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CONFIDENCE, BY DESIGN
Microsoft is adding a compact view of the meeting chat that a presenter can open when they push the chat icon. The chat will be visible only to the presenter, so will be especially helpful for when they only have one screen. This change is now rolling out mid-April and is expected to be complete late April.
Soon the Facilitator agent will be able to take notes during Teams meetings and chats. The agent will synthesize key information from conversations, and in meetings it will allow everyone to co-author real-time notes. In chat, it will maintain an up-to-date summary of significant information as the conversation happens. This change is expected to begin rolling out in early April and expected to finish before May.
Teams will offer users suggestions on channels that are inactive, and the user is prompted to review their inactive channels and hide them only if they choose. This change is expected to be finished rolling out soon.
Rolling out before mid-May, Microsoft are introducing Copilot file summaries within one-on-one and group chats via ‘Summarise for me’. This feature will work with common file types such as Word and PDF initially, with other formats being added over time. The summarization respects security policies and sensitivity labels, ensuring that only users with access to the file will receive a summary. Summaries will have the same sensitivity label as the original file.
A ‘Teams Client Health’ page is being added to the Teams admin centre. The page will give actionable insights into client health metrics – such as crashes, launch failures, and update failures. It will also enable better monitoring of the Teams client version adoption and updates. This update is expected to begin rolling out in late March, and is expected to be complete by late April.
Microsoft are improving the Teams app icon and menu in the Microsoft Windows system tray. How your account is presented is being changed, and the Open option is being removed.
Coming soon, users will be able to record videos in channels using a Record Video Clip option. This change is being rolled out now and should finish rolling out soon.
A new csTeamsAIPolicy policy for Microsoft Teams (available now via Microsoft PowerShell and taking effect in mid-March 2025) will give IT admins more control over voice and face enrollment settings, allowing organizations to manage these features based on their needs.
Soon users will be able to share a file from a Chat conversation, a Chat Shared tab, or a channel post to chats or channels with fewer clicks. When files are shared, their permissions are maintained, ensuring that recipients have the appropriate access rights. Users can include a message with the shared file.
A new search feature is being added to channel posts. The rollout is expected to be complete by late March. It will be available in the right handrail, making it possible to see your post and your new search results in one single view. The initiation can be done using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F. In-post search experiences will have enhanced captioning and keyword highlighting to aid the discernment of results. The search will also be available in a pop out window.
Microsoft Copilot can analyse content shared onscreen in a meeting. When in a meeting that is being recorded and has content shared onscreen, Microsoft Copilot will be able to answer questions based on the shared onscreen content. This update will begin rolling out mid-March, and is expected to be complete by early April.
Also rolling out in mid-March is an update that will have Copilot suggest follow-up questions in meetings to continue a conversation. These questions will typically be based on Copilot’s prior responses - asking for more details or about a specific person. Users will be able to see these questions right above the Copilot chat box.
The text web part will now allow users to add normal text, tables, and paragraphs to a SharePoint site page. More formatting options have also been made available for the text webpart. Similarly themed features are grouped together.
SharePoint Online is updating Microsoft Lists forms to include new features such as notifications, form scheduling, conditional branching, the addition of logos, quick form creation, and additional field-type support. This update is expected to be completed by the end of March.
Logo support:
Conditional branching:
Rolling out now, a new calendar feature that allows users to see who is in the office based on their work hours and location settings is being rolled out to Outlook. In addition to the Location icon, users will have a new ‘peek’ in the top right of their calendar to show who plans to be in the office for the current day.
Starting April 10th, and ending September 30th, Microsoft will run logic to detect and remove ‘Everyone Except External Users’ permissions from the root site of user’s OneDrive’s, and the default document library in OneDrive. Microsoft are removing EEEU permissions due to concerns about the inadvertent oversharing of data.
Rolling out now is a new feature for Microsoft Purview regarding Data Lifecycle Management. For OneDrive and SharePoint files, admins will be able to apply a retention policy or label for files that have not been accessed by anyone within the organisation for a specified period of time.
Rolling out before the end of March, admins can have separate Data Lifecycle Management policies for Copilot and Teams chat interactions.
During the week of May 12th, Microsoft-managed Conditional Access policies will be enabled in our tenant. The policy will be created in report-only mode and will be entitled Multifactor Authentication and authorization for risky sign-ins. Microsoft will assign eligible active users with MFA to a new security group. After the policy has been in report-only mode for 90 days, it will automatically turn on during the week of March 12th.
A new People administrator role is being added to Microsoft Entra. This role will provide dedicated permissions for managing people-related setting and profile images, without needing the higher privileges of Global admin or User admin. This has begun being rolled out now, and is expected to be complete before March.
