags.

Independent publisher connectors

• Advanced Scraper by Troy Taylor – An advanced web scraper API with rotating IPs from 170+ countries.
• Ambee by Troy Taylor – fuses the power of thousands of on-ground sensor data and hundreds of remote imagery from satellites.
• AMEE Open Business by Paul Culmsee & Mahbub Murshed – Access business data on over 20 million companies including financial risk, carbon emissions, carbon efficiency ratings.
• Binance.us by Roy Paar – for connecting to the Binance.us API to query crypto market rates and trades.
• Clockify by Dr Adrian Colquhoun & Nirmal – popular, easy to use, free time tracking software solution.
• Corporate Buzzword Generator by Troy Taylor – This generator randomly picks out phrases, which can help your application get ahead in an industry where spin and vagueness reign supreme
• CraftMyPDF by Troy Taylor – CraftMyPDF’s drag & drop editor lets you design PDF templates in any browser and generate pixel-perfect PDF documents from reusable templates and JSON data.
• Decentraland by Roy Paar – for connecting to the Decentraland API to search for metaverse LAND parcels.
• DigitalHumani by Troy Taylor – A RaaS (Reforestation as a Service) which easily integrates with your products to reforest the planet.
• Do Not Call Reported Calls by Troy Taylor – provides data every weekday about Do Not Call and robocall complaints reported to the Federal Trade Commission.
• DPIRD Radar by Paul Culmsee & Mahbub Murshed – Allows you to integrate the DPIRD RADAR estimated rainfall data within your applications.
• DPIRD Science by Paul Culmsee & Mahbub Murshed – provides the back-end to the Rainfall to Date, Potential Yield, and Soil Water tools.
• DPIRD Weather by Paul Culmsee & Mahbub Murshed – Comprehensive data from over 185 weather stations throughout Western Australia.
• Finnish BIS by Timo Pertilä – Get data from the Finnish Business Information System (BIS) maintained by the PRH and the Finnish Tax Administration.
• Finnish Railway Traffic by Timo Pertilä – Get data of trains operating in Finland. The service is operated by Fintraffic.
• GeoDB by Troy Taylor – The GeoDB API focuses on getting global city and region data. 
• GitLab by Roy Paar – A connector for GitLab DevOps platform. 
• GlobalGiving Project by Troy Taylor – GlobalGiving connects nonprofits, donors, and companies in nearly every country in the world. 
• Ice and Fire (Game of Thrones) by Troy Taylor – Ice And Fire is the world’s greatest source for quantified and structured data from the universe of Ice and Fire (and the HBO series Game of Thrones).
• Michael Scott Quotes by Troy Taylor – A simple REST API that returns a random Michael Scott quote.
• Mintlify by Troy Taylor – Hate writing code documentation? Save time and improve your codebase by letting Mintlify generate documentation for you.
• Mondaycom by Woong – monday.com is a cloud service provider to manage schedules and inventories.
• National Park Service by Troy Taylor – designed to provide authoritative NPS data and content for internal and external developers creating apps, maps, and websites.
• Nederlandse Spoorwegen by Miguel Verweij – Retrieve information from the main Dutch railway operator.
• Nifty Gateway by Roy Paar – for connecting to the Nifty Gateway API to search for NFTs.
• Pexels by That API Guy – Pexels is a free stock photo and video website.
• Rarible by Roy Paar – Rarible Multichain Protocol is a blockchain-agnostic and decentralized tool to query, issue, and trade NFTs.
• Rebrandly by That API Guy – Rebrandly is a custom URL shortener.
• Robohash by Troy Taylor – Robohash is a easy web service that makes it easy to provide unique, robot/alien/monster/whatever images for any text.
• Ron Swanson Quotes by Troy Taylor – Quotes for every occasion. Because Ron Swanson is a hero.
• Studio Ghibli by Troy Taylor – The Studio Ghibli API catalogs the people, places, and things found in the worlds of Ghibli.
• Telegram Bot by Woong – HTTP-based interface created for developers keen on building bots for Telegram.
• The Lord of the Rings by Troy Taylor – it serves your needs regarding data about The Lord of the Rings.
• U.K. Government Check VAT by Andras Fordos – perform unverified and verified checks of UK VAT numbers and view additional details of the VAT registration such as name and address of business.
• URLBae by Troy Taylor –  seamlessly track your audience with simple and easy-to-remember yet powerful links.
• Xkcd by Troy Taylor – webcomic created in 2005 by American author Randall Munroe.

Power Automate for desktop update – May 2022

The May 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.20) has been released. Take a look at some of the new features and updates below:

• All types of clicks are now supported in browser automation
• A timeout value is now available for all browser automation actions
• Tabular data extracted from a PDF file can now maintain their structure
• Enhanced experience in the console for users with limited permissions
• GA of ‘Display custom form’ action

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – May 2022 update

Bulk resubmit and cancel for cloud flows

Now you can go to the Run history page, select the runs you would like to resubmit or cancel in the ribbon, and resubmit or cancel the runs. That’s it! Once you have resubmitted or canceled the flow run, you will be able to see your canceled and successful resubmitted flow runs.

Find out more: Introducing bulk resubmit and cancel for cloud flows

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Power BI

In Power BI: On-prem data gateway, Power BI May 2022 feature summary, Report Server May 2022, ExecuteQueries REST API, automatic aggregations, Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services, datamart, SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0, Power BI integration for PowerPoint, Goals becomes Metrics, Exportable Formatted Data Tables (Preview), Action bar for interactive reports, SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates, New Power BI Known Issue page, New data source and gateway management experience

On-premises data gateway May 2022 update

The Power BI team have announced the release of the May 2022 update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.126.8).

Find out more: On-premises data gateway May 2022 update is now available

Power BI Desktop feature summary – May 2022

Updates include the general availability of Canvas zoom and Data point rectangle select features, Field parameters and Error bars for columns and line combination charts new preview features, plus lots more.

Find out more: Power BI May 2022 Feature Summary

Power BI Report Server feature summary – May 2022

This May 2022 update brings a new version of Power BI Report Servery with a host of new & improved features, including:

Reporting

• Dynamic format strings now supported for all chart elements
• Multi row card selection
• Bookmark navigator now shows the last selected bookmark per group
• Canvas Zoom
• Data point rectangle select
• Mandatory label policy
• Updated slicer defaults for accessibility improvements

Other

• Windows 11 support
• Power BI Desktop infrastructure update (WebView2)

Find out more: Power BI Report Server May 2022 Feature Summary

ExecuteQueries REST API general availability

The ExecuteQueries REST API is now generally available. By using this REST API, you can query datasets in Power BI from practically any modern environment on any platform, as long as you can authenticate with Azure Active Directory (AAD) and construct a Web request. 

Find out more: Announcing general availability of the ExecuteQueries REST API

Automatic aggregations general availability

Automatic aggregations is now generally available. By using automatic aggregations in Power BI Premium, you can unlock cloud-scale data volumes for interactive analysis. The fundamental idea is to import data into the dataset only at the aggregated level while leaving the detail data at the source to minimize data duplication. 

Find out more: Announcing general availability of automatic aggregations

Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services

You can now create composite Power BI models by connecting to SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services tabular models. SQL Server 2022 is available now for public preview and when you upgrade or deploy tabular models to SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services. This DirectQuery connection becomes available in Power BI Desktop starting with May 2022 release. Existing or new tabular models hosted on SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services can be joined with other data in Power BI Desktop to create a composite model.

Find out more: Composite models on SQL Server Analysis Services

Datamart in Power BI (Public Preview)

Datamart in Power BI is a new self-service capability included with Power BI Premium that enables users to uncover actionable insights through their own data without any help from IT teams. For the first time, we are empowering everyone with the right-sized ability to build a relational database for analytics using no code experiences for workloads up to 100GB, without compromising enterprise security and governance demands. 

Find out more: Announcing public preview of datamart in Power BI

What’s new in SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0

The public CTP 2.0 of SQL Server 2022 is now available at aka.ms/getsqlserver2022. This public preview includes the following enhancements for Analysis Services tabular:

• Power BI support for SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services tabular models as a DirectQuery connection for composite models
• Improved MDX query performance
• Improved resource governance
• Query interleaving now includes short query bias with fast cancellation

Find out more: What’s new in SQL Server 2022 Analysis Services CTP 2.0

Power BI integration for PowerPoint

The Power BI team have announced the preview of Power BI data storytelling in PowerPoint. The team are thrilled to be shipping an add-in that lets you add Power BI reports and bookmarks to your slides and enjoy the delightful interactive experience of Power BI inside your presentations. 

Find out more: Tell a story with your data. Announcing the all-new Power BI integration for PowerPoint.

Goals in Power BI is becoming ‘metrics’ and is moving to general availability

Now generally available, metrics in Power BI (feature formerly known as ‘goals’) along with a ton of new features to make scorecarding in Power BI even more effective.

Find out more: Goals in Power BI is becoming ‘metrics’ and is moving to GA!

Exportable formatted data tables (Preview)

The Power BI team have announced the public preview of a low-code web authoring experience for exportable formatted data tables.  You can use the formatted table feature to create paginated reports in any modern workspace, including workspaces that aren’t in a Power BI Premium capacity. 

Find out more: Exportable Formatted Data Tables (Preview)

Action bar for interactive reports in the Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams

The Power BI tab in Microsoft Teams is getting a new action bar for interactive reports. The action bar enables users to use all the capabilities they have for interactive reports in the service when they’re added to channels, chats, or meetings as tabs in Microsoft Teams. 

Find out more: Announcing: Action bar for interactive reports in the Power BI tab for Microsoft Teams

SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates

SandDance is a data visualization tool developed by the VIDA (Visualization and Interactive Data Analysis) team at Microsoft Research and is available as a custom visual for Power BI. The VIDA team has made significant updates to the SandDance 2019 custom visual. The team have enhanced the ability to deliver richer and more compelling data-driven stories, both by adding support for Power BI bookmarks and making significant improvements to the rendering capabilities.

Find out more: SandDance Power BI Custom Visual updates

New Power BI Known Issue page

Microsoft have recently launched a new Power BI Known Issues page. This is an example of our continued effort to increase users’ confidence in our transparency, awareness of issues, and dedication to improve customers’ success.

Find out more: Power BI Known Issues page

New data source and gateway management experience

The Power BI team have announced a new data source and gateway management experience in Power BI! The team recently replaced the “manage gateway” experience with a new interface, making it easier to manage your gateways and data sources. With this new experience, you also get the ability to manage and create the Vnet gateway and use the recently released additional security roles.

Find out more: New data source and gateway management experience

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: Create from the SharePoint app bar, comment on a video or audio file in SharePoint/ OneDrive, Lists for Android, ‘unscheduled’ calendar view in Lists, access to standard & private channels

Create from the SharePoint app bar

This new feature allows you to create sites, files, and lists right from within the SharePoint app bar. Select the Create command (the plus sign) on the app bar and then select an option from SharePoint sites, Microsoft Lists, or Office files (Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and OneNote).

• Site creation will launch the SharePoint site creation panel in the site you are in; if you are in a hub, the site will be associated with this hub when created
• List creation will open in a new tab and take you to the create experience in Microsoft Lists
• Office files will create the document in your OneDrive site until you select to save to a different location.

Find out more: Introduction to the SharePoint app bar

Comment on a video or audio file in SharePoint/ OneDrive

This feature allows you to have threaded conversations on a video or audio file saved in OneDrive or SharePoint through a cohesive and familiar commenting experience like the one used in Lists, Word, Excel, and PowerPoint.

Find out more: Comments for Stream Files Stored in SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business

Microsoft Lists for Android

With this new app, you can access your lists on the go anytime, anywhere. Manage events, track issues and assets, help with new-employee onboarding, and keep coordinated across inventory. With access on the go, easy sharing, and quick photo capture, you can keep everyone connected with the latest information using Microsoft Lists.

Find out more: https://aka.ms/MSLists/app/Android

Microsoft Lists Calendar view experience: ‘Unscheduled’ Pane

You will see a new ‘Unscheduled’ tab within the events pane to the right within a list Calendar view. The items with missing start and/or end dates and those with start date later than the end date would appear on this pane. You can then select the items to open the edit form and make appropriate edits to schedule these items.

Find out more: Create a calendar view from a list

SharePoint/ OneDrive: Access your Teams standard and private channel files

There is now an “In channels” section visible and collapsed by default. This “In channels” section includes all standard and private channels content within the Team, and private channels – if you have permissions to them – will be distinguished with a specific icon. The “In channels” section will only appear when a user navigates to the default document library of a SharePoint site that’s connected to a Teams team.

Note: The “In channels” section will not be visible if the SharePoint site is not connected to Teams. And when shared channels become available, they will also appear in this new section.

Find out more: Roadmap ID 88911

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Teams

In Teams: Text prediction for mobile, Power Automate templates, Fluent emojis, suggested replies, file upload for approvals, chat filter for non-meeting chats, admins can pin message extensions, Teams device store, follow office preview policy, user request flows for blocked apps

Anonymous meeting join, iOS improvements, share system audio on web, improved support in Firefox, move/ resize presenter, auto detect music, live caption support, Outlook contacts available for calling, emergency calling banner, config for call forwarding, present button for Teams Rooms
Government
Education
Front line workers

Text prediction for Teams mobile

When you compose or reply to a message in Teams, Editor Text Predictions anticipates your writing and suggests a suitable word or phrase inline. This saves time and helps you reduce typos.

Find out more: Start a chat on the go on Teams mobile

Power Automate templates to be added to teams templates

Need to create a team? Use Team templates to create the right team with predefined channels and preinstalled apps. Select Microsoft provided team templates will include a new Power Automate tab where you can find a variety of Power Automate flow templates that support a template type.

Find out more: Use flows in Microsoft Teams

New Fluent Emoji style coming to Teams emojis and reactions

Teams is joining M365 and Windows in updating all emojis and reactions to the new Microsoft Fluent emoji style, bringing users with over 1800 vibrant and expressive emoji experiences to choose from.

Find out more: Fluent Emojis

Suggested replies in chats

Suggested replies in Teams chat now in desktop uses assistive AI to create three short authentic responses based on the context of the previous message. Instead of typing a response, simply click on one reply that is most relevant to your conversation.

Find out more: Use suggested replies to respond to messages without typing

Upload files to your approval request via Power Automate portal

Files that are uploaded within the Power Automate portal will now show within the view details window of an Approval request within Teams.

Find out more: File attachments in Approval Flows

Chat filter for non-meeting chats

Quickly find chat messages and conversations you need most in your chat app with a new chat filter function. This new filter will find one-on-one or group chats and will filter out meeting chats and chat with bots.

Find out more: Search for messages and more in Teams

Admins can pin message extensions

Admins can manage the pin order of messaging extensions in the compose experience. Setup policies today allow admins to promote personal apps that show in the left rail of Teams Apps navigation. The apps that are handy while composing a message can differ from the personal apps, so we are bringing the ability to control these separately.

Find out more: Manage teams in the Microsoft Teams admin center

Teams device store in Teams admin center

The Microsoft Teams device store resides in the Microsoft Teams Admin Center aimed to help IT admins to search for and purchase certified Teams devices in a familiar interface. IT admin accounts are authenticated and integrated, helping streamline and automate device setup—removing the need to manually register the devices. All major Microsoft partners offering devices certified for Microsoft Teams will be included in the device store, with fulfillment provided by a third party. The store is now available in the US and Canada and is expected to be available in other international markets later this year.

Find out more: Microsoft Teams: Managing your devices

Follow Office preview policy on Mac

Public Preview has provided IT admins with the ability to allow their users to receive preview features before they are released to the public. The existing follow Office preview policy allows users to automatically be in the Public Preview Channel of Teams if they are in the Office Current Channel (Preview) on Windows.

The “follow Office preview” policy is now available to Mac users who are in the Office Current Channel (Preview).

Find out more: Microsoft Teams Public Preview

User request flows for blocked apps

Enable users to discover Teams apps in the store and request approval from administrators. When apps are blocked in the tenant, the end users were not able to discover them in Teams Client marketplace, while they are looking for tools to support their modern workplace. The ‘User request’ is going to act as an indicator of the user’s interest in the app.

The user will have an option to click “Request access”. When the request is submitted, the admin will see the aggregate count of the request Apps. This enables admins to have clear indicators or requested Apps.

Find out more: Microsoft Teams apps permissions and considerations

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):

Attendance Dashboard – Measure meeting and webinar registration and attendance data in the new Attendance Dashboard. After the meeting, simply open the meeting invite and navigate to the Attendance tab. This feature is on by default. To disable, turn off the AllowEngagementReport policy within the Meeting policies section in the Teams admin center. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Teams webinar capabilities – Schedule and deliver webinars for up to 1,000 attendees with the same Teams app you use for meetings! Webinar capabilities support registration page creation, email confirmation for registrants, host management for attendee video and audio, attendee reporting, plus interactive features like polls, chat, and reactions. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Auto-answer meeting invites with video on for iOS devices – The ability for iOS devices to automatically answer incoming meeting nudges or invites with their video on is now here. Available in GCC-High and DOD.

Invite-only meeting options – A new meeting setting is now available in Teams meeting options that automatically sends those who were not originally invited by the organizer to the lobby. This helps prevent those uninvited from joining the meeting. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Share the system audio from meetings on web – Web users can now include audio when sharing their desktop or window during a Teams meeting. You can find this setting in the share content. Available in GCC.

Large Gallery and Together Mode in Teams Meetings on Web and VDI – Web and Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) users are now able to change the Teams meeting layout to Together mode and Large Gallery. With Large Gallery, you have the ability to see up to 49 participants in a single screen, enhancing your overall virtual meeting experience. Available in GCC-High.

Voice enabled channels for GCC H and DoD – We added the ability to use a Teams channel with members as call agents for call queue call answering. Now we are bringing this capability to GCC H and DoD.

Roaming bandwidth control for GCC-High and DoD – Admins will now be able to set a bandwidth control policy to disable video calls when users are working in bandwidth constrained areas – this protects the reliability of the connection, automatically just based on where the users are located.

Dynamic Caller ID for Voice enabled channels, now available for GCC High and DoD – Last year we enabled the capability where agents can use Dynamic Caller ID to call on behalf of a Call Queue from within Voice Enabled Channels. We are now bringing this capability to Government clouds including GCC High and DoD.

Up to 25K members per team in DoD – Customers in DoD can now create a team with up to 25,000 participants, reaching broadly across your organization and beyond. Members of a team can cross-post a message into multiple channels at once, making it easy to share information across teams and workgroups.

New default for Teams notification style for DoD – Teams notification style will be defaulted to native notifications for new users. Currently the default style is Teams purple, with this change to native notifications the user will benefit from support for assist mode, action center, accessibility and more.

Teams for Education

Here’s what’s new in Teams for Education this month:

Students and educators get a notification when a new Class Notebook page is distributed – We are making a new update that will allow any Educator using Page Distribution in the OneNote client to ensure that all students get a notification in Teams after a page is distributed! This notification will work for educators using the Class Notebook Toolbar in OneNote Windows 10, iPad, Web and Mac.

Data reports after Teams meeting class – If a teacher has used Forms polls in a Teams meeting class, a summary report for all the polls used in this meeting will be generated and shared with teacher.

Frontline workers

Here’s what’s new for front line workers in Teams this month:

Virtual appointments through Microsoft Bookings in Teams – Microsoft Forms integration  – Through the new integration of Microsoft Forms into the Microsoft Bookings app in Teams, organizations can now collect and review responses from customers for virtual appointments. This can help provide organizations with enhanced insights, reduce administrative burdens, and streamline the virtual appointment experience.

Walkie Talkie app in Teams is available on Kyocera 5G Rugged Smartphones – The Walkie Talkie app in Teams with a dedicated push-to-talk button on Kyocera’s DuraForce Ultra 5G and DuraSport 5G is available for frontline workers to enjoy clear, instant, and secure communication at their fingertips. Learn more.

New Tag Management Settings – This feature will update default tag management settings in the Teams Admin Center to include ”Team owners and members” and not just “Team owners,” reducing the burden of creating and maintaining Tags solely on Team owners. Learn more about the new Tag Management Settings.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: In-app notifications in Model-driven apps GA, support for SharePoint image column, String interpolation, Index function, RandBetween function in Power Fx, AAD User Virtual Table, Power Automate pane, wrap for Power Apps public preview, code components, Power Apps app on Windows, Dataflow refreshes in Power BI

General Availability (GA) for In-app notifications in Model-driven apps

The Power Apps team have announced that in-app notifications feature has reached General Availability (GA).  In-app notifications enable a user to receive a notification while they are working within the web or mobile model-driven app.  Notifications can be sent from Power Automate, app logic or web service calls allowing flexibility in where notifications are triggered.

Find out more: Send in-app notifications within model-driven apps

Power Apps supports the new SharePoint list image column type

Power Apps now supports the SharePoint list image columns for read scenarios. You can create a Power App and see the images directly in a Power App, as well as choose from the full version of the image or various thumbnail sizes:  Small, Medium, and Large. 

Note:

• The current implementation is Read only.  Update capabilities are in progress.
• The Small, Medium, and Large sized images are created on demand and temporarily cached.  An image that has been cached too long will be removed and will be regenerated on demand.
• Power Apps generally refreshes image meta-data every 30 seconds.  If you are authoring an application and want to immediately refresh images, choose the “…” item on the data source and choose to refresh the data.
• Images stored in a collection will not be rendered correctly.  It is best to access them directly from the list with a Filter expression.
• Images may still appear in the Power Apps field list even if the image column is hidden in the list

Find out more: Power Apps supports the new SharePoint list image column type

Power Fx: String interpolation, Index function, and RandBetween function

Three features are available in version 3.22041 and later of Power Apps Studio – string interpolation, Index function, and RandBetween function.

• String interpolation – Most modern programming languages have the ability to embed expressions within a string and now Power Fx does too. 
• Index function – Excel has an Index function for, among other things, returning a row out of a range and so Power Fx has adopted the same function.
• RandBetween function – Another Excel function, RandBetween( Low, High ) that returns an integer between Low and High inclusive.  

Find out more: Power Fx: String interpolation, Index function, and RandBetween function

AAD User Virtual Table – Find and add any AAD user to your records

The Power Apps team have announced support for an Azure Active Directory – AAD User virtual table for Dataverse. The AAD User table makes it easy to retrieve any user in your organization’s Azure Active Directory – not just users who have a Dataverse license assigned to them.  You can also retrieve details like job title, email, phone number and more.

The new AAD user table is available automatically with no additional configuration required.

AAD User Virtual Table.

Find out more: Announcing the AAD User Virtual Table – Find and add any AAD user to your records.

The new Power Automate pane in Power Apps

The new Power Automate pane brings the ability to add flows to the left-pane, in the same way you add other resources like data and media to your canvas app. When you click the Power Automate button, a new pane appears allowing you to see flows already included in in your app or add existing flows.

You can also create new flows; selecting “Create new flow” now opens a new experience where you can choose from Power Apps based flow templates or start from blank.

Find out more: Introducing the new Power Automate pane in Power Apps!

Wrap for Power Apps (Public Preview)

The Power Apps team have announced that the wrap public preview – enabling you to create mobile apps with Power Apps – is now open. Power Apps is now officially a Mobile Application Development Platform (MADP/MXDP) stuffed with great new capabilities:

• Low-code mobile app creation – we build the app for you!
• Seamless end-to-end branding from home screen icon to app UX
• Embed multiple Canvas apps into a single mobile app
• Distribute your app natively to meet end users where they are
• Enterprise governance with Intune for individual Canvas apps

Find out more: Announcing Public Preview of wrap for Power Apps

React (virtual) and Fluent UI code components (Public Preview)

The Power Apps team have announced the public preview availability of React based virtual code components. 1st and 3rd party developers now have the ability to make use of platform provided libraries to build their diverse set of code components.

No more React or Fluent library packaging inside individual component bundles. Code components can now use one common set of platform provided React and Fluent UI React libraries.

Find out more: React (virtual) and Fluent UI code components using platform libraries

Power Apps application on Windows (Public Preview)

The Power Apps team have announced the public preview availability of Power Apps (Preview) for Windows. With the new Power Apps (preview) application, your will be able to run apps in offline within a brand new application fully integrated within the Windows OS and supporting the native Dataverse connector and native device capabilities like barcode scanner or Camera controls.

Find out more: Announcing Public Preview of a new Power Apps application on Windows

Monitor Dataflow refreshes with a Power BI dashboard

You can now use the managed Dataverse tables to report over your dataflow refresh history. You now get two new managed Dataverse table with details about refreshes of your dataflows in your environment. We populate the tables with new data automatically after each refresh.

DataflowRefreshHistory – Contains the overall dataflow refresh history data
EntityRefreshHistory – Contains data of all entities involved in the refreshes

Using the new tables you are able to extract information about errors , duration of the refreshes and, how many new records got inserted into your Dataverse table.

Find out more: Monitor all your Dataflow refreshes with a Power BI dashboard

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Power Automate desktop update, 3 new verified connectors, 4 independent connectors, process advisor sharing analytics

Power Automate desktop April 2022

The April 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.19) is out now. There are several new features and updates, including:

• Built-in examples are now available
• Cloud or Region picker is now supported in the console
• New action ‘Hover mouse over UI element in window’
• Support of physical keyboard interaction in ‘Populate text field on web page’ action
• Improved recorder performance

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – April 2022 update

3 new verified connectors and 10 updates

Take a look at all the new and updated connectors released in March 2022 for Power Automate:

New connectors

• allGeo – allGeo provides an enterprise-grade field service management platform that bridges the gap between operations and payroll.
• Nodefusion Portal – A Nodefusion Portal Connector is used for various actions, such as opening support case, managing subscriptions, checking service roadmaps and more.
• Open Experience – Open Experience GmbH provides innovative solutions for the digitization of construction work. 

Updated connectors

• Connect2All
• IA-Connect Dynamic Code
• IA-Connect Session
• IA-Connect UI
• IA-Connect Web Browser
• Impexium
• SmartDialog
• Sociabble
• Trasnform2All
• Virus Total

Find out more: 3 New Verified Connectors and 10 Updates released in March 2022

4 new independent publisher connectors

Take a look at all the new independent publisher connectors released in March 2022 for Power Automate:

• EmojiHub by Troy Taylor – EmojiHub provides an opportunity to get random emojis from already sorted categories and groups. 
• Infura Ethereum by Sebastian Zolg – The Infura Ethereum Connector uses the Infura JSON-RPC API to access the Ethereum Blockchain.
• AIHW MyHospitals by Paul Culmsee – The MyHospitals national reporting platform allows users to explore information about their local hospital and Local Hospital Network (LHN), as well as trends across Australia.
• Word Cloud by Textvis by Troy Taylor – Generate great looking word clouds from text. Customize size, color and more.

Find out more: 4 Incredible New Independent Publisher Connectors in March 2022

Share analytics and invite tenant users in process advisor

The Power Automate team have announced the ability to share data-based processes with others via a viewer role. The viewer role grants the invited user read access to the process analytics and the ability to invite others with the viewer role. This feature empowers process owners to share process insights with anyone who would benefit, such as teammates, analysts, managers, etc.

Find out more: Get Quality Process Insights by Sharing Analytics and Inviting Tenant Users

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Power BI

In Power BI: On-prem data gateway, Power BI desktop feature summary, additional gateway security roles, update to required permissions for composite models

On-premises data gateway April 2022 update

The Power BI team have released the April 2022 update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.122.7). This version of the gateway will ensure that the reports that you publish to the Power BI Service and refresh via the Gateway will go through the same query execution logic/run-time as in the April Power BI Desktop version.

Find out more: On-premises data gateway April 2022 update is now available

Power BI desktop feature summary – April 2022

The April update for Power BI desktop is out now – with updates for new format panes and Power BI Goals, tooltips drill actions support for more build-in visuals, plus lot’s more!

Find out more: Power BI April 2022 Feature Summary

Additional gateway security roles for Power BI

Additional security roles allow for more granularity in assigning roles for the gateway. The new change is that non-admins of the gateway can be allowed to create connections (data sources) on the gateway. This way, your gateway admins are not the bottleneck anymore for creating connections (data sources).

Find out more: Additional gateway security roles for Power BI

Update to required permissions when using composite models on a Power BI dataset

For datasets in Premium or PPU workspaces, a user that consumes a report that leverages a composite model based on a Power BI dataset is required to have just Read permissions (or have the Viewer role) on all datasets in the chain.

Note: While this is great news for those that only use Premium or PPU workspaces, this is concerning to those that leverage Pro workspaces, or a mix of types. Microsoft plan to make the same change for Pro workspaces as well, but for technical reasons they have not announced that as of yet.

Find out more: Update to required permissions when using composite models on a Power BI dataset

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BONUS! Even more updates

Support neurodiversity in the hybrid workplace

Microsoft have been working to cut down the noise by providing more ways to customize which notifications Microsoft Teams shows you and when, and new ways to protect time with Microsoft Viva Insights. They’ve also added new capabilities to support and improve reading and writing like text prediction options, voice control tools, and accessible authoring features—great for everyone, but a true game changer for workers with dyslexia and other learning disabilities.

Find out more: what’s new in Microsoft accessibility for spring 2022 blog

Yammer updates

A series of updates to Yammer have been released that help make it easier to find what you need, share ideas, and customize to your preferences. First, community members can now upvote a response if it’s a helpful or useful contribution to the question, making it easier for others to find answers. You can now also bookmark a conversation to see the post and its replies later. Finally, dark mode for Yammer web will be available soon.

Find out more: Yammer Blog

Widows Autopatch

Windows Autopatch as a feature of Windows Enterprise E3, enabling IT pros to do more for less. This service will keep Windows and Office software on enrolled endpoints up-to-date automatically, at no additional cost. IT admins can gain time and resources to drive value. For organizations who select this option, the second Tuesday of every month will be ‘just another Tuesday’.

Find out more: Get current and stay current with Windows Autopatch

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: SharePoint Syntex: Content assembly, management of content types, new taxonomy (managed metadata) column, list templates for MSA, top news card on Viva Connections dashboard, Viva Insights Enroll in Focus plan

SharePoint Syntex: Content assembly

With Content Assembly, you can build that new contract, invoice, letter, or other document from existing data sources, or, by leveraging AI, you can turn your existing document into a template to be used for your business-specific needs.

Find out more: Syntex content assembly and the content lifecycle

New Taxonomy managed metadata column

You will see a new Managed metadata option as a column type within the Add column menu in SharePoint lists and now libraries.  On selecting the option, users will be able to specify the column information such as its name and description and select the desired term set or term that exists within your organization, to associate the column with.  

Find out more: Enable management of content types and add taxonomy columns from modern libraries and lists view

Enable management of content types

SharePoint admin’s can now enable management of content types directly from SharePoint modern document library and list views, instead of having to navigate to classic library settings.

Admin’s will see the Content Type option in the Add Column menu, even when they have not enabled Allow management of Content types from the Advanced settings option of Library Settings. Once the admin selects the desired Content types for the library and clicks on Apply, we will enable content types for the library automatically and then sync the content types to the library or list. 

Find out more: Enable management of content types and add taxonomy columns from modern libraries and lists view

New list templates for the Microsoft Lists – MSA Preview

Three new list templates recently launched in Microsoft Lists for MSA (consumer) preview:

• Gift ideas: Easily organize your gift planning for your family & friends in one list and make gift buying and giving a breeze.
• Expense tracker: We all have expenses. This template helps you record all your expenses in one place.
• Recipe tracker: Create your very own virtual recipe book. Preserve links for recipes to try and recipes you love and organize them with tags. Add images to the ones you’ve cooked and show them off in a customizable recipe card view.

Find out more: Microsoft Lists – MSA Preview

Top news card on Viva Connections dashboard

Authors can  boost news posts to highlight important announcements to all employees. The update this month extends the value of the overall news service throughout Microsoft 365. Ensuring that important news expands its reach out to intended employees and peers.

Find out more: Boost SharePoint news from organization news sites

Microsoft Viva Insights: Enroll in Focus plan from the Insights app in Teams

Viva Insights is introducing updates to better enable users to protect time for focus from the Viva Insights Teams app. These updates to the protect time page will allow users to enroll in a focus plan and adjust preferences to auto book focus time on one’s calendar from within the Insights app in Teams. Users enrolled in a focus plan will also see insights about their progress towards their focus time goals.

Find out more: Microsoft Viva Insights

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Teams

In Teams: New search results page, new search on mobile, customer lockbox, automated webinar invite + custom domain, calendar day view, auto-answer meeting invites with video iOS, live caption support on VDI, auto-expiration of meeting recordings, roaming bandwidth, hold music VoIP, casting from desktop to rooms
Teams admin: Admin search phase 1, export teams list, virtual visits usage report, list of joined teams per user
Teams (Government)
Teams (Education)
Teams (Firstline)
Teams (Healthcare)

Search results page in Teams

A new search results page experience from Microsoft Search in Teams will make finding messages, people, answers, and files faster and more intuitive. A new All page will show top results from each domain, Bookmark, and Acronym.

Find out more: New and improved search results experience on Microsoft Teams

New Search experience in Teams mobile app

When searching in the Teams mobile app, you will now have a new header, get suggestions as you type (top results show up as soon as you start typing and will be modified as typing progresses), and meetings will appear in search results as well. You also will be able to scroll to past and future dates in the calendar using a date picker.

Find out more: Download Microsoft Teams Desktop and Mobile Apps

Customer Lockbox

Customer Lockbox ensures that Microsoft cannot access your content to perform a service operation without your explicit approval. Already available for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, Customer Lockbox brings you into the approval workflow for requests to access your content. This update brings the capability to Microsoft Teams as well.

Find out more: Customer Lockbox in Office 365

Automated webinar invite, custom domain for communications

Two new updates for webinars. First, as webinars are set up, invites are sent to attendees to register. When attendees register, the webinar invite will now automatically be added to the attendee’s calendar, making it easy to plan ahead and to remember when the event takes place.

Once attendees have registered for a webinar, as confirmation emails are sent to keep attendees informed, the sender name and domain email will now include the tenant’s name. This will make it easy for attendees to recognize who is sending communications for the event.

Find out more: Schedule a webinar

Day view in calendar on iOS and Android

View all hours of the day beyond scheduled meetings and events, which allows you to see when you’re available or busy throughout the day.

Find out more: Set up your Teams mobile apps

Auto-answer meeting invites with video on for iOS devices

The ability for iOS devices to automatically answer incoming meeting nudges or invites with their video on is now here. This is most beneficial in the healthcare industry, especially in ICU and/or patient virtual rounding scenarios where patient rooms require a no-touch join capability for incoming calls. In this scenario, the Teams device in the room would be invited to a scheduled or ad-hoc meeting where both AutoAnswerwithVideo and video are enabled. The AutoAnswerwithVideo setting is disabled by default.

Find out more: Set up auto answer for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android and Teams video phone devices

Support of Live Caption for Teams on VDI for Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365

Teams users on Azure Virtual Desktop and Windows 365 on virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) are now able to enable live captions during a meeting. Live captions allow your audience to follow along with what is being said, providing additional clarity and inclusion.

Find out more: Microsoft Teams Live Captions is now generally available on Azure Virtual Desktop

Auto-Expiration of Meeting Recordings stored on OneDrive and SharePoint

Newly created Teams meeting recordings in OneDrive and SharePoint will be deleted automatically by the service based on a default Teams policy setting. Teams admins will be able to modify the default meeting recording expiration time via a setting in the Teams Admin Portal or by modifying policy attributes using Powershell scripts.

Newly created meeting recordings in OneDrive and SharePoint will be automatically deleted after this point unless the meeting owner extends the expiration. Meeting owners will be notified about expired recordings and may extend the expiration date in OneDrive/SharePoint. Compliance policies will override the expiration setting. This rollout will start in the March timeframe and will continue to roll out to tenants over the next few weeks.

Find out more: Admin doc: Meeting policies and meeting expiration in Microsoft Teams | User doc: Record a meeting in Teams

Roaming bandwidth control

Admins can now set dynamic bandwidth policies based upon the geographic location of users’ Teams clients. This capability allows admins to set more limited bandwidth controls and disable video calls when users are in remote or bandwidth-constrained locations to protect the reliability of the connection.

Find out more: New-CsTeamsNetworkRoamingPolicy

Music on Hold for VoIP Calls

Music on hold is now available for calls on hold and consult-then-transfer scenarios for both VoIP and PSTN calls. Music on hold is enabled by default.  The music that is played for callers on hold is either the default music provided by Microsoft or custom music that administrators can upload and configure.

Find out more: Music on Hold

Casting from Teams desktop client to Microsoft Teams Rooms

Now you can use Teams casting to wirelessly connect to Teams Rooms and display content from your Teams desktop client. You also can broadcast your screen and cast content stored locally on your device or accessible via Office 365.

Find out more: Cast content from a mobile device to a Microsoft Teams Room

Teams admin

Team Search on Teams admin center – phase 1

Searching for a user call, a ‘team’ searching for an App by its name, or the name of the publisher. Search of the left navigation bar, allowing IT admins to easily find content from across the admin center and to be navigated to the corresponding page. The next phase that will be released in the coming month will introduce search for entities as documentation, policy, diagnostics and access the search history.

Export Teams list from Teams Admin Center

Administrators can export Teams and Users lists as a csv file from the Teams admin center.

Virtual Visits usage report in Teams Admin Center

Customers can view detailed activity for virtual appointments scheduled through the Bookings app and the Microsoft Teams Electronic Health Records (EHR) connector. Customers also will be able to understand virtual visit appointment volume and key associated metrics to improve virtual visit adoption, to understand wait time and appointment duration for a given period, as well as evaluate quality customer experience and manage ROI.

List of the joined teams per user in Teams admin center

Teams administrators can view the list of teams that a user has joined via the User detail page in the Teams admin center. Previously, in order to find out whether a user is part of a team or not, admins had to go to the individual teams and search for a user. Using this feature, admins can view the list of teams that a user is part of from a single place and then take actions like “removing from a team.”

Teams (Frontline)

Task publishing editing – Task publishing enables corporate teams to create and publish tasks through Tasks by Planner and To Do. With this feature, corporate teams can edit published tasks so they can make easy adjustments without having to recall the entire task list and disturb the execution of tasks already in action.

Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder – The Microsoft Teams Shifts connector for Blue Yonder Workforce Management (WFM), now generally available, extends the value of Blue Yonder WFM for organizations that rely on it for precise labor scheduling, accurate time and attendance tracking, reduced associate turnover, and simplified compliance with labor laws and corporate policies.

Walkie Talkie app in Teams is available on Sonim XP8 – The Walkie Talkie app in Microsoft Teams is now available on Sonim XP8, with a dedicated push-to-talk button. Learn more about how frontline workers can enjoy clear, instant, and secure communication at their fingertips and collaborate seamlessly with anyone from anywhere across geographic locations.

Global sign in and sign out – Teams iOS app will support global sign in and sign out to simplify the experience for frontline workers. Employees can now use any device from the shared device pool to sign in with their credentials and sign out of it at the end of the shift. This will remove all their personal and company information from the device.

Approvals app in Teams now available in Microsoft 365 F1 SKUs for frontline workers – Get faster approvals by streamlining frontline worker requests with Approvals app in Teams in Microsoft 365 F3 and now Microsoft 365 F1. Easily create, manage, and share approvals directly from a chat, a channel conversation, or from the app. Create approvals from scratch, company-created templates with easy, repeatable structures and preset fields, or with e-sign through Adobe Sign and DocuSign. Learn more about Approvals.

Teams (Education)

Introducing Parent Connection – Parents & guardians, students, and educators all want the same thing – for every student to reach their potential. Educators carry a heavy portion of this responsibility, but they can’t do it alone. Parent Connection is generally available to all Teams for Education customers (included in all Office365 A-SKUS). Learn more here, or talk with your IT administrator about setting up Parent Connection using School Data Sync.

Take action on behalf of your student – Available for both individual & group assignments, educators can now turn-in and upload documents in the Assignments grading tool on behalf of their students.

Notify me when students turn in late work – We have added the ability for educators to be notified when students turn in a late assignment. You can get notified for any assignment that’s turned in late, or only specific assignments.

Assignments Notification customizations – You can now customize the notifications associated with Assignments using the settings menu in Microsoft Teams (in the 3 dots menu to the left of your photo). And you can also get direct access to the assignment from your Teams activity feed.

Giving you space to grade with the mini grader – With this update to the grading experience in Assignments, you can choose to collapse or expand the grading view, allowing you to allocate your screen real estate as you see fit.

Reading Progress – Last week we announced several significant updates, together forming a more well-rounded solution which supports reading fluency and literacy instruction, allowing schools and educators to optimize teacher-student interactions, and delivering the education support each student needs in an individualized, practical, and equitable way. We’re excited to again share the product experiences that will be available in the coming days.

Actionable Insights and personalized Reading Progress assignments – Reading Progress enables readers of all types to practice their skills in a safe, student-centric environment while providing educators with deep insights on each student’s strengths, progress, and challenges. With Actionable Insights, we’re helping educators quickly generate assignments based on the words that students struggled with most. 

Return for Revision – We’ve made improvements to the student experience when an educator returns a Reading Progress assignment for revision. Reading assignments can now be returned for revision so students can see fully marked up passages from their teachers to learn from their mistakes and re-do the assignment.

Video recording for Reading Progress on iOS and Android – With this update, students using Reading Progress across the desktop, web, and mobile Teams applications can all record themselves performing Reading Progress exercises.

Use OneNote Class Notebook pages as reading passages – Currently, educators can pick reading passages from ReadWorks, a Teams file, OneDrive, or uploading from their computer. We have now added the ability to pick a page from a OneNote Class Notebook in your Class Teams! This will be rolling out starting today.

New languages supported in auto-detect – When Reading Progress launched this August, the auto-detect feature was only available in English. With this update, auto-detect capability will be available in over 100 languages. Find a list of languages supported here.

See Aggregated reaction tags for sticky notes in whiteboards – Now, you can “like” your favorite ideas or provide feedback to your colleagues during brainstorms. Previously, this was done by dropping sticker-like emojis on the board but these new reaction tags are easier to use because they follow the sticky notes, are easier to see, are aggregated into buckets, and give you greater visibility into each reaction.

Add photos and files to whiteboards on mobile devices – Take a picture of your whiteboard or your teaching material with your phone and quickly add it to your digital Whiteboard. Now, users on mobile devices will be able to share content directly from the photo gallery or camera on their mobile device to a Whiteboard in Teams.

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) for one-to-one Teams calls for GCCH and DoD – Recently we shared that E2EE for 1:1 Teams calls was generally available for commercial and GCC tenants on desktop and mobile clients. We’re happy to share that we have now extended E2EE for 1:1 calls for desktop and mobile clients to GCC-H and DOD tenants. For more information on how to enable and manage E2EE for your organization, please see our docs page.

Guest access support on mobile for GCC-High – Teams now supports guest access between tenants inside the GCC-H Cloud.

Pin or hide your own video in Teams meetings – We have now expanded the ability to pin your own video on the meeting stage. This way, you can see your own video in the increased size on your screen. Inversely, you can hide your own video during a meeting on others’ screens. Available in GCC-High and DOD.

Large Gallery and Together Mode in Teams Meetings on VDI – Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) users are now able to change the Teams meeting layout to Together mode and Large Gallery. With Large Gallery, you have the ability to see up to 49 participants in a single screen, enhancing your overall virtual meeting experience. In Together mode, participants are digitally placed in a shared background, making it feel like you’re sitting in the same room with everyone else even when you are apart. Available in GCC.

Video streams out via AJA or Blackmagic Design Hardware – Production teams now can better manage their workflow and use Microsoft Teams as a contribution source for their broadcasts. We have partnered with two industry leaders in the video and audio market, AJA and Blackmagic Design, to provide hardware-out functionality with Microsoft Teams and select hardware devices. When you connect a supported hardware device, Teams will recognize the hardware and enable sending of an individual’s media stream out to the hardware directly as a clean feed. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Isolated audio feed capabilities – Broadcasters can create a high-quality, clean audio mix with our new isolated audio feed capabilities in Microsoft Teams. As broadcasters use Network Device Interface (NDI) or hardware-out, they will be able to capture the isolated audio feed along with the isolated video feed from any Teams meeting, enabling full control of both the feeds going into their studio. This capability is enabled within the meeting settings and is available as a public preview in GCC.

Approvals templates for GCC-High and DoD – Looking to create an approval request quickly? There’s no need to insert your request approvers one by one. Now, users can choose a template provided by their admins or Teams owners to create a new approval request.

Teams (Healthcare)

Microsoft Teams EHR connector for Cerner—generally available – The new integration with Cerner expands the capabilities of the Microsoft Teams EHR connector, making it easier for clinicians to launch virtual appointments with patients or consult with other providers in Teams directly from their health record system. Organizations using Cerner can now easily integrate virtual appointments into their existing clinical workflows.

Virtual appointment device tester—generally available – The new device tester can help you reduce no-shows by allowing patients to test their hardware settings before their virtual appointment. This allows the patient and provider to focus on the appointment and spend less time on technical challenges. It’s now available through the Microsoft Teams EHR connector.

Teladoc Health Solo™ with Microsoft Teams—generally available – In collaboration with Teladoc Health, a global leader in virtual healthcare, we are announcing the general availability of Teladoc Health Solo™ with Microsoft Teams. This new offering transforms the virtual care experience by enhancing clinical collaboration, improving the user experience, increasing system efficiency, and expanding care delivery—making it easier for care teams to collaborate and manage their patients and resources at scale. Teladoc Health Solo™ with Teams simplifies the way healthcare organizations and care providers work by streamlining technologies and administrative processes.

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OneDrive

In OneDrive: OneDrive/ SharePoint library dropdown, Sync activity center visual update

Library dropdown

A new dropdown has been added in OneDrive and SharePoint that allows you to easily switch between multiple document libraries associated with a Team or Site.

Sync activity center visual update

The Activity Center has received a visual update to more align with the Fluent Design language. This visual update applies a modern look to the Activity Center.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Power Platform API, runtime localization support for Code Components, Power Platform Tools GA, pas-as-you-go Power Apps GA, model-driven apps offline for makers

Microsoft Power Platform API (preview)

The Power Platform team have announced the public preview of Power Platform API, beginning March 31st, 2022. Power Platform API acts as a gateway or a single API surface that harmonizes the internal APIs from feature areas of the platform.  This results in a single endpoint (ex. api.powerplatform.com) for customers to use along with a unified set of Permissions and claims that can be requested from Azure Active Directory.

Find out more: Microsoft Power Platform API reference (preview)

Runtime localization support for Code components on Custom pages/ Canvas apps

The Power Apps team have announced the Public Preview of runtime localization for code components on custom page and standalone canvas applications. Inline with the model-driven application behaviour, custom pages and standalone canvas applications can now dynamically display themselves in user preferred language. This not just enables all code components to align seamlessly with the host application language but also  provides significant runtime performance optimizations.

Find out more: Runtime localization support for Code components on Custom pages and Canvas apps

Power Platform Tools for Visual Studio Code general availability

The Power Platform team have announced general availability of Power Platform Tools for Visual Studio Code in addition to our monthly Power Platform CLI refresh. As well as the announced of the terminal interface for the Power Platform CLI in Visual Studio code, there are also added graphical elements, that lets you take advantage of the real estate that Visual Studio Code offers.

Find out more: Power Platform Tools

Pay-as-you-go Power Apps generally available

With a pay-as-you-go-option now generally available, customers now can use an Azure subscription to cover their Power Apps usage and Dataverse capacity costs based on actual usage. With the new pay-as-you-go plan, customers only pay for what they use, giving them more flexibility to get started with low code with low risk and then scale their investments over time based on the usage patterns of their solutions.

Find out more: Announcing the general availability of pay-as-you-go for Power Apps

Model-driven apps offline for makers (Preview)

In this preview, you’ll now also be able to choose the offline mode for your mobile apps. The new offline-first mode is optimized to improve your device performance and it works better in low-network conditions than “classic offline” mode.

Previously, only admins were able to create an offline profile. Now, in just a few clicks, you, the maker, can enable offline for your mobile users, and you no longer need to manage a separate user access list just for offline support. When you configure offline in the app designer, all users who have access to your app will be able to work offline.

Find out more: Model-driven apps offline for Makers (preview)

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Power Automate Desktop March 2022 update, 23 new connectors, new AI Builder homepage, Teams workflows

Power Automate for desktop – March 2022 update

Power Automate for desktop (version 2.18) has been released and a summary of the new features and updates can be found below:

• Support of Internet Explorer mode in Microsoft Edge browser
• Handling of Java version updates for installing Power Automate Java files
• Enhanced capabilities of extracting web data when handling large datasets
• Support of physical mouse interaction in ‘Click link on web page’ action
• User is informed when trying to interact with app running with elevated rights

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – March 2022 update

23 new/ updated connectors

Last month saw the release of 23 new and updated connectors for Power Automate:

New

• Actsoft Mobile Workforce Plus – Actsoft Mobile Workforce Plus is an all-in-one service management platform that helps you more effectively manage your remote teams of employees and general business operations away from the office. 
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Constituents – Blackbaud Raiser’s Edge NXT is a comprehensive cloud-based fundraising and donor management software solution built specifically for nonprofits and the entire social good community. 
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Documents – Use the Documents connector to create documentation locations used when storing physical attachments.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Events – Use the Events connector to manage events and participants.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Fundraising – Use the Fundraising connector to manage campaigns, funds, appeals, and packages.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Gifts – Use the Gifts connector to manage gifts.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Interactions – Use the Interactions connector to manage constituent actions.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Lists – Use the Lists connector to manage lists.
• Blackbaud Raisers Edge NXT Prospects – Use the Prospects connector to manage prospects, opportunities, and ratings.
• Blackbaud SKY Add-ins – Use the Interactions connector to manage constituent actions.
• SECIB – The SECIB connector allows SECIB users to automate their workflow. 

Updated

• Adobe PDF Services
• AvePoint Cloud Governance
• Cognito Forms
• Connect2All
• Connective eSignatures
• Encodian
• PDF4me Connect
• Plumsail Forms
• Resco Cloud
• SeeBotRun Link
• Staffbase
• WorkSpan

Find out more: Starting 2022 with the release of twenty-three new and updated connectors

New AI Builder homepage

The new AI Builder new home page is now available at https://aka.ms/tryaibuilder. The new homepage includes a getting started video, similar navigation to find models, plus lot’s more.

Find out more: Explore the new AI Builder homepage

Power Automate flows from within Teams store

Microsoft have announced they are providing easy to use workflow automation powered by Power Automate directly within the Teams Store. Creating new automated workflows can all be done with new pre-configured templates in the Workflows section of the store.

Find out more: Automate your work day with workflows in Teams

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Power BI

In Power BI: Service principal profiles in Power BI Embedded GA, on-prem data gateway update, Power BI desktop feature summary

General availability of service principal profiles in Power BI Embedded

The Power BI team have announced a new method that allows a much larger number of customers per one service principal by introducing a new entity named service principal profile. Each service principal profile can administer a customer, and the number of profiles per service principal can reach hundreds of thousands.

Find out more: Announcing general availability of service principal profiles in Power BI Embedded

On-premises data gateway March 2022

The March update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.118.2) is out now. This month’s update includes:

• BitSight Security Ratings (New Connector)
• Bloomberg Enterprise Data and Analytics (Connector Update)
• Anaplan (Connector Update)
• FactSet Analytics (Connector Update)
• AssembleViews (Connector Update)

Find out more: On-premises data gateway March 2022 update is now available

Power BI March 2022 Desktop Feature Summary

This month’s update for Power BI desktop includes error bars for line charts, dynamic format strings support for all chart elements, plus updates to the Azure Maps visual and Sensitivity labels, datasets hub and Power BI Goals. 

Find out more: Power BI March 2022 Feature Summary

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: My feed web part update, Viva Topics: Syntex taxonomy, pair Teams channel & SharePoint folder name

New content scenarios for My Feed Web Part on SharePoint

The My feed web part is the pathway to a very personalized experience in your intranet. The feed knows who is signed in and shows them content and activities relevant to them. The new content types are Suggested Tasks, People Highlights, Meetings out of routine and files shared in groups.

Find out more: Use the My feed web part

Viva Topics: Use Syntex taxonomy to generate topics

Microsoft Viva Topics and SharePoint Syntex customers can build on their existing investments in classifying and organizing content with the ability to use the taxonomy service in Syntex and SharePoint to generate topics.

This new integration uses the term names, including those you are already using with SharePoint Syntex, descriptions, synonyms and tagged files to create topics that the AI can use as a seed to discover additional connections with people and files.

Find out more: Use SharePoint taxonomy terms to create topics in Microsoft Viva Topics

Pairing the channel and the corresponding SharePoint folder name

This new release enables simultaneous rename of the corresponding folder in SharePoint sites whenever a channel in Teams is renamed – applicable to Teams desktop and web. NOTE:

• For legacy Teams channels that were renamed prior to this rollout – There will be no change in experience. When a legacy channel is renamed after this release, it will simultaneously rename the corresponding SharePoint folder.
• Upon renaming a channel, the new folder name will only reflect the same name in the corresponding OneDrive sync client when the whole document library has been synched. When only the channel folder is synched, the new name will not be reflected in the OneDrive sync client.

Find out more: Change a channel name in Teams

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Teams

In Teams: Pin/ hide your video, open-text question polls, companion mode for iOS, Walkie Talkie, Teams panels check in, check in “knock knock”, Teams Rooms on Android, meeting improvements on Android, Wallpapers on Android, HDMI ingest, far end camera control, pairing the channel & SharePoint folder, mute notifications, local time, in chat messages, chat density, respond to group approval requests, mandatory comments, E2EE for 1-1 Teams calls, tag management

Teams (Government)

Teams (Education)

Pin or hide your own video

You can now pin or hide your own video in meetings. You can see your own video in the increased size on your screen. Inversely, you also can hide your own video during a meeting on others’ screens. This will reduce distractions during calls while still having your video available for other participants.

Find out more: Hide your own video in Teams meetings

Support for open-text question polls for Teams meeting

For Microsoft Forms polls in Teams meetings, there is a new option for engaging with your attendees – Word Cloud Poll. You can use this type of poll to collect attendees’ open-ended responses before, during, or after a meeting, and the results will be automatically aggregated and displayed as a word cloud.

Find out more: Poll attendees during a Teams meeting

Updated companion mode for iOS users

Now with a single tap you can join a meeting on both your iOS device and Microsoft Teams Rooms. Audio on your device will be automatically turned off to ensure echo does not happen. The landing experience on the iPhone will be optimized for engagement activities to make it easier to raise a hand or react, chat, see all participants, and access Microsoft Whiteboard.

Find out more: Join a Teams meeting on a second device

Walkie Talkie

You can use an instant push-to-talk communication that allows you to press and hold a button to speak to colleagues and release the button to listen. Walkie Talkie on Teams phone devices can only be used to communicate with colleagues that are part of the same Teams channel. Add Walkie Talkie to the App Set up Policy assigned to users from the Teams admin center to enable Walkie Talkie on Teams phone devices.

Find out more: Get started with Teams Walkie Talkie

Teams panels check in and room release

IT admins can now configure Teams panels to release reserved conference rooms that are not being used. Meeting attendees can claim their reserved meeting room by tapping the “Check in” button on the panel. If no one checks into the room, it will be released—allowing for others to reserve and use the room.

Find out more: Get started with Teams panels

Check-in “knock-knock” notification on front-of-room display

When a Teams panel is paired with Microsoft Teams Rooms, the new “Check in” button on the panel can be used to send a notification to the front-of-room display—informing people in the room that their reservation has ended, and others are waiting for the space.

Find out more: Get started with Teams panels

Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android update

A new update with features including improved meeting experiences, content sharing, new reactions, and more is now available for Teams Rooms on Android. This update can be deployed via the Teams Admin Center and will be available to all Teams Rooms on Android devices.

Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft Teams devices

Meetings improvements on Android

Several updates are being added to the meeting experience on Android, including more videos on screen, multiple spotlighted participants, new reactions, and many others. Most notably, with the new and improved meeting experience, videos of remote participants span both screens (in meeting rooms with dual screens) when content is not being shared.

Find out more: Get started with Teams Rooms on Android

Wallpapers on Android

You can now customize the home screen for Teams Rooms on Android devices with five built-in wallpapers. These wallpapers will apply to the front-of-room displays in single and dual screen configurations. IT admins can set them from device settings, with Teams Admin Center support coming soon.

Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft Teams devices

HDMI ingest and sharing

HDMI ingest sharing during and outside of a meeting is now available to all capable certified Teams Rooms on Android. You can now plug in an external device via HDMI into your Teams Room on Android and content will start sharing automatically.

Find out more: Microsoft Teams Rooms requirements

Far end camera control

Remote meeting participants can control the zoom and orientation of a camera in Teams Rooms on Windows, using PTZ Camera Controls (pan-tilt-zoom) during a meeting. Attendees can control a variety of mechanical pan-tilt-zoom cameras by sending control signals to the camera, as well as, offering 2.5X zoom for most other cameras via digital pan-tilt-zoom in Teams. 

Pairing the channel and the corresponding SharePoint folder name

This new release enables simultaneous rename of the corresponding folder in SharePoint sites whenever a channel in Teams is renamed – applicable to Teams desktop and web. NOTE:

• For legacy Teams channels that were renamed prior to this rollout – There will be no change in experience. When a legacy channel is renamed after this release, it will simultaneously rename the corresponding SharePoint folder.
• Upon renaming a channel, the new folder name will only reflect the same name in the corresponding OneDrive sync client when the whole document library has been synched. When only the channel folder is synched, the new name will not be reflected in the OneDrive sync client.

Find out more: Change a channel name in Teams

Mute notifications during meetings

Users will be able to mute notifications during meetings thereby helping focus during meetings. A user can choose to mute notifications for all meetings or per meeting basis.

To turn off notifications during all meetings, go to settings -> notifications-> meetings and calls and toggle the Mute Notifications during meeting button. To turn off notifications during a specific meeting, click on the ellipsis and choose mute/allow notifications.

Find out more: Suppress notifications during calls/meetings

Local time added to people profile

We often work in distributed teams. To help you with scheduling messages, quickly check your colleague’s time zone, right from their contact card, enabling you to time your messages to get faster responses, while being considerate of your colleagues’ schedule.

Find out more: How Microsoft Teams Displays Local Time in User Profile Cards

Pin chat messages

Pin a Teams chat message to drive awareness and provide the chat members with quick access to important content. Pinning will help your team stay in sync on what’s relevant in a timely manner. Simply hover over the message you want to pin, click the ellipsis (…) and select the Pin option.

Find out more: Start and pin chats

Chat density

Whether you want to optimize to see more text at once or read less text at a more comfortable level, Teams lets you customize the chat density to suit your needs. Click on ‘settings’ -> ‘general’ and choose the right spacing for you.

Chat density feature lets you customize the number of chat messages you see on the screen with different settings. Compact setting lets you minimize the need to scroll up and down by fitting 50% more messages on the screen. 

Find out more: Change the spacing of your chat messages in Teams

Respond to group approval requests within Teams Approvals app

Teams users will now be able to respond to approval requests that were sent to a group of approvers using Power Automate right from Teams Approvals app. We are committed to continue and expand this capability, and in a later release Teams users will be able to send an approval request to their Office 365 groups directly from Teams.

Find out more: Respond to an approval from a chat or channel

Mandatory Comments within the Teams Approvals app

As a team owner or admin, you can now make your approval templates have mandatory comments for when a user responds to a request, creating transparency behind the approver’s decision. Admins can set all approval requests to have mandatory comments from the Teams Admin Portal settings. This will affect simple approval requests, and templated approval requests.

Find out more: Respond to an approval from a chat or channel

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) option for one-to-one Teams calls for mobile

Microsoft have announced that E2EE for one-to-one Teams calls is now generally available for iOS and Android Teams mobile apps. End-to-end encryption, or E2EE, is the encryption of information at its origin and decryption at its intended destination without the ability for intermediate nodes or parties to decrypt.

Find out more: Use end-to-end encryption for one-to-one Microsoft Teams calls

New tag management settings in Teams admin center

This feature will update default tag management settings in the Teams Admin Center to include ”Team owners and members” and not just “Team owners,” reducing the burden of creating and maintaining Tags solely on Team owners. Now all team members can create, edit and adjust tags to fit their team’s needs. You can still update this to only “Team owners” at the tenant level and override the default. 

Find out more: Manage tags in Microsoft Teams

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

• Tags in DoD: Tags are available in DoD. Tags in Teams let users quickly reach a group of people without having to @mention or type out everyone.
• Press to unmute: You can now use a shortcut to unmute by holding down the Ctrl+Space keys (Windows) or Option+Space keys (macOS), then release the keys to go back to muted state again. This feature is on by default. 
• Updated companion mode for iOS users: Now with a single tap you can join a meeting on both your iOS device and Microsoft Teams Room. Audio on your device will be automatically turned off to ensure echo does not happen.
• Music mode for Teams: High-fidelity music mode enables Microsoft Teams users to experience richer sound experiences when sharing non-speech content such as live music, songs through other applications, or medical signals during a virtual appointment with a physician. 
• Mirror my video: You no longer have to see the text in your video flipped. Imagine a primary school teacher with a small whiteboard in hand, or you have a virtual background with text in it. While the meeting audience sees the text correctly, 
• Pin or hide your own video in Teams meetings: We have now expanded the ability to pin your own video on the meeting stage. This way, you can see your own video in the increased size on your screen. 

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OneDrive

In OneDrive: OneDrive support for Apple silicon GA, KFM for macOS Public Preview, files on-demand on macOS update

Apple silicon support in GA

OneDrive sync for macOS will now run natively on Apple silicon. This means that OneDrive will take full advantage of the performance improvements of Apple silicon. This will be generally available starting with build 22.022 and users will be automatically updated over the next few releases.

Find out more: Apple silicon support in GA and KFM for macOS in Public Preview

Known Folder Move support for macOS now in Public Preview

The OneDrive team have announced that Folder Backup (Known Folder Move) support for macOS is now in Public Preview. People using OneDrive on macOS Monterey 12 will be able to move their Desktop and Document folders to OneDrive. 

Find out more: Apple silicon support in GA and KFM for macOS in Public Preview

File On-Demand on macOS updates

A new version of OneDrive sync (22.002) on macOS 12.1+ was released in January 2022 with an updated Files On-Demand experience. Prior to this release, OneDrive used a kernel extension for Files On-Demand which is deprecated as of macOS 12.3. Updates include:

• Removing conflicting icons for locally available files and enabling apps like Spotlight or Time Machine to index files
• Enabling a preference to sync all content locally
• Improving the experience when syncing to external drives

Find out more: Updates to Files On-Demand on macOS

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Power Apps portals as mobile apps GA, tenant-level analytics, Dataverse auditing features, Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1, portal support for query data Web API, code components GA, modern advanced find, localizing content on a custom page

General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals as mobile apps

Microsoft have announced the General availability of portals as a progressive web app that was first introduced as a preview feature, enabling makers to enable portals into apps with native app like look & feel right from portal studio in just few steps.

Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals as mobile apps

Tenant-level hygiene analytics

To better accommodate the rapid expansion of Power Platform adoption across the enterprise, service administrators require resource hygiene management tooling to avoid accumulating bloat in the system. The latest updates to the Tenant-level analytics include interactive controls that make it a snap to identify stale and orphaned Power Apps deployed across multiple environments or the entire tenant.

Find out more: Announcing Tenant-level hygiene analytics for Power Apps

New Dataverse auditing features

A new set of auditing features have been released to help Dataverse administrators to stay compliant with internal and external auditing requirements and to manage log capacity at the same time. These include:

• Audit data is now also stored in a separate physical log storage so an organization’s audit log can grow to many terabytes in size without limiting available physical database storage.
• The auditing feature logs changes that are made to customer records and user access so you can review the activity later.
• Administrators can select an audit retention period from a dropdown menu or specify a custom retention period. 
• Flexible audit data management.

Find out more: Announcing new Dataverse auditing features

Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 updates for Model-driven apps

The Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 for Model-driven apps is now available. This release includes: Power Apps grid, modern advanced find, in app notifications, co-presence in records plus lots more.

Find out more: Try out the Power Apps 2022 April Release Wave 1 updates for Model-driven apps!

General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API

Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API that was introduced in November 2021 release as a preview feature. The feature includes the ability to query records, apply system query options, request specific properties, plus lots more.

Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Query data using portals Web API

General Availability (GA) of code components for portals

Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of code components for portals that was introduced in April 2021 release as a preview feature. This feature provides the following:

• Replace fields on portal forms with code components.
• Liquid template tag for code components.
• Code components with Portal Web API support.

Find out more: Announcing General Availability (GA) of code components for portals

Modern advanced find with enhanced view management in model-driven apps

The Power Apps team have announced the availability of modern advanced find that not only replaces the legacy experience but also adds new enhancements to view personalization to help you be more productive with model-driven apps.

Using the global search bar in the header, you can now choose any table in the app to perform a structured search. Choosing a table navigates you to the familiar grid page, with filter options immediately available to work with.

Find out more: Modern advanced find with enhanced view management in model-driven apps

Localizing content on a custom page

Localizing custom pages will help you build multi-language Power Apps that align model-driven apps with custom pages that are needed for cross-regional deployments. We are excited to bring this capability as it will ensure you can seamlessly deploy a Power App that uses both model-driven forms and custom pages with multiple languages enabled by admins and set by your users.

Find out more: Localizing content on a custom page

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Power Automate desktop – Feb update, tenant-level analytics for cloud flows, new features for process advisor, 20 new connectors,

Power Automate for desktop – February 2022 update

The February 2022 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.17) has been released! You can download the latest release here. Some of the new features include flow designer performance improvements, new ‘display custom form’ action, convert a file to base64 and much more.

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – February 2022 update

Tenant-level analytics for Power Automate Cloud flows

Tenant-wide analytics are built on service telemetry data derived from Power Platform apps, bots, and services. These solutions allow environment admins to effectively monitor activities related to Cloud flows across the organization.  This update includes an expansion to the Data Export pipeline making Usage & Inventory metrics for Cloud flows available to Power Platform customers.

Find out more: Announcing Tenant-level analytics for Power Automate Cloud flows

New features from Process advisor task mining

The Power Automate team have made several enhancements to Process advisor in January 2022 to make it even easier and faster to visualize your processes and get to insights with task mining:

•  Auto create activities from recordings
• Removal of “Ready to analyze”
• Link back to Process advisor from recorder

Find out more: Get to insights even faster with new features from Process advisor task mining

20 New Independent Publisher Connectors in November and December

Independent Publisher connectors are connectors developed, tested, published, and supported by connector developers that are independent from the backend service or API. 20 new Independent Publisher connectors that were published in November and December. Here’s a look at them:

• AfterShip by Taiki Yoshida – this connector allows a user to track and receive notifications on shipments and integrate with other services such as Dynamics 365 and third party services.
• Carbon Intensity by Hasan Ünlü – Uses Carbon Intensity API to provide an indicative trend of the regional carbon intensity of the electricity system in Great Britain.
• Chuck Norris IO by Daniel Laskewitz – This connector is an API provided by ChuckNorris.IO and will provide you with a Chuck Norris fact when you ask for it.
• Clearbit by Troy Taylor – Clearbit is the marketing data platform behind the fastest-growing B2B companies.
• Coinbase by RoyPaarMS – A connector to the Coinbase platform to fetch cryptocurrency market rates and exchange rates.
• Federal Reserve Economic Data by Troy Taylor –  FRED aggregates economic data from a variety of sources- most of which are US government agencies. 
• icanhazdadjolke by Daniel Laskewitz – With this connector you can get a random dad joke or search for a dad joke.
• Icon Horse by Troy Taylor – Get any site’s favicon with Icon Horse. Confidently use Icon Horse and get bulletproof favicons with fallbacks if no icon exists.
• Launch Library 2 by Troy Taylor – The Launch Library 2 API is a product by The Space Devs with an up-to-date database of Spaceflight events.
• Loripsum by Troy Taylor – Loripsum.net has an API to generate placeholder text. Sometimes you need lists, headings, long paragraphs, etc.
• MailboxValidator by Troy Taylor – MailboxValidator API is easy to integrate and use for email validation.
• Mensagia by AfriSR – Mensagia offer reliable SMS, Email and Voice for business automation communication.
• Microsoft D365CE v9 OnPrem by RoyPaarMS – Microsoft Dynamics 365 CE v9 Web API for interacting with on-premises D365 CE data from cloud D365 CE.
• New York Times by RoyPaarMS – The New York Times allows anyone to search articles by keyword, date, section, and popularity. This connector allows a user to pull this data into their app, flow, or report.
• ORB Intelligence by Aaryan Arora & Ankita Singh – Orb provides with a framework of API calls to use the Orb database for various use cases. 
• Square Business by Troy Taylor – This connector contains actions for the following endpoints: Loyalty, Gift Cards, Bookings, Business, Team, Financials, Online and Auth.
• The Weather Channel by RoyPaarMS – This connector allows a user to pull this data into their app, flow, or report.
• Unix Timestamp by Troy Taylor – Converts Unix timestamps to DateTime objects and DateTime objects to Unix timestamps.
• Zoom Meetings by Akuthota Deekshith – This Connector will help to automate Zoom Meeting Operations.

Find out more: 20 New Independent Publisher Connectors in November and December

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Power BI

In Power BI: On-prem data gateway, Power BI desktop February feature summary, new mobile formatting options, export Power BI report to file API GA, new Admin APIs

On-premises data gateway February 2022 update

The Power BI team have announced the release of the February update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.114.6). Updates include:

• All certified connectors can be used via the gateway
• Amazon OpenSearch Service (New Connector)
• OpenSearch Project (New Connector)
• Digital Construction Works Insights (New Connector)
• Azure Databricks (Connector Update)
• Plus lots more!

Find out more: On-premises data gateway February 2022 update is now available

Power BI February 2022 desktop feature summary

This months summary includes new features such as new mobile formatting options, Dynamic M Query Parameters support for more data sources, deployment pipeline enhancements and lots, lots more.

Find out more: Power BI February 2022 Feature Summary

Introducing the visual formatting pane in mobile layout

As part of the Power BI Desktop February release, the Power BI team have announced the public preview of mobile-optimized Power BI reports with mobile layout’s new visual formatting pane.

Find out more: Create stunning, mobile-optimized Power BI reports with mobile layout’s new visual formatting pane (Preview)

Export Power BI report to file API General Availability

Export Power BI report to file API allows you to export Power BI reports to the following file formats: PDF, PPTX (PowerPoint) and PNG, by using a REST call. This feature is now generally available based on Premium/Embedded Gen2 capacities.

Find out more: Announcing general availability of Export Power BI report to file API

Admin APIs to retrieve email subscriptions and widely shared reports

The Power BI team are adding new APIs to provide an inventory of reports and dashboards that are delivered via email subscriptions, shared with the entire tenant, or published to web. 

Find out more: Announcing new Admin APIs to retrieve email subscriptions and widely shared reports

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BONUS! Even more updates

Core Visio capabilities added to Microsoft 365

Microsoft have announced that a lightweight version of the Visio web app in Microsoft 365 to bring visual diagramming and collaboration to all teams—both of which are especially important in this hybrid work environment. But the best part? It’ll be available, at no additional cost, for all commercial license subscribers.

Find out more: Bringing Visio to Microsoft 365: Diagramming for everyone

Labels in Microsoft Project

The Project team have announced that labels are currently rolling out in Microsoft Project. This new feature allows users to add up to 25 different coloured labels to your tasks in Project for the web for better visual organization.

Find out more: February Update Blog

OneNote Live Captions

Now, rolling out OneNote Live Captions lets students listen to a lecture, presentation or other meeting while live streaming captions in any of 100+ languages right within OneNote. OneNote Live Captions fuses the free Microsoft Translator with OneNote, to let educators set up a Translator session that any student with OneNote can then connect to, and allows each student to choose from 100+ available languages to translate the lecture into.

Find out more: Inclusive and accessible Microsoft Education updates with OneNote Live Captions and Immersive Reader

Azure AD multi-stage access reviews

Now in Public Preview, Azure AD multi-stage access reviews allows you and your organization to enable complex workflows to meet recertification and audit requirements calling for multiple reviewers to attest to access for users in a particular sequence. It also helps you design more efficient reviews for your resource owners and auditors by reducing the number of decisions each reviewer is accountable for. 

Find out more: Achieve a least privilege model using Azure AD’s new multi-stage access reviews

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: AAD dynamic groups for audience targeting, custom search verticals, lookup columns in Lists, manage connected teams + channels in admin center, markup ink for Edit HVC

Azure Active Directory Dynamic Groups for SharePoint audience targeting

Newly released support for dynamic groups gives you more control over how you target your SharePoint audiences. You can start to add them from the audience picker in the areas where targeting is supported in SharePoint, including navigation and selected web parts.

Find out more: Target navigation, news, files, links, and web parts to specific audiences

Custom verticals in Microsoft Search

Search verticals are tabs on the search result’s page that show results of a specific type or from select sources. New support for custom verticals in Microsoft Search allows you to customize out of the box verticals for Microsoft Search and add new verticals based on your SharePoint content. 

Microsoft Search has two types of verticals, out of the box or default and custom verticals. The default verticals, such as All, Files, and People, create easy access to the most used search results.

Find out more: Manage search verticals

Improved lookup columns in Microsoft Lists

Lookup columns, a stable part of any SharePoint list for time immemorial – have been given a fresh coat of paint by way of the modern UI and can now be configured without going to the classic settings page.

Find out more: List and library column types and options

Manage Teams and channel connected team sites from in SharePoint admin center

Now, when you go to a teams-connected site in SharePoint admin center, you see all corresponding channel sites and can ensure that right optional security policies are inherited from the parent site. With this release, that means:

• A new Teams view that filters the sites list to only sites that are Teams connected.
• A new column identifying the site is connected to teams.
• A new column identifying the team connected site has also

Find out more: Rich, secure content and collaboration for hybrid work – Ignite 2021 announcements

Markup Ink for Edit HVC (high-value Controls)

With markup(ink), users can draw and add notes on their photos to convey their messages and reveal the pattern and information perhaps unclear in an initial, surface look when self-teaching and even more important when sharing photos.

Find out more: Roadmap ID 88481

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Teams

In Teams: Important update for Teams Android app, order of raised hands, meeting recordings, Operator Connect Conferencing, alt text for images in chat, E2EE for 1-1 calls, Dynamic E 911, SIP Gateway, Teams Rooms updates, new Teams App Store

Teams (Government)

Teams

Important update for the Microsoft Teams Android app

Recently, an Android operating system issue was encountered that had the potential to impact emergency calling. An investigation was conducted and found that the issue, which is caused by an unintended interaction between the Teams app and Android operating system, is only present on a small number of devices with the Teams app installed when the user is not logged in. Microsoft has collaborated closely with Google to resolve this unintended interaction.

Microsoft have released an update to the Teams app, which is now available to all Android users, that keeps the app from triggering the underlying issue in the Android operating system. Google also plans to roll-out an Android operating system update in January. Any Android users with the Teams app installed take the latest update (1416/1.0.0.2021194504) that has been published via the Google Play Store. Note that this may require user action if app auto-updates are not enabled.

Find out more: Important update for the Microsoft Teams Android app is now available

Order of raised hands

Now you can know the order of who to call on first to speak so that no participant is missed. Simply click on the Participants panel to see who raised their hand and in what order.

Find out more: Raise your hand in a Teams meeting

Teams meeting recording improvements

As well as shifting Teams meeting recordings to OneDrive and SharePoint to provide better control and sharing options, Microsoft have also added a number of improvements including:

• Multi-speed playback – Now you can watch recordings at slower and faster speeds (0.5x up to 2x)
• High-quality transcripts – Transcripts now have speaker attribution for meetings that have Teams Live Transcription turned on
• Indexed recordings – Recorded meetings are indexed into easier-to-consume segments based on slide transitions
• Auto-recording – Meeting owners can set meetings to automatically start recording
• Auto-expiration – Coming soon, admins will be able to set a default number of days after which newly created Teams meeting recordings will be sent to the recycle bin.

Find out more: Record a meeting in Teams

Operator Connect Conferencing

Operator Connect Conferencing is now generally available. Using the same administrator interface as Operator Connect, this service allows tenant admins to add participating operator dial-in numbers to a Teams audio conferencing bridge. You can keep your existing contract with any of the participating operators or select from a list of partners within the Operators tab in the Teams admin center.

Find out more: Bring your own operator for audio conferencing in Microsoft Teams with Operator Connect Conferencing

Add alt text to images in chat

Similar to adding alternative text in Outlook, you now can add descriptions to images in Teams chat messages by right-clicking on the image and selecting “Add alt text.” This enables people who use screen readers to understand the full content of your message, even if they can’t see the image.

Find out more: Send and read messages in Teams

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) option for one-to-one Teams calls

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) for Teams calls is now generally available. IT admins will have the option to enable and control the feature for their organization once the update has been received.

By default end-to-end encryption will not be available to all users within the tenant. Once IT has configured the policy and enabled it for selected users, those selected users will still need to turn on end-to-end encryption in their Teams settings.

Find out more: End-to-end encryption for one-to-one Microsoft Teams calls now Generally Available

Dynamic E (emergency) 911 for US-based users

Teams Phone now supports dynamic E911 for U.S.-based users, allowing for auto-detection of their locations, or the ability to provide editable locations to alert personnel in the event of an emergency.

Administrators must enable the dynamic E911 policy for the user, and users must consent to location detection to enable. Users who have not turned on location detection can continue to add a dynamic emergency address manually.

SIP Gateway

Customers who are looking to leverage their existing telephone hardware as they move to Teams Phone can use SIP Gateway to enable core Teams calling functionality on compatible SIP phone models from Cisco, Poly, Yealink, and AudioCodes. Supported core Teams calling functionality includes inbound and outbound calls, call transfer, meeting dial-in and dial-out, device-based “do not disturb,” and voicemail with message waiting indicator.

Find out more: Enable core Microsoft Teams calling functionality on compatible legacy SIP phones with SIP Gateway

Teams Rooms updates

Several updates for Microsoft Teams Rooms have been released this month, including:

• Meeting room capacity notifications for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows
• Split video layout across multiple screens for Teams Rooms on Windows
• Hot Desking on Teams display

Find out more: What’s New in Microsoft Teams | December 2021

New Microsoft Teams Store

Microsoft have rebuilt the Teams Store from the ground up, designing it with your needs as the priority – and centered around experiences that make discovering and installing apps them into your teams, chats and meetings simple.

Find out more: Explore the new Microsoft Teams Store and discover apps for work and collaboration

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

Breakout room managers’ support
By taking control from the breakout rooms management panel, appointed presenters will be able to perform breakout room operations as managers or meeting organizers and join rooms as a breakout room manager. Only participants who are named as presenters can be appointed as breakout room managers. Previously available in GCC, this feature is now coming to GCC-High and DOD.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Microsoft Dataverse choices columns support, Power BI in model-driven apps, Power Platform Developer Tools: November Refresh

Power Apps portals : Support for Microsoft Dataverse choices columns (preview)

The Power Apps team have announced support for Microsoft Dataverse choices columns in Power Apps portals with version 9.3.11.x (Note : Updates are currently rolling out).

Choices control on a page allows users to select multiple options from a pre-configured list. Portals makers can design web pages with lists and forms that use the choices control to provide create, edit, and view experience for end users on this column type.

Find out more: Configure choices column on portals (preview)

Visualize data in model-driven apps with Power BI (preview)

The Power Apps team have announced Power BI quick reports in model-driven apps in preview. This update combines the capabilities of Power Apps, Power BI and Dataverse in a seamless way to help you visualize and understand your data – with one click.

While charts and custom components allow you to create specific, custom visualizations in Power Apps, Power BI quick reports generate a report automatically based on the page context, combined with an understanding of underlying data types, with no prior set up required.

Find out more: Visualize data in model-driven apps with Power BI (preview)

Power Platform Developer Tools: November Refresh

The Power Apps team have announced the November refresh for the Power Platform CLI to1.10.4, plus the previously announced deployment settings support for connection references becoming generally available.

Find out more: What is Microsoft Power Platform CLI?

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: 27 new connectors, collaborative comments, Power Automate Desktop – December 2021 update

27 new & updated connectors in Power Automate

The end of 2021 saw the launch of 27 new and updated connectors. The release included 11 new connectors and 16 updates, and all of these updates have been submitted by the owners of these APIs. Here are the 11 new connectors:

• ArcGIS – The ArcGIS Connectors for Power Automate connects your automated workflows to resources from your ArcGIS Online subscription. The actions allow users to leverage their ArcGIS Online identities to geocode addresses, enrich data with demographics, perform point-to-point routing, get data or geometry from hosted feature layers, and create new feature layers. 
• ArcGIS PaaS – The ArcGIS PaaS Connectors for Power Automate connect your automated workflows with the ArcGIS Platform. The actions allow users to leverage an API key to find address candidates, enrich data with demographics, and generate point-to-point routing.
• Airmeet – Airmeet offers a virtual venue that allows your participants to navigate across multiple sessions, networking lounge, and exhibition booths to have meaningful interactions.
• Spring Global – Spring Global enables users to serve with ease, monitor & control field execution, and leverage a single app with a 360° view for all.
• Recorded Future V2 – Recorded Future integration with Microsoft Azure Sentinel helps to automatically detect risky IOCs and respond quickly with transparency and context.
• Secure Message Delivery – The DataMotion Connector for Power Automate allows you to utilize DataMotion’s secure message delivery API within your workflows. 
• Dynamics 365 Commerce – Ratings and Reviews – Dynamics 365 Commerce offers Ratings and Reviews as an omni-channel solution. 
• Dynamics Fraud Protection – Dynamics 365 Fraud Protection (DFP) connector enables customers who use PowerApps Portal to run their business online to integrate with fraud protection.
• Ideanote – With the Ideanote connector for Power Automate you can build automated innovation workflows that streamline the way you collect and manage ideas across your teams, your customers, and your company. 
• Robots for PowerBI – Robots for PowerBI is a connector that allows DevScope PowerBI Robots clients the execution of simple actions like enable, disable, or execute Playlists configured in the application. 
• Spinpanel – Spinpanel enables organizations to sell, deploy, manage, and automate Microsoft 365 and Azure solutions. 

Find out more: Ending 2021 with the release of twenty-seven new and updated connectors

Collaborative comments

Now, you can at-mention your co-workers in your comments and have others receive email notifications when you do so. As multiple users work on automating a business process, these capabilities will be critical in helping makers collaborate seamlessly and efficiently. We believe that these would result in helping build complex automations faster.

Find out more: Add comments to actions and triggers

Power Automate Desktop update December 2021

Power Automate desktop (version 2.15) has been released and includes the following new features and updates:

• The web and desktop recorders are now unified
• Tenant picker is now supported in the console (Preview)
• Create a copy of a desktop flow through the console
• A new action ‘Recognize entities in text’ is now available
• Syntax highlighting in scripting actions
• Clear last error in action ‘Get last error’
• Capture unexpected errors in action ‘On block error’
• Save an Excel workbook in Binary format
• Window element has been added as parameter in action ‘Send keys’
• The Windows OCR engine is now supported in OCR actions

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – December 2021 update

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Power BI

In Power BI: On-demand load capabilities, asynchronous refresh, Hybrid Tables, Power BI feature summary, on-premises data gateway, data protection update, CustomData feature, Power BI app for Teams in US GCC, visualize data from Power Apps & Dynamics 365, Power BI APIs .NET SDK v4

On-demand loading capabilities for large models in Power BI

The Power BI team have announced on-demand load capabilities to further ensure highly performant and reliable large datasets. With the new capability, relevant data pages are loaded on-demand (paged-in to memory) during subsequent query or refresh. Evicted datasets are then made available for queries more quickly and reliably.

Find out more: Large datasets in Power BI Premium

Asynchronous refresh (public preview)

The Power BI team have announced asynchronous refresh capabilities for Power BI Premium, Power BI Premium per User, and Power BI Embedded. As Power BI becomes a superset of Azure Analysis Services, the asynchronous refresh REST API for Power BI brings built-in features for reliability, such as auto retries and batched commits.

Find out more: Asynchronous refresh now available in Power BI for public preview

Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium (public preview)

The Power BI team have announced Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium, which enables us in turn to announce an equally exciting and ground-breaking enhancement to incremental refresh – incremental refresh augmented with real-time data. Support of hybrid tables in Power BI Premium offers the following benefits:

• Blazing fast performance in import mode
• Latest updates from the data warehouse always included
• Better resource utilization especially for very large datasets
• Incremental refresh policies with real time support

Find out more: Announcing Public Preview of Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium

Power BI desktop feature summary December 2021

This months feature summary includes a new Sparklines preview feature, several new Format Pane updates, e-mail subscription access via Admin API plus many more features:

Find out more: Power BI December 2021 feature summary

On-premises data gateway December 2021

The December update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.110.3) is out now.

Find out more: On-premises data gateway December 2021 update is now available

Power BI data protection updates

The Power BI team have announced the general availability of two new features: Mandatory MIP label policies and Default MIP label policies. Mandatory label policies enable organizations to ensure that MIP sensitivity labels will be applied to new content when it is created in or uploaded to Power BI.

Default label policies enable you to define a baseline level of protection to be applied to Power BI files and in the Power BI service. This capability is now generally available.

Find out more: Power BI Data Protection December announcements

CustomData feature is now generally available

The capability to pass custom data for row level security is now available in Power BI Premium, Power BI Embedded, and Power BI Premium per User. You can natively utilize the CustomData feature to add row filters that pass free text (strings) to leverage dynamic row level security in embedded reports, dashboards, and tiles. 

Find out more: The CustomData feature is now generally available in Power BI!

The Power BI app for Microsoft Teams now available in the US Government Community cloud

The Power BI app for Microsoft Teams is now available in the US Government Community cloud (GCC). This enables organizations in GCC to use Power BI as a data hub, enables users to find data without context switches, and to bring data into more collaboration to help make better decisions.

Find out more: The Power BI app for Microsoft Teams is now available in the US Government Community cloud

Visualize data quickly from Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps (preview)

There a new way to visualize your model-driven Power Apps and Dynamics 365 data stored within Dataverse. With a single click, Power BI automatically generates a set of visuals for you to explore and find insights within your data. This integration is great way to take advantage of the full power of the Power Platform.

Find out more: Visualize your data quickly from Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps (preview)

Power BI APIs .NET SDK v4

The new SDK version provides clarity on the properties of Power BI artifacts returned by various APIs and makes it easier to understand which properties are returned by each API. The new SDK version provides clarity on the properties of Power BI artifacts returned by various APIs and makes it easier to understand which properties are returned by each API.

Find out more: Announcing Power BI APIs .NET SDK v4

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Dynamics 365

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: Azure AD Dynamic Groups, Microsoft Search verticals, lookup columns in Lists, manage Teams and channels in admin center, markup ink for Edit HVC

Azure Active Directory Dynamic Groups for SharePoint audience targeting

Previously, Microsoft supported Active Directory (AD) security groups and Microsoft 365 groups. Support of dynamic groups offers a way to expand how you target your SharePoint audiences. You can start to add them from the audience picker in the areas where targeting is supported in SharePoint, including navigation and selected web parts.

Find out more: Target navigation, news, files, links, and web parts to specific audiences

Create and manage verticals in Microsoft Search

Search verticals are tabs on the search result’s page that show results of a specific type or from select sources. You can customize verticals in Microsoft Search to meet the needs of your organization or individual departments. Microsoft Search has two types of verticals, out of the box or default and custom verticals. The default verticals, such as All, Files, and People, create easy access to the most used search results.

Find out more: Manage search verticals

Microsoft Lists lookup columns

Lookup columns allow you to connect a list to a column from another list or library – from that same site. Think of it as ad-hoc, team level metadata that easy to establish, update, and use. Once connected, you can easily “lookup” other information (like a list of managed devices) and include this in your new list (like a seasonal list of people).

Find out more: List and library column types and options

Manage Teams and channel connected team sites in SharePoint admin center

The SharePoint team are enhancing the Active site experience in SharePoint admin center to include channel sites that are provisioned when a special channel is added to a Team. This means:

• A new Teams view that filters the sites list to only sites that are Teams connected.
• A new column identifying the site is connected to teams.
• A new column identifying the team connected site has associated Private or Shared channel sites.
• And the ability to manage Channel site storage limits.

The Sharepoint admin center ‘Active sites’ page will include SharePoint team sites connected to various Teams channels (shared or private).

Find out more: Rich, secure content and collaboration for hybrid work – Ignite 2021 announcements

Markup Ink for Edit HVC (high-value Controls)

If you have a photo file in OneDrive or SharePoint, and you go into edit mode, you can now add ink inline – like how you’ve been able to do with PDFs. With markup(ink), you can draw and add notes to photos to convey messages, reveal patterns, and provide clarity when sharing.

Find out more: Roadmap ID 88481

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Teams

In Teams: Order of raised hands, meeting recordings, Operator Connect Conferencing, add description to images, meeting room capacity notifications in Rooms, split video layout for Rooms, hot desking, E2EE for 1-1 calls

Teams (Government)

Teams

Order of raised hands

Ensure that all voices are heard and people feel seen just as in person by seeing the order of raised hands in a meeting. Simply click on the Participants panel to see who raised their hand and in what order. Now you know the order of who to call on first to speak so that no participant is missed.

Find out more: Raise your hand in a Teams meeting

Add description to images in chat

Make your Teams messages more accessible to people with disabilities by adding alternative text to images. Similar to adding alternative text in Outlook, you now can add descriptions to images in Teams chat messages by right-clicking on the image and selecting “Add alt text.” This enables people who use screen readers to understand the full content of your message, even if they can’t see the image. 

Find out more: Everything you need to know to write effective alt text

Teams meeting recordings

Recording meetings in Teams allows you to review what you may have missed and helps others who could not attend catch up on their own time. Over the past year, we’ve shifted to saving new Teams meeting recordings to OneDrive and SharePoint to provide better control and sharing options. We’ve also added a number of improvements including:

• Multi-speed playback – Now you can watch recordings at slower and faster speeds (0.5x up to 2x)
• High-quality transcripts – Transcripts now have speaker attribution for meetings that have Teams Live Transcription turned on
• Indexed recordings – Recorded meetings are indexed into easier-to-consume segments based on slide transitions
• Auto-recording – Meeting owners can set meetings to automatically start recording
• Auto-expiration – Coming soon, admins will be able to set a default number of days after which newly created Teams meeting recordings will be sent to the recycle bin.

Find out more: Record a meeting in Teams

Operator Connect Conferencing

Operator Connect Conferencing is now generally available. Using the same administrator interface as Operator Connect, this service allows tenant admins to add participating operator dial-in numbers to a Teams audio conferencing bridge. You can keep your existing contract with any of the participating operators or select from a list of partners within the Operators tab in the Teams admin center.

The initial wave of qualified operators includes BT, Deutsche Telekom, Intrado, NTT, Orange Business Services, T-Mobile, and Telenor. Expect a seamlessly integrated experience today, with additional qualified operators to be added over the next year.

Find out more: Operator Connect Conferencing.

Meeting room capacity notifications for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Windows

Teams Rooms can now notify in-room meeting participants if the room is over capacity. IT admins can define meeting room capacity for each Teams Room account and, using data from meeting room cameras that support people-counting, identify how many people are in a room. A banner will automatically appear at the top of the front of room screen to alert participants if the room is over capacity.

Find out more: How to configure meeting room capacity notifications on Teams Rooms Device

Split video layout across multiple screens for Teams Rooms on Windows

Maximize screen real estate in a Teams Room with the ability to split the video gallery across all available displays when content isn’t being shared. Better utilizing the additional space can help focus attention on people joining remotely for a more inclusive and engaging meeting.

Find out more: New experiences coming to Microsoft Teams Rooms to allow everyone to participate on equal footing

Hot Desking on Teams display

Hot desking on Microsoft Teams display allows employees to quickly locate and reserve flexible workspaces to touch down, make calls, set up ad-hoc meetings, or sign in to access their personalized Teams experience. With hot desking, employees can reserve a workspace in advance through Teams and Microsoft Outlook, or right from their device if they’re already in the office.

Find out more: Upgrade your Teams phones to Teams displays

End-to-end encryption (E2EE) option for one-to-one Teams calls

Microsoft have announced that E2EE for one-to-one Teams calls is now generally available. IT admins have the option to enable and control the feature for their organizations once they receive the update.

Find out more: End-to-end encryption for one-to-one Microsoft Teams calls now Generally Available

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

• Breakout room managers’ support – Meeting organizers can extend the management of breakout rooms to presenters. By taking control from the breakout rooms management panel, appointed presenters will be able to perform breakout room operations as managers or meeting organizers and join rooms as a breakout room manager. Only participants who are named as presenters can be appointed as breakout room managers. Previously available in GCC, this feature is now coming to GCC-High and DOD. Learn more.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Support for Dataverse choices columns, visualize data in model-driven apps with Power BI

Power Apps portals : Support for Microsoft Dataverse choices columns (preview)

The Power Apps team have announced support for Microsoft Dataverse choices columns in Power Apps portals with version 9.3.11.x (Note : Updates are currently rolling out). Choices control on a page allows users to select multiple options from a pre-configured list. Portals makers can design web pages with lists and forms that use the choices control to provide create, edit, and view experience for end users on this column type.

Find out more: Power Apps portals : Support for Microsoft Dataverse choices columns (preview)

Visualize data in model-driven apps with Power BI (preview)

The Power Apps team have announced the availability of Power BI quick reports in model-driven apps in preview. This update combines the capabilities of Power Apps, Power BI and Dataverse in a seamless way to help you visualize and understand your data – with one click.

Power BI quick reports add to the flexibility of data visualization options already available in Power Apps. While charts and custom components allow you to create specific, custom visualizations in Power Apps, Power BI quick reports generate a report automatically based on the page context, combined with an understanding of underlying data types, with no prior set up required.

Find out more: Visualize data in model-driven apps with Power BI (preview)

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: 27 new connectors, collaborative comments, Power Automate Desktop December 2021 update

27 new and updated connectors

The Power Automate team announced the launch of twenty-seven new and updated connectors.  The release included eleven new connectors and sixteen updates, and all of these updates have been submitted by the owners of these APIs. These new connectors have a range of services and functionalities.

Find out more: Ending 2021 with the release of twenty-seven new and updated connectors

Collaborative comments in Power Automate

Now, you can at-mention your co-workers in your comments  and have others receive email notifications when you do so. As multiple users work on automating a business process, these capabilities will be critical in helping makers collaborate seamlessly and efficiently.

Users can add comments by selecting ‘…’ within each action card or by simply clicking on the comments pane from the top.

Find out more: Collaborative comments in Power Automate

Power Automate for desktop – December 2021 update

The Power Automate team have announce that the December 2021 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.15) has been released. This latest release includes the following new/ updated features:

• The web and desktop recorders are now unified
• Tenant picker is now supported in the console (Preview)
• Create a copy of a desktop flow through the console
• A new action ‘Recognize entities in text’ is now available
• Syntax highlighting in scripting actions
• New functionality to clear last error in action ‘Get last error’
• New functionality to capture unexpected errors in action ‘On block error’
• New capability to save an Excel workbook in Binary format
• Window element has been added as parameter in action ‘Send keys’
• The Windows OCR engine is now supported in OCR actions
• Power Automate for desktop availability in Windows 10 store

Find out more: Power Automate for desktop – December 2021 update

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Power BI

In Power BI: On-demand loading capabilities for large models, asynchronous refresh, hybrid tables, Power BI desktop feature summary December 2021, on-prem data gateway update, Power BI data protection updates, CustomData

Announcing on-demand loading capabilities for large models in Power BI

The Power BI team have announced on-demand load capabilities to further ensure highly performant and reliable large datasets. With on-demand load, Large dataset mode enabled models are hydrated into memory faster, which can provide significantly improved report performance.

With the new capability, relevant data pages are loaded on-demand (paged-in to memory) during subsequent query or refresh. Evicted datasets are then made available for queries more quickly and reliably.

Find out more: Announcing on-demand loading capabilities for large models in Power BI

Asynchronous refresh (Public Preview)

As Power BI becomes a superset of Azure Analysis Services, the asynchronous refresh REST API for Power BI brings built-in features for reliability, such as auto retries and batched commits. It is a significant improvement to the existing Power BI refresh capabilities, providing enterprise grade refresh capability for your largest datasets!

Find out more: Asynchronous refresh now available in Power BI for public preview

Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium (Public Preview)

The Power BI team have announced support of Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium, which enables us in turn to announce an equally exciting and ground breaking enhancement to incremental refresh – incremental refresh augmented with real-time data.

Now you can have blazing fast performance in import mode and the latest data changes in the data warehouse reflected in user reports without having to perform a dataset refresh. For technical details concerning incremental refresh.

Find out more: Announcing Public Preview of Hybrid Tables in Power BI Premium

Power BI Desktop December 2021 Feature Summary

Power BI Desktop December 2021 is out now and includes lot’s of new features such as Sparklines preview feature, several new Format Pane updates, e-mail subscription access via Admin API, plus many more.

Find out more: Power BI December 2021 Feature Summary

On-premises data gateway December 2021

The December update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.110.5) is out now.

Find out more: On-premises data gateway December 2021 update is now available

Power BI Data Protection December announcements

Mandatory MIP label policies and Default MIP label policies are now generally available which, both together and separately, can help you ensure that MIP labels are applied to all your Power BI content. Also in public preview is Microsoft 365 Data Loss Prevention policies now support Power BI premium workspaces.

Find out more: Power BI Data Protection December announcements

The CustomData feature is now generally available in Power BI

The capability to pass custom data for row level security is now available in Power BI Premium, Power BI Embedded, and Power BI Premium per User. You can natively utilize the CustomData feature to add row filters that pass free text (strings) to leverage dynamic row level security in embedded reports, dashboards, and tiles. In the past, this feature was limited to Azure Analysis Services and SQL Server Analysis Services models and could not be used with datasets in Power BI.

Find out more: The CustomData feature is now generally available in Power BI!

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: Private drafts, SharePoint spaces embed web part, SharePoint Framework v1.13, admin center teams channel management, Lists sync improvements/ offline, site creation experience updates, feedback portal

Private drafts for pages & news

This new feature allows you to create private drafts for pages and news articles. Authors of SharePoint pages and news will be able to create private drafts. When a private draft is created, only the creator and site admins can see the page (including from within the Pages library). The creator can then share the private draft with other people to allow them to access and edit the page.

Find out more: Create a private SharePoint page or news post

SharePoint spaces Embed web part

You’ll be able to insert HTML pages as web parts in a SharePoint space. Space viewers will see a thumbnail image in the 3D space that can be viewed as a fully functional HTML overlay when selected. This web part allows you to add content from Microsoft Forms, the PowerPoint embed viewer, SharePoint pages and Power Apps.

Find out more: SharePoint spaces

SharePoint Framework v1.13

This gives developers the ability to build engaging experiences for Connections + improvements and fixes for Microsoft Teams and SharePoint development. In v1.13, you’ll find, the general availability of Adaptive Card Extensions – applicable to Connections desktop and mobile, support for version 1.10 of Teams JS client SDK, support for version 3.9 of TypeScript, support for version 2.9 of the Adaptive Card SDK, the release of image rendering APIs, and more.

Find out more: Announcing SharePoint Framework 1.13 – Extending Microsoft Viva Connections

SharePoint admin center: Teams channel site management

Now when you go to a teams-connected site in SharePoint admin center, you can see all corresponding channel sites and ensure that right optional security policies are inherited from the parent site.

Find out more: Manage sites in the new SharePoint admin center

Microsoft Lists: Sync your lists and offline access

Lists sync lets you work on your lists offline, improves performance on all kinds of networks, and helps alleviate list throttling. Common operations on lists, such as changing list views, sorting, filtering, and grouping will happen locally and finish quickly even on very large lists. All these operations will continue to work when you are offline or lose your Internet connection. Once reconnected to the Internet, your edits upload from your device to the cloud and you can resolve merge conflicts, if there are any.

Find out more: Edit lists offline

Site creation experience updates

The site creation experience has been updated to include refreshed graphics, expanded site descriptions, and additional context for different permission levels in the Site permissions panel. It also helps understand the differences between a communication site and a team site.

Find out more: Create a communication site in SharePoint Online

New Microsoft Feedback portal

Introducing Microsoft Feedback (Preview) – a portal ready for your feature ideas and feedback for OneDrive and SharePoint – this replaces the UserVoice portal that was used previously for SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and many other products.

Find out more: https://aka.ms/feedback/sharepoint

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Teams

In Teams: Loop components in chat, top hits, updated search results, new tag management for Frontline, task publishing editing, CART captioning in meetings, content from camera, word cloud for polls, custom hold music, route calls, custom call park, remote sign-out, branch office survivability, Surface Hub device type support, anonymous user join policy,

Teams (Education)

Teams (Government)

Teams

Microsoft Loop components in Teams chat

Loop components allows you to create live, collaborative components that can be edited in the flow of your work, whether in chat, meetings, email or documents. The first part of this vision is rolling out now to Teams chat, enabling you to edit messages inline and avoid a long back-and-forth chat thread. Users also can send a message with a Loop component, like a table, action items, or a list and have it co-authored and edited by everyone inline.

Find out more: Transforming creation and collaboration with Microsoft Loop components in Teams chat

Top hits in search

Top hits in Teams search makes it easier to search and find information. This new section appears at the top of your auto-suggest results. Top hits gathers the most relevant results for you across the different search domains—people, group chats, teams, channels, and files—and reduces the need to scroll through all the search results, helping you quickly find what you need.

Find out more: Top hits and Hit highlighting in Autosuggest is now available

Updated search page in Teams

A new search experience in Teams will make finding messages, people, answers, and files faster and more intuitive. A redesigned search results page provides better context and faster results, with AI-powered relevance based on the people and content you engage with most in Teams and other Microsoft 365 applications.

Find out more: New and improved search results experience on Microsoft Teams

New tag management settings for Frontline workers

This feature will update the default tag management settings in the Teams Admin Center to include ”Team owners and members” and not just “Team owners.” You can still update this to only “Team owners” at the tenant level and override the default.

Find out more: Manage tags in Microsoft Teams

Task publishing editing

Task publishing enables corporate teams to create and publish tasks to, for example, all frontline locations and other configurable attributes of a distributed workforce. Corporate teams can now edit published tasks without having to recall the entire task list.

Find out more: Manage the Tasks app for your organization in Microsoft Teams

Integrated Communication Access Realtime Translation CART captioning in meetings

You can now view captions coming from a CART (Communication Access Realtime Translation) provider within the Microsoft Teams meeting window instead of a secondary window. Meeting organizers and participants can enable CART captions from their meeting options. 

Find out more: Use live captions in a Teams meeting

Content from camera

Content from camera in Teams enables intelligent capture which allows you to share content from physical whiteboards and documents in a high-quality way during meetings. You can use the camera in your laptop, a secondary USB webcam, or a document camera. Just like the experience available in Microsoft Teams Rooms, the intelligent content capture technology will detect, crop, and frame the asset while enhancing the content in the video stream.

Find out more: Share whiteboards and documents using your camera in Teams meetings

Word cloud for polls in Teams

When users collect responses for an open text poll in a Teams meeting, word cloud data insights will be available to give them a quick view on the top text phrases people answered.

Find out more: Poll attendees during a Teams meeting

Custom Music on Hold

Tenant administrators can configure the audio being played to PSTN (Public Switched Telephone Network) callers when they are placed on hold. This allows departments or a group of users to customize announcements being played to PSTN callers on hold.

Find out more: Configure custom music

Route calls to unassigned numbers

You can now ensure that incoming PSTN calls to phone numbers that are not assigned to a user or resource account can be redirected to another user, a call queue, auto attendant, or an announcement. Tenant admins will configure the phone number or range and where the call should be routed.

Find out more: Routing calls to unassigned numbers

Custom call park

You will now be able to have a larger number of parked calls and will have a broader range for the maximum time someone will be on hold before ringing back if a parked call isn’t picked up, also referred to as timeout value. Teams admins can configure call park and retrieve settings, and the range of call pickup numbers can now be set from 10 to 9999.

Admins are also now able to configure a different call park timeout value than the default 300 seconds, with the range available to be set between 120 and 1,800 seconds. 

Find out more: Call park and retrieve in Microsoft Teams

Remote sign-out from Teams admin center

Microsoft are launching the ability for tenant admins to sign out of Teams Android devices from the Teams administration center. Generally available for phones and Teams displays, admins can easily provision devices from the Teams administration center and remotely sign out from devices.

Find out more: Sign out or remove an account from Teams

Branch office survivability on Teams phones

Given the importance of uninterrupted voice services, we are pleased to announce that branch office survivability for phones is generally available, enabling PSTN calls even when a network connection is unavailable.

Find out more: Survivable Branch Appliance (SBA) for Direct Routing

Teams (Education)

Apps in assignments
Educators and students rely on a variety of tools to support learning. With this new feature, educators can include links to content from other learning and resource tools directly into a Teams assignment.

Whiteboard integration with assignments
Digital whiteboards give educators and students a canvas to spark creativity and collaboration. Now, educators can include a whiteboard as reference material or the content type of a Teams assignment.

Cortana now available for EDU customers in international markets
Cortana voice assistance in the Teams mobile app and Microsoft Teams display is now available for EDU customers in international markets to help you streamline communication, collaboration, and class-related tasks in school using spoken natural language. With Cortana voice assistance, you can call someone or perform class-related tasks, message someone, or send messages to your class. Also, you can find and share files, and search or navigate within the Teams mobile app or on the Microsoft Teams display. The initial release will be to UK, India, Canada, and Australia. This is in addition to the prior release to EDU customers in the US.

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

Integrated CART Captioning in Meetings
You can now view captions coming from a CART provider (real-time captioning) within the Microsoft Teams meeting window instead of a secondary window. Follow along with what is being said without having to choose between the captions and presentation. Meeting organizers and participants can enable CART captions from their meeting options. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Presenter mode in desktop or window sharing
Standout, Reporter and Side-by-side Presenter modes are now available when sharing your desktop or window in the Teams desktop app. Standout mode overlays your video on top of the content for a more immersive presenting experience. Reporter mode places content as a visual aid above your shoulder like a news story. Side-by-side mode displays your video feed next to your content. You can now select a mode that fits your needs and promotes a more engaging presentation and experience. Available in GCC-high and DOD. Learn more.

Anonymous user join policy
You can now configure to enable specific users or groups of users to admit anonymous users into meetings. This provides IT Admins more granular control on a policy that was previously at the tenant level. You can configure this policy using the AllowAnonymousUsersToJoinMeeting parameter in Set-CsTeamsMeetingPolicy with PowerShell version 2.6.0 or later. Available in GCC. Learn more.

New assignment experience in separate window for breakout rooms
Participant assignment is now moved from the breakout rooms’ right panel to a separate window that pops up when selecting “Assign Participants.” The enhanced interface allows you to sort by participants or rooms. You also can select multiple participants and assign them to rooms by using the check boxes next to the participants’ names. This helps you quickly find your participant or room and speeds up the assignment process. Available in GCC-High and DOD. Learn more.

Download attendance report
Meeting organizers can now download attendance reports during and after the meeting. To enable this feature, set the AllowEngagementReport parameter to “Enabled.” When enabled, the option to download the report is displayed in the Participants pane during the meeting. After the meeting, you can find the report in the meeting chat. This helps you keep track of who attended the meeting. Available in GCC. Learn more.

Isolated audio feed capabilities
Broadcasters will now be able to create a high-quality, clean audio mix with our new isolated audio feed capabilities in Microsoft Teams. As broadcasters use NDI or hardware-out, they will be able to get the isolated audio feed along with the isolated video feed from any Teams meeting, enabling full control of both the feeds going into their studio. This capability is enabled within the meeting settings and is available in GCC as a preview.

Up to 25K members per team in GCCH
You can now create a team with up to 25,000 participants, reaching broadly across your organization and beyond. Members of a team can cross-post a message in multiple channels at once, making it easy to share information across teams and work groups.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: Pay-as-you-go, create mobile apps, modernize business units, Power Fx open source, settings solution component, portals mobile apps, Data Export Service to Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse, OData v2.0 Service removal date, custom pages runtime GA, AI Builder enhancements, multiplayer apps, code components on pages, query data using portals web API, portals support for Microsoft Power Platform CLI GA, Access connector, CLI support for GitHub CodeSpaces and Windows Services for Linux

Pay-as-you-go for Power Apps (Public Preview)

Now in preview, customers can use an Azure subscription to cover their Power Apps and Dataverse costs based on actual usage. With the new pay-as-you-go plan, customers only pay for what they use, giving them more flexibility to get started with low code with low risk and then scale their investments over time based on the usage patterns of their solutions.

Find out more: Low-code with low risk: Announcing pay-as-you-go for Power Apps (Public Preview)

Create mobile apps with Power Apps (preview)

Power Apps mobile apps (preview), enables makers to package Canvas apps as Android and iOS mobile apps for corporate end users. With Power Apps mobile apps, there is no need to install Xcode or Android Studio, Microsoft build the mobile app packages for you!

Find out more: Create mobile apps with Power Apps (preview)

Modernize business units (preview)

Business units’ data access can now support matrix data access structure . The matrix structure is typical for sales organizations where a regional sales manager can access data in multiple regions, or retail organizations where a store clerk works at multiple stores.

Users are no longer restricted to accessing/managing data in their own business unit. They can now access and own records across business units. Security roles from different business units can be assigned to the users regardless of the business unit the users belong to. This feature enables the Owning Business Unit column of the record so that it can be set/updated by the users. The Owning Business Unit column determines the business unit that owns the record.

Find out more: Business units in Dataverse

Power Fx: Open source (preview)

Microsoft have announced the preview release of Microsoft Power Fx as open source.  Under the MIT license, you can now freely integrate this Excel-like, low code programming language in your own projects. The GitHub repo at https://github.com/microsoft/power-fx.

Power Fx is the low code language for everyone.  It leverages the existing knowledge of hundreds of millions of users who already know how to express logic in Excel.  Natural language support with GPT-3 and no code builders that create Power Fx formulas can lower the bar even further.

Find out more: Power Fx: Open source now available

New Settings solution component for model-driven apps (Public preview)

Now in public preview is a new solution component named Settings. Using settings, application authors can, with just a few clicks, activate or configure features for a model-driven app. This allows them to easily and quickly provide a customized experience for end-users. These settings can be created by application authors, administrators, or partners.

For example, you can now activate the Async on load handler and Async save handler features for model-driven apps with just a few clicks using settings that were created by the Power Apps team.

Find out more: Use settings to provide customized app experiences (preview)

Power Apps portals as mobile apps (preview)

Microsoft have announced the upcoming capability of portals as a progressive web app, enabling makers to enable portals into apps with native app like look & feel right from portal studio in just few steps!

The Progressive web app technology (PWA) to enable portal to multi-platform supported app which works on all platforms (android/iOS/windows) as well as all form factors (mobile/desktop/tablet). With PWA, end user can pin Power Apps portals as an app to the home screen on a mobile device or install it from the app store.

Find out more: Power Apps portals as mobile apps (preview)

Depreciation of the Data Export Service to Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse

Microsoft have announced the deprecation of Data Export Service (DES); an add-on feature available via Microsoft AppSource which provides the ability to replicate data from Microsoft Dataverse to an Azure SQL store in a customer-owned Azure subscription. Data Export Service will continue to work and will be fully supported until it reaches end-of-support and end-of-life a year from this announcement date, in November 2022. Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse is the successor to Data Export Service.

Find out more: Do more with data – From Data Export Service to Azure Synapse Link for Dataverse

OData v2.0 Service removal date

The Organization Data Service is an OData v2.0 endpoint introduced with Dynamics CRM 2011. The Organization Data Service was deprecated with Dynamics 365 Customer Engagement v8.0 in favour of the Web API, an OData v4.0 service. The service was planned to be removed on November 11, 2022. Any code that uses the Organization Data Service will need to be migrated to use the Web API.

Find out more: OData v2.0 Service removal date announcement

Custom Page runtime general availability

 Custom Page Runtime has reached General Availability in all regions for most of the functionality in the July public preview. With this milestone you are able to create better user experiences using integrated low-code pages within model-driven apps. Some specific or new capabilities will remain in public preview longer to allow them to evolve.

Capabilities reaching General Availability include runtime for custom pages, solutioning/ALM, all connectors, code components, controls listed here, and monitor.

Find out more: Overview of custom pages for model-driven apps

Add intelligence to your Power Apps with AI Builder

At Ignite, Microsoft announced new features for AI Builder, which dramatically increase the ways you can use AI in Power Apps, making it easier than ever to add more kinds of intelligence to your business solutions:

1. Use AI in your apps with Power Fx (Preview). Using Power Fx, makers can now use any AI model on any control in canvas apps.
2. Bring Your own AI model (GA). Companies can leverage existing investments in data science. Any AI model, built with any language, framework, or tooling, can now be used in Power Platform via AI Builder.
3. Image classification with Lobe (Preview). Domain experts can train image classification models on their computers with Lobe and upload those models to AI Builder to be used in Power Platform.
4. AI Builder starter capacity is now included in select Power Apps and Power Automate license plans.

Find out more: New ways to add intelligence to your Power Apps

Multiplayer apps

Co-presence shows you who is looking at the current record by showing their avatar in the top right corner of the command bar, just like Office apps do. App users, such as the record owner, are displayed with their picture and on-line status. During the preview period this feature will be extended to user lookups and grid user columns.

Links to records can be shared easily via the “Share” button in the top right corner of the command bar. This feature will be expanded during the preview period to allow copy-pasted shared links to give read-only access to the record to people who click on the link, allowing more streamlined collaboration with people outside of your team.

Find out more: Easy Power Apps collaboration with multiplayer apps

Use code components on pages in portals (Preview)

Microsoft have announced the capability of adding code components using Liquid template tag within Power Apps portals is now available with portals version 9.3.10.x. Code components can be added to a  web page using the codecomponent Liquid template tag. The key for denoting the code component that needs to be loaded is passed  using the name attribute. The key can be the GUID (which is the code component ID), or the name of the code component imported in Microsoft Dataverse.

Find out more: Power Apps portals: Use code components on pages (Preview)

Query data using portals Web API (preview)

Web API operations in portals so far were limited to creating, updating, deleting, associating and disassociating tables. With this public preview, we’re adding the capability to retrieve data using GET requests through portals Web API.

Find out more: Query data using portals Web API (preview)

General Availability of Power Apps portals support for Power Platform CLI

Microsoft have announced the General Availability (GA) of Power Apps portals support for Microsoft Power Platform CLI with version 1.9.8 that was introduced in May 2021 release as a preview feature. Feature capabilities include:

• Power Platform CLI commands for portal
  1. Lists all portal websites from the current Dataverse environment.
  2. Download portal website content from the current Dataverse environment.
  3. Upload portal website content to the current Dataverse environment.
• Upload portal data using deployment profile
• GitHub Actions support for Power Apps portal task

Find out more: Portals support for Microsoft Power Platform CLI

Microsoft Access connector for the Power Platform (preview)

Microsoft have announced capabilities for Access in the cloud. Power Platform is an industry leading low-code no-code cloud-based development platform and serves as an ideal companion for Access customers. By integrating with the Power Platform, Access data can be strengthened with Azure and Azure Active Directory (AAD) security, Dataverse role-based security, as well as be stored in a single cloud location for use with the Power Platform and the Microsoft Access desktop client.

Find out more: Announcing: Power Apps + Microsoft Access = Security, Mobility, New Experiences.

Power Platform support for GitHub Codespaces and Windows services for Linux

Now in public preview, Power Platform VS code integration in GitHub CodeSpace and Windows Services for Linux. Github Codespaces can be accessed via the Browser or accessed via Visual Studio Code installed on your laptop. So instead of cloning a repository, and setting up your development environment, all you now have to do is to create GitHub Codespace and start working.

As an extension to our Visual Studio integration, If your Visual Studio Code install is WSL enabled, you can now use Power Platform integration and it is shell aware, as in, if you access your local file system via Windows, the shell will default to PowerShell and if you use your WSL instance, it will use the Bash shell or whichever Linux shell you have installed.

Find out more: Microsoft Power Platform support for GitHub Codespaces and Windows services for Linux

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Request limits update, 14 new connectors, API Owner connectors, DLP for RPA, process mining

Updates to the Power Platform request limits

Microsoft have announced they are dramatically raising the Power platform daily request volume throttles that have existed for Power Apps, Power Automate, Power Virtual Agents, and Dynamics 365 users. For example, the Power Automate per user plan is jumping from 5,000 requests per user per day to 40,000 requests per user per day.

Products	Requests per paid license per 24 hours
Paid user licenses for Power Platform (excludes Power Apps per App, Power Automate per flow, and Power Virtual Agents) and Dynamics 365 excluding D365 Team Member	40,000
Power Apps pay-as-you-go plan, and paid licensed users for Power Apps per app, Microsoft 365 plans with Power Platform access, and Dynamics 365 Team Member	6,000
Power Automate per flow plan, Power Virtual Agents base offer, and Power Virtual Agents add-on pack	250,000

Find out more: Updates to the Power Platform request limits

14 new independent publisher connectors

Independent Publisher connectors are connectors developed, tested, published, and supported by connector developers that are independent from the backend service or API. 14 new Independent Publisher connectors that were published in September and October, including:

Find out more: 14 New Independent Publisher Connectors in September and October

7 new API owner connectors and 10 updates

7 new API owner connectors and 10 updates to existing connectors were released last month, including:

• Sigma Conso Consolidation – Sigma Conso Consolidation & Reporting Connector provides a set of APIs to interact with your Consolidation & Reporting application. 
• Nextcom – With the Nextcom Power Automate connection, Nextcom offers a simplified integration process into their cloud-based CRM solution for new and existing customers.
• Polaris PSA – Polaris is the world’s first self-driving PSA solution that analyzes real-time data to recommend the best possible choices for proactive decision-making.
• Staffbase – With the Staffbase connector for Power Automate you bridge the gap between different tools and systems and include the Staffbase platform in your automated workflows.
• Docjuris – This upgrade includes a new trigger for internal comments, a new action to download a screening report automatically, and better control over contract creation.
• Data8 Data Enrichment – Data8 are experts in validating global address and geolocation data, as well as verifying bank details, phone numbers, email addresses and other pieces of data in real-time.
• TimeGhost – The latest update for the timeghost Power Automate connector includes the option for users to set up an external ID with the connector as well.

Find out more: 7 New API Owner Connectors and 10 Updates released this October

Data loss prevention for desktop flows (preview)

To support the ability for enterprise admins to apply managements and controls over automations, Microsoft are happy to announce that data loss prevention (DLP) for desktop flows is now in preview. Administrators can now define policies for automations and warn makers when they are creating RPA desktop flows that may go against their organizational governance rules.

NOTE: This capability is currently in preview for free. When this feature becomes generally available in 2022, it will be available for environments with premium accounts only.

Find out more: Data loss prevention for desktop flows (preview)

Process mining in process advisor

Process mining provides direct data insights across an organization’s daily business processes, helping identify inefficiencies to improve how they work. Now in preview, process mining in process advisor allows you to leverage your business data to produce analytics and detailed process maps, gleaning new insights into ways to optimize your business processes.

Find out more: Discover new insights with process mining in process advisor

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Create Connected PivotTables in Excel for the web

Connecting to Power BI datasets in Excel for the web is now available to all eligible Office users. With this new capability, you can now create PivotTables and charts in a web browser and take advantage of Excel features such as co-authoring, enabling you to collaborate with others on data projects while ensuring your reports stays connected to Power BI with up-to-date data. Also, your Excel reports inherit Microsoft Information Protection (MIP) labels in Power BI so that your data remains secure.

Find out more: How to connect to Power BI datasets in Excel for the web

Capacity settings for datasets are now in Power BI Premium Gen2

The ability to change your capacity settings for datasets is now generally available in Power BI Premium Gen2. As a capacity administrator you can review and change default values for your capacity. These are the same dataset settings that were available in Power BI Premium Gen1.

Find out more: Configure workloads in a Premium capacity

Power BI integration with Databricks Partner Connect

Power BI Desktop customers can now visualize data in Delta Lake using Databricks with just a couple of clicks. Power BI Desktop integration with Databricks Partner Connect makes it simple to connect to Delta Lake so you can start doing analytics and sharing insights with your business.

Databricks Partner Connect is a one-stop portal for customers to quickly and easily discover a broad set of certified data, analytics, and AI tools and easily integrate them with Databricks.

Find out more: Databricks Partner Connect guide

Azure AS compatibility with EffectiveUserName support

Microsoft have announced support for user impersonation using the EffectiveUserName connection-string property. Impersonating another user can be as easy as specifying that user’s UPN on the connection string. No Azure Active Directory (AAD) authentication or delegation token exchange necessary.

Find out more: Power BI bolsters Azure AS compatibility with EffectiveUserName support

Export to Excel Improvements for Table and Matrix Visuals (Preview)

The Power BI team have announced that improvements to the Export to Excel experience for Power BI table and matrix visuals is now available in public preview. With this improvement, you get a new dialog option Data with current layout, that allows the export of data from a table or matrix visual to Excel while preserving the formatting of the visual, including number formatting and grouped (merged or unmerged) dimensions.

Find out more: Export to Excel Improvements for Table and Matrix Visuals (Preview)

Power BI November 2021 Feature Summary

November’s Power BI feature summary includes a new format pane preview feature, page and bookmark navigators, new text box formatting options, pie, and donut chart rotation, plus many more.

Find out more: Power BI November Feature Summary

Snowflake and Azure Databricks Connectivity via VNet data gateways

The Power BI team have announced availability of Snowflake and Azure Databricks connectors on VNet Data gateways. Additionally, you can also use Single Sign-On(SSO) with Azure Active Directory (AAD) to connect to these data sources.

To be able to connect to either Snowflake or Azure Databricks secured by an Azure VNet, as a gateway admin, create a new data source on the VNet data gateway and select the specific data source type.

Find out more: Snowflake and Azure Databricks Connectivity via VNet data gateways

Power BI app for Microsoft Teams (GA)

The Power BI team have announced that the Power BI App for Microsoft Teams is Generally Available. With this availability, users can easily find data in Power BI, use our fully featured experiences without leaving Microsoft Teams, and bring data and insights into their chats, meetings, calendar invites, and of course teams. 

Find out more: Create a more Data Driven Collaboration with the Power BI app for Microsoft Teams (GA)

Power BI goals improvements

Goals in Power BI has a new set of features including: goal level permissions, Power Automate integration with goals, and a new scorecard visual that can be added to Power BI reports. Several top requested user experience enhancements for moving goals within a scorecard and showing/hiding scorecard fields have also been included.

Find out more: More easily integrate goals into all your business processes

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BONUS! Even more updates!

Congratulations if you have made it this far through the monthly update! For getting to the end you will be rewarded with other related titbits from around Microsoft 365…

Clipchamp —Microsoft’s New Video Editing App

Microsoft recently acquired Clipchamp; a video editor that empowers you to turn your visions for video into reality. Clipchamp is focused on making video creation simple and fun without taking away the flexibility that lets you fine tune the details.  

Try it for free now at clipchamp.com. Or, download it from the Windows Store.

Updates for the Office mobile app

Recently, Microsoft have produced a video highlighted all the features within the Office mobile app which includes a single app for Word, Excel and PowerPoint, support for PDFs, videos, images, scanning notes, handwriting recognition and much more. Check it out here.

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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.

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SharePoint

In SharePoint: Hub to hub site association, new templates, modern term store, edit images, calendar view in List web part

Hub to hub site association

Microsoft are adding the ability to associate a SharePoint hub site to another hub site, with a primary benefit to expand search results across multiple hubs in your organization. When hubs are associated with each other, content can be searched for and displayed on hubs up to three levels of association.

Find out more: Associate a SharePoint hub site to another hub to connect search experiences

New SharePoint Site templates – for retail, healthcare and non-profit

This update will bring four new SharePoint site templates to retail customers, non-profits, and healthcare organizations. All allow organizations to better track, manage information, and collaborate.

Find out more: SharePoint Look Book

Modern SharePoint site-level term store

Microsoft have updated the experience when creating and managing site-level taxonomy terms; this matches the previously updated, central term store in the SharePoint admin center. It’s now easier to navigate your taxonomies and create and edit terms when classifying & discovering your Syntex and SharePoint content.

Find out more: Create, configure, and manage groups and term sets

Edit images in SharePoint and OneDrive

You are now able to

rotate, crop (both freeform crop and fixed aspect ratio crop) and flip your images – horizontally and vertically. This update also includes options to adjust the light and color saturation of your images. Now it’s easy to make those transformations with adjustments for brightness, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, and color saturation.

Find out more: OneDrive’s new photo editing features and more

Calendar view in the List web part

The SharePoint List web part in Microsoft 365 allows you to display a list from your team or site on a page and customize it with your own title, view, and even size. And now, if you have created a Calendar view for your list, it will show properly in the List web part.

Find out more: Use the List web part

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Teams

In Teams: New features for teams meetings, all New Whiteboard, live transcript unscheduled meetings, breakout room manager support, breakout room pre-meeting room creation/ participant assignment, Presenter Mode ‘Standout’, Visio viewer, purchase apps, 1:1 Calling Safari, operator connect, calling plan expansion, chat supervisors delete messages, admin center updates

Teams (Education)

Teams (Government)

Teams

New features for Teams meetings

Users can now assign roles from the scheduling form and see the order of raised hands to ensure that all the voices are heard. Also, we’re revamping the mobile overflow menu to prioritize key actions, like viewing chat and adding a notification drawer for in-meeting system messages, so users can preview, collapse, and clear all notifications with one tap.

Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft 365

All-New Whiteboard in Microsoft Teams

The Microsoft Whiteboard in Teams has been completely rebuilt to provide a rich visual collaboration workspace. With 40+ new customizable templates, ability to insert images and shapes, and 8 new reactions, you can bring people together in a rich visual collaboration workspace. Available now in Teams desktop, web, and mobile. 

Find out more: Welcome to the new Whiteboard!

Live Transcript in unscheduled meetings using Meet Now and Channel meetings

Live Transcript is now available for unscheduled (ad hoc) and Channel Teams meetings. For ad hoc meetings, you will be able to download the transcript from the chat screen after the meeting. For Channel meetings, you can view the transcript under the Recordings & Transcripts tab. To enable this feature, make sure the Allow Transcription policy is turned on.

Find out more: View live transcription in a Teams meeting

Breakout Room managers support

Microsoft have added the ability for a meeting organizer to extend the management of breakout rooms to presenters. By taking control from breakout rooms management panel, appointed presenters will be able to perform breakout room operations as managers or meeting organizers, and join rooms as a breakout room manager. Only participants who are named as presenters can be appointed as breakout room managers.

Find out more: Presenter support in breakout rooms

Breakout room pre-meeting room creation and participant assignment

Organizers can now perform breakout room configurations and participant assignment tasks before the meeting starts via Teams desktop app. You can create rooms in bulk, add or delete individual rooms, configure meeting options, adjust session settings like timer, and pre-assign participants via both manual and automatic assignment options.

NOTE: At this time, only invited attendees – up to 300 participants, will be available for pre-assignment.

Find out more: Pre-meeting room creation and participant assignment in breakout rooms

Presenter mode ‘Standout’ in PowerPoint Live

Presenter mode “Standout” allows you to overlay your video feed on the PowerPoint presentation slide during a Microsoft Teams meeting. The experience works for both PowerPoint Presenter View and PowerPoint SlideShow view. Now you can easily direct your audiences’ attention with hand gestures and facial cues, while leveraging features such as notes, slide view, and inking.

Find out more: Presenter Mode ‘Standout’ for PowerPoint Live

Visio Viewer in Microsoft Teams

his capability enables both users with and without a Visio license to complete simple tasks on Visio files stored in Teams, like commenting, sharing, printing, downloading their Visio diagram as an image or PDF, and more—all from within Teams.

Find out more: free visio viewer

Enable Teams users to purchase Teams apps through the Teams store

Microsoft Teams users have now the ability to purchase third-party Teams app subscriptions from the Teams store.

Find out more: Purchase third-party apps for Teams

1:1 Calling in Safari Web Browser

Users can now initiate a 1:1 call with another Teams user while using Teams on Safari. Users can initiate a 1:1 call from the Calls App or from the Call button in the header of a 1:1 chat.

Find out more: Safari browser support

Operator Connect general availability

Enabling PSTN services on Teams becomes simpler and seamless with the general availability of Operator Connect. You can bring your existing operator PSTN service and phone numbers from a growing list of operators. Save on hardware and management costs and benefit from shared support and reliability. 

Find out more: Operator Connect general availability and new Microsoft Teams Phone features to modernize calling

Microsoft Teams Calling Plans expansion

With Microsoft Teams Calling Plans you can make Microsoft your operator and provide PSTN service to your users without on-premises equipment. We are expanding our coverage by adding five new calling plan markets – Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, and Croatia – bringing our total to 33 markets.

Find out more: Microsoft Teams Calling Plans

Admin Center improvements

Admin notifications for Custom app submissions – When a developer submits a custom app for IT admin approval, admins will receive a notification in a dedicated Teams channel, so they can review and take next steps to publish the app.

Admins can use cloud shell from Teams admin center – Admins can open Azure cloud shell from Teams admin center inline and run powershell scripts from browser.

Export Teams list from Teams Admin Center – Administrators can export Teams list as a csv file from Teams admin center.

Teams Admin Center interface Improvements

Microsoft have introduced 4 new improvements to the interface to make IT admin work more simple and intuitive. The left navigation bar is important for admin to navigate and easily find the things they are looking for, and the new left navigation bar organizes the Teams Admin Center into more closely related features, making it easier to find relevant and related tasks.

Also the home page got much more customized to admins immediate needs, enabling them now to drag and drop important items in the home page. Microsoft have also improved the login to work without third-party cookies and login popups and we have increased the timeout period for inactive sessions to 24 hours allowing admin to reuse existing browser sessions. An additional improvement is the simplification of the ‘User interface for External access’ page as admins can now easily select one of the four external access configurations that best fits their organizational needs: Allow all domains, or specific domains, Block specific domains while allowing everything else, and Block all domains

Teams (Education)

Chat supervisors can delete messages

Learning online can be personal, engaging, and socially enriching when educators and teachers use Teams chats, channels, and meetings to stay in touch. However, online learning can also present unique student safety challenges. This feature, designed with our Teams for Education users in mind, allows chat supervisors to delete inappropriate, off-topic, or other messages in a Teams chat.

Find out more: Chat, teams, channels, & apps in Microsoft Teams

Suggested Replies in chats – suggested replies presents users with up to three recommended responses to choose from in the context of a chat. This functionality will be enabled by default for teachers and faculty, and completely disabled for all students.

Data reports after Teams meeting class – If a teacher has used Forms polls in a Teams meeting class, a summary report for all the polls used in this meeting will be generated and shared with teacher.

Teams (Government)

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD):

New assignment experience in modal window for breakout rooms – Participant assignment is now moved from the breakout rooms’ right panel to a separate window that pops up when selecting Assign Participants. 

Presenter mode in desktop or window sharing – Standout, Reporter and Side-by-side Presenter modes are now available when sharing your desktop or window in the Teams desktop app.

Present from PowerPoint to Teams – ow, even though you may not be in the same room as your audience, we believe your flow to present should be as easy and intuitive – clicking the Present in Teams button in PowerPoint is the only step you need to present the deck in your Teams meeting! 

Prompt to set Meeting Options for Large Teams Meetings in Outlook for Windows – Teams users in Outlook for Windows will now be prompted to set meeting options when creating a Teams meeting with 40 or more participants or 10 or more distribution lists. 

Together mode – Together mode reimagines meeting experiences to help participants feel closer together even when you are apart.

Improved experience for sharing content in a meeting – The new share content experience helps presenters find their desired content more quickly and easily. Windows are consolidated into a single bucket to provide a concise view and all PowerPoints are automatically organized to present with PowerPoint Live.

Live Transcript in unscheduled meetings using Meet Now and Channel meetings – Live Transcript is now available for unscheduled (ad hoc) and Channel Teams meetings. For ad hoc meetings, you will be able to download the transcript from the chat screen after the meeting.

Guest access support on mobile for DOD – Teams now supports Guest Access between tenants inside the DoD Cloud.

Guest access support on mobile for GCC-High – Teams now supports Guest Access between tenants inside the GCC-H Cloud.

Guest Access – Teams now supports Guest Access between tenants inside the GCC-High Cloud. You can invite users in other GCC-High tenants to collaborate on documents in Teams channels, resources, chats, and applications while still maintaining control over your data.

Teams device management in DoD – Tenants in the DoD environment can also manage their Teams devices from the Teams admin center. Admins can now control the entire lifecycle of their Teams devices which include an increasing variety of supported device types – IP Phones, Collaboration bars, Teams displays, Teams Meeting Room devices.

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Power Apps

In Power Apps: icons rollback, multiple portals in Dataverse, custom help pane GA, App.StartScreen, large file/ image support, Dataverse search

Business Recommended Icon and Tool Tip Icon rollback

As part of 2022 Release Wave 2, the Power Apps team had deprecated business recommended icon and tooltips as they were not discoverable and didn’t provide a modern usability experience for viewing extended field information.

Based on customer feedback, we’ve reverted this change and it continues to work today as it did in 2022 Release Wave 1. The team are working to enable makers the ability to show / hide descriptions for a particular field and customize the description per form by way of icon button and callout.

Find out more: Business Recommended Icon and Tool Tip Icon Rollback

Create multiple portals in your Dataverse environment

The Power Apps team have announced they are lifting the 1 portal type limit per environment, allowing the creation of multiple portals of the same type within an environment (no per language limit). This feature provides the following capabilities :

1. Dataverse starter portal and portal from blank
2. Customer self-service, Partner portal, Employee self-service, Community, Customer Portal – Coming soon!

Find out more: Create a Dataverse starter portal

Custom help pane in model-driven apps generally available

Custom help pane feature gives your model apps a custom in-product help experience that is tailored to your app. It is now announcing general availability. With this update, there will be better stability and permanence of the experience. 

Find out more: Create guided help for your Unified Interface app

App.StartScreen: a new declarative alternative to Navigate in App.OnStart

The Power Apps team are going to provide new declarative alternatives for all the things you do in App.OnStart.  Not only will your apps load faster and give a better user experience, but it will be easier to write and debug them too.  Declarative means that you continue to tell us what you want to happen, but you don’t need to tell us when or how. 

For example, an Excel spreadsheet describes a set of dependencies between cells (what), it doesn’t say when they should be recalculated or in what order (when and how), that is Excel’s job.  Going declarative relieves a lot of the tedium of keeping state variables up to date.

Find out more: App.StartScreen: a new declarative alternative to Navigate in App.OnStart

Large file and Image support in Power Apps canvas and UCI generally available

The Power Apps team have announced GA support in Power Apps for Dataverse large File and Image data types.  Files up to 128MB and Images up to 30MB are supported.   The File and Image data types have been widely used during the preview period.  However, there were various limitations on the size of files and images and scenarios supported in Power Apps. 

The sizes supported by Dataverse and Power Apps were different and the mobile scenario was not supported.  Those limitations are now removed and Power Apps (canvas and UCI) now align with the sizes available in Dataverse.  Large files and images now work in mobile scenarios as well.

Find out more: GA release of Large file and Image support in Power Apps canvas and UCI

Relevance search is now Dataverse search

Relevance search is now Dataverse search to emphasize that all data within Dataverse is searchable. The new Dataverse search name is visible in the Power Platform Admin Center. Dataverse search is enabled by default for all production environments. Dataverse search remains an opt-in feature for non-production environments and environments using their own encryption key.

Find out more: Configure Dataverse search for your environment

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Power Automate

In Power Automate: Power Virtual Agent chat bot in Power Automate, copy to clipboard, Desktop update, Process advisor Application Analytics & Automation Recommendation GA, 21 new connectors

Power Virtual Agent Chat bot available across all pages in Power Automate

Power Virtual Agent Chat bot has been such a popular addition to Power Automate enabling users to ask questions in natural language to get help right in the product. The bot can answer your general questions like How do I share a flow or even specific questions like Why is my flow running slow. With this change, the bot is made visible across all the pages in Power Automate (for e.g. Flow, Process Insights, AI Builder) and you can engage the bot from anywhere in the product.

Find out more: Power Automate Cloud Flows October Updates

Copy To Clipboard for solution flows

Copy to Clipboard is a really useful feature on the designer while you are building your flows, especially when you are creating control logic (for example switch, conditions) and wish to duplicate the actions or set of actions in branches easily. The flow designer now has a streamlined experience for solution flows that enables copying and pasting actions for flows across solutions.

Find out more: Power Automate cloud flows update

Power Automate desktop – October 2021

The October 2021 update of Power Automate for desktop (version 2.14) has been released, take a look at the updates below:

Sensitive variables in Power Automate for desktop – With this feature, users are now able to mark any variable as sensitive. The values of sensitive variables will not be visible in the flow designer during debugging, while they will also not be logged in the desktop flow logs, for runs triggered by the portal or the console. Find out more.

Data loss prevention policies are now applicable to Power Automate for desktop (Preview) – Administrators will be able to apply data loss prevention policies to desktop flows, in order to secure their organization’s data. Find out more.

Support older versions of Internet Explorer – Power Automate for desktop will be able to support web automation with Internet Explorer v5 to v8, apart from v9 and above which were already supported so far. Find out more.

New capability to save an Excel workbook as XML Data – Users will now be able to save their Excel workbook as XML data (.xml), either through the ‘Save Excel’ or the ‘Close Excel’ action, via defining an XML map within the Excel file. Find out more.

Breaking forward compatibility of older versions of Power Automate for desktop – New desktop flows that will be created (or past flows that will be saved) in the new release, will not be able to be run or opened by older installations of Power Automate for desktop. Find out more.

Process advisor Application Analytics & Automation Recommendation now generally available

Gain deeper insights and take action in optimizing and automating your process with Process advisor Application Analytics and Automation Recommendation features, which are now generally available.

Find out more: Process advisor Application Analytics and Automation Recommendation features are now generally available

New 21 connectors in August and September

21 new connectors were released for Power Automate throughout August/ September. They include solutions and tools for inventory management, IT operations, document management, threat identification, gamification and much more. 

Find out more: New 21 connectors in August and September

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Power BI and Azure Purview now generally available

Azure Purview is a unified data governance service that enables organizations to easily create a holistic, up-to-date map of their data landscape, including on-premises, software as a service (SaaS), and multi-cloud platforms­, with automated data discovery.

With Power BI integrations, data consumers are empowered to find valuable, trustworthy, sensitive data, and provide end-to-end data lineage for analytics users to build and trace key business metrics to the origins of the data.  Recent integrations between Azure Purview and Power BI are now generally available.

Find out more: Microsoft Power BI and Azure Purview better together – now Generally Available

On-premises data gateway October 2021 update

The Power BI team have just released the October update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.101.16). This version of the gateway will ensure that the reports that you publish to the Power BI Service and refresh via the Gateway will go through the same query execution logic/run-time as in the October Power BI Desktop version.

Find out more: On-premises data gateway October 2021 update is now available

Power BI October 2021 desktop feature summary

This month’s Power BI desktop feature summary includes additional functionality and performance improvements for DirectQuery, optimization for the SWITCH function, new Bitwise DAX functions, and general availability of the Premium Gen2 platform for premium capacities, plus lots more.

Find out more: Power BI October 2021 Feature Summary

Power BI Streaming Dataflows October Update

Streaming dataflows allow authors to connect to, ingest, mashup, model, and build reports but based on continuous streaming, near real-time data. This is done directly in the Power BI service with beautiful, drag and drop, no-code experiences. Two new features were announced this month:

• Streaming support for Azure blobs
• Using static data with streaming dataflows

Find out more: Power BI Streaming Dataflows October Update

New authentication option facilitates migrations to Power BI Premium

The Power BI team have announced that XMLA endpoints on Premium Per User (PPU) now support Azure Active Directory (AAD) authentication with service principals. This authentication option enables administrative applications to perform automated maintenance tasks and unattended service-level operations by using their own app identities, which is often a requirement for migration of existing tabular data models from Azure Analysis Services and SQL Server Analysis Services to Power BI Premium.

Power BI Streaming Dataflows October Update

Streaming dataflows allow authors to connect to, ingest, mashup, model, and build reports but based on continuous streaming, near real-time data. This is done directly in the Power BI service with beautiful, drag and drop, no-code experiences. Two new features were announced this month:

• Streaming support for Azure blobs
• Using static data with streaming dataflows

Find out more: Power BI Streaming Dataflows October Update

New authentication option facilitates migrations to Power BI Premium

The Power BI team have announced that XMLA endpoints on Premium Per User (PPU) now support Azure Active Directory (AAD) authentication with service principals. This authentication option enables administrative applications to perform automated maintenance tasks and unattended service-level operations by using their own app identities, which is often a requirement for migration of existing tabular data models from Azure Analysis Services and SQL Server Analysis Services to Power BI Premium.

Find out more: New authentication option facilitates AAS migrations to Power BI Premium at a low price point

Power BI Unused Artifacts API (preview)

As part of the Power BI teams ongoing focus to enhance visibility at the tenant level, they have announced the preview availability of the new Unused Artifacts API, which enables Power BI Admins to uncover potentially unused artifacts in order to more efficiently manage resources. The initial version of this API returns a list of datasets that have not been used within 30 days for a specified workspace. Successive revisions will include additional artifact types such as reports and dashboards.

Find out more: Power BI Unused Artifacts API (preview)

General Availability of next-gen Premium Platform

The Power BI have announced the general availability of the platform that powers Power BI Premium experiences. With this release, Power BI Premium meets a milestone in its evolution, becoming a world-class capacity-based Analytics SaaS product powering mission-critical, enterprise-grade analytics solutions.

After a year in preview, the next-gen platform is now battle-proven to meet the demands of the widest range of analytics solutions: from self-service business datasets to centrally curated and distributed pixel-perfect reports and anything in between.

Find out more: General Availability of next-gen Premium Platform

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BONUS! Even more updates!

Congratulations if you have made it this far through the monthly update! For getting to the end you will be rewarded with other related titbits from around Microsoft 365…

Microsoft Loop

Microsoft Loop is a new app that combines a powerful and flexible canvas with portable components that move freely and stay in sync across applications—enabling teams to think, plan, and create together. Microsoft Loop has three elements: Loop components, Loop pages, and Loop workspaces.

Find out more: Introducing Microsoft Loop

All-in-one digital contact center solution

A new all-in-one digital contact center solution, powered by Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service and Teams, brings together traditional contact center, unified communications, and customer service capabilities into a single, integrated software as a service (SaaS) solution.

Find out more: What’s new in Microsoft 365

Official communities are now available in Yammer

Now you can designate your most important communities as “Official” to show that they are company-endorsed within the network. Official communities offer a way to guide employees to the correct communities when they are searching for answers by using a familiar ‘verified’ icon represented by a check mark. Network admins designate official communities in your organization, and the benefits of clarity and trust follow for end users.

Find out more: Official communities are now available in Yammer

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