Adoption News and Resources

I posted a video with 3 tips to start the year strong in 2024 given all we are work on across Microsoft 365, Copilot and employee experience areas at Microsoft. I know you will appreciate the downloadable copies of our LinkedIn Adoption Newsletter that I've created for you. These documents have all the recent resources we've posted on adoption. Microsoft.com, information from across our community and notes about AMC itself. I've also included the digital download of an Adoption News Special Supplement - It's not about the AI, it's about the Trust - On Becoming an AI Powered Organization. In this paper I discuss hypothesis and practices yielded from observing early adoption of Copilot experiences, reviewing research and listening to adoption specialist around the world. We are the compass that will keep AI adoption on track. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/48aUotA Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse: 2023 Year in Review

Broadened management capabilities to cover all Microsoft 365 customers. Lighthouse is no longer just for your Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers. One of the benefits of using Lighthouse is that it offers a multi-tenant view, enabling partners to switch between customer tenants they may be managing. Lighthouse continuously scans customer tenants to ensure they remain compliant so you can be alerted when a tenant drifts from your desired state. With the integration of Secure Score, you can take action to complete a deployment plan that helps your managed tenants achieve a higher Secure Score and then jump to view Secure Score details in the Microsoft 365 Defender portal without having to re-enter credentials or re-select the customer thanks to our integration with 17 admin centers. Expanding default baselines: Building on the success of this year's launch of default and custom baselines, we're upping the game by restructuring and doubling the number of tasks in the default baseline, covering the full value of Microsoft 365 and raising the standard for tenant configurations that keeps your customers safe, secure, and productive. We are very excited about the future of Lighthouse, and we look forward to working with you in 2024 to make Lighthouse the best tool for managing and securing all your Microsoft 365 customers. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3NDC6ch Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Microsoft 365 innovations for small and medium business in 2023

In November, we expanded our support for service-oriented small businesses by adding Microsoft Bookings to Microsoft Teams Essentials. Another exciting addition to the Microsoft 365 app family is Microsoft Loop. These are portable pieces of content that you can add to any other Microsoft 365 app, including Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and more. The Loop app is available for all Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers at no additional charge and you can add it on a mobile app for iOS or Android. Find out more on the Microsoft security web page for small and medium business. Microsoft 365 Business Premium brings the Office apps, Microsoft 365 services and Teams, with a comprehensive security suite to SMBs-offering protection across identity and access with Microsoft Entra ID Plan 1, endpoint security with Defender for Business, protection across email, Teams, OneDrive with Defender for Office 365, data protection with Azure Information protection and device management with Microsoft Intune. Keep current on what's coming to Microsoft 365, by visiting the Microsoft 365 Roadmap. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3GRwlE7 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Connect with your customers using video

No matter what kind of business you're in, the odds are good that video marketing can help. A promo video is a great way to share your business' story with a wide audience. Let's say you want to make an online version of a video an employee took at a recent customer event. Clipchamp's interface provides editing tools to trim, cut, crop, and adjust your video. You can even split your video into smaller clips using the GIF format for clips smaller than 15 seconds. You can use it on YouTube or Instagram, but you can also embed video players on web pages or even in a Microsoft PowerPoint deck or Microsoft Word document. Premium includes 4k export resolution, premium stock content, and advanced video analytics in Microsoft Stream. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3RtQzsr Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Use Excel to talk with customers

Microsoft Excel is one of the core apps in the Microsoft 365 suite and is quite familiar to many small and medium business users. Excel can do much more than create and edit spreadsheets. Customers who explore Excel's features a bit more find that they can apply it to many tasks. He's found that Microsoft Teams is key for working across three locations and Microsoft OneNote helps his team make sure that punch lists are continuously managed and up-to date, but most of all, he looks to Excel to run across his business and directly communicate about complex projects with his customers. Davidson stands out because he not only uses Excel for its core spreadsheet features, he also uses it as a communication channel with his customers. He especially values how Excel allows his work to be transparent to his customers. Since many of his customers are already familiar with Excel, using it allows Davidson and his customers to discuss the work together and quickly clarify any concerns or adjust schedules. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3GRCPTk Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Introducing the OneDrive app for Microsoft Teams

As part of creating a coherent experience for your items across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem, we're proud to showcase a new update from Microsoft Teams. Now Microsoft Teams is giving you access to our new OneDrive experience, with all the new enhancements, directly from Teams. The new OneDrive app for Teams is now rolling out to customers worldwide and will replace the generic Files app in Teams. Just like with OneDrive Web, on Teams you can now access all your Microsoft 365 files, including Loops, dashboards, and design boards. That means you'll now have a consistent and familiar file management experience across both Teams and OneDrive Web. To learn more about the OneDrive app experience for Teams, please check out the Microsoft Teams post: Effective file management with the next generation of OneDrive app for Microsoft Teams. Paul Diamond is the product marketing manager for Microsoft OneDrive and Stream. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3TAReef Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Most widely used SharePoint Framework ISVs from the Store

We are excited to see the continuous growth on the submissions of the SharePoint Framework solutions to the app source and on the usage of the SharePoint store for extending experiences for SharePoint and Microsoft Viva. It enables the same code to be used easily across the Microsoft 365 with this widely adopted tooling which uses industry standard tech with easy and automatic SSO and hosting. Deprecation of SharePoint add-in and Azure ACS authentication models - UX powered extensibility should be transformed to us SharePoint Framework powered implementations. Add-in model was introduced back in 2012 and has not really evolved since. Additional capabilities and features for SharePoint Framework solutions in Microsoft 365 as part of the SPFx 1.18 release. Please see following resources around getting started on building extensibility for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva and SharePoint using SharePoint Framework. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3GQ48xA Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Poo in Poo out

I have seen a very nice graphic which shows in one picture the necessity of data hygiene when using Copilot.

I'm sure you've come across this image in one or other presentation. Unfortunately, I have not yet been able to find a version without a cluttering background or other image elements. I have therefore created my own version and am making it now available. Have fun with it at your next presentation.

Many thanks to Matt Wade who had the initial idea for this illustration.

Record management compliance from the get-go Microsoft 365 The Intrazone podcast

On this episode, we hear from Joanne Klein who focuses on compliance in Microsoft 365. Joanne is the founder of NexNovus, a Microsoft 365 Consulting company, and a Microsoft MVP in Microsoft 365 Apps and Services. She brings energy and technical expertise to real-world, synergistic implementations of collaboration balanced with compliance. I grabbed time with Joanne onsite during 365 EduCon - Chicago - to see what she was up to and to ask her a few questions I thought everyone would benefit from hearing her answers - especially when it comes to records management and specific tooling, content lifecycle management best practices, and how to get it right from the get-go. Be sure to visit our show page to hear all episodes, access the show notes, and get bonus content. Stay connected to the SharePoint community blog and where we'll share more information per episode, guest insights, and take any questions or suggestions from our listeners and SharePoint users. The Intrazone, a show about the Microsoft 365 intelligent intranet. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/41lttst Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Announcing preview of Microsoft 365 connectivity test tool for Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet

We are delighted to announce the launch of the Microsoft 365 Connectivity Test Tool specifically designed for our customers using Microsoft 365 operated by 21Vianet. This tool, which has been successfully used in the global market for several years, has now been tailored to meet the specific needs of the China market, aiding in the diagnostics and enhancement of your Microsoft 365 service connectivity. The Microsoft 365 service front door is an entry point on Microsoft's global network where Office clients and services terminate their network connection. For an optimal network connection to Microsoft 365, It's recommended that your network connection is terminated into the closest Microsoft 365 front door in your city or metro. A best Microsoft 365 service front door is one that is closest to your network egress, generally in your city or metro area. Use the Microsoft 365 network performance tool to determine location of your in-use Microsoft 365 service front door and the best service front door(s). If the tool determines your in-use front door is one of the best ones, then you should expect great connectivity into Microsoft's global network. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46HcJNj Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Manage users across all your tenants using Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

The new User metrics report helps you see key user information across all your tenants in one place. As a Managed Service Provider managing multiple customer tenants, you need to keep track of the users across all your customer tenants. It's important to know how many users are in each tenant, how many are licensed, and how many are active. The User metrics report in Lighthouse gives you a high-level overview of the user inventories across all your customer tenants in a single view. You can see the total number of users, licensed users, global admin users, guest users, inactive users, and shared mailboxes that have not been blocked in each tenant. Selecting any tenant from this report opens the Users page from its Microsoft 365 admin center, where you can view and manage all their users. The User metrics report provides unprecedented visibility to critical information into users across every tenant you manage, making it easier to see and mitigate threats associated with user accounts. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3uMkp3P Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

What's new for enterprise customers in the Microsoft 365 App

The Microsoft 365 app is home to all your favorite productivity apps, along with new apps for creation and expression like Loop, and any third-party apps you choose. Since the launch of the Microsoft 365 app in November 2022, we've released several new features and improvements which are available for enterprise customers to try today. The Microsoft 365 app is used to quickly find content and launch essential productivity apps all from one place. Microsoft Clipchamp is available in the Microsoft 365 app for enterprise customers to help you rapidly create and edit videos without leaving your flow of work. With the addition of Microsoft Graph connector content from third party data sources, users can now discover third party content across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with the Microsoft 365 web app via search. Unleash creativity, unlock productivity, and uplevel skills with Microsoft Copilot in the Microsoft 365 app. We encourage you to try the Microsoft 365 app today by going to https://microsoft365.com or by downloading the Microsoft 365 app on your Android, iPad or iPhone. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47BIGYB Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft 365 Admin Monthly Digest

Welcome to the Microsoft 365 IT admin blog, your monthly source of tips, insights, and best practices for managing and optimizing your Microsoft 365 environment. What's new for Microsoft 365 admins: This session covers the latest updates for Microsoft 365 admins with topics ranging from Copilot for Microsoft 365 admin, the cloud. Microsoft unified domain, managing multi-tenant and cross-tenant environments, to network provider data and actionability Getting your enterprise ready for Copilot for Microsoft 365: Hear from experts on preparing an organization for Microsoft 365 Copilot including information protection, compliance, privacy, deployment prerequisites, information access optimization, and extensibility options. How Copilot for Microsoft 365 works: Go behind the scenes to understand the architecture and dataflows behind Microsoft 365 Copilot including retrieval augmented generation techniques, app commanding, and options to securely connect to external data. Organizations seeking a solution that is always supported are recommended to consider transitioning to Microsoft 365 E3 that comes with not only the Microsoft 365 Apps, but also capabilities like foundational security, streamlined endpoint management, and enhanced productivity and collaboration features. Csv file to power high-value capabilities and new scenarios across Microsoft Viva and Microsoft 365, such as Viva Amplify reporting and more personalized experiences in Viva and Microsoft 365. As always, stay current with the latest updates on the Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3R0IHyw Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Copilot in Microsoft 365

Today, we're excited to share more about some of our supportability work with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Copilot for Microsoft 365 has been in use by tens of thousands of enterprise customers as part of our Early Access Program for several months and our support teams have been there every step of the way assisting IT Admins with their questions. A small group of senior engineers in our Microsoft 365 Commercial Support Team have been working closely with the Copilot product engineering teams since the early stages of development, well before the first customer ever onboarded, to learn the service and build readiness and training assets for our global support teams. Today, I'm excited to welcome three of these engineers to share their knowledge, insights, and guidance on getting ready for Copilot for Microsoft 365and ways IT Admins can be most effective in deploying, managing, and supporting Copilot with users in their organizations. Brian: Welcome Jason, Rob, and Parth! It's great to have your Copilot expertise here and I know you've been working with Copilot for Office apps, Outlook, and Microsoft Teams for quite a while. We have a Tech Community blog that steps through how to prepare your organization for Microsoft 365 Copilot: How to prepare for Microsoft 365 Copilot - Microsoft Community Hub. In terms of language support, here are the languages currently supported by Copilot for Microsoft 365 for prompts and responses: Chinese, English, French, German, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Spanish. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3uEkXbS Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

SharePoint Roadmap Update

A new SharePoint start experience was also introduced for creating personal pages, so there's less overhead in getting started with SharePoint. New Stream Webpart: Video is some of the most important content to highlight within a SharePoint page, and the new Stream video webpart lets you easily highlight a single video, or a set of videos. With this new functionality customers will have the choice of applying existing SharePoint themes or a custom theme to their Connections experience as well as the SharePoint home site hosting the Connections experience. Customers rely on SharePoint to provide site and page templating, UX-layer parts and plug-ins using the SharePoint Framework, and data access via Microsoft Graph. In July we announced the new SharePoint Web UI kit focused on giving designers expert tools to customize SharePoint to meet any design challenge. Between the SharePoint Framework and the new Web UI toolkit, SharePoint is a stronger platform to build on than ever before. We're pleased to announce the public preview of SharePoint Embedded - a new approach to building content-centric apps powered by SharePoint that can go beyond traditional Microsoft 365 user experiences. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3QVEUT3 Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Unlocking OneDrive's Potential: Pro Tips for IT Administrators

Whether you need to get up and running quickly with OneDrive, or you're an experienced OneDrive admin, we've gathered a list of quick tips to help you streamline management, ensure your users and data are secure, and provide the best possible user experience. OneDrive helps you define secure virtual perimeters for sharing content, educate people about your policies for secure collaboration, and monitor how people share to discover and address gaps. See OneDrive file usage and activity at a glance In the Microsoft 365 Reports dashboard, you can drill into your users' OneDrive activity to get more information. The OneDrive card on the dashboard gives you a high-level view of the value you are getting from OneDrive in terms of the total number of files and storage used across your organization. OneDrive activity reports give you a high-level view of OneDrive usage in your organization. OneDrive audit logs provide information and shared files in your organization. Lastly, we invite you to join our OneDrive customer office hours where you can ask questions and engage directly with the OneDrive product and engineering team. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3sRY18t Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

SharePoint Add-In retirement in Microsoft 365

As part of this evolution of Microsoft 365 solutions we will be retiring the SharePoint Add-In extensibility model and believe Microsoft 365 customers will be better served by modern SharePoint extensibility models. SharePoint hosted Add-Ins primarily bring UX elements to the site the Add-In was installed into and the app web that was created for the Add-In. A common use case is showing SharePoint Add-In web parts on pages of the host web, using SharePoint Framework based web parts is the recommended alternative here. Provider hosted SharePoint Add-Ins run outside of SharePoint and typically have their own UX. They use Azure ACS as auth layer to enable calling back into the host web where the SharePoint Add-In was installed. The auth model for these will be based on Microsoft Entra ID. If there are requirements to integrate in the SharePoint UX then SharePoint Framework can be used as calling into external application APIs can be done from SharePoint Framework solutions. The retirement of SharePoint Add-Ins applies to Project Online as well, any SharePoint Add-In used in Project Online will follow the same retirement path as SharePoint Add-Ins used in SharePoint Online. To understand if your organization is using SharePoint Add-Ins or begin planning migration to SharePoint Framework based solutions or alternatives, we recommend that customers run the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool to scan their tenants for SharePoint Add-In usage. SharePoint hosted Add-Ins can be replaced by SharePoint Framework web parts, for the provider hosted Add-Ins any software as a service application platform in combination with Microsoft Entra ID for auth can be used as alternative development model. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3sTQmGF Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Azure ACS retirement in Microsoft 365

As part of this evolution of Microsoft 365 solutions we will be retiring the use of Azure ACS for SharePoint Online auth needs and believe Microsoft 365 customers will be better served by modern auth offered via Microsoft Entra ID. Azure ACS will stop working for new tenants as of November 1st, 2024 and it will stop working for existing tenants and will be fully retired as of April 2nd, 2026. To learn more about the provider hosted Add-In use case please check out the respective retirement articles, granting applications access to SharePoint Online will need to be transitioned to Microsoft Entra ID. Azure ACS usage by SharePoint Server. Project Online is an extension on top of SharePoint Online and Project Online custom developments could also have used Azure ACS. The retirement of Azure ACS applies to Project Online as well, any Azure ACS usage in Project Online will follow the same retirement path as Azure ACS usage in SharePoint Online. To understand if your organization is using Azure ACS or begin planning transition to Microsoft Entra ID, we recommend that customers run the Microsoft 365 Assessment tool to scan their tenants for Azure ACS usage. Identify all used Azure ACS application principals with their key properties such as permission scopes and whether app-only was allowed or not For each identified Azure ACS application principal see a list of all sites that can be accessed via the Azure ACS application principal. Using the Azure ACS Report along with site information, tenant administrators together with developers can plan the transition of Azure ACS to Microsoft Entra ID as authentication model. We recommend tenant admins to turn off the usage of Azure ACS app-only access once they've ensured there is no business relevant Azure ACS usage anymore. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3sRzNuW Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Troubleshooting the Cloud Policy service

Many customers have switched from Group Policy as a means for managing policies for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise on Windows devices, to the Cloud Policy service which allows administrators to configure policies for a large number of Microsoft 365 apps and services, including full support for Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise on Windows as well as the other platforms, from a single administration experience. If an application calls the Windows API, the policy will be included as some of the Office apps running on Windows support that policy. Part 1 for troubleshooting Cloud Policy service was written when the Cloud Policy service only supported Microsoft 365 Apps for enterprise running on Windows. While this information is still useful for that scenario, especially for the information regarding how Cloud Policy uses the registry, you may want to call the check-in APIs directly so you can review the responses that are being provided to the applications that call the service. Important: Policy configurations in the Cloud Policy service are targeted to users using group membership. Multiple policy configurations can be targeted to multiple groups and conflicting policy settings are managed by the priority values, so make sure you have reviewed the user's group memberships before troubleshooting. The Cloud Policy service uses a cache on the service side to improve performance for multiple calls for the same user from multiple applications. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3RdGTna Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Upcoming November 2023 Microsoft 365 Champion Community Call

‎Nov 20 2023 11:08 AM. Join our next community call on November 28 will be a recap on all the exciting announcements from Microsoft Ignite 2023. We will be starting the call at 5 minutes past the hour for both of our sessions, and it will still end at the top of the hour. Reminder: this is our last community call of this calendar year. We will take a break in December and see everyone back online in January! Happy holidays to those who celebrate and may you all get lots of rest and have a wonderful new year! -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3G6VKcr Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Manage your customers with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

We are excited to introduce a new feature in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse that lets you quickly and securely access other Microsoft admin portals for each of your customers. One of the challenges of managing multiple customers is that Managed Service Providers often need to use different admin portals, such as the Microsoft 365 admin center, the Azure portal, Microsoft Intune, or Exchange, to name a few. This means Lighthouse users can leverage our security and management scenarios and then seamlessly jump to another Microsoft admin portal when necessary, without having to re-enter credentials or re-select the customer. A screenshot showing the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse tenant page and the selection of Microsoft admin portals that can be accessed for each customer tenant. Using Lighthouse as your launchpad makes managing multiple customers faster than ever before, saving you money while helping you keep your customers' tenants secure, healthy, and productive. The Lighthouse admin center links use the granular delegated admin privileges configured for each MSP customer. You can now access links to other Microsoft admin centers throughout Lighthouse using the Tenant filter. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47gQlvl Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

What's New for Copilot and Microsoft 365 admins

Today we announced the Private Preview of Copilot for Microsoft 365 admin, harnessing the value of generative AI to boost IT admins' productivity by simplifying administration of Microsoft 365 and empowering you to focus on more strategic priorities. Copilot for Microsoft 365 admin helps you perform tasks across different Microsoft 365 services using natural language interactions, contextual guidance, and proactive suggestions. Copilot for Microsoft 365 admin also leverages the power of Copilot to access relevant skills across different admin centers and surfaces, helping admins stay in the flow of work. Investing in new technologies like Copilot for Microsoft 365 requires insights into a range of areas from deployment to impact on all levels of IT. We are bringing such information to you through the surfaces you're already familiar with in the Microsoft 365 admin center, in the new Power BI dashboard and, in future, through Viva Insights. An image of the Microsoft 365 admin center Usage report for Copilot for Microsoft 365 readiness section. An image of the Microsoft 365 admin center Usage report for Copilot for Microsoft 365 usage section. Our Ignite Preview blog for Microsoft 365 admins gives a rundown of our recommended sessions to learn more! As always, stay current with the latest updates Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47yw83R Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

New Copilot & Microsoft Teams innovations for a secure, simple, and smart frontline workplace

Starting today, Tasks by Planner and To Do app in Teams will be renamed Planner and the new app experience in Teams will be generally available in Spring 2024.The new Planner app in Teams will continue to include our task management features for frontline organizations and will become the new central place for frontline workers to track what needs to be done, delegate tasks to the right workers, and monitor progress all from one platform. At the foundation of a frontline experience, is a secure device and a simple Teams structure deployed for collaboration from day one. Generally available in December, Microsoft has added new capabilities in the Teams Admin Center to deploy frontline dynamic teams at scale for your entire frontline workforce. Through the power of dynamic teams, team membership is automatically managed and always up to date with the right users as people enter, move within, or leave the organization using dynamic groups from Entra ID. This deployment tool streamlines the admin experience to create a Teams structure that maps the frontline workforces' real-world into digital world and makes it easy to set up a consistent channel structure to optimize for strong frontline collaboration on day one. An image showing the new frontline deployment capabilities in the Teams Admin Center. With domain-less sign-in, frontline workers can now sign-in to Teams quicker using only the first part of their username, then enter the password to access Teams on shared and corporate-managed devices. These new capabilities create a secure, simple, and smart workplace for the frontline workforce, so they can spend less time trying to access the right information, people, and processes to do their work and more time on meaningful work like delivering great customer service and operational excellence. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3ujmNig Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Unlock organizational knowledge with Topics in Copilot

Microsoft Viva Topics enables your organization to discover, explore and easily contribute knowledge proactively inside of Microsoft 365 apps such as Outlook, SharePoint and Microsoft Teams. Today we are excited to announce that we are extending Topics functionality into Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Topics will ground your Copilot experience with knowledge from inside your organization, to bring the best of AI and crowdsourced knowledge & expertise to your flow of work. With Copilot interoperation, Topics uses people and AI to create a powerful knowledge index for your organization that grounds Copilot. Knowledge managers in Topics can be assigned by administrators to manage topics and deliver curated topic cards ensuring the desired expertise and knowledge is available for users. Organizations with Copilot can learn more about Topics here. Bringing Topics into Copilot represents the beginning of how knowledge and expertise is unlocked with the power of AI and people. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/40GHY9P Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft 365 Backup and Microsoft 365 Backup Storage at Ignite 2023

To address these challenges, we have developed Microsoft 365 Backup-a new storage architecture for backup and data protection inside Microsoft 365. This storage lives inside the Microsoft 365 trust boundary, so you manage the security of your Microsoft 365 data in one place. Microsoft 365 Backup allows us to accelerate large scale backup and recovery times by an order of magnitude. Backup for other Microsoft 365 sources, such as Teams chat and other Microsoft 365 services, and granular file-level recovery are part of our post-GA roadmap. You can get the benefits of Microsoft 365 Backup by adopting a partner's application built on top of our  Backup Storage. By leveraging the Microsoft 365 Backup Storage, partner apps can deliver the same exceptional backup and restore speeds provided by Microsoft assurances - all while keeping that Microsoft 365 data within the trusted Microsoft security and compliance domain. Microsoft 365 Backup uses our new Backup Storage platform to provide protection for Microsoft 365-based data sources. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3GkmExT Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft Loop's November 2023 Ignite summary for IT Admins

We're pleased to announce that as of November 15, 2023, Microsoft Loop is now generally available! Loop is a multi-player application that's designed to help your teams think, plan and create together. We welcome your questions and feedback in the comments section as we embark on this journey together, and we hope the timelines for anything that looks critical are close enough to give Loop a try today! And if you need to enable or disable these experiences, that's documented too for Loop app and workspaces, Loop components. We have recently updated our full list of supported capabilities, which can be found here: Summary of governance, lifecycle and compliance capabilities for Loop. Like Word, Excel or PowerPoint, Loop experiences create files in SharePoint - in fact, Microsoft Loop is built on top of SharePoint, OneDrive, and Microsoft Syntex repository services, which means Loop content is just like the existing files in your ecosystem. Created in the Loop app > Microsoft Syntex Created outside the Loop app in places that have dedicated shared storage > SharePoint Created outside the Loop app in all other places that don't have tightly associated collaborative storage > OneDrive. If you're looking for the big picture, the full list of all capabilities, refer to: Summary of governance, lifecycle and compliance capabilities for Loop. Up to date and full documentation can be found here: Summary of governance, lifecycle and compliance capabilities for Loop to help you make the best decisions for your organization. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/40Elqqh Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

New! Create videos and images at work with Clipchamp and Designer

Whether you need to explain a process to your teammates, onboard new employees, send an update to clients, or level up your organization's newsletters, now you can turn to Clipchamp to deliver an impactful message through video at work. Clipchamp's simple user interface and rich array of features make it easy to create professional-looking videos at work. Clipchamp has an array of features which make it quick and easy to create and share professional-looking videos in minutes. The videos you export from Clipchamp can be shared through Microsoft Stream, embedded and played in Microsoft Teams, in emails with Outlook, and on Microsoft Viva Engage, making it easy for you to incorporate videos in your work. As part of Microsoft 365, Clipchamp and Designer are easy to find and right where you need them - whether that's through microsoft365.com or through integrations in the apps where you utilize visual content. We're tailoring Clipchamp and Designer to the needs of businesses and organizations. Start using Clipchamp and Designer at work - you'll be amazed by what you can create. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3spD3xG Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft SharePoint at Microsoft Ignite 2023 The pre-event Guide

To digest all of what's new and how it fits into your now and soon after, join us for Microsoft Ignite 2023 to learn how AI-powered content management in Microsoft 365 enables content intelligence, optimizes critical business processes, improves governance, and prepares your content for Copilot. Below is a subset of content related to SharePoint - each has a little or a lot of SharePoint to spare and share :). We'll keep this guide up to date - before, during, and after. Through these sessions, demos, labs, and more, plan your week at Microsoft Ignite to learn more and engage with our subject matter experts. Keynote sessions at Microsoft Ignite 2023 are designed to provide valuable insights and set the tone for the event. Discover how Microsoft is creating new opportunities across our platforms in this new era of AI. Walkaway with a clear understanding of how Microsoft Copilot will unlock productivity and transform business processes for everyone across functions and industries. They are a terrific way to learn from others, share your insights, and influence the direction of Microsoft products and services. Microsoft Ignite is where technologists from around the globe gain access to experts, modern technology, and networking opportunities with your community. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3FXE56V Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Microsoft Community Hub

Microsoft Ignite 2023 is a huge opportunity to join the global community of IT admins who want to know more about how to transform their organizations with Microsoft 365 and with Microsoft Copilot. Ensuring your environment is ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot is critical to providing the best possible user experience for people working across all functions-and to getting the most ROI out of Microsoft 365. In this session, we'll share the options for guided self-service provisioning, classification, reporting, auditing and lifecycle management that will impact Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva, Microsoft Loop, and Planner. Join us for our roundtable sessions where our product experts will provide more technical deep dives and discussions on how you can use the Microsoft 365 admin center to ensure you're getting the most out of your Microsoft 365 investment. Brian Jackett, Jen Cockrell, Raju S, and Renima Malhotra will join you to discuss how you can use Microsoft Graph Connectors to index, ground, and govern your organization's Line of Business data with the Microsoft 365 Copilot. We'll also cover the transformative potential of Microsoft 365 Chat, the new hero experience for Microsoft 365 Copilot that goes far beyond simple questions and answers, and examples of specific use cases for how it can save you time. We're hosting a text-based Ask-me-anything event tomorrow at 9am PT in the Microsoft 365 Copilot Community and hope to see you there! As always, you can follow all the latest updates on development and roll out of features through the Microsoft 365 Roadmap website. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47oIYBH Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

New web parts available in the SharePoint Web UI kit!

We're excited to announce that our SharePoint Web UI kit has been updated with some great new additions! This update includes more web parts so you have more options when designing your SharePoint sites and pages. SharePoint web parts you can now design with the Web UI kit. To get started with our updated UI kit, simply download the latest version from the Figma Microsoft Community website: SharePoint Web UI Kit - Figma. This UI kit provides SharePoint users with another tool in their toolbox. This UI kit provides you with page layouts and a selection of web parts to allow you to mockup and share new ideas across organizations and companies. Figma gives you the flexibility of reviewing and sharing your designs without having to spend time and resources creating it in SharePoint. Please tell us what's missing, what doesn't work for you, and where your biggest challenges are by leaving a comment on the Figma SharePoint Web UI kit page or by visiting the SharePoint Community. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/49pvIib Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Most widely used SharePoint Framework ISVs from the Store

We are excited to see the continuous growth on the submissions of the SharePoint Framework solutions to the app source and on the usage of the SharePoint store for extending experiences for SharePoint and Microsoft Viva. It enables the same code to be used easily across the Microsoft 365 with this widely adopted tooling which uses industry standard tech with easy and automatic SSO and hosting. Additional capabilities and features for SharePoint Framework solutions in Microsoft 365 as part of the SPFx 1.18 release. Please see following resources around getting started on building extensibility for Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva and SharePoint using SharePoint Framework. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/49oCBAi Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Refreshing Meeting Details on OneNote on Windows

We are making improvements to Meeting Details in OneNote on Windows to help you quickly capture meeting context so you can focus on what you do best: run meetings effectively and follow up flawlessly. The new Meeting Details is in the same familiar location in the ribbon, now with an improved meeting selection experience. An image showing the initial release of the updated Meeting Details content with the side pane meeting experience. This update is the foundation for us to bring new meeting-related contents to your notebooks and is the first of a series that we are planning to roll out. An image demonstrating Loop collaborative notes for the corresponding meeting and annotations outside the Loop component on the OneNote canvas. This is just the beginning of our journey to bring meeting content from across Microsoft 365 into your OneNote notebooks. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3MzOg5A Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft "Bookings with me" launching for GCC users

‎Nov 07 2023 10:17 AM. Bookings with me in Outlook is a web-based personal time management solution that provides a simple and powerful scheduling page with seamless integration with outlook. Bookings with me lets people schedule a meeting or appointment with you through a personal scheduling page that integrates with the free/busy information from your Outlook calendar. We are pleased to announce that it's now available for use by customers in GCC tenants as well. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/45Y8qgo Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft 365 Copilot adoption content now available

Today along with our announcement of the general availability of Microsoft 365 Copilot we've released new content for the adoption of this groundbreaking experience in our hub at adoption. This content represents a step forward in our approach to driving adoption for a natural language interface like our Copilot experiences. With our role selection interface you can go directly to the content that is relevant for you as an Adoption Manager, IT professional, business user, leader or developer. These personal moments, delivered directly the product, are at the heart of our rapid adoption methods for Microsoft 365 Copilot. Our Adoption Workbook details the connection between these rapid adoption methods and classic adoption tactics that are delivered by Adoption Managers such as yourselves, Microsoft Partners and other professional ACM practitioners around the world. Copilot Labs, which is available to licensed users of Microsoft 365 Copilot, provides prompt guidance tailored to the user that is helpful in accelerating the aha moment. Lessons learned from driving adoption at the beginning of the pandemic, early adoption customer feedback and a desire to deliver more meaningful experiences directly to people around the globe drive this innovation. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/45XEwsG Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

OneNote: Product Update 2023

Continue reading to learn more!(While the OneNote experience continues to be improved across all your devices, this article will address only the OneNote on Windows app. We encourage all users on OneNote for Windows 10 to begin transitioning to the OneNote on Windows app for the latest features and best sync. For those who love the left-sided layout on OneNote for the web, OneNote for Mac, and OneNote for iPad, you'll be thrilled to hear that we've brought this experience to the OneNote on Windows app! Using the new Vertical Tabs layout option under the View menu, you can use a navigation experience similar to other Microsoft 365 apps and services, such as Outlook and Teams. We want to remind you that these updates are only for the OneNote app, not the OneNote for Windows 10 app. If you're still using the OneNote for Windows 10 app, we highly recommend you switch to the OneNote app as soon as possible. The OneNote for Windows 10 app will no longer be supported in 2025. The latest OneNote Windows app is available as part of Microsoft 365, it may already be included as part of Microsoft 365 on new Windows 11 devices and can also be downloaded as a free standalone version from the Microsoft Store. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3SiBSKV Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft 365 Admin Monthly Digest

Welcome to the Microsoft 365 IT admin blog, your monthly source of tips, insights, and best practices for managing and optimizing your Microsoft 365 environment. In this edition, we cover the upcoming AMA on Microsoft 365 Copilot, general availability of the new Teams desktop app, take a peek into the impact of hybrid work on carbon emissions, and explore new and upcoming features in the Microsoft 365 admin center including enhancements to Migration Manager, device management, and new RBAC roles in Microsoft Purview. We'll be hosting the next AMA on Microsoft 365 Copilot tomorrow on Thursday, November 9, in the Microsoft 365 Copilot Tech Community. Earlier this year, Microsoft announced a new Emissions Impact Dashboard for Microsoft 365 that can help admins and IT leaders track emissions from their Microsoft 365 use. Migration Manager is a powerful tool, hosted within the setup page of Microsoft 365 admin center, that helps seamlessly transfer data from various file sources, such as BOX, Google Drive, Dropbox, and File Share, to Microsoft 365. Currently rolling out, Microsoft is improving how admins manage user device update channels in the Microsoft 365 admin center to simplify getting ready for Microsoft 365 Copilot and manage devices in general. As always, stay current with the latest updates on the Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/49aQwtL Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop October 2023

October 2023 brought some spooky new offerings: Power Apps leader in 2023 Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Enterprise Low-Code Applications Platform, Video search improvements, new Intelligence & Search admin homepage, OneDrive colorful folders, New Microsoft Teams, Viva Goals + Planner, SharePoint: BCS retirement in Microsoft 365, and more. All features listed below began reanimating, I mean, rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of October 2023. The new homepage provides you with a single-entry point to access a range of Microsoft Search features and functions, such as Graph connectors, user feedback, Microsoft Search educational content, and more. Welcome to the new Microsoft Search and Intelligence admin center - to tailor the Microsoft Search experience for your organization. Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams. To simplify these options and provide the best experience for these scenarios going forward, Microsoft is announcing its plan to retire Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft 365 and focus on Microsoft Power Apps as its replacement technology. January 8, 2024: Microsoft will block Business Connectivity Services features in new Microsoft 365 tenants by default, as well as in tenants who haven't used the feature since October 30, 2023. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3QC6OED Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Work faster and smarter with Bing Chat Enterprise

Bing Chat Enterprise is an AI-powered web chat that will you get instant answers, insights, and creative inspiration for your team's business needs-all while security and data protection you expect from Microsoft. Bing Chat Enterprise is designed to protect your data. Bing Chat Enterprise uses natural, conversational language to help you explore new concepts, get answers to questions, and generate ideas. Based on the information you've given, Bing Chat Enterprise will provide you with a sample of your product's most important features and various ways to better market them to your customer base, such as suggesting a video as an effective marketing option. Bing Chat Enterprise can answer that question by scouring the web for video marketers' success statistics. Bing Chat Enterprise can compare your numbers and channels and analyze the impact a marketing video could have on your customers' engagement. Bing Chat Enterprise is available for no additional charge to all customers with Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium licenses. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3FybJQz Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Organize the components in your diagrams with layers in Visio for the web

Users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license can now use layers to group a related set of shapes in a drawing and change properties of all the layer members at once. A cropped image of a network diagram in Visio for the web highlighting the new Layers menu button on the Home tab. An image of a network diagram in Visio for the web showing the new Layers pane open to the right of the canvas. A cropped image of a network diagram in Visio for the web highlighting the + Add New Layer button at the top of the Layers pane. A cropped image of a network diagram in Visio for the web demonstrating how to access more options for layers in the Layers pane. Learn more about how to add a layer and use layers to set properties for multiple shapes in Visio for the web. We look forward to hearing your feedback and learning more about how you utilize layers in Visio for the web. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/476Qe5i Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

European SharePoint Conference ESPC23 Amsterdam, Netherlands Event guide Microsoft 365 Azure

Amsterdam is one of the most vibrant and diverse cities in Europe - and primed for in-person depth and breadth learning during the European SharePoint Conference - now simply branded as: ESPC23 - in Amsterdam, Netherlands - November 27-30, 2023. You'll find content delivered by the world's best Microsoft 365 and Azure experts, including many Microsoft leaders and employees from the product teams. A unique page of all Microsoft speakers and activities during ESPC23. Jeff Teper, Karuana Gatimu, Dona Sarkar, and Rafal Lukawiecki will be leading four keynotes that span topics, plus Microsoft speakers delivering breakout sessions among thought leaders and members of the community from around the world. Microsoft keynotes/AMA, breakout sessions, and developer-focused sessions. Microsoft breakout sessions(All times represented in CEST (local Amsterdam time. Shout out to event leads and community members Sarah McNamara, Kevin Monahan and the #ESPC23 team for putting together ESPC23, corralling all speakers and content, and for supporting and promoting the knowledge and expertise to promote the world-class Microsoft 365 tech community around the world. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/473h9ij Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Discover and assign the Microsoft 365 E3 Extra Features license

IMPORTANT. This article only applies if you bought a Microsoft 365 E3 Original subscription through an Enterprise Agreement. If this applies to you, you now see the Microsoft 365 E3 Extra Features product on the Licenses page in the Microsoft 365 admin center. As part of your Microsoft 365 E3 Original subscription, your organization now has access to the Microsoft 365 E3 Extra Features license at no additional cost. Microsoft Clipchamp - A video editing tool for anyone to create professional-looking videos, even with no prior experience. Microsoft Loop - A co-creation app that lets teams bring together all the parts of a project in one place and collaborate across the apps and devices they already use. To use any of the features provided by Microsoft 365 E3 Extra Features, you must assign a license for it to your Microsoft 365 E3 users. We recommend that you assign the license to your users as soon as possible, so that they can use the features and improve their Microsoft 365 experience. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3SeL7vC Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

The power of the SharePoint web part The Intrazone podcast a Microsoft podcast

Ask anyone, web parts make the intranet go 'round. In the world of SharePoint web parts, Pat and team build and deliver useful ones. Our chat focuses on developing web parts - past and present, some of their productivity-focused web part solutions, and tips and tricks for both developers and intranet managers. You can never get too much information about a good web part - be it one you use out of the box, one you procure from a partner, or one you build and design, and customize for your business. The Intrazone host and guest, left-to-right: Mark Kashman with Pat McGown [guest] - during the interview hosted via Teams. Stay connected to the SharePoint community blog and where we'll share more information per episode, guest insights, and take any questions or suggestions from our listeners and SharePoint users. The Intrazone, a show about the Microsoft 365 intelligent intranet. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Fui4fQ Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Feature Deep Dive: Favorites and Shortcuts in OneDrive

Favorites is now available worldwide in OneDrive for work, school, GCC, and DoD. Favorites offers a single list view that you can access from OneDrive and many other Microsoft 365 apps. The Favorites view in OneDrive for Web shows all the files you have favorited from OneDrive, SharePoint and other Microsoft 365 apps. You can easily add content to your Favorites list in OneDrive and SharePoint by clicking the star icon :star: which appears next to the folder or file name or by clicking the Favorite command when a file is selected. While folder short cuts get added to the My Files area of your OneDrive by default, you can then move them to any area of your OneDrive. Folder shortcuts will appear in your My Files area of OneDrive and they're badged with an arrow on the folder icon. Soon we will roll out shortcuts for files in OneDrive so that you can keep shared files alongside your own content in OneDrive folders. File shortcuts will allow you to easily organize shared files alongside your own files in OneDrive. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Q8zlQP Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Create Your Own Baselines in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse helps them realize that vision and execute that strategy, at scale, better than ever before, with the ability to customize baselines based on their unique expertise and tailored to their customers' needs. One of the best things about Lighthouse is the default baseline we provide that makes it easy for you to deploy a standardized set of configurations to your customers' tenants that make them healthy, secure, and productive. By creating your own baselines, you can define your standards for security, compliance, and productivity and leverage the power of Lighthouse to deploy those standards across your customers' tenants - and enforce them. Your baselines can include any combination of tasks from the default baseline and configurations extracted from other tenants you manage such as conditional access policies, device management policies and profiles, Windows Autopilot profiles, and more. There are many reasons to create your own baselines. To start creating your own baselines, navigate to the Baselines page in the Microsoft 365 Lighthouse portal. Assign your baseline to your customers' tenants so that Lighthouse can scan the tenants to tell you whether and to what degree they are already compliant with your new baseline. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3tPscx2 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Reduce Support Costs with Business Assist Forecast Service Excel Add-in

Business Assist Forecast is a tool that enables quick and confident forecasting of future support volume based on historical data, which can save time compared to manually analyzing past trends and volume levels. By selecting the Add button, you can quickly install and activate the Add-in for Business Assist Forecast in less than a minute. With this add-in, users can forecast upcoming cases and conversation volumes based on historical traffic data, which can help with staff management and reduce support costs. Users can visualize forecast volumes on a daily, weekly, and monthly basis for a time range of up to six months. Select the Business Assist Forecast Add-in and then, from the right flyout panel, select the forecast end date and seasonality from the drop-down menu. Forecast is the mean value and those low and high numbers they represent the 95th percentile of the mean value. The Business Assist Forecast Add-in for Excel is a powerful tool that can help businesses forecast customer support volume, manage staffing levels, and reduce support costs using the advanced statistical model that Microsoft uses to manage their own support forecasts. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46ICHkr Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Upcoming October 2023 Microsoft 365 Champion Community Call

‎Oct 17 2023 04:00 PM. Join our next community call on October 24 to deep dive into Power Pages. We will be starting the call at 5 minutes past the hour for both of our sessions, and it will still end at the top of the hour. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3rSA6W3 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Simplifying Directory Navigation with PowerShell

Have you ever found yourself stuck trying to locate a specific Windows directory while using PowerShell? If so, don't worry, because there's an easy solution that can save you time and frustration. In this article, we'll explore how to find specific Windows directories using PowerShell and discuss the handy `Environment.GetFolderPath` method and the `Environment.SpecialFolder` enumeration.

Fall 2023 update: Introducing new icons, shapes, and templates in Microsoft Visio for the web

The Visio team is excited to share a roundup of the newest icons, shapes, and templates available in Visio for the web, but before we dive into all the new content, let's look back on the first half of 2023, when we introduced new capabilities to help you create and further customize your org charts in Visio for the web, the Visio app in Microsoft Teams to further enable collaborative diagramming, the new Visio Templates page on Microsoft365.com to improve the start experience, and new capabilities to view and edit shape data in Visio for the web. Read on to learn about new icons, shapes, templates and sample diagrams, and color themes-now available to Visio for the web users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license, unless noted otherwise. These icons are available for Visio for the web users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license. These shapes are available for Visio for the web users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license. Last month, we expanded on these diagramming capabilities by introducing the new Audit Diagram template in parallel with the launch of the new Visio Templates page. These sample diagrams are available for users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license and can be accessed from the Visio Templates page at www. Again, these sample diagrams are available for users with a Visio Plan 1 or Visio Plan 2 license and can be accessed from the Visio Templates page at www. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3FgUEdI Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Community Spotlight- Meet Tanya Caruana- Director/Senior Digital Experience Specialist at BMO Harris

Tanya Caruana works for BMO Harris Bank, one of the top five biggest banks in Canada with a presence in the United States and throughout Europe and Asia. She is the Director and Senior Digital Experience Specialist that works on the enterprise employee experience for their enterprise-wide technologies. Her programs provide peer-to-peer learning, training, support, and inspiration through storytelling and a curated digital experience. Tanya has grown her team from a team of one to a large team to adoption and employee experience. In 2020, Tanya launched the community of champions at BMO Harris called the Digital Insiders. When Digital Insiders first began, her managers wanted to appoint people to join Digital Insiders, one from each team. Tanya wants to continue to excel and help the content in the Digital Insiders get to the next level. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3ZFExQv Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: September 2023

September 2023 brought some great news and new offerings: Answer Analytics in Microsoft Search, introduction of Microsoft 365 Chat, a GA date for Microsoft 365 Copilot, introduction of Copilot in Microsoft Stream, Favorite and Unfavorite additional file types and folders in OneDrive and SharePoint document libraries, Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview support on iOS and Android, Planner Loop Component, and more. All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of September 2023. Build your intelligent intranet on SharePoint in Microsoft 365 and get the benefits of investing in business outcomes - reducing IT and development costs, increasing business speed and agility, and up-leveling the dynamic, personalized, and welcoming nature of your intranet. Highlights from the AI/Copilot event in NYC. Let's break down the recent NYC event, On Sep 21, Microsoft announced a series of exciting updates, including the Microsoft 365 Copilot general availability date: November 1, 2023, and that Microsoft Copilot in Windows will be begin rolling out in preview to commercial customers beginning September 26. Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams. SharePoint is the intelligent content service that powers teamwork - to better collaborate on proposals, projects, and campaigns throughout your organization - with integration across Microsoft Teams, OneDrive, Yammer, Stream, Planner and much more. We're pleased to announce support for the Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview within Microsoft Lists for iOS and Android - now available. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3rBUDhg Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Unveiling the Next Generation of OneDrive

Today, we're officially unveiling the next generation of OneDrive where all your files are at your fingertips. The next generation of OneDrive includes new file views, governance controls, creation tools, and Copilot to help you quickly search, organize and extract information from your files. Let's take a look at the next generation of OneDrive. The next generation of OneDrive offers simple and fast access to your files and shared files. OneDrive home: We've redesigned the home experience in OneDrive for Web to help you swiftly retrieve your files no matter where they live in your organization. OneDrive in Teams: Part of the reinvention of OneDrive is a new approach to working with files in Teams. The restricted access control policy for OneDrive lets you block people from accessing shared files in specific OneDrive accounts by limiting OneDrive access to members of a specific security group. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3F2CDjl Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Reminder: Create GDAP templates in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

As detailed previously, Lighthouse provides a way to create GDAP templates that can be easily applied across all your customers, with built-in role recommendations and the ability to automatically complete role assignments once a customer has approved the relationship. A screenshot of creating GDAP templates in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse. Microsoft has already created GDAP relationships for all existing DAP relationships as part of the Microsoft-led DAP to GDAP transition. Instead, these relationships will have default GDAP relationships, requiring action to assign GDAP roles to security groups for these customers. Using GDAP templates in Lighthouse, you can quickly add new customers to an existing template to accelerate this process. Start using GDAP templates in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse today Get started by registering for Lighthouse, logging in with the required roles, and using GDAP to configure delegated access. We're also working on new features to allow you to manage your users easily, update your GDAP templates, and create new GDAP relationships as you onboard new customers. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3F3kGkw Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Support update for Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft 365

To simplify these options and provide the best experience for these scenarios going forward, Microsoft is announcing its plan to retire Business Connectivity Services in Microsoft 365 and focus on Microsoft Power Apps as its replacement technology. All Business Connectivity Services features will be retired in SharePoint in Microsoft 365. Microsoft encourages customers to explore using Power Apps to replace their Business Connectivity Services solutions in SharePoint in Microsoft 365. Although there's no direct migration from Business Connectivity Services to Power Apps, it supports a modern, cloud-first external data connectivity experience. October 30, 2023: Microsoft will begin blocking Business Connectivity Services features based on the tenant property set by the customer. January 8, 2024: Microsoft will block Business Connectivity Services features in new Microsoft 365 tenants by default, as well as in tenants who haven't used the feature since October 30, 2023. Customers should only set this property once they've confirmed there's no business need to use the Business Connectivity Services features. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/48yNiQn Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Making it easier for small and medium businesses to stay secure

As we mark the 20th anniversary of Cybersecurity Awareness Month, we see security becoming an increasing focus for small and medium business customers. At Microsoft, we believe in security for all and are committed to bringing enterprise security innovation to SMBs. With Microsoft 365 Business Premium and Microsoft Defender for Business, we brought enterprise-grade security to SMB customers that is affordable and easy to use. Microsoft 365 Business Premium brings the best of Office apps, Microsoft 365 services and Teams, with a comprehensive security suite to SMBs- offering protection across identity and access with Microsoft Entra ID Plan 1, endpoint security with Defender for Business, protection across email, Teams, OneDrive with Defender for Office 365, data protection with Azure Information protection and device management with Microsoft Intune. At Microsoft, we are committed to making our solutions accessible and affordable for SMBs. As part of cybersecurity month, we're offering a 10% price promotion for Microsoft 365 Business Premium annual subscriptions for new customers through October- available via our website in the US, UK and Canada. For businesses looking to purchase through partners, Business Premium promotions for new customers are also available through partners in select markets. Partners can now see an aggregate view of the Secure Score of all their managed tenants, with the ability to view each managed tenants' individual secure score and trend directly in M365 Lighthouse. Partners can access training resources, customer decks and deployment checklists from our Business Premium partner playbook and Defender for Business Partner kit. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46eJKkw Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

September 2023 content updates for Microsoft 365 Learning Pathways

We are happy to announce new content updates to Microsoft 365 learning pathways, our free and customizable, on-demand training solution for September 2023. This update included five new playlists for Microsoft Viva Engage, under the Microsoft 365 training section. Since 2019, M365LP has been helping drive healthy usage and adoption of Microsoft 365 apps and services, providing customers with content streamed from Microsoft for key services such as Microsoft Teams, Office apps, Planner and more. Microsoft 365 learning pathways, your customizable, on-demand training solution. Our upcoming releases will include Viva Insights and Viva Topics in October and Viva Amplify in November. Use this new content and our upcoming releases as an opportunity to update your app and re-engage your users. On-demand, micro training is a great way to help people learn in the flow of work. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3LDSYyH Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Introducing Microsoft Lists MSA Preview for iOS and Android

We're pleased to announce support for the Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview within Microsoft Lists for iOS and Android - now available. You can access Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS or Android for free using your MSA account. Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS and Android - both showing the Lists Home screen. Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for Android: Create new list using a template. Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS: Work with others. Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS: Across mobile, tablet, and desktop - your data remains the same, private, and accessible. Microsoft Lists - MSA Preview for iOS: Signed into the Lists app with both a Microsoft account and Microsoft 365 work account. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46wI1XN Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

New OneDrive Sync Enhancements

OneDrive Sync powers many of these features, seamlessly synchronizing your files between your local computer and OneDrive, working diligently behind the scenes. In the past when you deleted a shortcut to a file that was created with the Add to OneDrive feature, it deleted both the shortcut and the file in SharePoint. In the coming months, we also plan to launch a new Details pane in File Explorer to give you a comprehensive overview of a selected file, including a thumbnail preview, shared status, related activity and even related content. OneDrive will let you configure rules to include or exclude specific file types from syncing to OneDrive accounts. In the same way that you can open a Word, PowerPoint or Excel file in their respective desktop apps, soon you'll be able to open any file in its desktop app, then edit it, and when you save the file those changes will sync to OneDrive. With this new integration, you can more conveniently access and collaborate on your OneDrive files within your virtual app or desktop environment. It's a significant step forward if you rely on OneDrive for file storage and sharing but can't use the native OneDrive experience. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3REwC3Q Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Sync Up Episode 5

Sync your teeth into the latest episode of the Sync Up podcast! This week, Stephen Rice and Arvind Mishra talk with OneDrive Sync experts Gaia Carini and Andrey Espiov about all the latest improvements to the OneDrive desktop experience! From new features that will knock your socks off to improvements on tried and true fundamentals, there's a lot to learn in this jam-packed episode! If you want to learn more about what's coming for OneDrive, be sure to join us for OneDrive: The Future of File Management on October 3rd! You can learn more about the event here. As always, thank you for listening to the Sync Up Podcast! If you've got questions you'd like to see us tackle on the show, let us know in the comments below! -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/45inh56 Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Microsoft 365 Admin Monthly Digest

Welcome to the Microsoft 365 IT admin blog, your monthly source of tips, insights, and best practices for managing and optimizing your Microsoft 365 environment. In this edition, we cover topics the upcoming AMA on Microsoft 365 Copilot, general availability of Copilot and Bing Chat Enterprise, new and upcoming features in the Microsoft 365 admin center, new Teams Premium deployment and enablement guides, and the exclusive OneDrive event. In an exclusive event on Sep 21, Microsoft announced a series of exciting updates, including that Microsoft 365 Copilot will be generally available on November 1, and that Microsoft Copilot in Windows will be begin rolling out in preview to commercial customers beginning September 26. We've recently launched an admin hub for Microsoft 365 Copilot documentation that provides a central place for technical content on Copilot and getting prepared. Let's check out some of the latest features we launched in the Microsoft 365 admin center and how they can help you get things done. Next month, new capabilities will begin rolling out in the Microsoft 365 Apps admin center to help admins switch Update Channels for their user devices or Entra ID Groups in Inventory. As always, stay current with the latest updates on the Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3td39nD Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft sessions keynote AMA at 365 EduCon Chicago 2023 Event guide

The combined whole of the event brings together a stellar lineup of industry-leading experts, including Microsoft MVPs, Microsoft Regional Directors, Microsoft MCTs and Microsoft Engineers, who will share their invaluable insights and best practices. Prepare to be inspired as these gurus delve into the latest trends, strategies, and innovations that shape the Microsoft 365 landscape and walk away with actionable knowledge that you can apply directly in your organization. Just as customers turned to Microsoft to help them make the shift to remote and flexible work, they're now turning to us to help them understand how this new era of AI will change work yet again. Understand how Microsoft 365 can be your end-to-end solution spanning durable trends impacting teamwork, organizational productivity, and employee wellbeing. Kick off 365 EduCon - Chicago to understand the strategy and vision - clarity on where Microsoft is taking productivity into the future. Microsoft AMA + SharePint - Your chance to ask Microsoft product leaders questions and GET answers. I hope you will join us in Chicago for what will be a fantastic week! I am looking forward to the action alongside the community, MVPs, and Microsoft product members from Teams, Office, SharePoint, OneDrive, Loop, Syntex, Viva, Power Platform, Lists, Project, Exchange, and more. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46cnqrR Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

AI Transformation Drives Small Business Success

This is why we recently put Microsoft 365 Copilot into the hands of entrepreneurs and small and medium businesses with a private, invitation-only Microsoft 365 Copilot SMB Early Access Program. Microsoft 365 Copilot is a generative AI companion that is always at hand and ready to help while you're working with the same Microsoft 365 apps you use every day. With email behind her Alex can move on to her schedule, usually a tangled web of managing time and priorities-but not with Microsoft 365 Copilot. Using Copilot in Word, the team asks Copilot to rewrite their initial concept brief with a more professional tone and create custom graphics right in the document with Microsoft Designer. To finalize the presentation, Alex and her team use Microsoft 365 Chat, a powerful new capability in Microsoft 365 Copilot that goes far beyond simple questions and answers to tame the complexity, eliminate the drudgery, and reclaim time at work. Now that you have an idea of how much Microsoft 365 Copilot can impact your everyday work life, it's time to get ready with Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium. We've only scratched the surface of how Microsoft 365 Copilot will transform how you work. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/48obp44 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Feature Deep Dive: Browse files by People and Meetings

These new views let you effortlessly locate files based on the people you work with and your meetings. The People and Meetings views in OneDrive help you to quickly located shared files in OneDrive. We spend much of our workdays in meetings, and within those meetings coworkers share plenty of files either in chat or the meeting invite. Before and after meetings, we often spend time digging through meeting invites and chat threads trying to find pre-reading materials for upcoming meetings or content from past meetings. The Meetings view displays meeting recording and files associated with the meeting. The Meetings view for recurring meetings displays all the meeting recording and files associated with the meeting series. The People and Meetings view are here to help you browse and get to your files quickly. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Lwlhie Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Microsoft 365 Champion Community Calls are back on September 26!

‎Sep 19 2023 05:01 PM. We hope everyone had a restful August! Join our next community call on September 26 for a showcase of FastTrack and learn how you can leverage their services in your adoption journey. We will be starting the call at 5 minutes past the hour for both of our sessions, and it will still end at the top of the hour. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3LuFHZ9 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Alerts and notifications are now available in Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

We are making it easier to stay informed of these insights through alerts and notifications. Offering alerting capabilities on several key scenarios, we've made it easier than ever for Managed Service Providers to integrate multi-tenant alerts into their everyday workflows with configuration directly in Lighthouse without configuring these alerts in multiple admin portals. Screenshot example of a Microsoft 365 Lighthouse alert notification email. We will continue to add new alert types, and we always welcome Partner feedback if there are new alerts you'd like to see added. For each created alert rule, MSPs can view and action the alert directly within a single page in Lighthouse. Screenshot of the Alerts grid page, with a historical and individual alerts graph. We're excited to bring this multi-tenant alert capability to Lighthouse and help empower MSPs to integrate alerts from Lighthouse into their everyday workflows. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/46trmEz Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Cyberattack protection by default and other enhancements to SharePoint Server

SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, which is our latest version of SharePoint Server, was launched to turn that vision into reality. While the majority of our investments continue to be focused on SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, we're also announcing security investments for SharePoint Server 2019 and SharePoint Server 2016. The result of this partnership was to integrate cyberattack detection and protection capabilities directly into SharePoint Server. We then expanded the feature to SharePoint Server 2019 and SharePoint Server 2016 earlier this year. Enabling AMSI protection by default isn't the only enhancement we're making to AMSI integration in SharePoint Server. SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H2 adds support for React version 16 and Office UI Fabric React 7, allowing developers to utilize these newer component versions in their SharePoint Framework solutions. Microsoft will continue to improve and expand the capabilities of SharePoint Framework in SharePoint Server Subscription Edition in future feature updates. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3PeUhoO Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Bing Chat Enterprise now has user-level admin controls plus your data questions answered

Today, we're excited to share some new administrative controls, which are enabled through the Bing Chat Enterprise Service Plan, and offer more clarity on how we manage data in Bing Chat Enterprise. At launch, Microsoft 365 admins had the option to turn Bing Chat Enterprise on or off for all users with eligible licenses in their tenant, which made it easier to deploy Bing Chat Enterprise at scale and ensure that all users could use generative AI with built-in commercial data protection. As a reminder, turning off Bing Chat Enterprise will revert the user to the consumer Bing Chat experience. The service plan name for Bing Chat Enterprise is Bing Chat Enterprise. If your organization is evaluating Bing Chat Enterprise, here are some important points to consider: Bing Chat Enterprise is a generative AI service grounded in data from the public web-it doesn't have access to organizational resources or content within Microsoft 365 such as documents, emails, meetings, or Microsoft Teams messages. It only has access to organizational data a user has explicitly typed or copied directly into the chat or if a user opens Bing Chat Enterprise in the Microsoft Edge sidebar and has given permission for Bing Chat Enterprise to access a document or intranet page open in the browser. When using Bing Chat Enterprise, user prompts leave your organization's Microsoft 365 tenant boundary to reach the Bing Chat Enterprise service and may be processed in global data centers, including ones in the United States, but this data is encrypted in transit and Microsoft doesn't retain this data beyond a short caching period for runtime purposes. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3sK8hz3 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Join us on Oct 3 for an Exclusive OneDrive Event

Calling IT Admins, partners and Microsoft 365 enthusiasts! Mark your calendars for a special online event where you'll get a first-hand look at the future of OneDrive. Join Jeff Teper and the OneDrive product team as they showcase the next generation of file management across Microsoft 365. See the new enhancements to OneDrive and discover the benefits of faster file access, better organization, simpler collaboration, and improved file security across Microsoft 365. Plus, we'll give a sneak peek at our AI plans which include new search, sharing, and information queries across all your files in OneDrive. After the event we'll respond to your questions in a live chat-based Q&A. Microsoft OneDrive: The Future of File Management is Here! Get an event reminder and important follow-up information after the event by signing up for the OneDrive newsletter. In recent months we've made many enhancements to OneDrive and there's more to come. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/480hDa9 Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Microsoft SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop August 2023

August 2023 brought some great new offerings: SharePoint news to email inbox, two new SharePoint site theme options, accessibility improvements to SharePoint page authoring, Announcements in Viva Connections, Restricted Access Control for SharePoint and OneDrive, OneDrive: Colors for folders, OneDrive: Meetings and People views, SharePoint pages sharing update, Teams Meet app, new Search experience within chat and channels, and more. Four images, clockwise starting top left: SharePoint news article in SharePoint, sending email feature, SharePoint news in the email client, and the statistics for view counts. We are introducing a new advanced capability for SharePoint admins to restrict SharePoint and OneDrive sites to specified users. With this feature, SharePoint admins can restrict site access to specified users using Microsoft 365 groups or AAD security groups - now Microsoft Entra ID groups. Now you can share SharePoint pages and news posts individually without having to share the entire site, just like you can with other Microsoft 365 files in a document library. Herein lies the power of Clipchamp on top of OneDrive and SharePoint, enabling commercial use when you login to Microsoft 365 with your Microsoft Entra ID account). Thanks to the in-browser video editor, you can start a new video on the Clipchamp start page on Microsoft 365, create a new Clipchamp video in OneDrive, or edit an existing video in your OneDrive or SharePoint folders. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3L6UhWD Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Microsoft 365 Admin Monthly Digest

Welcome to the Microsoft 365 IT admin blog, your monthly source of tips, insights, and best practices for managing and optimizing your Microsoft 365 environment. In this edition, the latest on Microsoft 365 Copilot, Bing Chat Enterprise, and learn about enhancements to the Microsoft 365 admin center. Ms/TurnOffBCE. You will also need to ensure Microsoft Search in Bing setting in the Microsoft 365 admin center is turned on. Let's check out some of the latest features we launched in the Microsoft 365 admin center and how they can help you get things done. Admins can configure this from the Microsoft 365 admin center in the Viva Pulse admin experience. As always, stay current with the latest updates on the Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. We also highlight new feature releases and enhancements released each month in our What's new in the Microsoft 365 admin center article. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3L2lxFH Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Now available: interactive Custom Production Virtual Event Playbook

‎Aug 30 2023 04:24 PM. We're excited to share with you the launch of the interactive version of the Microsoft Custom Production Virtual Event Playbook. This playbook builds on the foundational knowledge in our core Virtual Event Playbook and provides guidance for seasoned event producers to deliver more highly produced events using additional tools. Example scenarios can include executive panels, internal or public conferences and events that include pre-recorded content or multiple remote presenters with a single host as you might see on the nightly news. This document has been reviewed and approved by our joint engineering groups, Microsoft Studios, our marketing partners and by those of us involved in the day to day production of events of all kinds. We intentionally led with our event/audience engagement model and commitment to accessibility. Virtual events are about more than features; they are opportunities to engage and connect. This new interactive version is also localized in nine major languages. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3R08cRW Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Introducing new SharePoint news for email feature

We are excited to announce that we are currently rolling out a new feature called SharePoint News for Email. This feature enables you to convert your SharePoint News Posts intro distributions that can be read fully in email inboxes. Four pictures - showing the news article in SharePoint - sending email feature - news in the email client - statistics for the view. Selection of the templates for new news article - showing the email ready templates. SharePoint News visible in the SharePoint portal and in the email client. Authors of SharePoint News will now be able to send news posts as emails. View counters for your news articles will include also views of the news article through the email client. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/44uBknB Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Add and Explore Office Add-ins easily with our new entry point

We're excited to announce that a more easy-to-access entry point for Office Add-ins is now available online. By accessing the new entry point in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint, you'll have an upgraded experience without worrying about managing all your add-ins or choosing the fit right add-in among the thousands available in AppSource and the Office marketplace. If you already use Word, Excel, and PowerPoint add-ins, the entry point has moved! Now you can find and activate your installed add-ins in two locations, on the Home tab and File tab. You can also find the Word, Excel, PowerPoint Get Add-ins entry point on the File tab as shown in the following image. If you've never used any Word, Excel, and PowerPoint add-ins before, no problem! The new recommendation mechanism provides targeted, expert help no matter which application you use. If at first you don't find the add-in to suit your needs, we encourage you to explore and search apps in the marketplace. If you're interested in building a Word, Excel, or PowerPoint add-in and allow users from all over the world to use it, simply out the Microsoft Office Add-ins registration form to consult with our team. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3YUcsVg Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Updated content for the SharePoint Web UI kit!

‎Aug 24 2023 09:00 AM. We're excited to announce that our UI kit has been updated with some great new additions! The goal of this update is to help you design a broader selection of SharePoint sites and pages quickly and easily. We have updated the guidance across the SharePoint Web UI kit to reflect the additions of team site navigation and smaller view ports including tablet and mobile. You should evaluate if Figma is the right solution for mocking up sites and pages for SharePoint. This UI kit provides SharePoint users with another tool in their toolbox. While building a page in SharePoint is easy, we wanted to provide the ability to mockup sites and pages. To get started with our updated UI kit, simply download the latest version from the Figma Microsoft Community website: SharePoint Web UI Kit - Figma. Please tell us what's missing, what doesn't work for you, and where your biggest challenges are by leaving a comment on the Figma SharePoint Web UI kit page or by visiting the SharePoint Community. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3YLtNiZ Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Adaptive Card-based Loop components

Adaptive Card-based Loop components are live and actionable units of productivity that stay in sync and can move freely across Microsoft 365 apps, starting with Microsoft Teams and Outlook. We're excited to announce that Adaptive Card-based Loop components are now available in public preview! In this article, we want to give you a sneak peek into how you can build your own first set of live, actionable, portable Adaptive Card-based Loop components to bring your business content directly into Teams, Outlook, and other Microsoft 365 apps. Adaptive Card-based Loop components let you build experiences which will allow your users to share and act upon business content across Teams and Outlook. There are three distinct stages in your journey to building Adaptive Card-based Loop components -. ServiceDesk Plus - an IT Service Management solution by the Zoho Corp., is leveraging the power of Adaptive Card-based Loop components to optimize its incident and ticket management use cases. Once you have taken care of the pre-requisites, the next step is to add the special ingredient which makes Adaptive Card-based Loop components live and portable. Weburl property to turn your existing Adaptive Card experiences to Loop component. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3QSnTdU Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft Viva Connections adoption best practices The Intrazone SharePoint product team podcast

On this episode, we chat with Liz Sundet and Luis Enrique Torres who work directly with Microsoft customers to help them best land a variety of technology in the category of 'Corporate Communications excellence' - especially when it comes to leveraging Microsoft Viva tailored to internal communications. We got into common patterns, best practices, and key resources to both assess, plan, and successfully deploy Viva Connections - the gateway to the overall employee experience from Microsoft for business leaders and developers. We also dig into Viva Amplify and how it will complement and extend the overall management and reporting for internal communications excellence. Important on-demand recordings, articles, and events mentioned in this episode. Be sure to visit our show page to hear all episodes, access the show notes, and get bonus content. Stay connected to the SharePoint community blog and the Viva community blog where we'll share more information per episode, guest insights, and take any questions or suggestions from our listeners and SharePoint users. The Intrazone, a show about the Microsoft 365 intelligent intranet. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3OMJJwF Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Introducing Python in Excel: The Best of Both Worlds for Data Analysis and Visualization

Today, we are excited to introduce the Public Preview of Python in Excel - making it possible to integrate Python and Excel analytics within the same Excel grid for uninterrupted workflow. Python in Excel combines Python's powerful data analysis and visualization libraries with Excel's features you know and love. Now you can do advanced data analysis in the familiar Excel environment by accessing Python directly from the Excel ribbon. Using Excel's built-in connectors and Power Query, you can easily bring external data into Python in Excel workflows. Python in Excel leverages Anaconda Distribution for Python running in Azure, which includes the most popular Python libraries such as pandas for data manipulation, statsmodels for advanced statistical modeling, and Matplotlib and seaborn for data visualization. Teammates can refresh Python in Excel analytics for the most up-to-date information, even if they don't have Python in Excel activated. Super charge your data analysis and tell better stories with Python in Excel. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47JXaWQ Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

What's New in OneNote Android

You can now capture notes at the speed of your thought with a refreshed notetaking canvas - that is easy to use and has a lot of new editing capabilities that you have been asking for. 1.Command Bar optimization - All the text mode commands you need, such as checklists, bullet lists and text formatting, are available to you as you start typing a new note. 3.Real time note sharing - Click on the three-dot menu on the top right to access note level actions. You can now apply a page style, file the note to a different notebook, add the note to your home screen, delete, share your note in real time, enhancing collaboration and knowledge sharing and more. 5.Insert tables - As you are typing a note, click on the table icon within your contextual command bar. You can change the style, color and size of your text, heading as per your choice to format your notes. We're excited about the future of OneNote and look forward to hearing your feedback to make OneNote the best place for your notes. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3P0z9nk Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Use Deployment Tasks and Quarantine Email to help protect your managed tenants' inboxes.

Use deployment tasks and quarantined email to help protect your managed tenant's inboxes. Microsoft 365 Lighthouse allows you to both quickly configure policies that help protect your managed tenants from potentially dangerous or unwanted messages but also get a single pane of glass view into the quantity and type of messages filtered by Exchange Online Protection and Microsoft Defender for Office policies. Configure protection for your managed tenants via the default baseline. Lighthouse helps you secure and manage your customers' tenants with a set of deployment tasks using our default baseline. With our deployment tasks for EOP and MDO, you can configure policies that turn on standard security measures for both EOP and MDO. Exchange Online Protection helps protect your customers' tenants against spam, malware, phishing, and other email threats. Once enabled, you can use our Quarantined messages page to help manage quarantined emails across your customer tenants. By deploying our EOP and MDO tasks, you can begin providing better protection to your managed customers' tenants. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3EeidUh Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Deep Dive: How User Experience Research Shapes OneDrive

The new OneDrive for Web Home experience delivers a number of enhancements that make it easier and quicker to find your files. After working on SharePoint Pages for three years, she joined the OneDrive team last year to focus on understanding how people organize and find their files, and how they use OneDrive for work and school across different platforms and devices. She's been instrumental in driving UX research for the OneDrive visual refresh, which aims to provide a quick-to-use, consistent, and accessible user interface. One of the challenges of doing UX research for OneDrive is to understand and represent the needs and perspectives of our customers in a way that both accommodates a range of perspectives and use cases and ensures a unified experience across the platform. We were able to leverage that body of research when working on the OneDrive refresh. It's really a testament to how OneDrive is committed to keeping a high bar on craft. Lastly, for a deeper look into the new OneDrive design and all the went into it tune into the Sync Up Podcast episode: Behind the Blue - OneDrive's New Design. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3QBqPLV Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

3 Ways Microsoft is Shaping the Future of Frontline

Between fluctuating team schedules and staying up to date with their often large and dispersed frontline team, maintaining end-to-end visibility on operations can get time-consuming for frontline managers. Soon Microsoft 365 Copilot can ground prompts and retrieve insights for frontline managers leveraging data from the Shifts app in addition to user and company data it has access to such as Teams chat history, SharePoint, emails, and more. Microsoft 365 Copilot can help understand open items for a frontline manager by pulling from files, chats, and open shifts. Microsoft 365 Copilot can help onboard a new frontline worker by pulling together relevant documents and resources. Frontline workers can benefit from generative conversations which provide answers and takes actions via a chat bot, while frontline managers can also use generative assistance to more easily build chat bots using Copilot in Power Virtual Agents. Today, Microsoft Intune enables organizations to enroll Android devices into Microsoft Entra ID, formerly Azure Active Directory, shared device mode, so they can provide sharable mobile devices to their frontline workers. Instead of the common hassles that come with sharing physical PCs, Windows 365 Frontline provides personalized Cloud PCs freeing your frontline employees to work from anywhere, helping to boost their productivity and job satisfaction. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3OrFeHJ Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Clean up Inactive users with Microsoft 365 Lighthouse

You can search for any user across all your customers' tenants to make changes to that user account, look at which users have been flagged for risky sign-in behavior, identify users yet to register MFA and more. If you've ever dealt with managing user accounts, you've probably encountered inactive users already. Inactive users are those user accounts that have had no activity for a long time. Inactive user accounts can complicate the already challenging task of managing users across all of your customer tenants. Security- It's possible some of these inactive user accounts need to be protected with MFA, as there's no real user behind the account to register a second factor for authentication. You can now easily see all the inactive user accounts across your customer tenants on a single pane of glass! Once you have visibility into inactive user accounts, the next step is to ensure these accounts are properly offboarded. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/47jR0wz Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

New ways to discover Microsoft Graph connector content securely across Microsoft 365

Microsoft Graph connectors enables your organization to index content from on-premises or cloud-based line-of-business and 3rd party applications in Microsoft Graph. Once connected to Microsoft Graph, indexed content can provide enriched search results and interactions with Microsoft 365. We are rolling out a new capability for users that shows content from Microsoft Graph connectors in the Microsoft 365 web app. This feature expands the types of content sources that are displayed in your Microsoft 365 productivity apps and the broader Microsoft ecosystem. The Microsoft 365 web app is home to all your favorite productivity apps that provides a secure, integrated, experience built on Microsoft Graph. With the addition of Microsoft Graph connector content from third party data sources, users can now discover third party content across the Microsoft 365 ecosystem with the Microsoft 365 web app. Below is an example of the Fabrikam Purchase agreement from the Adobe Sign Graph connector appearing under 'Quick Access' within Microsoft 365. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/457VXHv Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Microsoft SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop July 2023 The Intrazone

You can always rely on July to bring goodness to for SharePoint and Microsoft 365: New SharePoint site creation experience, Viva Pulse GA, Viva Connections platform updates, new Search layouts for results, OneDrive: Simplified sharing, Lists UX update, Stream playback in Teams chat and channels, AAD > MSeID, Inspire announcements highlights, and more. All features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Microsoft 365 as of July 2023. This update will allow Microsoft Search administrators to change result layouts for select SharePoint content using adaptive cards with Result Type feature in Microsoft Search administration. Teamwork updates across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive, and Microsoft Teams. Azure Active Directory is becoming Microsoft Entra ID. Yes, we are moving your cheese: AAD > MSeID. The name change to Microsoft Entra ID represents the evolution and unification of the Microsoft Entra product family, and a commitment to simplify secure access experiences for everyone. Microsoft Entra ID Free, Microsoft Entra ID P1, and Microsoft Entra ID P2 will be the new names of standalone offers, and all capabilities included in the current Azure AD plans remain the same. Microsoft 365 public roadmap + pre-filtered URL for SharePoint, OneDrive, Yammer and Stream roadmap items. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3rUclwq Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog