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. Microsoft, the new home for the Health dashboard, and explore the benefits of Microsoft product trials and how you can use them to maximize value from Microsoft 365 by accelerating new tool evaluation. This month, the Microsoft 365 admin center went live on the new domain, and is now accessible at admin. Admins can start trials and assign trial licenses to select users via the Microsoft 365 admin center by navigating to Billing > Your products page. In either case, Microsoft 365 admins retain full control with the ability to disable self-service trials, or take over trial subscriptions through the Microsoft 365 admin center. As always, stay current with the latest updates on the Microsoft 365 admin center from the Microsoft 365 roadmap and the message center. To keep up with the latest on Copilot for Microsoft 365, consider joining our Copilot for Microsoft 365 Tech Community. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4aRI16X Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

New features Microsoft announced at Enterprise Connect 2024

By Brenna Robinson, General Manager, Microsoft SMB. At this year's Enterprise Connect conference, Microsoft showcased new products and solutions improving business communications and collaboration. We'd like to share some of the announcements we've made, including new ways to manage your phone calls in Microsoft Teams Phone with the new Queues app. Microsoft Teams Phone is a key addition for a small business already using Microsoft Teams because it's the only cloud telephone solution natively built for Teams. The Queues app will be available as part of Teams Premium in Summer 2024 and requires a Teams Phone subscription. Microsoft 365 Business Standard and Microsoft 365 Business Premium customers can enhance their Teams experience with all these new features and be ready for the new Copilot capabilities as they're released. Just add Teams Premium, Copilot for Microsoft 3651 , and Teams Phone to your subscription. To purchase, enterprise customers must have a license for Microsoft 365 E3 or E5 or Office 365 E3 or E5, and business customers must have a license for Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Business Premium, or a version of these suites that no longer includes Microsoft Teams. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3IYk8P6 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

OneDrive security and mobile features now available for Microsoft 365 Basic subscribers

We are excited to announce the addition of ransomware detection and recovery, an expanded Personal Vault, password protected and expiring sharing links, and offline files and folders to Microsoft 365 Basic. With additional security features from OneDrive, Microsoft 365 Basic subscribers will get additional peace of mind for their files and photos, at the same low price. How it helps: Personal Vault in OneDrive provides an extra layer of security with Two-Factor Authentication, helping to ensure that only you can access your critical files. Microsoft 365 Basic subscribers previously could only store 3 files in their Personal Vault. Offline Files and Folders, empowers Microsoft 365 Basic customers with seamless access to your files on the go, whether you're traveling, in a location with poor connectivity, or simply want to save on data. OneDrive will confirm your files are available offline. Storage Considerations: The number and size of files you can store offline are limited by your device's available storage and the Microsoft Basic 100GB storage limit. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3VECc8w Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Microsoft Loop works with Microsoft Teams and Collaborative notes

Because Collaborative Notes are Microsoft Loop components, they automatically sync across all the places you share them. Since Collaborative Notes are Loop components you can work on them across other Microsoft 365 web apps, Microsoft Outlook, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Word, and Microsoft Whiteboard. During a meeting, any participant can use Collaborative Notes to check off or re-order agenda items and take notes and assign follow-up tasks in one central place. Because Collaborative Notes are Loop components, you can add links and other components directly in the notes. Tasks and deadlines created in Collaborative Notes or other Loop components automatically sync with Microsoft Planner and the Microsoft ToDo App. If you're a Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium customer, you can try out Collaborative Notes right now in Microsoft Teams. If you have Microsoft 365 Business Standard or Microsoft 365 Business Premium, you can also purchase Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365 as an add-on; Microsoft 365 Business Basic customers will also be able to purchase Copilot. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/43CYHfP Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Use Clipchamp to create accessible and impactful videos

Overall video viewership on the web has increased 25% since 20191, and there are more than three billion internet users accessing video content every day, so video is a medium you don't want to overlook when delivering an impactful message to your current and growing audience. That's why we released Microsoft Clipchamp last November, so that we can help you create professional-grade videos more quickly and easily. Clipchamp has an innovative interface that is purpose-built to make video creation easier, while still delivering polished and professional results. Microsoft Clipchamp autocaptions and text to speech Autocaptions. Clipchamp immediately generates captions for your video, which you can review and edit as needed. Your team can use the new text to speech feature to add voice over tracks to videos without requiring recording equipment or expensive voice layovers in post-production. Autocaptions and text to speech are both perfect examples of the features Clipchamp provides to help businesses make videos simply. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3PGqEO1 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Enable AI and productivity in your organization

Microsoft has put a stake in the ground, a commitment to bring AI and Copilot to everyone, everywhere. We do this in a responsible way and provide you with tools and techniques to use and manage it all in ways that work best for your organization. With Copilot now in Teams, Microsoft 365 Office apps, Windows, and Viva - and coming soon to SharePoint, OneDrive - understanding governance and best practices around piloting, planning, deploying, managing, securing, and driving adoption for Copilot can be a big undertaking. We're sending over 175 Microsoft product makers to the Microsoft 365 Community Conference. With that in mind, I invite you to join me, my team and colleagues April 30th - May 2nd, 2024, at the Dolphin & Swan Hotel in Orlando, Florida. See everything Microsoft is planning for the show, review our Microsoft 365 Community Conference Event Guide - it's got everything from keynote details, general sessions, breakouts, workshops, special events, and more. You'll find content and experts spanning Copilot and AI, Teams, Viva, SharePoint, OneDrive, Power Platform, Planner, and more - a little something for everyone no matter if you're of focus is business, IT, or extensibility. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4a7n9IO Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Act now: Turn on or customize Microsoft-managed Conditional Access policies

Since we announced Microsoft-managed Conditional Access policies, we've rolled out these policies to more than 500,000 tenants in report-only mode. Customers shared that Microsoft-managed policies impact the number of Conditional Access policies that organizations can create. We've addressed this by making a significant change: Microsoft-managed policies will no longer count towards the Conditional Access policy limit. Another adjustment relates to existing Conditional Access policies. As a result, we have extended the time frame before enforcing the policies for this initial set of policies. For these three policies, you will have more than 90 days to review and customize your Microsoft-managed Conditional Access policies before they are automatically enforced. Review these policies in the Conditional Access policies blade. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4cqQL5y Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Introducing New Capabilities for File Viewer in Microsoft 365

Today we're happy to introduce performance, collaboration and interactivity upgrades to the file viewer in Microsoft 365. The file viewer in Microsoft 365 opens by default when you access non-Office files from OneDrive, SharePoint, or Teams. File viewer supports over 300 file types and also allows for some basic image editing and file annotation. Let's take a look at what's new in file viewer. This video shows the before and after changes to the file viewer in Microsoft 365. Copilot: Use Copilot right in file viewer to get file summaries, answer questions about file content, and extract information This seamless integration of Copilot enhances your file experience and helps you get the most out of your files. The file viewer in Microsoft 365 can display and scroll through over 300 different file types. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4anWk2S Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog

Collect information like a pro New Microsoft Lists forms experience in Microsoft 365

We are excited to announce that we are currently rolling out the new forms experience in Microsoft Lists for Microsoft 365 work and school. Thus, we are excited to launch a new forms experience built right inside Microsoft Lists - rolling out now. The new Forms experience in Microsoft Lists - showing how you add and edit columns as segments to collect various pieces of information. The new Forms experience in Microsoft Lists - showing how you can select pre-made themes or create your own style. The new Forms experience in Microsoft Lists - showing what a recipient sees when they click on the Form share link - they simply, and only, see the form as you designed it. Coming soon, a new Help article to help you through all the steps on how to create a form in Microsoft Lists. I'll be demo'ing the new Microsoft Lists Forms experience on the upcoming Microsoft 365 & Power Platform community call: Tuesday, April 16th, 2024, at 8:00 AM PDT; it's free to join and it's a great community to learn from. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/48XrxIU Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Microsoft 365 Lighthouse vision and upcoming features

We're thrilled to announce that Microsoft 365 Lighthouse has a brand-new icon. In our earlier Microsoft 365 Lighthouse: 2023 Year in Review blog post, we gave you a sneak peek at features coming in early 2024. Microsoft Copilot opportunities: We added Microsoft Copilot opportunities to Sales Advisor to help you identify customers who are eligible to buy Microsoft Copilot for Microsoft 365. Monitor the health of all your customers: Use Lighthouse to support all of your customers, including those with Microsoft 365 Business Basic, Microsoft 365 Business Standard, and many more licensing SKUs. Opening up Lighthouse to Indirect providers: We're working to make Lighthouse available to indirect providers so they can manage their direct-bill customers. Later in the year, indirect providers will be able to leverage all features in Lighthouse to keep their Microsoft 365 direct-bill customers safe, secure, and productive. These are just some of the things we're working on to make Lighthouse the best tool for managing and securing all your Microsoft 365 customers. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3vhtWQO Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Business Blog

Remote Event Receivers retirement update

As part of this change of Microsoft 365 solutions, we announced on November 27, 2023 that both the SharePoint Add-In extensibility model and the use of Azure ACS for SharePoint Online authentication needs are retired as we believe Microsoft 365 customers will benefit more from modern SharePoint extensibility models and modern authentication offered by Microsoft Entra ID. The retirement of SharePoint Remote Event Receivers is part of these announcements, but we want to address the feedback we've received from our partner ecosystem and offer a better transition path from Remote Event Receivers. If you are deploying a Remote Event Receiver as part of a SharePoint Add-In or if you're using Remote Event Receivers registered using Azure ACS as the authentication system, then these Remote Event Receivers will follow the same retirement timeline as the one communicated for SharePoint Add-Ins and Azure ACS use for SharePoint Online. If you are registering your Remote Event Receivers using an Entra application that uses the sites. Selected role for getting granular access to one or more site collections, then those Remote Event Receivers will continue working until July 1st, 2027. To learn more about this approach you can read the Use remote event receivers without Azure ACS dependency article. Today Remote Event Receivers support a synchronous and asynchronous model, whereas web hooks are designed to be asynchronous. We are not planning to support synchronous web hooks, we recommend partners to redesign business flows that depend on synchronous operations. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4cnZxkv Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Upcoming preview of Microsoft Office LTSC 2024

Today we are pleased to announce that the commercial preview of the next Office LTSC release - Office LTSC 2024 - will begin next month, with general availability to follow later this year. Like earlier perpetual versions of Office, Office LTSC 2024 will include only a subset of the value found in Microsoft 365 Apps, building on the features included in past releases. Office LTSC 2024 will not ship with Microsoft Publisher, which is being retired, or with the Microsoft Teams app, which is available to download separately. While Office LTSC 2024 offers many significant improvements over the previous Office LTSC release, as an on-premises product it will not offer the cloud-based capabilities of Microsoft 365 Apps, like real-time collaboration; AI-driven automation in Word, Excel, and PowerPoint; or cloud-backed security and compliance capabilities that give added confidence in a hybrid world. Because we know that many customers deploy Office LTSC on only a subset of their devices, we will continue to support the deployment of both Office LTSC and Microsoft 365 Apps to different machines within the same organization using a common set of deployment tools. Office LTSC is a specialty product that Microsoft has committed to maintaining for use in exceptional circumstances, and the 2024 release provides substantial new feature value for those scenarios. To support continued innovation in this niche space, Microsoft will increase the price of Office LTSC Professional Plus, Office LTSC Standard, Office LTSC Embedded, and the individual apps by up to 10% at the time of general availability. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3v4vRs7 Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Invest in Tech: Supercharge your frontline with AI

There is a golden opportunity for business leaders to invest in technology that will power their frontline workforce to improve worker productivity, business process efficiency, and employee retention. A key part of the opportunity to uplevel your frontline workers is by transforming the way they work with next generation AI. An image providing statistics about how next-generation AI is transforming productivity across most workforces. Now AI is helping your frontline workers get answers quickly, spend less time on operations, and improve customer interactions. An image demonstrating examples of copilot prompts retail frontline workers input on the Microsoft Teams mobile app. Data from our Work Trend Index shows that over 60% of frontline workers struggle with repetitive and tedious tasks that take time away from valuable work like providing quality customer service and efficiently fulfilling meaningful components of their work. For frontline workers who work in the Microsoft 365 apps millions of people use every day like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook, Teams, and more, you can enable them with an AI assistant at work. This AI addition will enhance frontline worker and manager productivity by combining powerful large language models with their work content and context to help them deliver at a higher level. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4cdsOhQ Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Upcoming March 2024 Microsoft 365 Champion Community Call

‎Mar 13 2024 05:43 PM. Join our next community call on March 26 to learn more about Microsoft Copilot for Sales. 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/3v2jmgG Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Behind the Scenes: Talking AI and Copilot with Microsoft Customer Support Engineers

The Microsoft 365 Commercial Support team resolves customer support cases and provides support to help you be successful and realize the full potential and value of your purchase. We're excited to welcome two members from our Microsoft 365 and Windows Commercial Support Engineering team to talk about their journeys with AI and experience assisting commercial customers using Copilot for Microsoft 365. Our Microsoft 365 support teams have been using and getting ready for Copilot for many months and have been helping customers of all types and sizes get the assistance they need so they can stay productive. Today, it's my pleasure to welcome two accomplished individuals from our Microsoft 365 Support Engineering team to talk about their own journeys with AI, their experience and insights from supporting commercial customers using Copilot for Microsoft 365, and some of their best practices for implementing AI into support operations. Nelson: Thank you, Ross, great to be here! I'm a Partner Technical Advisor working in our Latin America region helping Microsoft 365 support teams deliver world-class support to enterprise customers. Ross: We'd love to hear about a specific project or experience where you've used AI in your job and where other support engineers could benefit. The CSS Modern Work Supportability team delivers innovative self-help solutions and diagnostics, in-service enhancements, and support programs to help customers get maximum value from their Microsoft 365 commercial subscriptions and create an easy-to-use, connected support experience. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Tzze3w Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Sync Up Episode 09: Creating a New Future with OneDrive

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What's New for SharePoint Server

Today we're delighted to share the latest steps in our evergreen journey for SharePoint Server with the release of the Version 24H1 feature update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. The initial RTM release of SharePoint Server Subscription Edition introduced several new features that were designed to improve the security and manageability of SharePoint Server. Starting with the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 24H1 feature update, the OpenID Connect nonce cookie certificate is now integrated into the SharePoint certificate management experience. A new SharePoint Health Analyzer health rule has also been added to notify administrators if the nonce cookie certificate isn't being managed through SharePoint certificate management. Starting with the SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 24H1 feature update, an optional survey will appear to SharePoint farm administrators from time to time when they visit the SharePoint Central Administration site. The end of support for SharePoint Server 2016 and SharePoint Server 2019 is just over 2 years away. Upgrade to SharePoint Server Subscription Edition, which is the latest version of SharePoint Server. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Piot2Y Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Microsoft 365 Community Conference event guide Opening Keynote, AMA, sessions, and more

The Microsoft 365 Community Conference returns to Orlando, FL, April 30 - May 2, 2024 - with two pre-event and one post-event workshop days. It's a wonderful event dedicated to Copilot and AI, SharePoint, Teams, OneDrive, Viva, Power Platform, and related Microsoft 365 apps and services. You'll hear the latest product updates and guidance from over 175 Microsoft product makers - filled with real-world solutions across keynotes, sessions, and pre/post event deep-dive workshops to build your expertise - presented alongside Microsoft MVPs and community experts. We hope you join in to learn, share, and engage -including evening gatherings, the attendee party, and Microsoft will have a dedicated, fully-staffed product booth and community space within the Expo Hall alongside all the wonderful event sponsors. Microsoft keynote, general sessions, and AMA. Hear from Microsoft leadership revealing the latest innovations shaping the flexible, innovative, and secure business environments of the future. Here's a quick rundown of sessions to learn more about Microsoft Viva, the employee experience platform built for the AI era. All Microsoft 365 Conference workshops either take place pre-event on Sunday or Monday or post-event on Friday. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/4c7Qbtb Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Evolving user enablement in the era of AI

At Microsoft over the last year, we have been focused on learning how AI is influencing this critical area by listening and learning from customers, partners, and experts around the globe who are taking this journey with us. It covers the three core elements of AI enablement - the leadership journey, user enablement and technical readiness - with real world guidance and tools to support your implementation. You can read the blog in our Microsoft 365 Copilot community or go directly to the experience via our Copilot Hub at adoption. Over the coming months, you will see our existing documentation and guidance materials for other areas such as the new Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Viva, and others align to this model. Our work is better described by the term user enablement, and you will see this reflected across the Microsoft 365 content going forward, as evidenced first with our Copilot Success Kit resources. In the most successful user enablement programs, there is a lifecycle of reviewing technology capabilities to build technical acumen, applying them to stated business goals through the employee engagement driven by Champions, and ongoing skilling programs. Join us in the upcoming Microsoft 365 Champion community call to hear more discussion on this direction and what's next for our supporting tools across other user enablement opportunities. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3ItEJuk Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Come See What's Next for OneDrive

The Microsoft 365 Community Conference is always a special event for the OneDrive team. Copilot in OneDrive - your AI file management assistant. The full OneDrive experience and capabilities in Teams, Outlook, Microsoft365.com, and Windows File Explorer. A new set of API's and SDK's that enable developers to fully integrate OneDrive into applications and workflows with features like delta query, change notifications, and file handlers. Search for files with natural language, ask open-ended questions or get a file summary with Copilot in OneDrive. We'll have OneDrive sessions on AI, collaboration, and your favorite topics. Join us for vision keynotes and sessions on Copilot, Microsoft 365, OneDrive, SharePoint, Teams, Viva, and our vision on what's next from Jeff Teper and other members of our leadership as well as deep dive sessions from Microsoft engineers and industry experts on a wide range of areas that impact you and your users. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3T3Cxyl Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog