Office 365 Weekly Digest | December 30, 2018 – January 5, 2019

Happy New Year, and welcome to the December 30, 2018 – January 5, 2019 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest.

Following the holidays there were just a few additions to the Office 365 Roadmap last week, including updates for Access and SharePoint. The last addition is important for Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium users, so please be sure to review if this applies to your organization.

The new year is kicking off with several events, including the Modern Workplace Transformation (Healthcare & Life Sciences) Virtual Conference from January 7 - 11, 2019 and several Teams-related sessions. The customer immersion experience sessions are also returning in 2019 with two scheduled for January 23, 2019.

Blog posts in last week's roundup include the December 2018 update on the SharePoint Roadmap, information on using the SharePoint Migration Tool to migrate content to Microsoft Teams, updates for Microsoft Stream and MyAnalytics, as well as two new security and compliance offerings for Microsoft 365.

Noteworthy item highlights include the Office 365 Update video for December 2018, details on recent updates for PowerApps and Power BI, and information on contextualizing attacker activity within sessions in Exchange Online.

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Also, just a quick note to wrap up 2018:

2018 was the best year yet for Office 365 Weekly - THANKs to YOU! The example I provided for 2017 was that page views increased five times over the prior year. And, guess what? We kept that trend going in 2018 - yes, another 5x increase in page views in 2018!   There were also close to 400 new Feedly followers and over 700 new email subscribers in 2018.

The number of people to thank are too numerous to list here, but suffice it to say...I sincerely appreciate the support, whether you follow the blog vis RSS, subscribe via email or visit regularly for new content. Also, additional thanks to all who have tweeted/retweeted Office 365 Weekly content, linked to it, and referenced it in their own content.  

 

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
44593	Access	Access: Easily manage object tabs	Visual updates and new functionalities to object tabs including a way to drag and drop tabs to rearrange their position, and a browser-like way to close open tabs.	In development	01/04/2019	Q2 CY2019	n / a
45062	Office ProPlus Teams	Automatically access Microsoft Teams in Office 365 Business and Office 365 Business Premium	Microsoft Teams will now be installed on PCs and Macs, along with other apps like Word, PowerPoint and Excel. Business subscribers will no longer have to download Teams separately. In January, you'll begin to have Teams be automatically available when Office 365 Business or Office 365 Business Premium is installed on new PCs and Macs. Teams will be automatically installed for users who already have Office 365 Business or Office 365 Business Premium in the coming months. For more information, including the ability to roll out Teams at your own pace, please visit Deploy Microsoft Teams with Office 365 for Business.	In development	01/04/2019	December CY2018	n / a
45089	SharePoint	SharePoint pages: configure title region	Customize the title region for each page: Modern pages will now have more options to customize the title region of each page, with four layouts, alignment choices, text above the title, ability to change the displayed author, and show or hide the published date.	In development	01/04/2019	December CY2018	n / a

 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS

 

Modern Workplace Transformation Healthcare & Life Sciences Virtual Conference

When: Monday, January 7, 2019 – Friday, January 11, 2019 at 9am – 10:30am PT daily | Today's Healthcare & Life Science (HLS) organizations face a myriad of challenges from security threats, inefficiencies in communications/collaboration, and increased competition. Ultimately HLS orgs are seeking to leverage technology to improve diagnostics, patient outcomes, and more. Learn how to digitally transform your HLS organization by attending our Modern Workplace Transformation (MWT) Virtual Conference the week of January 7th, 2019. See how the Microsoft Modern Workplace platform securely enables employee engagement and collaboration across locations and devices. The Microsoft team welcomes you to an opportunity to explore beyond Envision and Ignite. We've lined up some top topics from these events, along with the speakers from Microsoft Corporate, to deliver a series of rich interactive session. This event will include Microsoft's latest innovations for Intelligent Communications, Security, and Modern Collaboration solutions. We have a separate session and focus each day starting at 12 noon eastern and lasting for 90 minutes. Please review the sessions and use the provided links to meeting invites to add to your calendar.

 

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams

When: Tuesday, January 8, 2019 at 10am 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.

 

Getting Started with Microsoft Teams

When: Thursday, January 10, 2019 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.

 

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

When: Thursday, January 10, 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.

 

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

When: Thursday, January 17, 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.

 

Customer Immersion Experience: Productivity Hacks to Save Time & Simplify Workflows

When: Wednesday, January 23, 2019 at 9am PT and 12pm PT | This 2-hour hands-on experience will give you the opportunity to test drive Windows 10, Office 365 and Dynamics 365. A trained facilitator will guide you as you apply these tools to your own business scenarios and see how they work for you. During this interactive session, you will: (1) Discover how you can keep your information more secure without inhibiting your workflow, (2) Learn how to visualize and analyze complex data, quickly zeroing in on the insights you need, (3) See how multiple team members can access, edit and review documents simultaneously, and (4) Gain skills that will save you time and simplify your workflow immediately. Each session is limited to 12 participants, reserve your seat now.

 

BLOG ROUNDUP

 

SharePoint Roadmap Pitstop: December 2018

The SharePoint team has been hard at work with great new updates rolled out in December 2018. This is the comprehensive recap for all things SharePoint. All the features listed below began rolling out to Targeted Release customers in Office 365 as of December 2018 (possibly early January 2019 to give realistic wiggle room). Office 365 users -- start your engines! These features include: (1) enhancements to inform and engage with dynamic employee experiences such as page designs, news - pinning, personalized web parts, and more, (2) updates for teamwork across SharePoint team sites, OneDrive and Yammer, and (3) important, related technology such as the availability of the new SharePoint admin center for all admins worldwide. Read on to stay informed on how the SharePoint team finished 2018 - plus a few teasers of what's to come in 2019...

 

Migrating to Microsoft Teams using the SharePoint Migration Tool

The SharePoint Migration Tool lets you migrate lists or files from your SharePoint on-premises document libraries or from your on-premises file shares and easily move them to either SharePoint, OneDrive or Microsoft Teams in Office 365. It is available to Office 365 users. Microsoft Teams and SharePoint team sites are each organized by project, organization, topic, or other area of interest for a group of people. Similar to traditional SharePoint implementations within organizations, Microsoft Teams and its channels will often align to the same information architecture. The relationship with SharePoint drives this structure in that each Microsoft Team automatically has a modern SharePoint site associated with it; that's where channel documents are stored. Each channel is associated with a folder in the SharePoint site's document library. In addition, files sent between users outside of a Teams channel are stored in the sender's OneDrive for Business folder. Files are at the center of collaboration, using the SharePoint Migration Tool you can quickly and easily start taking advantage of Microsoft Teams through migrating your on-premises content to Microsoft Teams libraries and folders.

 

Microsoft Stream for iOS is now publicly available

We are excited to announce that the Microsoft Stream mobile app is now available for iOS, in addition to the Android version. With the Stream mobile apps, you can: (1) Find and engage with videos you need fast with smart search tools, (2) Watch videos at your own convenience by saving content for offline viewing, (3) Tune into Stream live events anywhere right from your mobile device, and (4) Enjoy the best experience for consuming Stream videos by deep-linking into the app. IT admins can configure and enforce Intune policies on the mobile apps by following the steps outlined in this article. Intune policies allow administrators to control how the app handles enterprise data. The apps can be targeted for both mobile app management (MAM) and mobile device management (MDM) policies.

 

MyAnalytics, the fitness tracker for work, is now more broadly available

MyAnalytics—the fitness tracker for work—is now available to everyone using Office 365 and Microsoft 365 Enterprise and Business suites that include Exchange Online. Previously, MyAnalytics was only available with an Enterprise E5 plan or as an add-on to E1 and E3 plans. Via a personal dashboard, an Outlook add-in, and weekly emails, MyAnalytics summarizes how you spend your time at work, then suggests ways to work smarter—from cutting unproductive meeting time to reducing time spent working after hours. It even uses artificial intelligence (AI) to help you stay on top of your to-dos by flagging commitments you've made in email. As we continue to evolve the product, we're also making MyAnalytics insights more well-rounded. MyAnalytics currently provides insights based on time spent in Outlook emails and meetings, and Skype for Business calls and chats. In January 2019, we're adding new insights based on your Microsoft Teams calls and chats, as well as signals from documents you're working on that are saved in OneDrive and SharePoint. MyAnalytics insights from Microsoft Teams and documents saved in OneDrive or SharePoint will begin rolling out to existing customers with MyAnalytics in January 2019. MyAnalytics features will start rolling out to the new suites in the next couple months. With today's updates, MyAnalytics features are now available for Office 365 and Microsoft 365 suites: Business Essentials, Business Premium E1, E3, and E5 plans.

 

Introducing new advanced security and compliance offerings for Microsoft 365

A big driver of customer adoption of Microsoft 365 is the need for security and compliance solutions in an age of increasingly sophisticated cybersecurity threats, as well as complex information protection needs due to regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). To help address these needs, we are introducing two new Microsoft 365 security and compliance offerings that will be available for purchase on February 1, 2019. Identity & Threat Protection—This new package brings together security value across Office 365, Windows 10, and EMS in a single offering. It includes best of breed for advanced threat protection services including Microsoft Threat Protection (Azure Advanced Threat Protection (ATP), Windows Defender ATP, and Office 365 ATP including Threat Intelligence), as well as Microsoft Cloud App Security and Azure Active Directory. Information Protection & Compliance—This new package combines Office 365 Advance Compliance and Azure Information Protection. It's designed to help chief compliance officers perform ongoing risk assessments with a compliance score across Microsoft Cloud services, automatically classify and protect sensitive data, and efficiently respond to regulatory requests leveraging artificial intelligence (AI). The new Identity & Threat Protection and Information Protection & Compliance offerings are designed to provide customers with simpler purchase, deployment, and adoption of these security and compliance workloads.

 

NOTEWORTHY

 

Video: Office 365 Update for December 2018

Format: Video (11 minutes) | Jim Naroski covers recent enhancements to Office 365, including captions and subtitles in PowerPoint, acronym suggestions in Word, PowerPoint slide reuse, dark mode in Office for MacOS, password-less access management, and more. The video transcript, complete with links to additional information on everything covered, is available at https://aka.ms/o365update-blog.

 

December updates for Microsoft PowerApps

The PowerApps team has been busy the last month of 2018 shipping new features and fixes for you including: (1) Custom controls in business process flows, (2) Streamlined authoring for business process flows, (3) Extend Dynamics 365 entity forms with embedded canvas apps, and more in addition to numerous fixes and improvements. You can view the weekly release information at https://aka.ms/PAWeeklyReleaseNotes. Be sure to check the release table, by region, to find out when these features and fixes will be available.

 

Power BI Service and Mobile November & December Feature Summary

We saved the best for last. The final stretch of 2018 was incredible for the Power BI team. We announced some of our biggest previews, rolled out new features, and improved existing functionality across service and mobile based on your feedback. Before we ring in the new year, here's a quick recap, in case you missed it: (1) Power BI data prep with dataflows (Preview), (2) Paginated reports in Power BI Premium (Preview), (3) Updates to the Premium Capacity Metrics app, (4) Recommended apps on Power BI Home, (5) On-premises data gateway November and December update, (6) Shared creds, in-app URLs, and more on Mobile, and (7) Release notes updates.

 

Contextualizing Attacker Activity within Sessions in Exchange Online

The Exchange audit log is an important tool in the defender toolbox to understand the activity of users (or attackers masquerading as users) in an organization. Defenders can manually browse through their audit logs for user activity that indicates malicious activity. These audit logs feed many first-party and third-party protect, detect, and investigate capabilities in Security Information and Event Managers (SIEMs). This data can be consumed via both the Security and Compliance Center (SCC) and Microsoft Cloud App Security (MCAS) for their detections. We are now offering session context in the Exchange audit logs to empower defenders to better understand account activity and better distinguish malicious attackers from regular employees. Session ID will be audited as a part of mailbox audit logs and admin audit logs. Session ID is a guid identifier encoded in the Azure AD token. The session ID is preserved over token refreshes and can group all actions a user has taken in a single logon session (a user has to re-enter credentials in order for the session ID to change).