SharePoint

Microsoft 365 monthly update – January 2022

January 27, 2022January 5, 2022AnthonyLeave a comment

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.

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.

Marketing Members” is a Dynamic Group in AAD, used here to enable dynamic audience targeting for the main team site left-hand navigation. — *Use dynamic groups in AAD to target audiences in SharePoint.*

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.

thumbnail image 2 captioned Custom "Department" vertical showing in search results within SharePoint — *Custom “Department” vertical showing in search results within SharePoint*.

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.

thumbnail image 3 captioned Lookup columns allow you to connect a list to a column from another list you have on your site. — *Lookup columns allow you to connect a list to a column from another list you have on your site.*

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

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

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.

thumbnail image 5 captioned Markup images/photos in OneDrive and SharePoint in Microsoft 365. — *Markup images/photos in OneDrive and SharePoint in Microsoft 365.*

Find out more: Roadmap ID 88481

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.

Sorted Raised Hands — *See who has their hand raised in Teams meetings.*

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.

One-to-one Teams call using end-to-end encryption — *EE) for Teams calls is now generally available.*

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.

thumbnail image 8 of blog post titled

What’s New in Microsoft Teams | December 2021 — *Dynamic E (emergency)911 for US-based users.*

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.

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?

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

*Create a copy of a desktop flow through the console.*

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

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.

*Mandatory label policies in Power BI – general availability*

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.

Screenshot of the Power BI app for Microsoft Teams in US Government Community Cloud — *The Power BI app for Microsoft Teams is now available in US GCC.*

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.

Showing the Visualize this View button in the app bar of a Dynamics App — *Visualize your data quickly from Power Apps and Dynamics 365 apps.*

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

Dynamics 365

Microsoft 365 roadmap roundup – 24th January 2022

January 23, 2022AnthonyLeave a comment

The Microsoft roadmap roundup is a weekly summary of all the newly added items and changes within the Microsoft 365 roadmap, covering SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive and Microsoft Information Protection and Compliance. Here’s all the new and updated Microsoft roadmap items from the past week:

Please make sure to subscribe to get early access to new posts straight to your inbox!

SharePoint

Teams

OneDrive

Information Protection

Use these buttons to switch between each product’s roadmap updates.

SharePoint

Includes updates for SharePoint, SharePoint Syntex and Microsoft Viva.

Launched (3)
Rolling out (4)
In development (6)

🍾 LAUNCHED

SharePoint: Improvements to the Text web part for SharePoint pages and news – We’re adding the ability to paste inline images into the Text web part so that images can be closer to text and so that text can wrap around images. We’re also addressing feedback to reduce line spacing in text. Roadmap ID: 85584
SharePoint: Email notification settings – With this feature, users can unsubscribe or re-subscribe to their favourite SharePoint email notifications. Their preference will be respected for these email notifications. Roadmap ID: 81993
SharePoint: App Bar – The SharePoint app bar brings a consistent navigation experience to every site on your intelligent intranet, featuring quick access to important sites across the organization with global navigation, personally relevant sites, and the news feed. Roadmap ID: 70576

🚂 ROLLING OUT

SharePoint: Microsoft 365 Lists entry point in the SharePoint app bar – An entry point to Microsoft 365 Lists will appear in the SharePoint app bar after the files icon. Content in the Microsoft 365 lists panel is driven by Microsoft Graph and is personalized to user activity. Feature ID:85641
SharePoint Syntex: Automatically build visualization of library metadata with Power BI – Enables customers to visualize the metadata in a document library in a Power BI report. They can also save that report so that future visitors to the document library can view it. Roadmap ID: 88706
SharePoint Syntex: Rules engine for alerts – We’re also adding a no-code rules engine to drive content alerts. Based on the rules wizard in Microsoft Lists, alerts use a simple, no-code wizard to send updates when documents are added or deleted, or when someone edits metadata. Roadmap ID: 88710
SharePoint Syntex: Quick chart webpart for doc libraries – Enables customers to create charts in the quick chart webpart leveraging metadata in a SharePoint document library. Roadmap ID: 88716

⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT

Release – January 2022

🆕 Microsoft Viva: Enable search to add files or pages in Topic Pages – Editors can pin files or pages to a topic page by searching for it in the resource picker. Roadmap ID: 88852

Release – February 2022

🆕 SharePoint: Microsoft Lists Customizable Command Bar – You can personalize a list to suit your needs by customizing the command bar. Like how you can customize form headers and footers, the JSON based feature will allow basic changes to the command bar, including modification of icon or text, hiding existing options or adding new commands. Roadmap ID: 88861
Microsoft Stream: Comment on a video or audio file in SharePoint and OneDrive – This feature builds on top of the already existing comments found in OneDrive and SharePoint Online but presents these comments with a new Office look and feel within the player. This feature allows users with view permissions to leave a comment and users with edit permissions to @ mention, which are both default changes in behaviour in terms of permissions for video and audio files. Roadmap ID: 88521
SharePoint: Security- Data access governance – With our new Data Access Governance insights, you can monitor sharing activity to detect oversharing. You can review and monitor sites based on the type of sharing. You can quickly see essential information about the sites like sensitivity, level of access from unmanaged devices or if the site can be shared externally. Roadmap ID: 82164

Release – March 2022

🆕 Microsoft Viva: Topics in Teams – Add topics to chat messages and display topic cards in Microsoft Teams. Roadmap ID: 72189

Release – April 2022

🆕 Microsoft Viva: Topics available in GCC – Availability for Viva Topics in GCC. Roadmap ID: 72185

Pages: 1 2 3 4

Description column in SharePoint libraries – how to use

January 12, 2022January 4, 2022AnthonyLeave a comment

In this post we take a look at the description column that is available within SharePoint Online document libraries and how to make use of it.

There is a description column available in modern SharePoint document libraries. This description column comes out of the box when you create a new document library, or when you add/remove columns from the existing Shared Documents library that comes with every Team/ SharePoint site.

The problem

The description column exhibits some very strange behaviour. First of all, when you try add it to a library view it does not appear within the properties pane, nor is it a column you can add via edit “columns”.

*When adding the properties column to document library views you are not able to edit the column.*

If you add the column into a document library view and switch to edit in grid view mode, the column becomes read only meaning you can’t add anything into any of the cells within the library.

*If you try to edit the column via edit in grid view the cells within the library are read-only.*

The solution

This is more of a workaround than a solution as this appears to be a bug rather than desired behaviour. If you make the column mandatory, then optional it seems to do the trick! To do this:

Left-click on the Description column heading > column settings > edit
Press more options > set require that this column contains information to yes
Press save

*Set the Description column to required, then optional to enable editing.*

With this setting changed, when you edit your document library in grid view now you are able to enter data into the Description field

*Once you have made the Description column required, you are able to add data via grid view.*

Go back to edit the Description column settings and switch off require that this column contains information to make it optional

Add Description column to properties pane

Although the above will allow you to add data to the Description column, it will not add the Description column into the properties pane. You can get the Description column to appear by adding it to the default content type in the document library. Here’s how you can do it:

Press the cog > library settings
Under general settings > advanced settings
Set allow management of content types to yes
Press OK

*Set allow management of content types to yes in the document library.*

Scroll down to content types > select the document content type
Press add from existing site or list columns

*Press add from existing site or list columns to add the Description column to the Document content type.*

Ensure the Description column is selected > press add
Press OK

*Add the Description column into the Document content type.*

Go back to your document library, select a document and open the properties pane. You will now see the Description column is displayed in the properties pane, as well as being an editable field when you press edit all.

Bonus! History lesson and give your feedback

This description column appears to be a rather recent addition to all tenants, making it’s appearance in summer 2021 with the advent of Microsoft Lists. I went back to SharePoint 2010 just to double-check and sure enough the Description column was not present!

*Out of the box SharePoint 2010 document library with no description column.*

I’ve added a new item to the Microsoft feedback portal (UserVoice replacement) in the hope this gets addressed by the SharePoint product team so if you could upvote it that would be great!

Microsoft 365 roadmap roundup – 10th January 2022

January 9, 2022AnthonyLeave a comment

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SharePoint

Teams

OneDrive

Information Protection

Use these buttons to switch between each product’s roadmap updates.