Microsoft are retiring the Notifications feature from the Office 365 web applications. This includes email, calendar and system alert notifications that appear with the bell icon in the header of these apps.
Once the change rolls out, administrators with conditional access policies applied that restrict their access to Microsoft 365 services may no longer be able to use Teams admin center when this change is implemented.
Once this feature is available you will have a choice between using this new request feature or providing a message to users who are blocked from self-service purchasing.
This update provides your organization with our latest Microsoft-recommended browser security features. The new Microsoft Edge is a modern browser with more frequent updates—-targeted at every 6 weeks-—to provide the latest protections for your users and data.
SharePoint: Enable modern communication site experience on classic sites – Using PowerShell, admins can now enable the modern communication site experience on any classic team site, including the root site. Roadmap ID: 46338
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Acronym answers now available with Microsoft Search in SharePoint – Acronym answers allow Microsoft Search Administrators and Editors to create definitions for commonly used acronyms in the organization. Roadmap ID: 64865
Quick Edit page size expanding from 30 items to 101 – People will now see up to 100 items per page on their document library or list when using Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64231
Microsoft Lists: ready- made templates – Create a new list from ready-made templates that accelerate list creation, structure, forms and flows. There will be 8 templates at initial launch. Roadmap ID: 64166
Microsoft Lists: home page – The Microsoft Lists home page is your home for all your lists across Microsoft 365. Roadmap ID: 64160
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – later in 2020
Custom verticals and refiners in Microsoft Search – Add custom refiners, create new verticals for SharePoint and OneDrive, and create modern result types with modern display templates with adaptive cards for OneDrive and SharePoint content. Roadmap ID: 57054
SharePoint lists: Card view design formatting – Configure dynamic card views of your documents and data to adjust the view for what looks best. Roadmap ID: 57304
After reviewing customer feedback about our plans to retire the Power Apps and Power Automate admin center (MC217599) on June 30, 2020, and transition users to the unified Power Platform admin center, we have decided to postpone the redirection until July 31, 2020.
Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2010 will reach their end of support on October 13, 2020. After this date, Microsoft will no longer provide technical support, bug fixes, or security updates for Office 2016 for Mac and Office 2010.
Also as previously announced, after October 13, 2020, customers will need to be running Microsoft 365 Apps, Office 2019 or Office 2016 to connect to Office 365 services.
Currently, Teams admin center does not operate consistently when conditional access policies are configured in the tenant. This is due to a special exception in place for Teams admin center that inhibits the proper operation of conditional access policies. Starting September 01, 2020, we’re making a change intended to allow conditional access policies to be honored with Teams admin center.
We will be retiring the Notifications feature from the Office 365 web applications. This includes email, calendar and system alert notifications that appear with the bell icon in the header of these apps.
Automated external email forwarding is a tactic attackers use to exfiltrate data out of an organization. To counter that, we are updating our anti-spam policies.
We’re updating the behavior of items marked as a record across Exchange, SharePoint and OneDrive to improve the consistency of the experience across Microsoft 365.
Company branding now supported on SharePoint Mobile App – Configure company branding in O365 admin center and receive a co-branded experience on the SharePoint iOS and Android Apps. Roadmap ID: 61374
🚂 ROLLING OUT
SharePoint: SharePoint spaces 360° image annotations and tours – 360° tour web part in SharePoint spaces allows creation of immersive virtual tours for SharePoint sites. Roadmap ID: 65072
Default site theme color is changing from blue to teal – SharePoint’s new teal theme will automatically update new and existing communication sites and team sites. Roadmap ID: 60592
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – later in 2020
SharePoint: Share a page to Yammer – The ability to share a modern SharePoint Online (SPO) page to a Yammer community will be available in the page actions bar. Roadmap ID: 66183
SharePoint: Download SharePoint site usage data in Excel – SharePoint site owners and members will be able to download their site’s 90-day usage data in an excel report, directly from the Site Usage page. Roadmap ID: 66395
As companies have pivoted their supply chains and countries have started to re-open, we have re-established a retirement date for TLS 1.0 and 1.1 in Office 365 to be October 15, 2020.
After the change is implemented, users who don’t have a meeting creation policy assigned, tries to join a meeting, they will see a screen indicating to try again.
Microsoft are introducing Azure Content Delivery Network (CDN) support for videos to improve streaming performance and the overall user experience in SharePoint and OneDrive.
If you have not previously customized the messaging policy for your tenant or assigned your users a custom messaging policy, message translation will be enabled by default.
SharePoint and OneDrive: Navigation update for narrow screens – In SharePoint and OneDrive Microsoft are making a change for narrow screens to the location of the navigation hamburger menu. Roadmap ID: 6244
SharePoint admin: Modern term store – Use the updated term store to create and manage terms and term sets in SharePoint to enter data consistently. Roadmap ID: 57315
🚂 ROLLING OUT
SharePoint lists and libraries: Save a view in Quick Edit – People can save their view in Quick Edit for any list or document library in SharePoint for Microsoft 365. Roadmap ID: 64229
SharePoint lists and libraries: Quick Edit page size expanding from 30 items to 101 – People will now see up to 100 items per page on their document library or list when using Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64231
SharePoint: Updated Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint – SharePoint Sites that use the Yammer Conversations web part will start displaying the new Yammer Conversations web part experience. Roadmap ID: 63385
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – September 2020
Microsoft Lists: visual updates for Quick Edit – In Quick Edit, you’ll see new grid lines, an improved on-hover experience, themed color bars on the side of list items, a “Create New Item” button and updated column header drop-downs. Roadmap ID: 64871
SharePoint lists and libraries: Fixed row height in Quick Edit – When in Quick Edit, you will see a new layout option “Fixed Height” within the view drop-down menu. Roadmap ID: 64867
SharePoint lists and libraries: updated Quick Edit row selection – When in Quick Edit, people will see an updated way for selecting single or multiple items in a list or files in a library. Roadmap ID: 64868
Release – later in 2020
SharePoint: Portal Launch wizard in SharePoint PowerShell – The Portal Launch wizard available via SharePoint PowerShell is designed to configure the deployment waves when launching a new site. Roadmap ID: 66162
SharePoint: Site Performance Page for Site Owners and Editors – The Site Performance Page will display results from the Page Diagnostics for SharePoint tool and the information will be available within SharePoint from site settings. Roadmap ID: 66196
SharePoint: Caching SharePoint Online Videos on Azure Content Delivery Network to improve video playback and reliability – Content Delivery Network (CDN) support for videos stored in SharePoint and OneDrive videos to improve video streaming performance and the overall user experience. Roadmap ID: 66065
In this post we will take a detailed look at the Migration Manager, it’s capabilities, limitations and how to create pre-scan and migration tasks for the first time.
So the good news is, if you have a Microsoft 365 subscription then you also have the Migration Manager too! The Migration Manager went into general availability in June 2020 for all customers as part of the SharePoint Online offering.
The Migration Manager is a part of the SharePoint admin center and is really simple and easy to get set up and begin using. Microsoft have this handy image to demonstrate how easy the process is:
Currently, the Migration Manager only supports file share migrations, this means that if you are planning to migrate any other content you hold, for example: on-premise SharePoint content or cloud based content you would need to use a separate tool.
Microsoft also offer several other tools that can facilitate the migration of that content too. Microsoft provide a table which recommends which tool to use here, but I’ve whittled them down to the main options below:
Migration Manager: used for network and local file share migrations, easy to set up via the SharePoint admin center
SharePoint Migration Tool: used for SharePoint Server 2010, 2013 & 2016 (Public Preview), network & local file shares, requires some prerequisites configuring before installation
Mover: Service for cloud to cloud migration (Dropbox, Google Drive etc.), easy to set up via web platform
Another limitation of the Migration Manager is that it currently does not support third party multi-factor authentication.
Setup considerations
So as the above breakdown of each Microsoft migration tool suggests, the Migration Manager is easy to get going. The key consideration when using this tool to migrate file share content is around the volume of data you are migrating.
If you are using the Microsoft FastTrack service, they will recommend that you set up a number of migration machines relative to the total number of files you are migrating.
The recommendation they offer for scoping this is below:
Total file count
Migration machines required
Less than 200,000
2
Between 200,000 and 500,000
3
Between 500,000 and 1,000,000
6
More than 1,000,000
To be discussed with FastTrack
Once you decide how many migration machines will be required, you will then need to setup the migration agents on each machine, check the prerequisites and required endpoints have been reviewed and met, and also have the relevant accounts being used as part of the migration process given access to the file share content and SharePoint admin roles.
File and folder permissions
When prepping for your file share migration, another consideration will be the permissions of a file once it is migrated. For most organisations it comes down to the following scenarios:
1. We want all file/ folder permissions preserved when they migrate to SharePoint Online
2. We only want specific file/ folder permissions mapped into SharePoint Online
3. We don’t want any of the permissions migrating, we want to start again!
Yes, I know the third option is highly unlikely, but I’ll include it anyway. When using the Migration Manager, the syncronization between your Active Directory on-premise and Azure Active Directory is key to how permissions migrate across.
It is important to note that if your organisation uses security groups in Active Directory to manage permissions for their file shares, they must be syncronized with Azure Active Directory in order for the user permissions to map across like-for-like.
If not, then you will be required to create a user mapping file to map user permissions for the relevant files or folders.
The Migration Manager also takes into account the same permissions conditions and results as the SharePoint Migration Tool. This table lists all the conditions and the corresponding results.
Demo: create a scan only task
Before you run any sort of migration task you will first want to get a handle on the current situation of your file share content, what areas will migrate easily and which will require remediation.
Both the scan and migration actions sit within Tasks in the Migration Manager and the initial setup for both actions is the same:
Press add task > under Method select the default single source and destination (unless you wish to scan multiple sources)
Under Source, enter the file share path that you wish to scan using the correct format
Under Destination, leave the SharePoint site URL and location as the default as we are only performing a scan
Under Settings, give your task a name > under common settings ensure perform scan only is checked
Press Run Now
Demo: create a migration task
So once you have ran a pre-scan of your file share source and you are happy with the results, it is now time to create a migration task! This again is very similar to how we approached creating the pre-scan task but here are the steps:
Press add task > under Method select the default single source and destination (unless you wish to scan multiple sources)
If you wish to do a bulk upload, you will need to provide a CSV or JSON file which is well documented here
Under Source > enter the file share path that you wish to migrate using the correct format
Under Destination > enter the URL of the SharePoint site, then select the library you wish to migrate to
Under Settings > enter a name for you task and configure your migration task based on the following check boxes:
Preserve file share permissions
Migrate hidden files
Migrate files created/modified after specified date
Do not migrate files with specific extensions
Migrate files and folders with invalid characters
Migrate OneNote folder as OneNote notebook
Azure Active Directory lookup
User mapping file
Automatically rerun failed tasks up to 4 times
Press Run Now
Reports analysis
Whether you have performed a pre-scan or migration in Migration Manager, each task once complete will provide a “task report” zip folder that is available to download. Microsoft break the reports down into Summary, Task level and Performance reports, but in fact all reports are included as part of the task report download.
The Microsoft breakdown of each report is very thorough, so I won’t bother adding any more detail, however I will highlight the reports that I found useful when using the Migration Manager:
Summary Report: contains a single row of data that gives the total picture; including total size, number of files migrated, duration
Item Failure Report: contains any errors found resulting in a file being unable or failing to migrate
Item Report R1: detailed report with data on each file within a task. If large number of files migrated, split into separate, sequential reports (R1, R2, R3 etc.)
An interesting aside I did notice was on the task details pane for a pre-scan I ran it showed under files scanned with issues as 0, but within the task report ZIP there was, in fact several files and folders listed as having failed due to a variety of reasons. So I’m not really sure how accurate the files scanned with issues is, or what it actually defines as issues.
Cortana voice assistance which allows users to perform communication, collaboration, and meeting-related tasks by speaking natural language for iOS and Android.
This email helps users start their day on track by surfacing information on upcoming meetings and outstanding tasks as well as protecting time for independent work.
As advised in MC195889 in November 2019, Microsoft are getting ready to retire Classic usage and popularity reports and these will no longer be available after August 7, 2020.
Fluent design coherence updates for SharePoint – The fluent design system will be applied to modern SharePoint which will result in some visual changes. Roadmap ID: 63777
Active time spent reports on SharePoint Site Usage – You can now get reports with aggregated data on the amount of time that users are spending on your intranet sites. Roadmap ID: 57159
SharePoint lists and libraries: New calendar picker – Microsoft are replacing the legacy calendar control with the latest Office Fabric calendar for Gregorian calendars. Roadmap ID: 63277
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – July 2020
Improved page/ news publishing experience – A new pre-publish panel that gives authors an overview of key information about their pages or news posts. Roadmap ID: 63257
Release – August 2020
Microsoft Lists: Lists app in Microsoft Teams – Team members will be able to both create new lists and add existing ones as tabs in Teams’ channels. Roadmap ID: 64162
Microsoft Lists: forms customization – Adjust what information shows on the out-of-box forms and include custom header and footer imagery and information. Roadmap ID: 64165
Microsoft Lists: calendar view – Visualize any list with items that use date column information in a calendar view. Roadmap ID: 64167
Microsoft Lists: rules – Create simple if/then rules based on changes to list information to set reminders and send notifications. Roadmap ID: 64163
Microsoft Lists: comments – Add a comment on a list or list items, including @mention capabilities to draw a person’s attention. Roadmap ID: 64169
Release – later in 2020
SharePoint and Teams: updated Add a Team to a site wizard – Choose the SharePoint content that you want to add as tabs in Teams when you first connect them via the “Add a Team” flow from your site. Roadmap ID: 46990
Acronym answers now available with Microsoft Search in SharePoint
Acronym Answers allows Search administrators and editors to create definitions for commonly used acronyms and abbreviations to help people discover their meaning – be them new or unfamiliar.
Acronym answers are configured in the Microsoft Search admin center.
Enable the modern communication site experience on classic sites
This PowerShell cmdlet allows SharePoint admins and site owners to the modern communication site experience on any classic team site that meets the requirements, including the root site.
To start, run the “Enable-SPOCommSite” PowerShell cmdlet. This action does not change any site permissions or remove any content, nor does it create a new Microsoft 365 Groups membership.
Demo showing how to enable the communication site experience for a classic SharePoint team site.
Site usage is getting a new report that details the average time spent per user. You will see a trend line for the time people spend on site pages and news posts for 7-day and 30-day periods.
Note: the report does not yet include time on lists, in documents, site admin pages, or when pages are viewed via mobile.
New reports on the site usage page in SharePoint detail the average time spent per user.
Hub site owners can now analyze aggregate usage analytics for their SharePoint hub sites, including all associated sites. This report displays usage data (including total visits, unique viewers, top sites, popular content) for all associated sites in the hub.
Microsoft have consolidated their migration tooling with a one-stop-shop for access to Migration Manager for file share and Box migrations as well as the SharePoint Migration Tool and Mover.
The new, consolidated page for Migration in the SharePoint admin center.
SharePoint’s new teal theme will automatically update new and existing communication sites and team sites. Group connected team sites, and sites that have been customized, will not be impacted.
Moving forward, new sites will automatically default to the new teal theme. The new teal theme can be changed to the former blue theme at any time in the Change the look panel.
SharePoint communication site with the new Teal site theme.
The Fluent design system is being applied to SharePoint which will result in some visual changes like larger and bolder typefaces, increased opacity for drop shadows, and rounded corners for square graphical elements.
Improvements to the Quick Edit experience for SharePoint lists and libraries
Several new features have been added to the Quick Edit experience for lists and libraries in SharePoint, including:
Save a view in Quick Edit – Users can save a view in Quick Edit for any SharePoint list or document library. Roadmap ID: 64229
Quick Edit page size expanding from 30 items to 101 – Users will now see up to 100 items per page on their document library or list when using Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64231
Create all column types directly within Quick Edit – Users will now have the ability to create all column types directly from Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64171
Create all column types directly from Quick Edit.
Open a list or document library item within the view form from Quick Edit – Users will see their list and document library view forms inside of the Quick Edit experience. Roadmap ID: 64230
New hyperlink field and date column editors in Quick Edit – Now when you add a hyperlink and text to an item or add or update it’s date and time, you’ll have a much better experience doing it. Roadmap ID: 63275
Create a new list item via a form in Quick Edit – Users will see the “New” button on their command bar in lists when they are in Quick Edit to create new items via the default form. Roadmap ID: 64232
View and edit items in forms inside of Quick Edit.
Bulk edit your list items and file properties in the form
You can now select multiple items and edit their list items or documents properties at once in the form.
Once you select multiple items in a list, you’ll see it reflected in the form where it says “Edit 3 items” and it shows only the fields that can be bulk edited.
Dynamic filtering allows you to filter the contents of a list or library web part on a page depending on a value selected in another list or library web part on that same page. Think of one being a source and the other being a way to visualize the item details.
The List web part on the left is connected to the Document Library web part on the right.
Updated sharing links that block downloads for PDFs, images and audio files
You can now create sharing links that block the download of Office files. This sharing link allows recipients to read the file, but not download it.
Note: admins can control whether the “block download” setting appears only for Office files or whether it will allow additional file types by editing the BlockDownloadLinksFileType setting in the Set-SPOTenant or Set-SPOSite PowerShell cmdlets. The options are “enable for only Office files” or “enable for all supported files” (now the new default).
This is a comprehensive solution designed for SharePoint in Microsoft and SharePoint 2019 which provides numerous SharePoint Framework (SPFx) web parts, extensions, and other components, as well as PnP PowerShell driven provisioning which you can use as an example and inspiration for your own customizations.
Coming to preview this month large gallery view expands the Teams grid view to 7×7, which will accommodate up to 49 participants at once on a single screen.
Large gallery view in Microsoft Teams meetings showing 49 participants at once on a single screen.
Coming later this year, Breakout Rooms allow meeting organizers to split their Teams meeting participants into small groups. Teams facilitates this by assigning participants into a requested number of rooms, whether automatically directing people or prompting them to join.
Organizers can jump in between meetings on their own, or when requested by a participant, provide announcements to the individual rooms, and recall everyone back to the meeting at any time. Any collaboration and coauthoring done during the breakout can be shared back to the larger meeting once everyone is back together.
Multi-window experiences are coming to Teams meetings and calling. You will have the ability to pop out meetings and calling into separate windows to help them optimize their workflow. These experiences can be turned on directly within Teams for PC and Mac clients.
Multi-window capability coming to Microsoft Teams meetings and calling.
New experience for launching instant channel meetings
The Meet Now buttons in Teams channels will have a new home. You will soon find them in the Channel header where you can easily find and launch a channel meeting.
Meet Now buttons can now be found on the right side of a Channel header in Microsoft Teams.
PSTN participant phone numbers masked from external users
For customers with Audio Conferencing enabled for Teams meetings, PSTN participants’ phone numbers will be masked to all users who have joined from outside of your organization.
New lobby setting: only the organizer joins the meeting directly
A new lobby setting is coming to Teams. Microsoft are adding “Only me” as an option to the “Who can bypass lobby?” setting. Once enabled, only the organizer will be able to join the meeting directly.
You will now be able to transfer a call safely to any other user in your organization. Safely means that if the target user does not answer the call, it will ring back to the transferrer.
NOTE: The person transferring the call must be a Teams user and the person the call is being transferred to must be either a Teams or Skype for Business user in the same tenant or in a federated tenant.
Priority notifications for Microsoft Teams grants you the ability to continually send notifications that repeat every two minutes for up to 20 minutes on all messages marked as urgent.
NOTE: Priority notifications are not currently available for GCC, GCC High, or DoD customers, however this is on the Microsoft 365 Roadmap for next month.
Priority notifications can be found in the message actions tray.
We have designed several Microsoft Forms templates for sentiment, employee issues, challenges, and health status surveys and more. These surveys can then be deployed via Teams channels.
New Bose noise cancelling headphones Teams certified
Bose have released the new Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones 700 UC as part of the Teams peripheral offering. With a USB Bluetooth adaptor and a Teams Button that lets users launch Teams to join meetings or check voice mails, NC700UC Teams certified headphones allow users to have reliable and instantaneous connection to Teams. Available August 2020.
Several new features and capabilities on Microsoft Teams phones were released this month, including:
People App for Microsoft Teams phones – allows you to easily connect and collaborate with teammates, colleagues, friends, and family.
People (left) and create contact or contact group (right).
Live Captions – Microsoft Teams phones will now present real time captions in meetings and group calls.
Microsoft Teams phones will now present real time captions in meetings and group calls.
Raise Hand – You can raise a virtual hand from your Teams phone to let people know you want to contribute without interrupting the conversation.
You can now use the raise hand feature on Teams phone.
Transfer to Contacts – When transferring a call, Microsoft Teams phones will now suggest frequent contacts to easily transfer calls with a single touch.
Seamless Lock/Unlock with your PC – With this new feature, your Teams phone and Teams PC client will have a coordinated and seamless lock and unlock experience.
Auto Dismiss “Rate my call” and “Call ended” Screens – Support to auto dismiss “Rate my call” and “Call ended” screens for users to continue with their productivity after completing the call.
Teams and Skype Interoperability – Users will be able to make and receive audio and video calls from Skype for Consumer (SFC) through Microsoft Teams phones.
With the latest Surface Hub app update 0.2020.13201.0 there are several highly requested features to the Teams experience on Surface Hub:
3×3 gallery view – view up to nine meeting participants simultaneously in full screen mode, in the new 3×3 video grid
External user search – Through the “Meet Now” feature on Surface Hub, you can now search and initiate 1:1 calls with federated Teams or Skype for Business users
Incoming PSTN calls – in addition to making outgoing PSTN calls through Teams, Surface Hub you can now receive incoming PSTN calls
You can now schedule meetings and send out invitations in advance in Teams free. You will have the option of either copying the meeting link to send or you can send the meeting invite via your Outlook or Google calendar.
Microsoft Teams free users can schedule meetings and send out invitations via your Outlook calendar.
Inline message translation ensures that everyone has a voice and facilitate global collaboration. With a simple click, people who speak different languages can fluidly communicate with one another by translating posts in channels and chat.
On-Demand Chat Translation has already been available on desktop and web, and now will be available on iOS.
Incoming webhooks in Teams now support Adaptive Cards and is generally available. Developers will now be able to take advantage of the rich and flexible capabilities within Adaptive Cards to send content via incoming webhooks in Teams from their web service.
Incoming webhooks in Microsoft Teams now support Adaptive Cards.
Now generally available, Class Insights enables educators to see and understand student engagement using intelligent data analytics. You can see grades and track engagement in meetings, communications and assignments from the whole class or an individual student.
Class Insights dashboard in Microsoft Teams allows educators to use intelligent data analytics to understand student engagement.
Rolling out in public preview Add to OneDrive makes it easy to add shared folders directly to your OneDrive. Shared folders include content that others shared with you through their OneDrive or content that is a part of your shared library in Microsoft Teams or SharePoint.
Microsoft are beginning to roll out a unified file sharing and access control experience to Teams, that you will already be familiar with in other apps like OneDrive or Outlook.
So when you go to share a file from within Teams, you’ll have the option to create sharing links that provide access to anyone, people within your organization, people with existing access, or specific people, including those in a private or group chat.
The file sharing experience in OneDrive and Outlook is coming to Teams.
This is a big update for you SharePoint buffs! Currently shared libraries with mandatory metadata synchronizes as read-only.
Microsoft have announced that in the next few weeks they are rolling out an update to the OneDrive sync app supporting read and write sync for shared libraries that contain required metadata. This will enable business users to edit content in their synced libraries while working from their desktops.
Coming later this year, business users can move files to shared libraries without affecting the files original access.
This means all business users who had original access to a file will be re-added to it if that file changes shared library locations. Those users will now receive a new link maintaining the same permissions they had before and receive a notification about the move.
Also coming later this year, you will be able to have the option to turn off comment notifications for individual files. Doing so will only affect that file, not the entire files library.
If you access or work on a file in a browser, you’ll soon be able to share links copied from your browser address bar with your internal colleagues (if admin-enabled). These URLs will respect all sharing policies, empowering natural and easy collaboration within your organization.
Sync admin reports
Sync admin reports allow you to do just that by providing visibility and insights on adoption and health of the OneDrive sync app across your organization. Use this new dashboard to check sync app versions, sync status, and top sync errors on individual devices.
You can even monitor deployment progress of Known Folder Move, which we recommend implementing to help redirect your users’ known folders (Desktop, Documents and Pictures) on Windows to OneDrive.
Enhanced file protection and governance in OneDrive and SharePoint
Microsoft recently announced several features entering general availability for file protection and governance in OneDrive and SharePoint including Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels with protection, automatic classification with sensitively labels, sensitivity labels for SharePoint sites, and information barriers.
Additionally, admins will soon be able to implement automatic expiration of external access, multi-factor authentication policies, like prompting one-time passcodes (OTP), as well as extending continuous access evaluations to OneDrive and SharePoint.
Later this year, all OneDrive admin capabilities, including controls for sharing, access, sync, and storage, will be available in the SharePoint admin center, consolidating admin tools in one place.
A new OneDrive admin experience is coming to the SharePoint admin center later this year.
Microsoft are expanding the list of supported file types that users can create block download links for. This update includes support for PDF files, Images, Audio, and other non-text and non-video file types.
Users can now choose to share Word documents with the new “Open in Review mode” option. When enabled, recipients can only open the Word file in the Word web app with the “Reviewing” mode enabled.
Convert existing add-on portals to new capacity-based licensing model
This feature allows users to seamlessly migrate from their portal add-on licenses to the new capacity-based licensing model. If your portal uses add-on based license, you’ll see “add-on” suffix to your portal type. You can check your portal type from the Portal Details page.
How to check what license model you are in within PowerApps Portals.
Three new AI Builder models now generally available
Three AI Builder preview model types are now generally available:
Entity extraction prebuilt model – The Entity extraction prebuilt model identifies and classifies key elements from text into pre-defined entities.
Entity extraction custom model – The Entity extraction custom model enables you to identify and classify key elements from text into your domain-specific custom entities that you define.
Category classification custom model – The Category classification custom model helps you classify text into your own domain-specific categories. You can train the model with a small set of examples.
The Power Apps team have announced the experimental feature release of the ability to work with dynamic schema in Power Apps formulas.
Now, as part of the formula authoring experience when a formula author encounters an warning indicating the return schema of a call is dynamic, an author may “capture schema”.
Turn on the “Dynamic schema” switch in the PowerApps Advanced Settings.
The Power Automate team have announced the availability of Microsoft RPA (UI flows) in a Day. This beginner-level training is designed to on-board and train everyone on how to get started with UI flows in Microsoft Power Automate.
The June 2020 update for UI flows is now available. Here are the main features as part of June’s release:
UI flows for GCC/ GCC High – UI flows are now available in Government Community Cloud (GCC) and GCC High.
Retry/ timeout policy configuration from the portal – his feature provides the ability to configure timeout and retry policy for an individual step within UI flows.
New WinAutomation connector in UI flows – Now you can have a cloud orchestration experience on WinAutomation Process from Power Automate.
GetText action fix – fixed an issue where the GetText action in UI flows within (If-Else) Condition block fails when more than one Get Output actions were added in a nested scope.
With an additional six connectors released in May, there are now over 345 connectors available in the Power Automate platform. Here’s a look at the new comers:
Azure IoT Central – With the IoT Central connector, you can trigger workflows when a rule has fired, and take actions by sending commands, updating properties, getting telemetry on devices, and more.
Eduframe – This connector opens up the opportunity to easily integrate your existing software applications with Eduframe, like your CRM and accounting software.
LIFX– The LIFX connector builds upon existing functionality to offer an even wider range of options than ever before, empowering you to leverage Power Automate and automatically tap into the extensive possibilities of your LIFX smart lights.
Microsoft 365 message center – This connector enables you to sync your M365 admin center messages to Planner, helping you stay on top of your messages.
Office 365 Groups Mail – This connector allows users to work with data located in an Office 365 Group mailbox.
Virus Total – With this connector you can automatically leverage the power of Virus Total in your flows to help identify malicious content to keep you and your organization safe.
Released in May 2020, the Power Automate team introduced dedicated actions for AI Builder. You can find these actions when you search for the type of action you want to automate.
Navigate to your Ideas, connect with your Power Platform Community and other Power Platform sites using one identity. ow you can use your Active Directory (Work or School account) to connect across the entire Power Platform!
General Availability of enhanced connectivity for Snowflake
The Power BI team have announced the enhanced capabilities added recently to the Power BI Snowflake connector are now GA, including the ability to connect to Snowflake without an on-premises data gateway as well as support for Azure Active Directory (AAD) authentication and SSO in DirectQuery mode in the Power BI service.
There is now a new, unified view for Power BI apps. When you press Get apps (on the Power BI apps page) you will land in a brand-new gallery experience where you can get apps both from your organization and from the AppSource marketplace.
Check out the new, unified view for Power BI apps.
The Power BI team have announced the release the June update for the On-premises data gateway (version 3000.45.7). This months update includes an updated version of the Mashup Engine, which will match the Power BI Desktop June update.
Power BI data protection capabilities generally available
The Power BI data protection capabilities are now generally available, meaning it’s now possible to:
Classify and label sensitive Power BI data using the familiar Microsoft Information Protection sensitivity labels used in Office.
Enforce governance policies even when Power BI content is exported to Excel, PowerPoint, or PDF, to help ensure data is protected even when it leaves Power BI.
Monitor and protect user activity on sensitive data in real time with alerts, session monitoring, and risk remediation using Microsoft Cloud App Security.
Empower security administrators who use data protection reports and security investigation capabilities with Microsoft Cloud App Security to enhance organizational oversight.
The Power BI team have added dark mode support to the Power BI iOS app. To change this setting go to the app’s Settings page, tap on Appearance, and choose your preference: Dark, Light or System default.
A new mobile layout authoring experience has been released in Power BI Desktop introducing new features such as the phone emulator and canvas grid, an updated visualization pane and overlaid visuals.
A new mobile authoring experience is now available for Power BI desktop.
Previously in preview, Forms in Excel is now generally available. With the GA release there have been additional improvements to the performance and reliability of the app.
Forms in Excel is now generally available.
Specific user sharing for collaboration
There’s now a new option to let you specify specific users or groups within your organization to collaborate with. You are able to specify one or more co-authors using their email address.
As this is more restrictive than existing collaboration styles, this setting is optimal for forms with more sensitive content. You do not have to worry about the collaboration URL getting loose as it will not work for anyone outside of the list you’ve specified.
Specific user sharing for collaboration in Microsoft Forms.
The Forms team have announced the drop-down view for individual responses is no longer linted to 300. Users can now review, print or delete any single response, no matter how many responses they received.
The Forms team have enabled an option to double-click on ‘text’ based responses. Visit the response page, find the text question or text option, then click the “See all responses” link to review all the responses. Users can also sort the responses from newer to older, and vice versa.
Temporary increase to 20,000 attendees for Live Events in Yammer extended
Microsoft announced earlier this year that a temporary limit increase would be enabled for Microsoft 365 live events to help better support customers, through to July 1, 2020. This will now continue to support until October 1, 2020.
Support for for up to 20,000 attendees for Live Events in Yammer has been extended to October 2020.
Now you can create a real time poll in seconds when composing an email in Outlook. Once sent, recipients vote directly in email or click on an included link and vote in a browser window.
You can then check poll results in real-time using the voting card. Poll is now pre-installed to your Outlook mailbox so you no longer need to install the add-in yourself.
Microsoft have we are announced that Presenter Coach for web and Android is now generally available – in both the PowerPoint app and the new Office mobile app.
Presenter Coach uses artificial intelligence (AI) to provide on-screen guidance on your pacing, use of inclusive language or profanity, and use of filler words and culturally insensitive phrases.
Microsoft have released several updates this month to improve the management of Microsoft 365 Groups, including:
Team creation experience – an enhanced the team creation experience with an updated user interface and improved error messages.
Group information – group information, including the Group ID, name, alias, and description, can now be exported as a .csv file using filtered properties or search results.
Edit Group email addresses – email addresses for a Microsoft 365 Group can now be edited, enabling group names to continue to evolve as needs change.
Restore deleted Groups – you can now restore a deleted group directly from the Deleted Groups page.
New management capabilities in Microsoft 365 Groups.
We will be retiring the Teams support on Android 4.4. Instead we recommend that users upgrade to newer Android builds, which is where we will continue to invest.
We will be retiring the People Pane (formerly the Outlook Social Connector) feature from Outlook for Office 365 with minimum version 16.0.12712.10000 beginning in late July.
Beginning in August 2020, we will roll out changes in Exchange Online to ensure that only certain Conditional Access policies bypass Exchange’s device access rules.
This feature will be enabled by default and users will have the ability to join lists that are shared from an external personal account. Enterprise users will not be able to share their lists with external personal accounts.
Microsoft Information Protection: Exact Data Match supported for SharePoint Online – Organizations will be able to use EDM (Exact Data Match) to better protect content on SharePoint online. Roadmap ID: 64558
Auto classification with sensitivity labels in SPO, EXO, OneDrive – With this preview, you can start using sensitivity labels at scale for documents stored on OneDrive and SharePoint Online, and for emails in transit in Exchange Online automatically without manual user input. Roadmap ID: 57312
Audience targeting in site navigation – Increase the value and engagement of your site navigation by filtering the items within the navigation menu based on people and groups. Roadmap ID: 34251
Custom results page template in PnP – Custom results page template in PnP, allows developers to develop and deploy custom results pages that can be presented from the Microsoft Search box. Roadmap ID: 57133
SharePoint: lists from Excel – Easily bring in data for your SharePoint list starting by importing an Excel spreadsheet. Roadmap ID: 61013
Move SharePoint sites to a new location – This feature will allow administrations to move a site to the location of an existing site. Roadmap ID: 51259
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Enable communication site experience on classic team sites – SharePoint admins can enable the modern communication site experience on any classic team site that meets the requirements, including the root site. Roadmap ID: 46338
Schedule SharePoint pages & news posts – You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future.Roadmap ID: 62892
SharePoint news email notifications – Receive notifications for comments, replies and likes via email from SharePoint news. Roadmap ID: 49603
SharePoint and Teams: folder in site visibly connected to channel – It will be easier to tell which folders within your library have an associated Teams channel & chat associated to it – right from within the SharePoint user interface. Roadmap ID: 30686
Access a PowerApps custom form in SharePoint without a license – When users send invites for custom PowerApps forms in SharePoint to Office 365 guest users, the guests gain the same access as everyone else. Roadmap ID: 53219
Drag and drop files to the canvas to upload – Now if you drag and drop files to the canvas, they’ll be uploaded for you. Roadmap ID: 53194
Highlighted content with custom query filtering – Users can now add their own KQL or CAML code with the new advanced query option. Roadmap ID: 53229
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – July 2020
SharePoint: SharePoint spaces 360° image annotations and tours – 360° tour web part in SharePoint spaces allows creation of immersive virtual tours for SharePoint sites. Roadmap ID: 65072
SharePoint: Auto-News Digest – SharePoint Auto-News Digest sends automated email to employees in you company about the latest News posts that they have not yet read. Roadmap ID: 64685
Centralized management for hub permissions – Hub permissions enable you to centralize the management of visitor access to associated sites. Roadmap ID: 65641
New ways to add SharePoint images – Page authors can now copy and paste images on the canvas to automatically create a new image webpart. Roadmap ID: 65599
Release – later in 2020
Microsoft Lists: mobile app (iOS) built on SharePoint – You’ll be able to create new lists, edit list items and easily share with other people. The Lists app will first come to iOS and Android shortly after. Roadmap ID: 64161
Here’s a look at some of the planned change notification messages that were sent out in the past 7 days.
M365 Information Governance: Update to retention labels – Microsoft are introducing the ability to have Exchange items support retention labels for which period of retention or deletion is based upon when an item was labeled. Initial release set for mid-July to be complete for all customers by early August.
100 GB File Size for OneDrive and SharePoint – Microsoft have increased the max file size from 15GB to 100GB for a single file in OneDrive and SharePoint. This feature is available now. Associated Roadmap ID: 49368
Teams personal account banner notifications – Starting on June 30th, similar to adding a personal mailbox in Outlook, a user can add an account in Teams for personal use by visiting their profile in the app.
Updates to sharing page in Admin center – Microsoft are bringing the admin sharing settings from the classic sharing page to the modern sharing page. Roadmap ID: 61116
SharePoint Spaces (Preview) – SharePoint spaces, the web-based, immersive platform, which allows you to create and share extensible mixed reality experiences is now in preview. Roadmap ID: 62752
Audience targeting in site navigation – Communication sites and hub sites can now filter the items within the navigation menu based on people and groups. Roadmap ID: 32451
Shy header – Modern SharePoint site and hub site header states will collapse upon scroll. Roadmap ID: 62754
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Updated Yammer Conversations web part for SharePoint – The Yammer conversations web part is being updated to contain the new Yammer experience. Roadmap ID: 63385
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – June 2020
Microsoft Lists: sharing – Share entire lists, or list items with individuals or groups with view or edit permissions and the ability to manage access. Roadmap ID: 64164
Release – July 2020
Sticky column in Quick Edit – As users scroll horizontally across a list in Quick Edit mode, the far-left column remains in place – improving context while viewing and editing. Roadmap ID: 64866
Fluent design coherence updates for SharePoint – The fluent design system will be applied to modern SharePoint which will result in some visual changes. Roadmap ID: 63777
Lists/ library web parts consume dynamic data – You will be able to configure list web parts to send its property values to the List Properties web part. Roadmap ID: 57307
Release – August 2020
Updates to site header options –You will be able to choose to show/ hide the site title and a choice between a square site logo thumbnail or a non-square site logo. Roadmap ID: 63776
Release – later in 2020
Search scoping controls with Microsoft Search – Support in Microsoft Search in SharePoint for search scoping controls in modern document libraries, lists for site, hub or organization wide. Roadmap ID: 57098
Walkie Talkie in Teams Android – Walkie Talkie, which provides instant push-to-talk communication, will soon be available in Public Preview on Teams for Android. Associated Roadmap ID: 57157
Schedule SharePoint pages & news posts –You will be able to schedule a page or news post to be published at a specific date and time in the future.Roadmap ID: 62892
SharePoint and Teams: folder in site visibly connected to channel – It will be easier to tell which folders within your library have an associated Teams channel & chat associated to it – right from within the SharePoint user interface. Roadmap ID: 30686
Access a PowerApps custom form in SharePoint without a license – When users send invites for custom PowerApps forms in SharePoint to Office 365 guest users, the guests gain the same access as everyone else. Roadmap ID: 53219
Highlighted content with custom query filtering – Users can now add their own KQL or CAML code with the new advanced query option. Roadmap ID: 53229
Drag and drop files to the canvas to upload – Now if you drag and drop files to the canvas, they’ll be uploaded for you. Roadmap ID: 53194
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – June 2020
Bulk edit list items and file properties in the form – Soon you will be able to select multiple items and edit their list items or documents properties all at once in the default form. Roadmap ID:64228
Quick Edit page size expanding from 30 items to 101 – People will now see up to 100 items per page on their document library or list when using Quick Edit. Roadmap ID: 64231
Create a new list item via a form in Quick Edit – Users will see the “New” button on their command bar in lists when they are in Quick Edit to create new items via the default form. Roadmap ID: 64232
Release – July 2020
SharePoint spaces 360° image annotations and tours – This web part in SharePoint spaces allows creation of immersive virtual tours for SharePoint sites. Roadmap ID: 65072
Auto-News Digest – SharePoint Auto-News Digest sends automated email to employees in you company about the latest News posts that they have not yet read. Roadmap ID: 64685
SharePoint lists and libraries: Rename title column – Users will be able to rename the title field column and see the name change appear consistently in grid view, when in Quick Edit and on the associated view and edit forms. Roadmap ID: 65146
Release – later in 2020
SharePoint lists: New hyperlink field editor in Quick Edit – Microsoft are replacing the legacy hyperlink editor when people use SharePoint lists in Quick Edit mode. Roadmap ID: 63275
SharePoint lists and libraries: New calendar picker – Microsoft are replacing the legacy calendar control with the latest Office Fabric calendar for Gregorian calendars. Roadmap ID: 63277
Microsoft Information Protection: Exact Data Match supported for SharePoint Online – Organizations will be able to use EDM (Exact Data Match) to better protect content on SharePoint online. Roadmap ID: 64558
Navigation update for narrow screens – In SharePoint and OneDrive, the location of the hamburger navigation menu is being moved to the header area for your site and command bar for files instead of in the suite bar. Roadmap ID: 62448
🚂 ROLLING OUT
Acronyms answers with Microsoft Search – Organizations don’t always have a single reference for their standard terminology. Lack of a single reference makes it hard to find definitions or expansions for these acronyms. Microsoft Search solves that problem with Acronyms. Roadmap ID: 64865
Audience targeting in site navigation – Filter items within the navigation menu based on people and groups. This applies to communication sites and hub sites. Roadmap ID: 34251
Shy header – Modern SharePoint site and hub site header states will collapse upon scroll. Roadmap ID: 62754
⌛ IN DEVELOPMENT
Release – June 2020
Enable modern communication site experience on classic sites – Using PowerShell, admins can now enable the modern communication site experience on any classic team site, including the root site. Roadmap ID: 46338
Microsoft Lists: visual updates for Quick Edit – In Quick Edit, you’ll see new grid lines, an improved on-hover experience, themed color bars on the side of list items, a “Create New Item” button and updated column header drop-downs. Roadmap ID: 64871
SharePoint lists and libraries: Sticky column in Quick Edit – As users scroll horizontally across a list in Quick Edit mode, the far-left column remains in place – improving context while viewing and editing. Roadmap ID: 64866
SharePoint lists and libraries: Fixed row height in Quick Edit – When in Quick Edit, you will see a new layout option “Fixed Height” within the view drop-down menu. Roadmap ID: 64867
SharePoint lists and libraries: updated Quick Edit row selection – When in Quick Edit, people will see an updated way for selecting single or multiple items in a list or files in a library. Roadmap ID: 64868
Microsoft Search in classic SharePoint sites – Microsoft Search in classic SharePoint sites brings the Microsoft Search experience to classic SharePoint sites and moves the search box to the application header in Office 365. Roadmap ID: 57131
Release – July 2020
SharePoint lists and libraries: Save a view in Quick Edit – People can save their view in Quick Edit for any list or document lib in SharePoint for Microsoft 365. Roadmap ID: 64229
Fluent design coherence updates for SharePoint – Fluent will be applied to modern SharePoint which will result in some visual changes i.e. larger/ bolder typefaces, opacity etc. Roadmap ID: 63777
Release – August 2020
SharePoint lists and libraries: Improved Image columns – Upload a new image – including mobile camera support. You can add a new Image column to lists and libraries. Roadmap ID: 64872
SharePoint Online search query volume limits when using app-only authentication – When this change is implemented, queries using the Site.Read.All permissions level or greater will be throttled at 25 QPS. The search query will return with a 429 response and you can simply retry the query. Roadmap ID: 64963
