Microsoft 365 admin digest

How we're supplying feature release status for each new and updated feature announcement in the Message center in the Microsoft 365 admin center to help you track feature availability, specifically for your organization. If you're an admin overseeing a larger company looking to deploy Microsoft 365, we recently updated the search tools, recommendations, and layouts for the Advanced deployment guides & assistance page in the Microsoft 365 admin center and at setup. If you're in the Global Admin or Global Reader role, you'll see Experience insights on the top right of the Microsoft 365 admin center. An image demonstrating how to view Experience insights in the Microsoft 365 admin center. We recently completed the migration of our Office 365 community to the Microsoft 365 community on Tech Community. We're particularly excited to have the Microsoft 365 admin center discussion space to create focus for admin discussions. While we continue sharing highlights and insights that benefit IT admins through this blog series, consider subscribing to updates on specific items in the Microsoft 365 Roadmap, and look out for communications published in the Message center in the Microsoft 365 admin center. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3xYVKXX Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Upcoming February 2023 Microsoft 365 Champion Community Call

Join us for our next community call on February 28, where we will be discussing the new Adoption Score. Our monthly community calls are every 4th Tuesday of the month and will shift to 8:10 AM and 5:10 PM PT, to follow best practices. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3IOEjzN Source: Microsoft Tech Community Driving Adoption Blog

Simplifying change management of Microsoft 365

The Microsoft 365 Roadmap, offers great visibility into upcoming changes to Microsoft 365 apps and services right at the time they are announced. Going forward, we are committed to offering you a set of capabilities to further simplify change management while adopting Microsoft 365 services. Initially, the release status* will be available for a limited number of Microsoft Teams, Outlook on the web and Microsoft 365 admin center feature announcements. Targeted Release now available for GCC, GCC High, and DoD. Targeted release is another way Microsoft helps customers establish effective change management practices. These customers will be able to opt-in to Targeted Release and get early access for OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Outlook for the Web, Microsoft 365 admin center features and some Exchange features, with information about other apps and services also available in future. To opt-in to Targeted Release, follow these steps in the Microsoft 365 admin center: Go to Settings -> Org Settings -> Organization profile -> Release preferences. Previously, the opt-in for Targeted Release provided early access to high quality releases for OneDrive for Business, SharePoint, Office for the web, Microsoft 365 admin center features, and some Exchange features. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3lS9UqZ Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Announcing the release of SharePoint Workflow Manager for SharePoint Server

SharePoint 2013 Workflows are a key scenario for SharePoint Server customers as they power many critical business processes and can operate in purely on-premises deployments. Today, Microsoft is pleased to announce the release of SharePoint Workflow Manager, a new workflow engine to power the SharePoint 2013 Workflows platform for SharePoint Server and replace Service Bus and Microsoft Workflow Manager. We recommend that all SharePoint Server customers using SharePoint 2013 Workflows upgrade to SharePoint Workflow Manager as soon as they're able to. Microsoft will focus all future investments and maintenance on SharePoint Workflow Manager rather than Microsoft Workflow Manager, including providing support beyond the year 2026. Microsoft will continue to provide technical support for existing deployments of Service Bus and Microsoft Workflow Manager until the version of SharePoint Server they're being used with reaches end of support, or until July 14, 2026, whichever comes first. Customers who need new SharePoint 2013 workflow engine installations can only install SharePoint Workflow Manager. We look forward to sharing more examples soon with the upcoming release of SharePoint Server Subscription Edition Version 23H1, the next feature update for SharePoint Server Subscription Edition. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3KfOoa4 Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Use Playlists to create collections of video or audio files in Microsoft 365

Today, we're introducing Playlists - a new and simple way to curate and share video or audio collections within Microsoft 365. With playlists in Microsoft 365, you add content using the new 'Playlist' template in Microsoft Lists. A published Playlist makes it easy to view and share a collection of audio and video files. Users can add any video and audio files to a playlist that they have edit access to. People with access to the playlist and to the files in the playlist can view the videos in order or skip back and forth between items in the playlist. Playlists can be used to create an organized collection of podcasts, training videos, product demo videos, Teams meeting recordings, or other audio/video content. We, too, expect to enable notification functionality to alert you when any new video is added to playlists that you are subscribed to. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3jTxkMh Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

Building beautiful sites with purpose: Part 2

As you are building out your site one of the ways that you can add visual interest to your site is through your choice of images. TIP: All images should have alternate or decorative text applied to them to make your images and sites fully accessible. There are a few core differences between a communication and team site that will require us to make different choices to make our sites look beautiful. For the homepage of the communication site, we started out with a full-width section that utilized an image web part to display a high impact garden image with our prominent headline for our homepage included on the image. Team sites do not allow full-width sections and web parts. As you looked in detail at both of the sites created, you might have noticed that some of these had some extra pieces in them that made the site stand out a bit more and are not available directly out of the box. There are so many options for ways that you can customize your sites with images and designs, let your imagination run wild and create something beautiful. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3IloDnh Source: Microsoft Tech Community SharePoint Blog

The future of customer support: How technology is changing the game: A discussion with ChatGPT

In this blog post, we will explore some of the ways technology is changing the way customer support is provided and what the future of customer support may look like. Social media has become an essential tool for customer support as it enables customers to reach out to companies in real-time, and companies can respond quickly, providing an excellent customer experience. One of the key benefits of virtual customer support agents is that they can be available 24/7, providing support to customers at any time. Virtual customer support agents can be programmed to provide assistance in multiple languages, making it easier for companies to support customers from around the world. Virtual customer support agents can also provide support in virtual environments, such as virtual stores, which can help customers navigate products and services more easily. Overall, the future of customer support looks very promising, with technology advancements set to change the way customer support is provided. As we continue to see new technologies emerge, the customer support landscape will continue to evolve, and it will be exciting to see how companies will leverage these technologies to provide better customer support. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3Xu42RR Source: Microsoft Tech Community Microsoft 365 Blog

Introducing OneDrive customer office hours

The OneDrive product and engineering team now offers monthly customer office hours for commercial and education customers as well as partners. IT Admins can join this one-hour Teams meeting to ask us questions, share feedback, and learn more about the features we're releasing soon and our roadmap. In office hours you are welcome to ask how to questions, raise issues and report bugs. Office hours is not an official support tool. To open support tickets, go to see Get support for Microsoft 365. Support for educators and education customers is available at https://aka. A note on privacy: OneDrive customer office hours is conducted via Microsoft Teams and all meeting participants including Microsoft employees will be able to see each other's name and work email address while in the office hours meeting and in the meeting chat. -------------------- Read more at https://bit.ly/3RVWs1t Source: Microsoft Tech Community OneDrive Blog