Office 365 Weekly Digest | November 18 – 24, 2018

Welcome to the November 18 -24, 2018 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.

Nine features were added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, with a good mix of various services including SharePoint Online, Microsoft Stream, Flow, PowerApps, Outlook on the web, and Office 365 overall. One of the overall Office 365 features to highlight is the role-based access for Office 365 alerts, which is targeted for release in December 2018. Another addition of note is the availability of Flow and PowerApps to Government Community Cloud (GCC) tenants, targeted for Q2 CY2019.

There are no new events, but there are several Teams-related sessions still available. In addition there are the the Windows 10 v1809 webinar / AMA and the November V-Meet Up for Women IT Pros.

Published content was limited last week, due to the Thanksgiving holiday in the U.S. Teams comprises all of the blog posts from last week's roundup with new capabilities to improve management and automation, along with integration with the Trello personal app and Site24x7's cloud-based IT monitoring tools.

Noteworthy item highlights (also limited due to the holiday) include the announcement of Microsoft Whiteboard for Education and improvements in public folder migrations to Exchange Online.

 

OFFICE 365 ROADMAP

 

Below are the items added to the Office 365 Roadmap last week…

 

Feature ID	App / Service	Title	Description	Status	Added	Estimated Release	More Info
44212	SharePoint	SharePoint organizational news: ordering of news articles	Within the News web part for SharePoint sites, there will be a new capability to decide what order the news appears in when viewers land on the page highlighting news articles. Now you will be able to highlight high-value content more easily knowing it is most and/or first visible among the breadth of news being published within a site.	In development	11/20/2018	December CY2018	What's new for your intranet in Office 365
43908	Outlook (web)	Outlook on the web - improved response tracking	We are updating how the "Notify organizer/Don't send the response" option works when you respond to a meeting invite. Previous behavior - When you selected "Don't send response" or turned off the "Notify organizer" toggle, Outlook wouldn't register your response to the meeting and the organizer wouldn't know your response. With this change, when you select "Don't send response" or turn off the "Notify organizer" toggle, Outlook won't email your response to the organizer but will update the meeting invite with your response.	Rolling out	11/20/2018	November CY2018	n / a
44019	Microsoft Stream	Self-service Office 365 Video migration	Tenant admin administered migration tool for Office 365 video to Microsoft Stream migration	In development	11/20/2018	Q2 CY2019	n / a
44242	Office 365	Office 365 Alerts available in Management Activity API	With this update, you will now have the opportunity to manage the lifecycle of Office 365 alerts in external systems such as SIEM solutions.	Rolling out	11/22/2018	December CY2018	n / a
44243	Office 365	MCAS alerts now available in S&CC alerts view	Office 365 customers will be able to view and triage Microsoft Cloud App Security alerts on Office 365 apps and services in a single page, including alerts generated from alert policies in the Security and Compliance center and MCAS/ OCAS alerts that are Office 365 related.	In development	11/22/2018	December CY2018	n / a
44245	Office 365	Office 365 Alerts: role-based access	With this update customers will have more granular control over what alerts are available to whom in their organization. The roles a user has now determines what category of alerts the user has access to. For example, a compliance admin will no longer have access to Threat Management or Mail Flow alerts, which will help to better focus on compliance related alerts.	In development	11/22/2018	December CY2018	n / a
33774	PowerApps	Responsive design for canvas-based SharePoint PowerApps	Take advantage of responsive design in canvas-based PowerApps integrated to SharePoint	In development	11/22/2018	Q2 CY2019	n / a
33770	Flow PowerApps	PowerApps and Flow availability to GCC tenants	PowerApps and Flow will be available to government tenants in the GCC environment.	In development	11/22/2018	Q4 CY2018	n / a
33756	PowerApps SharePoint	PowerApps integration with document libraries	Create PowerApps from document libraries as simply as with lists	In development	11/22/2018	Q4 CY2018	n / a

 

 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Teams Tuesdays

When: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 from 10am – 11am PT | Whether you're managing a new project or starting your own business, it helps to have a team behind you to brainstorm ideas, tackle the work together, and have some fun along the way. Now you can use Microsoft Teams to do just that. Join our team LIVE every Tuesday from 10-11am PDT to learn how you can get started with the free version of Teams. In this hour, we'll walk you through the product and key features, share best practices for getting started, and answer any questions you may have. We look forward to meeting you!

 

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams

When: Tuesday, November 27, 2018 at 8am PT | This 60-minute session introduces you to the key activities needed to get started with Microsoft Teams today. From setting your profile, to running a meeting, users will leave this session with the foundation needed to use Teams with confidence. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

[Rescheduled] Webinar: What's new in Windows 10, version 1809 for IT pros

When: Wednesday, November 28, 2018 at 10am PT | As an IT professional, you have a lot on your plate. You're managing corporate- and user-owned devices, deploying feature and quality updates, identifying and resolving compatibility issues, and more. Windows 10, version 1809 includes features that can help you simplify upgrade planning, identify and resolve compatibility blockers, monitor update compliance, and remediate end user impacting issues so you can get your job done with less frustration. Join this webinar to: (1) Discover how you can move away from traditional, image-based deployment with Windows Autopilot, (2) Learn about the steps you can take right away to better protect user identities, devices, and information, and (3) Find out how you can create more secure, scalable, and reliable desktop virtualization solutions that integrate with your modern desktop. | Resource: What's new in Windows 10, version 1809 for IT pros

 

Upgrade 101: Understanding your upgrade from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams

When: Thursday, November 29, 2018 at 10am PT | Looking to better understand the upgrade journey from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams? Join us for this 60-minute session to get familiar with our upgrade paths (Upgrade Basic and Upgrade Pro), our resources, and a walkthrough of our upgrade success framework to help you navigate through your journey. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

Nov 2018 v-meet up for Women IT Pros - How to be a community leader

When: Friday, November 30, 2018 at 12pm PT | In November we'll have several of our Most Valued Professionals (MVPs) visiting Redmond. We'll have some of them on our call to talk about how they became more active in the tech community - blogging, speaking, writing books etc. Join us to learn ways you can be more active in the tech community and maybe level up to the kind of leadership that gets awarded MVP status. Our meetings are open to anyone of all gender identities who wants to support women in the IT Pro field.

 

[Rescheduled] Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA): Windows 10, version 1809 for IT Pros

When: Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 9am PT | If you're in IT, make sure you join us Thursday, December 13th to get up to speed and get your questions answered about Windows 10, version 1809. An AMA is a live online event similar to a "YamJam" on Yammer or an "Ask Me Anything" on Reddit. We've assembled a group of engineers and product managers from the Windows, Window Defender ATP, System Center Configuration Manager, Microsoft Intune, Microsoft Edge, and Microsoft 365 teams—and we'll be answering your questions live during what promises to be an exciting and informative "Ask Microsoft Anything" (AMA) event. Join in the Windows 10 AMA space, or add it to your calendar. We look forward to seeing you there!

 

Make the switch from Skype for Business to Microsoft Teams: End User Guidance

When: Thursday, December 13, 2018 at 10am PT | Designed specifically for Skype for Business end users, this course offers everything you need to help make the transition to Microsoft Teams. We'll focus on the core communication capabilities you use today, chat and meetings, as well as provide an orientation to additional collaboration functionality Teams has to offer. Check here for sessions in different time zones and other dates.

 

BLOG ROUNDUP

 

New! Provide a great Teams experience with improved manageability and automation

For the past several months we have been gathering extensive feedback from users regarding their Teams experience, and we are using that feedback as guidance to continuously improve the Teams platform and admin capabilities. For our customers and partners, the Teams platform is giving organizations the ability to customize and extend their experience with developer tools, third-party integrations, and more, unleashing the value of Microsoft Teams. For admins, core to delivering a great experience in Teams for your organization is better governance, and today we are excited to announce that the following capabilities that we announced at Microsoft Ignite 2018 are now available to you: (1) Teams Administrator Roles, (2) Manage teams from the Admin Center, and (3) Automate the Teams Lifecycle (using new Microsoft Graph APIs). Read on for details on these new capabilities... | Related: Better organize and automate the Microsoft Teams experience with the availability of the Microsoft Graph APIs

 

New! Trello Personal app available in Microsoft Teams

From startups to Fortune 500 companies, Trello is the visual way for teams to collaborate on any project. In Microsoft Teams, we find that a great deal of conversation and collaboration happens around projects. So, it only makes sense that one of the premier project management tools should team up with the ultimate hub for Teamwork, in order to allow employees to work better, together. As you may know, we've had Trello available for Microsoft Teams for some time. We are excited to announce that this integration has just been enhanced, with the availability of Trello's personal app functionality. Trello's Personal app in Microsoft Teams will gives users access to assigned cards across all their Trello boards for different teams where they are contributing.

 

[NEW] Site24x7's updated app for Microsoft Teams enables intelligent DevOps in the moment

We live in an era of cloud with SaaS applications driving our productivity day in and day out. As a consumer it's hard to imagine even a second without your favorite app being accessible whenever you need it. As a SaaS business, it's even harder to imagine your service facing a downtime with every minute costing you significant dollars and of course, customer trust. Site24x7's innovative cloud-based IT monitoring tools provide visibility into critical performance parameters of your infrastructure (websites, servers, network etc.) and provide proactive insight on the health of your services so that your customers never face a downtime. The new Site24x7 app in Microsoft Teams enables DevOps within your favorite collaboration workspace a breeze.

 

NOTEWORTHY

 

Introducing Microsoft Whiteboard for Education

We're debuting a new tool that can spark collaboration in the classroom. We're excited to be able to share a preview of a new, free app: Microsoft Whiteboard for Education. Taking the magical simplicity of an analog whiteboard and adding interactive, collaborative technology, Microsoft Whiteboard for Education gives the whole class a new space to engage, ideate, and create. Teachers and students can brainstorm and grow ideas on this limitless canvas, coming together on lessons, projects, and more. Whiteboard for EDU is now available for Windows 10 and will be released for iPad the week of November 26, 2018! After downloading, login to Whiteboard with your Office 365 Education account and enable "Education Preview" from the Settings menu.

 

Improvements in Public Folder Migration to Exchange Online

We have been working hard behind the scenes to improve the public folder migration experience and are very glad to announce even more improvements. These improvements will help you in faster onboarding of public folders to Exchange Online. We have made improvements to the clean-up tasks that take place during finalization of the public folder migration. After these improvements we have observed large public folder migrations, which historically could have taken 3-4 days, are completed in only 15-20 hours. Previously, if a migration batch encountered a non-fatal warning, a warning which could be ignored, it would still be marked as Failed. In such scenarios, a tenant admin would have to re-submit the migration batch, potentially causing significant delays in migration. We have made improvements in this area. If the migration batch completes with those same non-fatal warnings, the batch is treated as completed successfully. This allows for faster completion of public folder migrations, without compromising the data integrity. These improvements are being rolled out to Exchange Online and should be available to your tenant soon.