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February 2023 – Microsoft 365 US Public Sector Roadmap Newsletter

This post has been republished via RSS; it originally appeared at: New blog articles in Microsoft Community Hub.

Newsworthy Highlights

 

Microsoft 365 Government price updates - into effect March 1st 2023

On August 2021 we announced an update to our pricing for Microsoft 365 (which applies to all commercial customers: Enterprise, US Government, and Business).

 

Announcing Windows 365 and AVD for Government AMA February 22nd

Join us for our Windows 365 and/or Azure Virtual Desktop in government Ask Microsoft Anything (AMA) with members of the engineering and product teams On February 22nd at 08:00 AM - 09:00 AM (PST)| 11:00 AM-12:00 PM EST.

 

What’s New in Microsoft Teams | January 2023

These features currently available to Microsoft’s commercial customers in multi-tenant cloud environments are now rolling out to our customers in US Government Community Cloud (GCC), US Government Community Cloud High (GCC-High), and/or United States Department of Defense (DoD).

 

Microsoft 365 Government Community Call

Join Jay Leask and other members of the Government Community live on LinkedIn!

 

Where to Start with Microsoft Teams Apps in Gov Clouds

Customers in our Office 365 government clouds, GCC, GCCH, and DoD, are continuing to evolve how they do business in the hybrid workplace. As Microsoft Teams is the primary tool for communication and collaboration, customers are looking to improve productivity by integrating their business processes directly into Microsoft Teams via third-party party (3P) applications or line-of-business (LOB)/homegrown application integrations.

 

Microsoft 365 Government Adoption Resources

Empowering US public sector organizations to transition to Microsoft 365

 

Release News

 

 

Exchange Online

 

January 2023 Exchange Server Security Updates and Certificate Signing

 

SharePoint Online

 

With this feature, users can choose a folder in SharePoint Document Library where others can upload files using a link that is shared with them.  

 

Teams

 

Support multi-question polls is 100% general available worldwide and will roll out to GCC in mid January, 2023

 

Users will be reminded to lower their Raised Hand after speaking - if no action is taken, the Raised Hand will be automatically lowered - GCC March 31, GCCH April 30, DoD May 1

 

Anonymous users now have the ability to view and interact with tab app experiences in Teams meetings if enabled by app developers – GCC March 15, GCCH & DoD June 30

 

Intune

 

Intune will prevent iCloud backup for certain managed apps on supervised iOS/iPadOS devices

 

Notification Granularity for Teams Mobile through Intune

 

Microsoft 365

 

New minimum requirements for Microsoft 365 Apps for Windows and the Cloud policy service for Microsoft 365

 

Office 2016 and 2019 Client Connectivity to Microsoft 365 Services support ends on October 10, 2023

 

 

References and Information Resources

 

Microsoft 365 Public Roadmap
This link is filtered to show GCC, GCC High and DOD specific items.  For more general information uncheck these boxes under “Cloud Instance”.

 

 

 

 

Stay on top of Microsoft 365 changes
Here are a few ways that you can stay on top of the Office 365 updates in your organization.

Microsoft Tech Community for Public Sector
Your community for discussion surrounding the public sector, local and state governments.

 

Microsoft 365 for US Government Service Descriptions

·     Office 365 Platform (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Office 365 U.S. Government GCC High endpoints

·     Office 365 U.S. Government DoD endpoints

 

·     Microsoft Purview (GCCGCCHDoD)

·     Enterprise Mobility & Security (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Microsoft Defender for Endpoint (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Security (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Microsoft Defender for Identity Security (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Azure Information Protection Premium

 

·     Exchange Online (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     SharePoint (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     OneDrive (GCC, GCCH, DoD) 

·     Teams (GCCGCCHDoD)

 

·     Office 365 Government (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Power Apps (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Power Automate US Government (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Power BI (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Planner (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Outlook Mobile (GCC, GCCH, DoD)

·     Viva Insights (GCC)

·     Dynamics 365 US Government

 

 

Be a Learn-it-All

 

Public Sector Center of Expertise

We bring together thought leadership and research relating to digital transformation and innovation in the public sector. We highlight the stories of public servants around the globe, while fostering a community of decision makers. Join us as we discover and share the learnings and achievements of public sector communities.

 

Microsoft Teams for US Government Adoption Guide

 

Microsoft Teams for Gov YouTube Video Series

The hub for teamwork in Office 365 GCC, GCC High, & DoD

 

 

 

Message Center Posts and Updates for Microsoft Teams in GCC

 

Looking for what’s on the map for Microsoft Teams and only Teams in GCC?

Go right to the GCC Teams Feature Communications Guide

 

Message Center Highlights

 

SharePoint Online / OneDrive for Business

 

MC499439 — Updated Files On-Demand Settings on Windows

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 101520

 

We have an update to the OneDrive sync app advanced settings for Files On-Demand on Windows. Previously, a toggle was shown to allow users to opt out of Files On-Demand. After this change, users who have Files On-Demand enabled will no longer see that toggle. Instead, users will see two buttons: Download files as you open them and Download all files now.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in early February and expect to complete rollout by late February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

This change only affects users who have Files On-Demand enabled. There is no change at this time for users that have the feature disabled from OneDrive settings or by admin policy.

 

Previously, a toggle was shown to allow users to opt out of Files On-Demand. After this change, users who have Files On-Demand enabled will see two buttons:

·       Download files as you open them: This is the default and recommended behavior. New files from the cloud are online-only by default, not taking up disk space. Files are downloaded to the device if a user opens them or chooses the option to "Always keep on this device" from the context menu in File Explorer. Files created on the device are available offline by default.

·       Download all files now: This setting is equivalent to choosing the option to "Always keep on this device" from the context menu in File Explorer for the entire OneDrive folder. Selecting this option causes all files from the cloud to be downloaded, taking up disk space on the device. The behavior of this setting is equivalent to the legacy option of turning off Files On-Demand mode, with some improvements like updated icons.

 

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is required at this time. If you have documentation that describes how to disable the Files On-Demand setting, you will need to update it. For more information, please visit this page.

 

MC496244 — (Updated) Microsoft Lists: Calendar Week Layout

Updated January 26, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

While creating a calendar view, users can now choose between month layout or the new week layout to visualize their list information in a way that works best for them. There is a provision to create multiple calendar views - using both month and week layouts. Week Layout also supports all features from the month layout including the drag and drop operations to reschedule items and conditional formatting to color code items on the canvas.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in mid-January 2023 and expect to complete rollout by mid-February (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

With the introduction of this new feature, users can:

 

·       Create a Lists calendar view in week layout

·       Switch between month and week layouts in a calendar view

·       Drag and drop items in a calendar to schedule, reschedule or unschedule them

·       Apply conditional formatting to color code items on the calendar

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is required to enable this feature. You may want to consider notifying users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC495329 — SharePoint: External File Request in SharePoint Document Library

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103625

 

With File Request feature in SharePoint Document Library, users have an easy and secure way to request and obtain files from anyone. Users can choose a folder in SharePoint Document Library where others can upload files using a link that is shared with them. Users you request files from can only upload files; they can't see the content of the folder, edit, delete, or download files, or even see who else has uploaded files.

 

When this will happen:

Preview: We will begin rollout in late January 2023 and expect to complete rollout by early February 2023.

 

GA: We will begin rollout in early February 2023 and expect to complete rollout by late February 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

If the administrator has enabled file request (and Anyone links) at the tenant level, file request feature will be available to users within the tenant. Admins can use SharePoint Online Management Shell to enable or disable the Request Files feature for SharePoint sites. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

To use this feature in the SharePoint Document Library:

1.     Admin should enable Anyone links at the tenant level

2.     Admin has configured view, edit, and upload permission for Anyone links

 

For more information, please visit Create a file request - Microsoft Support

 

MC475170 — (Updated) OneDrive Android: Extract PDF Pages

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Users of OneDrive for Android can now split PDFs and have PDFs saved back to OneDrive.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early March (previously early January) and will complete in late March (previously late January). 

 

How this will affect your organization:

This feature will be available for licensed Syntex users in OneDrive for Business.

 

To split a PDF:

1.     Open any PDF file in OneDrive for Android.

2.     Click on the horizontal bar or drag the bottom menu upwards to expand the new menu.

3.     Tap Extract.

4.     Select page(s) you want to split and click on Exact.

5.     Select the location of where extracted PDF should be saved. 

6.     Once the resulting PDF is ready, click on Open.

 

Note: Some users may see this feature before other users within your organization. PDF extraction is available for Microsoft Syntex licensed users.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC458661 — (Updated) New SharePoint site templates

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 102380

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are introducing 3 new SharePoint site templates dedicated to helping you create sites for your HR department, to showcase Events, and a template powered by Microsoft Syntex to do contract management.

 

With our new HR and Events communication site templates you will be able to build sites that highlight and showcase your content and share this information broadly with your organization. The HR site brings together all of the information your employees need to navigate the complexities of employment and benefits. Our new Event template includes many great layout suggestions and will highlight any upcoming event you are planning.

 

With the Microsoft Syntex powered contracts management template you can learn more about how Syntex works and be able to get started right away. This template also comes with a prebuilt tutorial and some established models designed to help your team get started with Microsoft Syntex.

 

When this will happen:

Targeted Release: We will begin rolling out in early November and complete rolling out late November

 

Standard: will begin rolling out in late-November and complete in mid-February (previously early December)

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users will be able to benefit from the ability to browse, preview, and apply site templates to a new or existing SharePoint site. Users can select a site template that meets organizational business objectives and best fits the site goal while ensuring a higher level of consistency throughout their organization. They can then review pre-populated content and customize the site to address their needs. This feature will be on by default with no admin control.

 

To apply a template to an existing site: Users can choose to browse site templates and can apply a template to an existing site at any time by accessing the template gallery from Settings and then select Apply a site template.

 

To apply a template to a new site: If a site owner is visiting their new site for the first time, they may see a message asking if they want to use a template that will then take them to the template gallery.

 

Communication site templates:

Human Resources – provide employees with compensation, benefits, and career resources

Event - share event information with attendees.

 

Team site templates: 

Contracts management – manage, process, and track contracts. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Share this template guide with end-users: Learn how to apply and customize SharePoint site templates.

 

MC408994 — (Updated) Private drafts for SharePoint pages and news

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85629

 

Updated January 18, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We’re adding the ability to create private drafts for pages and news posts. A private draft is visible only to the page author, the people the author chooses to share it with, and site admins. It's great for creating and editing content that’s not ready for others to see except the people you want to collaborate with.

 

When this will happen:

Targeted Release: starting early August and completing late December - Complete

General Availability: starting in mid-January and expect to complete by late February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Authors of SharePoint pages and news will be able to create private drafts. When a private draft is created, only the creator and site admins can see the page (including from within the Pages library). The creator can then share the private draft with other people to allow them to access and edit the page. They will also have access to the assets associated with the page which are stored in the site’s assets library.

 

Like all pages and news posts, only one person at a time can edit the draft. When the draft is published, its permissions are reset and everyone in your organization who has access to the site will be able to view it.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You do not need to do anything to prepare for this update, but you may want to let your users know about these improvements.

 

More information available here: Create a private SharePoint page or news post

 

MC408694 — (Updated) New 'Activity' Column in OneDrive 'My Files' list view

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88913

 

Updated January 25, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are introducing a new Activity column in OneDrive My Files list view. The goal of this feature is to help users stay up-to-date on the files that they are working on with others by surfacing relevant activity information. We will show file activity related to actions, such as, user comments, edits, share, and @mentions.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out this feature in mid-October (previously mid-September) and expect to complete rollout by mid-February (previously mid-December).

 

How this will affect your organization:

There is no impact to your organization. This feature will be delivered as a user interface update in the form of an additional column in My Files list view with activity information related to files (e.g., file shared, user comment, @mentions).

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

Power Platform

 

MC510832 — Power Pages (previously Power Apps portals) version 9.5.1.x GA Wave 1 release - GCCH

Maintenance window start: 05 March 2023, 02:00 UTC

Maintenance window end: 05 March 2023, 11:00 UTC

 

This is a GA deployment of portal capabilities version 9.5.1.x for Microsoft Dynamics 365. This deployment includes an updated portal host and no solution update. This release contains fixes for issues reported by customers as well as performance and security updates. Release notes for this release can be viewed here.

 

As part of this release, there will be a change made to serve some common static files (js/css) from a Microsoft-managed Content delivery network. If you have been allow-listing website URL's in your firewall configuration, then an additional URL listed below would be required to be allow-listed:

·       GCC High: https://high.content.powerapps.us

 

As part of this release, all Portal websites will be upgraded automatically to 9.5.1.6 or higher.

 

How does this affect me:

During the update, the Portal administration center will be placed in a read-only state for a short period of time. Additionally, the Portal website will be restarted once during this upgrade.

 

 

What do I need to do to prepare for this change:

Upgrade of the Portal website to the newest version will be applied automatically. No action is required.

 

Learn more about the Portal upgrade process

 

MC510831 — Power Pages (previously Power Apps portals) version 9.5.1.x GA Wave 1 release

Maintenance window start: 05 March 2023, 02:00 UTC

Maintenance window end: 05 March 2023, 11:00 UTC

 

This is a GA deployment of portal capabilities version 9.5.1.x for Microsoft Dynamics 365. This deployment includes an updated portal host and no solution update. This release contains fixes for issues reported by customers as well as performance and security updates. Release notes for this release can be viewed here.

 

As part of this release, there will be a change made to serve some common static files (js/css) from a Microsoft-managed Content delivery network. If you have been allow-listing website URL's in your firewall configuration, then an additional URL listed below would be required to be allow-listed:

·       Government Community Cloud (GCC): https://gov.content.powerapps.us

 

As part of this release, all Portal websites will be upgraded automatically to 9.5.1.6 or higher.

 

How does this affect me:

During the update, the Portal administration center will be placed in a read-only state for a short period of time. Additionally, the Portal website will be restarted once during this upgrade.

 

What do I need to do to prepare for this change:

Upgrade of the Portal website to the newest version will be applied automatically. No action is required.

 

Learn more about the Portal upgrade process

 

MC510700 — Dynamics 365 and Power Platform 2023 release wave 1 early access

We are excited to announce that early access updates for the 2023 release wave 1 for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform will be available starting on February 6, 2023, 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

 

How does this affect me:

This release wave is a compilation of new features that will be released between April 1, 2023, and September 30, 2023. Customers and partners can opt-in to receive early access updates to validate the latest features in a non-production environment starting on February 6, 2023, 9:00 AM Pacific Time. For customers that are a part of the Microsoft Government Cloud, the option will be available in their administrative portal starting on February 13, 2023, 9:00 AM Pacific Time.

 

There are many features available for early access across Dynamics 365 Applications and Power Platform. These features include user experience enhancements that will be automatically enabled for users in production environments beginning on April 2, 2023, per the deployment schedule.

 

Because the release includes features that affect the current user experience, we encourage application administrators to review these changes to understand the potential impact and determine if change management for new features is required.

 

What actions do I need to take:

You can take advantage of the early access period by trying out the latest updates in a non-production environment to prepare for the automatic update starting April 2, 2023, 9:00 AM Pacific Time. For additional information, please visit the Early Access FAQ page.

 

Additionally, you can learn more about the latest product updates and use the Release Planner and share your feedback in the community forum for Dynamics 365 or Power Platform.

 

MC503211 — Dynamics 365 and Power Platform 2023 release wave 1 plans available now!

Today, we published the 2023 release wave 1 plans for Dynamics 365 and Microsoft Power Platform which is a compilation of new capabilities that will be released between April 2023 through September 2023. The new features and enhancements provide you with significant capabilities to help transform your business using our applications.

 

You can use our new Release planner to view and manage release plans across all active release waves in a unified and interactive interface, while giving them the option to personalize, filter, sort, and collaborate. For more information, please see MC502768.

 

We’ve done this work to help you—our partners, customers, and users—drive the digital transformation of your business on your terms. Get ready and learn more about the latest product updates, and share your feedback in the community forum for Dynamics 365 or Power Platform.

 

MC502768 — Announcing General Availability for Release planner

We are excited to announce that the Release planner is now generally available (GA) to users. The Release planner for Dynamics 365 and Power Platform enables users to view and manage release plans across all active release waves in a unified and interactive interface while giving them the option to personalize, filter, sort, and collaborate on release plans.

 

Under the hood, the Release planner is powered by the Power Apps portal. It is created based on customer feedback to address the constraints of content suitability, discoverability, and personalization.

 

Who is it for:

Release planner is for anyone who wants to know more about what's new and upcoming in Dynamics and Power Platform.

 

What are its capabilities:

The following features are aimed at helping users improve their release planning and change management process:

·       Personalization through 'My Release plans': Users can create a curated list of release plans they would like to follow. All the release plans across various products can be viewed under a single view.

·       Collaboration on release plans: This feature allows the users to share their curated list of release plans with their stakeholders. Additionally, users can collaborate on the release plans effortlessly and securely through comments. User comments are shown only to the stakeholders with whom the owner of the release plan has shared their curated list. The owner of the comment has complete control over editing and deleting the comment.

·       Filter, sort ,and group plans based on multiple criteria: Users can customize their view by using filters, sorting, and grouping by criteria. These criteria are available for both All release plans and My release plans views. Users can also view the plans grouped by product theme or timeline.

 

We encourage you to explore the Release planner and spread the word! Please reach out to us if you have any questions or feedback.

 

MC499709 — Power Pages (previously Power Apps portals) version 9.5.1.x Early Upgrade Build

Maintenance window start: 22 January 2023, 02:00 UTC

Maintenance window end: 22 January 2023, 11:00 UTC

 

This is a Early Upgrade Deployment of Power Pages (previously Power Apps portals) version 9.5.1.x for Microsoft Dynamics 365. This deployment includes an updated portal host and no solution update. This release contains fixes for issues reported by customers as well as performance and security updates. Release notes for this release can be located here.

 

As part of this release, all Portal websites will be upgraded automatically to 9.5.1.6 or higher.

 

How does this affect me:

During the update, the Portal admin center will be placed in a read-only state for a short period of time. Additionally, the Portal website will be restarted once during this upgrade.

 

 

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?

 

Upgrade of the Portal website to the newest version will be applied automatically. No action is required.

 

Learn more about Portal upgrade process

 

MC499072 — [Updated] Important information about Microsoft Power Automate emails - GCCH

Microsoft Power Automate emails are moving to a new internal email provider. This change will result in emails from an additional Microsoft email account and IP addresses. This information was previously communicated under MC489125.

 

Description:

As of Thursday, January 19, 2023, Microsoft Power Automate email notifications, such as approvals, flow alerts, and sharing notifications, will be sent from the following email addresses:

·       maccount@microsoft.com

·       flow-noreply@microsoft.com

 

These emails will be sent from the IP addresses outlined here: Power Automate approval email delivery information

 

Action Needed:

If you do not utilize custom allowlists/blocklists for emails you receive, no action is required at this time.

 

However, if you do utilize custom allowlists/blocklists for your emails, please add the above email addresses and IP addresses to your tenants' allowlists. Please notify your system administrators to update these custom allowlists/blocklists on any program you use to receive email. When doing so, it is recommended to allow the SPF record where possible, instead of the specific IP addresses, to ensure any newly added IP addresses are accounted for automatically.

 

Please contact Microsoft Support and reference ticket ICM347570815 if you require further assistance.

 

MC496546 — Microsoft Power Automate - DocuSign premium connector - GCCH

Microsoft recently announced a new pay-as-you-go program where Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) can pay for the usage of their connectors by customers.

 

We are excited to announce that DocuSign has entered this program and as a result, the DocuSign connector, which is a premium connector, is available to be used by any users in your organization.

 

How does this affect me:

Users with just the default Power Automate entitlements with the Office365 plans can also use the DocuSign premium connector to build automations at no additional charge from Microsoft. However, Microsoft may share DocuSign aggregated usage data of flow runs from your tenant for the usage paid for by DocuSign.

 

If you already have premium Power Automate entitlements, there will be no additional billing or data shared with DocuSign. You can learn more about the limits and data sharing here.

 

How do I prepare for this change:

If you wish to restrict the use of these connectors in your tenant, you may choose to leverage the Data Leakage Prevention (DLP) policies that are available as part of the Power Platform admin capabilities. You can learn more about those capabilities here.

 

If you have questions, please contact Microsoft Support.

 

MC470136 — (Updated) Improved Upload experience and retirement of the ‘Get Data’ page in Power BI

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We will be retiring the ‘Get Data’ page in Power BI as well as the ability to connect to files from personal OneDrive accounts. Going forward, users can utilize a new streamlined Upload experience and we recommend connecting to files using OneDrive for Business or SharePoint for uploading local files.

 

When this will happen:

We have begun retiring the 'Get Data' page and Power BI and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this affects your organization:

Once this change is implemented, instead of going to the ‘Get Data’ page to upload files to a workspace, users can now use a streamlined Upload experience, found at the top of any workspace page. If users are looking to create datasets by importing Excel or CSV data, they'll be able to do this through the Dataset option under the New button at the top of any workspace page.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

We recommend updating any internal documentation related to uploading files or creating datasets within the Power BI service to direct users to start from the workspace they want to add the content into instead of going through the Get Data page

 

Microsoft Viva

 

MC500903 — Microsoft Viva: Praise Highlights in Profile Card in Teams and Outlook

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 109551

 

Praise in Microsoft Teams is designed to appreciate the effort that goes into the wide-ranging, collaborative work that Teams users do. Users can send praise to their colleagues through the messaging extension pinned to the Teams messaging bar or through the Microsoft Viva Insights app in Teams. For both, admins can use the Microsoft Teams admin center to enable/disable Praise.

 

With updates coming soon, praises received will be highlighted on a user’s profile card in Teams and Outlook. There are settings available for users that prevent praise highlights from being visible on their profile card.

 

When this will happen:

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out in early February and expect to complete rollout by late February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

When a user receives praise, the title and note will be visible on their profile card in Team and Outlook People in their organization whom they have emailed, chatted, or met with in the past year will be able to view their praise details.

 

 

Users can go to settings in their Viva Insights app in Teams and switch the praise visibility toggle off to disable praise highlights from showing.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Refer to Praise with Viva Insights | Microsoft Docs which will be updated in sync with this roll out.

 

Microsoft Teams

 

MC510327 — Microsoft Teams: Leave a Meeting From All of Your Devices - GCCH

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 97397

 

This is a follow up to MC420060 (August '22). We delayed this rollout and are now ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience.

 

We will be rolling out a new feature in Microsoft Teams that will allow multi-device users to leave all of their devices at once when leaving a meeting.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early February and complete by early March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

When a Teams user attempts to leave a meeting or call from multiple personal devices, there have been challenges to fully disconnect from the meeting or call on all devices. With this new feature, there will now be an option displayed to multi-device users in a call that will prompt the user to leave the meeting or call from all devices when selected.

 

 

This feature will be enabled for desktop, iOS, and Android clients. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC510326 — Delete or rename files in a channel and in your OneDrive folder in Teams

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 9807398074

 

This is a follow up to MC455193 (November '22). We had to delay the rollout and are now ready to proceed. Thank you for your patience.

 

To rename or delete a file in a channel, go to the files tab and find the file you want. Then select More options (the three dots) on the file.

 

To rename or delete a file from your OneDrive, select More at the bottom of the app, then select Files. Once you find the file you want, select the three dots and choose to rename or delete it.

 

When this will happen:

We began rolling out early November 2022 and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

No impact to admins, no process required by admins.

 

Users will be able to rename or delete their files from the Teams Mobile app now.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC510324 — The modern meeting/calling experience will be available for Teams on the Web in Chrome and Edge browsers

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 92928

 

The modern meeting/calling experience will be available for Teams on the Web in Chrome and Edge browsers - including improved pre-join, dynamic view, and updated control bar.

 

When this will happen:

Roll out will complete by February 2023. 

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users of Teams in Chrome and Edge browsers will see an updated in call/meeting experience that is aligned with the experience in the desktop client. This includes improved usability for commanding and dynamic views that adjust the stage based on the number of users participating.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You should see the update in the normal course of using Teams.

 

MC509577 — Visio Personal App in Teams

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 109596

 

Visio will be available soon as a Teams Personal App. There are no changes to the existing file open behavior, however there are new abilities that the Visio Personal App can provide. Additionally, this change comes with a number of UX improvements to the Office ribbon in Teams to provide a decluttered experience consistent with Office for the Web.

 

When this will happen:

App rollout has begun and is expected to be completed by mid-April 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

The Visio personal app will come pre-installed for all users. New abilities that Visio Personal App will provide include:

·       Ability to pin the app to the app bar for easy entry point.

·       Right click the app icon in the app bar to pop out documents in a new window, to allow multi-tasking between Teams chats and document editing.

·       App home page to navigate documents, view recommended files, or create new file. 

 

Changes to the Office ribbon in Teams include:

·       Introduction of the Share menu, consistent with Office for the Web

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is required from admins at this time; the Visio personal app will be available to all users. 

 

MC509571 — (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Busy-on-busy End User Setting

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86991

 

Updated February 2, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Manage how incoming calls are routed when you are busy in an existing call or meeting directly from your Calls settings in the Teams app or on the web. Choose from the option to allow calls to come through, play a busy signal, or to redirect the call based on your unanswered call routing preference.

 

When this will happen:

·       Standard/GCC: will begin rolling out early March (previously late February) and complete by mid-March (previously early March)

·       GCC-H/DoD: will begin mid-March and expect to complete by late April.

 

How this will affect your organization:

There is no direct impact as the default value set for busy-on-busy policy setting is not getting changed.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

To enable busy-on-busy setting for end users, tenant admins need to change the BusyOnBusyEnabledType value in calling policy and set it to User controlled

 

MC503298 — Microsoft Teams: Simplified App Update Experience

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 95676

 

Microsoft Teams now maintains an index of all of the apps (and the corresponding versions) a user has consented to. Using this index, an app is automatically updated in real time everywhere it is installed for the user. After the user updates the app in any one context, the updated version is available in all other installed contexts, without any other user action.

 

When this will happen:

GA: We will begin rollout in early March and expect rollout to be complete by late March.

 

GCC, GCC-H, DoD: We will begin rollout in mid-March and expect rollout to be complete by early April.

 

How this will affect your organization:

With the simplified app update experience, apps that require new permissions must be manually updated. After the app is updated in one place, it is updated everywhere that has the matching permissions. An app with an update that doesn't require new permissions automatically updates without any explicit user action.

 

With the simplified app update experience, apps are automatically updated based on the admin policies defined by you.

 

 

For apps that require users to accept new permissions, the app details page has a What's new tab that highlights any changes to the app. This tab mentions any required updates to permissions.

 

 

Users can keep their apps updated to the latest version by upgrading just one time. Badging appears beside Manage your apps at the bottom of the Apps pane, and beside the Apps tab on the Manage team page.

 

  

 

Apps with pending updates are automatically sorted to the top in the Manage your apps pane.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Admins do not need to take any action to enable this feature in their organizations. For additional information, please visit this page.

 

MC502190 — Additional Filters in Approvals update

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 92486

 

We are providing this message as an update to MC449930 (October '22). 

 

Microsoft Teams approval list within the personal app will include additional filters to filter your approval list. You can search for keywords in the Approval title or filter by Requested or Custom approvals. 

 

When this will happen:

This is available now.

 

How this affects your organization:

The approval list within the personal app will include additional filters to filter on key word search and source of approval. We will be working to provide additional filters in the future.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no action needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate

 

MC501981 — Microsoft Teams: Automatic lowering of a user's Raised Hand after speaking

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 90022

 

Teams will soon have a feature that will alert attendees in meetings that have raised their hands and already had their questions addressed to automatically lower their hand. This will allow meeting organizers the opportunity to focus on unanswered questions.

 

This release will be rolling out only to Microsoft Teams Desktop users.

 

When will this happen:

Public Preview will roll out in early February.

Rolling out to Production will begin in mid-March and expect to complete rollout by late March.

GCC will begin rolling out in late March and complete by early April.

GCC-H will begin rolling out in late April and complete by early May.

DoD will begin rolling out in early May and complete by mid-May.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users who raise their hand in a Teams meeting and speak in the meeting will see a notification informing them that their hand will automatically be lowered soon. They will be able to choose to keep their hand raised. If the user doesn't take action on the notification, their hand will automatically lower. This should ensure smoother meeting facilitation for organizers and presenters.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may want to notify your users about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC499441 — (Updated) The Room Remote feature for desktop

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 95482

 

Updated February 2, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

The Room Remote feature enables touchless meetings by allowing users to control a nearby shared meeting room device from their Desktop/PC with Teams client. 

 

This feature was first launched on Mobile and will now be available on your Desktop device formfactor. 

 

When this will happen:

Rollout is expected to start mid-January 2023 and will complete mid-February (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

This new feature will be automatically available on the Teams Desktop Client on your Windows Desktop PC so long that the Room Remote feature is enabled on the shared meeting room device and in TAC. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No preparation work required. 

 

MC498600 — Microsoft Call Quality connector for Power BI Desktop - Now for GCC-H and DoD Tenants

We're excited to announce that the Microsoft Call Quality connector for Power BI Desktop has arrived for Microsoft Teams customers on GCC-H and DoD tenants. This new connector will empower IT Pros and admins working within these high-security government tenants to leverage the awesome power of Power BI Desktop with their Microsoft Teams Call Quality Dashboard telemetry to create exciting new reports and visuals, taking their troubleshooting and quality analysis to the next level.

 

When this will happen:

This update is now available to download.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Government cloud customers on high-security tenants (GCC-H and DoD) will now be able to use the Microsoft Call Quality connector for Power BI Desktop with their Microsoft Teams deployments.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

1.     Install Microsoft Power BI Desktop 

2.     Download the latest version of the Microsoft Call Quality connector

 

For additional information, please visit this page

 

MC497317 — Actionable Missed call Notification in Activity

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 102236

 

Users will have the option to call back on a missed call directly from their activity feed. This will help users complete the underlying task quickly and improve triaging of activities.

 

When this will happen:

Preview: We will begin rolling out mid-January and expect to complete by late January.

 

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out early February and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

There are no tenant level settings. Defaults will not change.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no action needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

 

MC496927 — Microsoft Teams: Federated Group Calling

We are releasing the capability for users to easily start a group Teams call with federated colleagues outside of the organization, including video and screensharing, all over an internet connection without any PSTN usage charges.

 

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103042

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early January 2023 and is expected to be complete by mid-January 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users will be able to start a group call within the chat that has federated users in it. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Admins will have to enable federation for the tenant to be able to allow users to collaborate outside of the tenant.

 

For more information, please visit Use Guest Access and External Access to Collaborate with People Outside Your Organization

 

MC496629 — Changes coming to how dialed phone numbers are matched to users - GCCH

In late February 2023, Microsoft will be changing how numbers dialed by Teams users or arriving from the PSTN match the number assigned to users. This process is often referred to as Reverse Number Lookup (RNL).

 

The change applies only to users with an assigned phone number where the last several digits of the base number are also added as the extension. For example, +14025557334;ext=334, where 334 is both included in the base number and as the extension.

 

The users configured with this type of phone number are either Teams users or Skype for Business Server on-premises users.

 

This may be a breaking change if your Teams dial plans and Direct Routing Session Border Controllers are not configured to convert dialed numbers into the full number assigned to the user including the extension.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out this change at the end of February and will be complete by mid-March 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

You might be impacted by the change, if you have users configured with phone numbers with the extension as part of the base number.

 

Today, when a call is made to a phone number, the lookup to see if that number is assigned to a specific user works as follows:

·       if a call is made to +14025557334;ext=334, we will find the user configured with the phone number +14025557334;ext=334

·       if a call is made to +14025557334, and there is no user configured with +14025557334, we will find the user configured with the phone number +14025557334;ext=334.

 

This can be an issue in situations where the same base number is used for multiple users. For example:

·       User Alice is assigned +14025557000;ext=111

·       User John is assigned +14025557000;ext=112

 

If a call is made to +14025557000, and there is no user configured with +14025557000, we would match to the first user found with +14025557000 as a base number (Alice in this case).

 

Based on customer feedback, we are changing the matching logic to be an exact string match between the called number and the full phone number configured for a user.

 

After the change, in the above examples, we will not find a user configured with the phone number +14025557334 or +14025557000 and calls to those number will not match to a user instead of potentially being routed to the wrong person.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If you have users configured with phone numbers with the extension as part of the base number, to prevent calls not being matched to the intended user, please ensure that dialed numbers from Teams users and incoming PSTN calls are formatted to exactly match the full phone number configured on the user accounts.

 

Check that your tenant dial plans include normalization rules that can translate abbreviated dial strings to the full phone number configured on users. In example above, the following phone number normalization rule will translate a dialed 3-digit number to the full phone number configured on the users to ensure calls will succeed:

·       Pattern ^(\d{3})$ and Translation +14025557$1;ext=$1

 

Check that any phone number manipulation/translation rules used on your Direct Routing Session Border Controller are capable of making the translation to the full phone number configured on your users.

 

For more information, see:

·       https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/create-and-manage-dial-plans 

·       https://docs.microsoft.com/microsoftteams/direct-routing-translate-numbers 

 

MC495330 — (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Video Filters in Teams Meetings

Updated February 2, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Video Filters are a new feature in Microsoft Teams meetings that will allow participants to augment their video stream with visual effects, such as frames and styles. These filters are built on the Teams Platform infrastructure and provided by Microsoft first- and third-party partners as apps and displayed as a collection of filters. 

 

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86811

 

When this will happen:

·       Public Preview: We will complete rollout in late January 2023.

·       Standard Release and GCC: We will begin rolling out in early March (previously early February) and expect to complete rollout in late May (previously late April).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users can browse and select video filters from the pre-join screen and in-meeting scenarios. During pre-join, users can access Video filters from the quick tray when they have the camera enabled. After joining a meeting, users will be able to apply effects from the meeting toolbar with the camera fly-out window or navigate all Video filters options on the side pane by clicking the Video effects button under the More menu. 

  

 

 

 

 

To apply video filters, users will need to give consent to install the apps.

 

 

Note: The video filters can be enabled/disabled by app level from the Tenant Admin Center. For EDU tenants, these apps will be turned off by default and can be turned on by individual tenant admins, if required.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may want to consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC495134 — (Updated) Configuration Change: Disabling auto provisioning of Wiki with new channel creation

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We're making some changes to Wiki experience in Teams- channels. At present whenever a new private or standard channel is created then a Wiki is automatically provisioned for the channel and added as a tab in channels.

 

With this release, we're not going to provision wiki by default when a new private or standard channel is created. Users can add new wikis as tabs in channels from the channel store as and when needed, there is no impact on existing wikis that are already available.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin in mid-January and expect to complete by mid-February (previously late January).

 

How this affects your organization:

Once this change is implemented, users will no longer see Wikis created by default when they create a new channel. If users would like to utilize wiki's they can be added from the channel store as needed.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If there is automation that runs on wiki when a new channel is created, it will need to be revised to address this change. Additionally, you may consider updating any training and documentation as appropriate.

 

 

MC485628 — (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Mention Everyone in chat

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 101573

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Similar to how users mention individuals in chat, users will now have the option for “Everyone” within their options for mentions. After typing @, users will see the same people results they see today, but a new option, “Everyone” will be available. By selecting Everyone and sending the message, a notification will be sent to all users in the group chat based on their selected notification settings. Users can adjust how they are notified within their Teams notification settings.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in mid-February (previously late January) and expect to complete rollout to desktop, iOS and Android in mid-March (previously late February).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users will now have a new type of mention within their group and meeting chats. This will automatically appear within chats with more than 2 users and any meeting chat. When used, recipients will receive a notification in their feed, which will show the user who has sent the message and that they have "mentioned Everyone". These notifications can be disabled or changed via chat notification settings. If a user sends a message where they mention an individual and use "Everyone", the prioritization will be given to the individual mention. 

 

In group chats with more than 50 users, we will alert the sender that their message will notify a large number of users. This ensures that senders are fully aware of what will happen when they send a message with Everyone tagged. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may want to notify your users about this new mention type and give them awareness that they can adjust their preferences for notifications within the settings menu. 

 

MC485096 — (Updated) General availability - Receive all chats messages in all scopes

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100883

 

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the timeline and content below. Thank you for your patience.

 

The resource-specific consent (RSC) permissions model for receiving all messages, originally developed for Microsoft Teams Graph APIs, is being extended to bot scenarios. This feature was available for the channel scope and now is being extended to chat scope. With RSC, conversation owners can consent for a bot to receive all user messages in standard channels and chats without being @mentioned.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in early March (previously early January) and expect to complete by late March (previously late January). This is intended to give developers more time to check that their apps handle the new behavior correctly, and make changes if needed.

 

How this affects your organization:

Apps that use the ChatMessage.Read.Chat permission and have a bot capability will notice a difference in behavior when installed to a chat. Previously, the ChatMessage.Read.Chat scope only granted access to the Graph API to Get messages in a chat. After this change, the corresponding bot will receive all messages in the chat where it is installed, even when it is not at-mentioned. If the bot does not handle this correctly, your users may see unexpected replies from it.

 

What you can do to prepare:

Admins are requested to review existing custom or line of business apps which currently are using ChatMessage.Read.Chat permission and have a bot capability and test the application using the Developer Preview version of Teams, as described here. To maintain the existing end-user behavior, the developer must modify the code following this example. If you do not take any action, your bot will receive all messages after new installations, which could result in unexpected replies.

 

For more details, review: Receive all conversation messages with RSC

 

MC469578 — (Updated) Introducing OneNote viewer in Teams mobile apps

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103097

 

Updated January 26, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are excited to announce the OneNote viewer feature within Teams mobile apps.

 

Through this new feature, users will be able to open and view OneNote notebooks right within their Teams mobile apps. Users interested in editing the content will be directed to the standalone OneNote mobile app. The experience will be available as part of the Teams mobile apps on Android and iOS (including iPads) starting with English language users, followed by international languages.

 

When this will happen:

Standard Release: We expect to begin rolling out the OneNote viewer starting early December 2022 and complete the rollout by late February (previously late January).

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No admin action is needed to support these changes.

 

MC466199 — (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Users ability to delete chats

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 90723

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Due to an issue with admin controls in TAC that we are actively working on fixing, please refer to the PowerShell documentation to control the setting for enabling or disabling delete chat capability. Link: Set-CsTeamsMessagingPolicy

 

Users will be able to delete 1:1 chats, group chats, and meeting chats if they are a participant in Microsoft Teams. This permanently deletes the chat only for the user, other people in the chat and conversation history are not impacted.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in early December and expect to complete rollout by mid-February (previously mid-December).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Once available, users will be able to delete 1:1 chat threads or chat groups from the Teams desktop or mobile application. By selecting the ellipsis, users can select the Delete option to clear their chat list.

 

If Admins want to turn off this capability, they can do so from the admin portal under messaging policies. If turned off, users in the tenant will no longer see the delete option for their chats.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

This feature will be enabled automatically and there is no action required at this time. 

 

MC455187 — (Updated) 2x2 Video in Gallery View for Web Meetings in Firefox

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100983

 

Updated February 1, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Gallery view now can show up to 4 participant videos during a meeting in Firefox browser. Users can also start streaming their own video for the rest of the meeting participants.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out early December and expect to complete by late February (previously mid-December).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users joining meetings from Firefox browsers have now a richer video experience.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may need to update the documentation for your Firefox users to mention existence of this feature.

 

MC450203 — (Updated) My Activity retirement in Teams desktop and web clients

Updated January 12, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

As announced in MC411679 (August '22) we are retiring "My Activity" feature within the Activity app from Microsoft Teams desktop and web clients.

 

Activity will now support only activities directed to you (the option to view activities initiated by you will be retired), where we will continue to invest our development resources.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling this out late February (previously mid-November) and expect to complete by mid-March (previously early December).

 

How this affects your organization:

Once this change is implemented Teams desktop and web client users will no longer see the "My activity" dropdown.

 

What you can do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation accordingly.

 

MC445406 — (Updated) Announcing Microsoft Teams Premium

Updated January 14, 2022: We have updated the content below to provide additional clarity. Thank you for your patience.

 

Today, we are excited to announce Microsoft Teams Premium. Built on the familiar, all-in-one collaboration experience of Microsoft Teams, this new offering makes every meeting from 1:1s to large meetings, to virtual appointments to webinars more personalized, intelligent, and protected. Unlike the disconnected experience and costs of multiple point products or add-ons, with Teams Premium you get everything you need for just one low price.

 

As part of the Teams Premium announcement, these existing features will move to Teams Premium, and will be still open for everyone for a grace period of time:

·       Live translation of captions – available to all until 60 days after Teams Premium General availability.

·       Custom together mode scenes - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.

·       Timeline markers in Teams meetings recordings (join/leave meetings)- available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.

·       Virtual Appointments - available to all until 30 days after Teams Premium General availability.

o   SMS notifications

o   Organizational analytics in Admin Center

o   Scheduled queue view

 

Teams Premium will be generally available in February.

 

Learn more about Teams Premium here: Introducing Microsoft Teams Premium, the better way to meet.

 

MC428512 — (Updated) View the Full Chat conversation thread after clicking on search message results

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 97510

 

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

When users search for a chat message in Teams and click on a message result, they are taken to a view that contains only the selected message, rather than the entire chat thread. This fix will now land the users on the full chat thread once the message search result is clicked, thereby providing full context of the conversation around the message result.

 

The feature will be rolling out for Teams Desktop and Web clients and is applicable to message results on the SERP page and the contextual search surfaces.

 

When this will happen:

Standard: We will begin rolling this out in early October and complete late October 2022. - Complete

GCC-H: We will begin rolling this out in late October and complete mid-November 2022. - Complete

GCC: We will begin rolling this out in mid-February and complete end of February.

DoD: We will begin rolling this out in mid-February and complete end of February.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no action needed to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update any relevant documentation as appropriate.

 

MC427758 — (Updated) Schedule Send for Teams Chat

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88281

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

As remote teams become more common and spread across multiple time zones, Teams is introducing the schedule send feature that allows users to schedule chat messages to be delivered in the future. With this feature, we can help build better work-life balance and support flexible schedules by scheduling chat messages so that they only deliver during our peer’s work hours. Users can schedule messages to be delivered both on desktop and mobile. Additionally, all scheduled messages can be edit and delete before they are delivered. 

 

When this will happen:

Production: will begin rolling out in early November (previously late September) and we are expected to complete roll out by mid-February (previously late November).

 

GCC: roll out will start in mid-January and complete by mid-February.

GCCH: roll out will start in mid-February and complete by mid-March.

DoD: roll out will start in mid-February and complete by mid-March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

All users within your organization will be allowed to schedule chat messages. All scheduled messages can only be delivered no more than 7 days in the future and cannot be flagged as urgent or important. Inline images and attached files will only be accessible by others in the chat once the message has been delivered. 

 

Desktop: Right click on the send button to access the scheduling menu and select a date and time within 7 days from now

 

Select send and the message will be scheduled to deliver at the later date and time. At the delivery date and time, the message will be sent like any other message

 

Mobile: Write a message and long press on the send button to schedule the message. Select a date and time to deliver within 7 days to deliver the message

 

Once you’ve selected a date to send in the future, the message will be scheduled to deliver at the later date and time. At the delivery date and time, the message will be sent like any other message

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You may want to notify your users about this new feature within chat so that they can help build better work life balance for their teams while supporting the flexible schedules that your organization supports. 

 

MC423128 — (Updated) Dynamic caller ID in Voice-enabled channels for government clouds: GCCH, DOD

Updated January, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Last year we enabled the capability where agents can use Dynamic Caller ID to call on behalf of a Call Queue or Auto Attendant from within Voice Enabled Channels. We are now bringing this capability to government clouds including GCCH and DOD.

 

We apologize for not meeting our commitment of providing notification prior to implementation and for any inconvenience.

 

When this will happen:

·       GCC-High: This has begun rolling out and will be complete by end of March (previously end of November).

·       DoD: We will begin rolling out early June and expect to complete by early July.

 

How this affects your organization:

You can assign outbound caller ID numbers for the agents by specifying one or more resource accounts with a phone number. Agents can select which outbound caller ID number to use with each outbound call they make.

 

What you can do to prepare:

Review the Additional Information and consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC420059 — (Updated) Custom Download Location for Files in Teams

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 94719

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Currently all file downloads from Microsoft Teams go to the Downloads folder. We are releasing a new feature that enables users to be able to choose their preferred download location for downloading files from Teams or specify a download location for each download.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rollout in early September and expect rollout to be completed by late March (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

To enable this feature, there is a new setting introduced under Files settings, which allows users to change the default download location to their preferred download location.

 

Additionally, there is a toggle, which if enabled, will prompt the user to select the location for each download.

 

Note: These settings will only apply to the files downloaded after the setting is enabled and will not impact any files downloaded in the past.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC397435 — (Updated) Microsoft Teams: Start a Teams Chat with Distribution Groups, Mail-Enabled Security Groups, and O365 Groups

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 62354

 

Updated February 1, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

You will now be able to start a Teams Chat with Distribution Groups, Mail-enabled Security Groups, and O365 Groups. This feature will respect the limits on members in a group chat, currently set to 250 members.

 

Organizations rely on Distribution Lists (DLs) as a tool to create groups of users that mirror organizational knowledge and workflows. Bringing this awareness to target audiences for specific content will enhance the core Teams experience. Allowing our customers to leverage DLs can increase workflow efficiency and bridge the gap between legacy knowledge of organization structure and a new Teams structure. 

 

When this will happen:

GCC: Rollout complete

 

GCC-H and DoD: Expect to begin in early March and complete by late March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

With this update, users will now be able to select Distribution Lists as an audience to begin a chat within Teams. 

 

Admins will be able to toggle this feature on or off for their tenant in the Teams admin center.

 

This feature will support starting a chat with Distribution lists, Office 365 groups or mail enabled security groups

 

As a part of this feature user can only initiate chat if Distribution lists, Office 365 groups or mail enabled security groups having <=250 members. This feature does not allow to initiate chat in situation where member list is >250

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. You may want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC379024 — (Updated) Suggested Replies in Teams Desktop

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 92674

 

Updated January 12, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Suggested Replies present users with an option of three responses to choose from for selected messages and is now available to your users in Teams Desktop.

 

We apologize for not informing you about this change prior to it being released. We continue to work to ensure we are being proactive in our communications. Thank you for your patience.

 

When this will happen:

·       Standard: Complete

·       GCC: mid-May through early June - Complete

·       GCC-High: late July (previously early June) through mid-January (previously late October) - Complete

·       DoD: mid-January through late February (previously mid-November)

 

How this will affect your organization:

Once available, users will be able to quickly reply to a given message by tapping on a suggested reply.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

This feature ships default on; review Manage messaging policies in Teams.

 

If you wish to disable this feature in your tenant, please disable the Suggested Replies setting that is found in Messaging Policies.

 

Users also have a setting within the app so they can disable the feature.

 

MC346909 — (Updated) Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Teams

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 86190

 

Updated January 17, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Customer Lockbox is available today for Exchange Online, SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business. With this update, we are enabling Customer Lockbox for Microsoft Teams as well.

 

Note: If you are already using Customer Lockbox today, no extra steps are needed to take advantage of this update.

 

When will this happen:

·       Standard: We will begin rolling this out in late March and expect to complete rollout by late April. - Complete

·       GCC: We will begin rolling this out in mid-June and expect to complete rollout by late December (previously late June). - Complete

·       GCC-H: We will begin rolling this out in early September and expect to complete rollout by late April (previously late December).

·       DoD: We will begin rolling this out in early-September and expect to complete rollout by late April (previously late December).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Occasionally, Microsoft engineers help troubleshoot and fix issues that arise with the service. In some cases, resolving an issue requires a Microsoft engineer to access your content to determine the root cause and fix the issue. Customer Lockbox requires the engineer to request access from you as a final step in the approval workflow.

·       For end users: There is no impact.

·       For admins: If there is a service request on the Microsoft Teams product that requires a Microsoft engineer to access your content to determine the root cause and fix the issue, the admin will need to approve or deny such a request.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If Customer Lockbox is already enabled for your organization, then there is no additional configuration you need to make for this update.

 

Learn more:

·       Customer Lockbox in Office 365

 

MC337332 — (Updated) Export feature in Teams Admin Center

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85704

 

Updated February 2, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

Teams admin center is adding support for downloading the data from the list pages like teams list page, members list page, channels list page and users list page. The downloaded data will be in the form of a CSV file. Admins can click on the “Export” icon placed on the table headers in these pages to generate the data and download the CSV from the downloads section in the header of the Teams admin center.

 

When this will happen:

 

We will begin rolling this out in early March and expect to complete the rollout by late April (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Admins will now see a downloads icon in the header.

 

The downloads section will display the list of all entries that were generated in the last 24 hours. This section also is personalized for each admin in an organization but they cannot see exported files from other admins in their organization.

 

This new feature will enable admins to apply filters on these list pages and then export the filtered list of items instead of exporting the entire list.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You might want to notify your Teams administrators about this new capability and update your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

Microsoft Intune

 

MC504337 — What’s new in the Microsoft Intune Service Update for January 2023

Your Microsoft Intune account has been updated to the latest service build.

 

How does this affect me:

You will see the service release number updated in the Tenant Status blade of the Intune console soon. We’ve introduced some changes that we’re excited for you to try out.

 

What do I need to do to prepare for this change?

 

Click additional information below to learn more about what’s new in this service release. We’ll continue to update the What’s new page with any features that are released between now and the next monthly service update. Learn more by reviewing features highlighted in the latest Intune What's new 2301(January) Blog and how the Intune service updates each month is described in the Microsoft Intune Service Updates Blog

 

Additional Information:

Intune What's new

 

Intune What's new 2301(January) Blog

 

Staying up to date on Intune new features, service changes, and service health

 

MC496241 — Notification Granularity for Teams Mobile through Intune

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 102651

 

Customers in fields like finance, healthcare, and law have been asking for a more granular control of what Teams Mobile shows and hides in a notification preview. In response, we are introducing an optional way for admins to control how much detail a user sees in a lock screen notification.

 

Note: This feature is only available to customers with Intune. If you organization does not use Intune you can safely disregard.

 

When this will happen:

We began rolling this out in mid-December and expect to complete by late January.

 

How this affects your organization:

This feature is off by default. If you choose not to utilize this feature, there will be no impact on your end users or tenant.  If you would like to set up this functionality, please follow the steps below.

 

1.     Go to Microsoft Endpoint Manager Admin Center

 

 

2.     Go to Apps > App Protection Policy. Click Create Policy, select Microsoft Teams in Public Apps.

 

 

3.     Select Block org Data,and follow the rest of the steps through. Public documentation on how to set a policy.

 

 

4.     Then, once you are done setting a App Protection Policy, go to App Configuration Policies, click Add > Managed Apps.

 

 

5.     Set the following key value pairs for Microsoft Teams. 0 is ‘off’ and the default setting, 1 is ‘on’.

o   Com.microsoft.teams.chat.notifications.IntuneMAMOnly 

o   Com.microsoft.teams.channel.notifications.IntuneMAMOnly

o   Com.microsoft.teams.other.notifications.IntuneMAMOnly

 

 

6.     Go back to Apps > App Protection Policies. In the column that says Deployed, it should say Yes for the policy you created. If it still says No, refresh the page, get a cup of coffee, wait a few minutes. It takes ~10 minutes to deploy.

 

MC495331 — Microsoft Intune In Development for January 2023 is now available

The In development for Microsoft Intune page in our documentation has been updated.

 

How does this affect me:

The In development page provides a list of features in upcoming releases of Microsoft Intune to assist in your readiness and planning. The list has now been updated. You’ll start seeing these changes in the next month or in a subsequent release.

 

What do I need to prepare for this change?

 

You can inform your IT staff and helpdesk of the upcoming changes listed on this page. Plan to update your user guidance, if you feel any of these features would be important to your users.

 

Additional Information

 

Intune In development

 

MC408678 — (Updated) Plan for Change: Ending support for Company Portal authentication method for iOS/iPadOS ADE enrollment

Updated January 27, 2023: This change has been delayed. We will provide a new message center post when it is time to replan for this future change. 

 

As we continue to invest in Setup Assistant with modern authentication, which is the Apple supported path to require enrollment during Setup Assistant with optional multi-factor authentication, we plan to remove the Company Portal authentication method from new and existing iOS/iPadOS ADE enrollment profiles in Q1 2023 (previously November 2022). This will include removing the Run Company Portal in Single App Mode until authentication setting which we previously announced plans to remove in MC284343.

 

How this will affect your organization:

New enrollments (new devices that are targeted with an existing enrollment profile or devices re-enrolling) that are targeted with an existing enrollment profile with the Company Portal authentication method, will not be able to enroll.

 

This will not impact existing enrolled devices unless the device is re-enrolled after this change. The device will not be able to re-enroll until the authentication method is switched in the enrollment profile to Setup Assistant with modern authentication.

 

New iOS/iPadOS enrollment profiles will not have the option to select Company Portal as the authentication method. 

 

You likely have already moved to use Setup Assistant with modern authentication, however, if you have not, you will need to move to this new authentication method. Within the Microsoft Endpoint Manager admin center, you will want to either create a new ADE enrollment profile, or edit your existing enrollment profile to use the “Setup assistant with modern authentication.” 

 

User experience: The Setup Assistant with modern authentication enrollment flow does change the enrollment screen order where authentication will occur prior to accessing the home screen. If you have user guides that share screen shots, you will want to update those so the guides match the experience of Setup Assistant with modern authentication.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

To enroll new devices (or re-enroll) after Q1 2023 (previously November 2022), you will either need to update existing profiles to move to Setup Assistant with modern authentication or create a new enrollment profile with this method.

 

Related information

 

Move to Setup Assistant with Modern Authentication for Automated Device Enrollment

 

Setup Assistant with Modern Auth for ADE (iOS/iPadOS 13+ and macOS 10.15+)

 

Using filters with Setup Assistant with modern auth for ADE for corporate iOS/iPadOS/macOS devices

 

Enroll iOS/iPadOS devices by using ADE - Microsoft Intune | Microsoft Docs

 

Microsoft Defender

 

MC509914 — Network Protection for macOS starting deployment to General Availability on 1/31!

Network Protection for macOS will soon be available for all Microsoft Defender for Endpoint onboarded macOS devices which meet the following criteria:

• Licensing: Microsoft Defender for Endpoint tenant (can be trial)

• Onboarded Machines:

• Minimum macOS version: 11 (Big Sur)

• Product version 101.94.13 or later

 

Note: If your organization does not utilize macOS devices you can safely disregard this message.

 

When this will happen:

Standard Release: Microsoft will begin incrementally rolling out the functionality for all macOS devices to enable Network Protection on January 31, 2023 with target completion, subject to change, by March 24, 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

When this feature rolls to production, all of your currently configured Network Protection and Web Threat Protection policies will be enforced on macOS devices where Network Protection is configured for block mode.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

For Network Protection for macOS to be active on your devices, Network Protection must be enabled by your organization. We suggest deploying the audit or block mode policy to a small set of devices and verify there are no issues or broken workstreams before gradually deploying to a larger set of devices.

 

Verify the Network Protection configuration on your macOS devices is set to the desired state.

 

Understand the impact of your Web Threat Protection, Custom Indicators of Compromise, Web Content Filtering, and MDA Endpoint Enforcement polices which target those macOS devices where Network Protection is in Block mode.

 

MC509576 — Updated NTLM Protocol Name for the Identity Advanced Hunting Tables

We are updating the NTLM protocol name for the Identity tables as part of the Microsoft 365 Advanced hunting feature for parity with other hunting tables.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in late February and expect to complete rollout by early March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

The tables affected are: IdentityLogonEvents, IdentityQueryEvents, IdentityDirectoryEvents

 

The old protocol name Ntlm will now be the new protocol name NTLM

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If you are currently using "Ntlm" protocol in case sensitive format from the identity event tables, you should change it from "NTLM".

 

MC504323 — (Updated) Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Built-in Protection Time of Click URL Email Protection

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the content below for clarity. Thank you for your patience.

 

Last year, we enabled Built-in-Protection in Defender for Office 365 by default for all new and existing Defender for Office 365 customers. Specifically, it added a base level of Safe Links and Safe Attachment protections - delivery time file and URL detonation as well as time of click protection across Teams, and Office workloads.

 

We are now enabling the final remaining aspect of the built-in protection policy: SafeLinks URL time of click email protections.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rollout in late February and expect rollout to be complete by late March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Built-In-Protection will not impact users who currently have a Safe Links or Safe Attachments policy in place.

 

Note: For users already covered under the standard or strict preset; or under an explicit custom policy, built-in protection will not impact them as this policy has the lowest priority.

 

Policies will be applied in the following order of precedence:

1.      Strict

2.      Standard

3.      Custom

4.      Built-In-Protection or default

If additional domains are added to your tenant, they will automatically be protected through Built-In-Protection with a base level of Safe Links and Safe Attachment. This will reduce the administrative burden and time involved to protect these users, as they'll get instant protection under the Built-in preset.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No security admin action is required. You may want to review the impact to users who are not already protected under a standard or strict preset or under an explicit Safe Links and Safe Attachment custom policy. Although we do not recommend it, you can also configure exceptions to built-in protection based on Users, Groups, and Domains so the protection isn't applied to specific users.

 

To learn about the specific settings set by Built-in-Protection, please see: Microsoft recommendations for EOP and Defender for Office 365 security settings

 

Additional links:

·        Learn how to configure Built-in-Protection 

·        See the specific settings set in Built-In-Protection

 

MC497320 — Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Discovery Service Plan

Your service plan subscription is being updated with a new service plan: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Discovery Service. This service plan enables various Defender for Cloud Apps discovery features such as seeing the number of applications in your environment, the associated app traffic and the ability to sanction/unsanction apps.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling this service plan out in the mid-January timeframe. 

 

How this affects your organization:

Once the new service plan is deployed to your organization, features that require the Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps Discovery Service plan will be available in your subscription.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Learn more about Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps: Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps overview.

 

Learn more about Defender for Cloud Apps Discovery: Set up Cloud Discovery Set up Cloud Discovery.

 

MC492896 — (Updated) Updated opt-in setting for Microsoft Defender for Identity

Updated January 9, 2023: We have updated the content below to show as intended. Thank you for your patience.

 

Over the last few months, the experiences and functions of Microsoft Defender for Identity have been made available in Microsoft’s extended detection and response (XDR) platform, Microsoft 365 Defender. Merging identity data and functions into this XDR experience is a valuable addition to a security teams capabilities, with identity providing important context to detection logic and investigation potential.

 

Since all major Microsoft Defender for Identity features have now been made available in Microsoft 365 Defender portal, the portal redirection setting will be automatically enabled for each tenant starting January 31, 2023.

 

How will this affect your organization:

·       Once the redirection setting is enabled, any requests to the standalone Defender for Identity portal (portal.atp.azure.com) will be redirected to Microsoft 365 Defender (security.microsoft.com) along with any direct links to its functionality. 

·       Organizations can still manually opt-out by switching it back and disable the setting (navigating from the Microsoft 365 Defender homepage (security.microsoft.com) to Settings -> Identities -> General -> Portal redirection)

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Ensure your security teams are familiar with Defender for Identity’s features and settings as they are represented in Microsoft 365 Defender. If your security teams need help, please direct them to the updated documentation available here.

 

MC467232 — (Updated) Changes to Cloud App Catalog and Risk score calculation

Updated February 2, 2023: Based on learnings from our early rings, we have made the decision to make additional changes before we proceed with the rollout. We will deliver a new Message center post once we re-start the rollout. Thank you for your patience.

 

Microsoft Defender for Cloud Apps are making some changes to the Cloud App Catalog as part of improving the scoring of Apps.

 

1) As part of the changes, the following non-relevant/redundant indicators are being removed from the catalog:

·       Consumer Popularity Index

·       Safe Harbor

·       Jericho Forum Commandments

·       Heartbleed patched

·       Protected against DROWN

 

2) The following indicators are being removed from the score calculation; however, they will continue to be presented in the catalog for information and will also continue to be available in Filters.

·       Founded

·       Holding

·       Domain Registration

·       FedRAMP level

·       FISMA

 

3) Indicator “Disaster Recovery Plan” is being moved from “General” to “Security” section

 

4) Indicator “SSAE 16” is being replaced with “SSAE 18”.

 

When this will happen:

We will deliver a new Message center post once we re-start the rollout.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Due to the above changes, the risk score of some applications might change and new alerts might trigger if customers have created discovery policies based on total score of apps or removed indicators. Also, any existing policies that were created based on the removed indicators will also be removed

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Therefore, please review your existing discovery policies and modify them or create new policies as needed.

 

Microsoft Purview

 

MC504322 — Data Lifecycle Management - Removing the Preservation Hold Library (PHL) access in SharePoint

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103613

 

We're making an update to the ability to remove the Preservation Hold Library in SharePoint and OneDrive from being accessible through Site Contents or the site’s navigation.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in late January and is expected to be complete by end of February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

When users perform actions in SharePoint or OneDrive which require content to be retained behind the scenes, the Preservation Hold Library (PHL) is used to hold this content. The PHL library was never meant to be a user-visible system library or be accessed by users, therefore this change will remove the PHL from the site navigation. In the case of specific scenarios where it may be required, site collection administrators will continue to be able to access the PHL by navigating directly to it using its URL. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable this change. You may want to alert your Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management or Microsoft Purview Records Management admins and update relevant training and documentation.

 

Get started with Data Lifecycle Management in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: 

·       Learn about retention policies & labels to retain or delete 

·       Learn about Microsoft Purview Data Lifecycle Management 

 

MC501982 — Microsoft Purview | Exact Data Match to support up to 500 EDM evaluations

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100712

 

We are expanding the number of supported Exact Data Match (EDM) detections from 100 to 500.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in mid-February and is expected to be complete by end of February 2023. 

 

How this will affect your organization:

With this update, organizations will be able to configure policies for solutions where EDM is supported, such as Data Loss Prevention, Information Protection, or Records Management, with Min and Max unique instance counts up to 500. This aligns to the instance count supported with other Sensitive Information Types, such as U.S. Social Security Number (SSN). Note that there is no change for the support of the value Any, which remains an option for Max instance count. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable this capability. You can configure new policies or edit existing policies to specify unique instance counts with a value up to 500.

 

Get started with Exact Data Match in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: 

·       Sensitive information type limits 

·       Learn about exact data match based sensitive information types

 

MC500909 — Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium): Historical versions (preview)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 88817

 

Coming soon to public preview, historical versions in eDiscovery (Premium) allows organizations to quickly search across not only the current version of documents, but all the versions that may be relevant given the content included in the document at the time of the version.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in mid-January and is expected to be complete by early February. 

 

How this will affect your organization:

If a SharePoint administrator has versioning enabled on the site, when documents are modified in SharePoint, implicit regular versions are created as the document is saved (or auto saved). These older versions remain available, and your organization may be required to share older versions that have sensitive or relevant content during court discovery in a legal matter.

 

After eDiscovery administrators turn on the historical versions feature for their organization and specify the SharePoint sites to enable crawling and indexing of all the historical versions, eDiscovery (Premium) users will have the ability to search across all versions of documents or locations in scope for the investigation or a case.

 

To use the historical versions (preview) feature:

·       Turn the feature on globally for all cases in your organization via the eDiscovery (Premium) settings Page. 

·       After the feature is turned on, eDiscovery administrators can specify up to 100 sites per tenant to enable crawling and indexing of document versions. 

·       Perform keyword searches on the specified sites and discover versions of documents containing the keyword specified. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

This update will not affect your organization’s current eDiscovery workflow. Once this feature is enabled by an eDiscovery administrator, all subsequent collections performed on enabled sites will return versions of documents if those versions match the keyword specified in the collection query text.

 

Note: This feature is free of charge to try during the public preview phase, with organizations able to turn on up to 100 sites per tenant. More information on the pricing and licensing model for this feature will be communicated in advance of general availability.

 

Assess if the historical versions feature is beneficial for your organization’s eDiscovery purpose. You may wish to provide training to all eDiscovery users in your organization and update relevant documentation.

 

Get started with eDiscovery (Premium) in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal: 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: Set up historical versions in eDiscovery (Premium) 

 

MC500902 — Configuration Change: Azure Information Protection Add-in will be disabled by default for Office apps

This is a follow up to MC478692 (December '22), we're making some changes to how Microsoft 365 Apps choose between the built-in client for sensitivity labels and the legacy Azure Information Protection (AIP) Add-in.

 

Starting with version 2302, all users of this add-in will be migrated to the modern, built-in interface for sensitivity labels in Office. Review the earliest availability dates

·       Beta Channel: Already available (min version 2211)

·       Current Channel Preview: Already available (2211+)

·       Current Channel: March 14, 2023

·       Monthly Enterprise Channel: April 11, 2023

·       Semi Annual Enterprise Channel: July 11, 2023

 

This will simplify admin configuration of sensitivity labels for Office documents and substantially improve end-user productivity from improvements to performance. For users who need to continue using the AIP Add-in during its support lifecycle, you need to deploy a new configuration for Office to explicitly allow the AIP Add-in to be used for viewing and applying labels in Office.

 

The new configuration setting is already available for you to deploy via group policy or cloud policy. Use this to configure an exception to allow the AIP Add-in to continue providing sensitivity labels once the minimum version is deployed.

 

How this will affect your organization:

You are receiving this message because our reporting indicates your organization may be using the Azure Information Protection Add-In for Office. For organizations that use the Microsoft 365 Add-Ins Health Dashboard, you can view the list of affected devices for your organization.

 

When this change is implemented:

·       If you've previous disabled "Use the Sensitivity feature in Office to apply and view sensitivity label": Users will not be able to view or apply sensitivity labels in Office apps. To avoid losing access to sensitivity labels, you must deploy the new setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling".

·       If you hadn't configured "Use the Sensitivity feature in Office to apply and view sensitivity label", the AIP Add-in will be disabled automatically and replaced with sensitivity labels using the built-in labeling client.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

The new policy setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling" is available for you to configure at any time, even if the minimum applicable version of Office is not yet deployed. When this change takes effect, you will need to configure the policy setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling" to keep using the Add-in.

 

Please click Additional Information to learn more.

 

MC499443 — Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention: Upcoming migration of policy sync engine for Exchange, SharePoint, and OneDrive

We’re making changes to the Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention (DLP) Policy Synchronization API.

 

Starting February 2023, we will replace and retire the legacy “Policy Sync Version V1” for DLP that applies to Exchange Online, SharePoint, and OneDrive for Business workloads and migrate all DLP policies from the previous “Policy Sync Version V1” to an upgraded “Policy Sync Version V2”.  

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early February and is expected to be complete by end of February 

 

How this will affect your organization:

The DLP “Policy Sync Version V2” is a more secure and flexible solution that will enable you to access the latest and upcoming features across the entire Microsoft Purview Information Protection solution. This will be a back-end infrastructure upgrade activity that will be carried out by Microsoft.

 

Once this change is implemented, admins will see a “Last Modified Timestamp” column as the DLP policies* will be updated per the timestamp when Microsoft will be performing the migration on your consent. Changes will be visible in both PowerShell and the Microsoft Purview compliance portal (UX).

 

*Indicates DLP policies that are scoped to workloads – Exchange Online, SharePoint, OneDrive  

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to prepare for this change.

 

Get started with Information Protection and Data Loss Prevention in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal

 

Learn more: 

·       Learn about data loss prevention 

·       Microsoft Purview Information Protection   

 

MC497311 — Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium): Review set - Add notes to items

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 103623

 

We're rolling out a feature that supports adding notes to items within a review set for the eDiscovery (Premium) solution in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early February and is expected to be complete by end of February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

With this update, the following functionality will be enabled for eDiscovery (Premium) review sets:

1.     View or update notes for items in a review set.

2.     A new column for notes.

3.     Edit notes for an item. 

4.     Filter review set items by notes. 

 

 

 

Important: This change does not impact your existing export flow as the user created notes metadata values aren't included as part of your load file. The notes are only available in the UX. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable these updates.

 

Get started with eDiscovery (Premium) in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more:

·       Manage review sets in eDiscovery (Premium)  

·       Query the content in a review set  

 

MC495887 — Microsoft Purview | Information Protection: Maintain label when creating PDF files from VBA in Office apps (GA)

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 106091

 

Microsoft Office is shipping a new feature that enables PDFs created from Office using Export to PDF to inherit the source document's labels or encryption.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in early January and is expected to be complete by mid-February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

With the new Office Export to PDF feature, by default, all PDFs created using Office's fixed format export functions will automatically inherit the source document's label or encryption. Note that some VBA add-ins for Word, Excel, and PowerPoint may need to be updated to avoid issues when post-processing an encrypted PDF.  

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Define sensitivity labels and settings in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC cloud environments

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: 

·       Learn about sensitivity labels 

·       Changes in Export to PDF with sensitivity labeling and encryption in Office Add-ins - Microsoft 365 Developer Blog 

·       Apply sensitivity labels to PDFs created with Office apps (blog post)   

 

MC495880 — Microsoft Purview compliance portal: Retirement of legacy DLP reporting cmdlets

As announced in November 2022 (MC455898), we've recently retired the Reports page from the Microsoft Purview compliance portal. Beginning in early February, we're retiring legacy Microsoft Purview Data Loss Prevention reporting cmdlets. 

 

Impact to your organization

 

The following legacy DLP reporting cmdlets will soon be retired:

·       Get-DlpDetectionsReport 

·       Get-DlpDetailReport 

·       Get-DlpSiDetectionsReport 

·       Get-DlpIncidentDetailReport 

 

Going forward, data currently available via the Get-DlpIncidentDetailReport cmdlet can be downloaded through Activity Explorer.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable this change; however, we recommend that you update any internal documentation or processes that reference the retiring cmdlets.

 

Get started with Activity Explorer in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: Get started with Activity explorer 

 

MC478692 — (Updated) Configuration Change: Azure Information Protection Add-in will be disabled by default for Office apps

Updated January 25, 2023: We have provided updated information in MC500902 (January '22). 

 

We're making some changes to how Microsoft 365 Apps choose between the built-in client for sensitivity labels and the legacy Azure Information Protection (AIP) Add-in.

 

Starting with version 2212 in Office Current Channel and Monthly Enterprise Channel, all users of this add-in will be migrated to the modern, built-in interface for sensitivity labels in Office. This version is estimated to be available in mid/late January 2023. This will simplify admin configuration of sensitivity labels for Office documents and substantially improve end-user productivity from improvements to performance. For users who need to continue using the AIP Add-in during its support lifecycle, you need to deploy a new configuration for Office to explicitly allow the AIP Add-in to be used for viewing and applying labels in Office. 

 

The new configuration setting is available for you to deploy via group policy or cloud policy. Use this to configure an exception to allow the AIP Add-in to continue providing sensitivity labels once the minimum version is deployed. For users in the Insider Beta channel of Office, the AIP Add-in will be automatically disabled by default.

 

How this will affect your organization:

You are receiving this message because our reporting indicates your organization may be using the Azure Information Protection Add-In for Office. For organizations that use the Microsoft 365 Add-Ins Health Dashboard, you can view the list of affected devices for your organization.

 

When this change is implemented:

·       If you've previous disabled "Use the Sensitivity feature in Office to apply and view sensitivity label": Users will not be able to view or apply sensitivity labels in Office apps. To avoid losing access to sensitivity labels, you must deploy the new setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling".

·       If you hadn't configured "Use the Sensitivity feature in Office to apply and view sensitivity label", the AIP Add-in will be disabled automatically and replaced with sensitivity labels using the built-in labeling client.

·       To continue using the AIP Add-in, you must configure the new policy setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling". If you disable thew new policy setting or don’t configure it, the default labeling experience that’s built-in for Office apps is used to view and apply sensitivity labels.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

The new policy setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling" is available for you to configure for users in Current Channel and goes into effect starting in version 2212.

 

When this change takes effect, you will need to configure the policy setting "Use the Azure Information Protection add-in for sensitivity labeling" to keep using the Add-in.

 

Please click Additional Information to learn more. 

 

MC469569 — (Updated) Microsoft Purview Audit: General availability of New Search functionality

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93237

 

Updated January 12, 2023: We have updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We're introducing new search functionality for Microsoft Purview Audit (Standard) and Audit (Premium).

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in late January (previously early December) and is expected to be complete by late February (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Microsoft Purview Audit is announcing an update to the Audit Search available for both Audit (Standard) and Audit (Premium) customers. This revamp of the search tool builds on the familiar search interface that currently enables searching across critical audit log events to understand user actions and gain insight into the security of company data.

 

The launch of New Search also introduces the following feature updates:

·       Users can run 10 concurrent audit search jobs and review the progress percentage, number of results, and job status all from the UI. 

·       Historical search job results are stored for 30 days and can be accessed after completion; users can filter and export this data. 

·       Search jobs continue to run, even if you close the browser. Active jobs and detailed results will be available to view and access when you return to Audit Search home page. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is needed to enable New Search. To use New Search, click on the New Search tab in the search tool on the Audit homepage. To utilize the existing Search functionality (Classic Search), click on the Search tab instead.

 

Get started with Audit in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal:

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC cloud environments

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: 

·       Microsoft Purview auditing solutions 

·       Audit New Search 

 

MC458652 — (Updated) Microsoft Purview eDiscovery (Premium): List, collection, and jobs usability enhancements.

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100707

 

Updated February 1, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We're introducing several usability improvements on list pages, collection details, and job-related detail within the eDiscovery (Premium) service in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in mid-November and is expected to be complete by late February (previously mid-December). 

 

How this will affect your organization:

With these usability enhancements on case overview and list pages, you will be able to identify case formats between “new” and “classic”. You will also see improved empty and error state on list pages with details on actions to take.

 

With this update, we’ve also made copy collection more user friendly by including the source collection name in the copied collection name by default. You will be able to freely update/modify the collection name based on the default name of “Copied from <source collection name>”. This makes the new collection easily linked to the original source collection without losing reference of the original collection. 

 

On the collection detail flyout pane for committed collections, the target review set name is also shown to facilitate the ease of tracking where the content has gone to in the eDiscovery workflow. Review set will also be available as a column in the collections list to improve ease of use. 

 

Jobs-related updates include cleaned up jobs name as well inclusion of job duration detail to inform customers on the hours/minutes the jobs ran from start to completion (successful or errored jobs). 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action is required to enable these usability updates. You may want to notify your users about these changes, and if your training and documentation contains screenshots of the current views, you might want to update the contents with the updated views.

 

Get started with eDiscovery (Premium) in the Microsoft Purview compliance portal: 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for WW and GCC cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for GCC-High cloud environments 

·       Microsoft Purview compliance portal for DoD cloud environments 

 

Learn more: Microsoft Purview eDiscovery solutions 

 

Identity

 

MC498471 — IPv6 coming to Azure AD

With the growing adoption and support of IPv6 across enterprise networks, service providers, and devices, many customers are wondering if their users can continue to access their services and applications from IPv6 clients and IPv6 networks.

 

Today, we’re excited to announce our plan to bring IPv6 support to Microsoft Azure Active Directory (Azure AD). This will allow customers to reach the Azure AD services over both IPv4 and IPv6 network protocols (dual stack).

 

For most customers, IPv4 won't completely disappear from their digital landscape, so we aren't planning to require IPv6 or to de-prioritize IPv4 in any Azure Active Directory features or services.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin introducing IPv6 support into Azure AD services in a phased approach, beginning March 31, 2023 and expect to complete by early July

 

What you can do to prepare:

We have guidance below which is specifically for Azure AD customers, who use IPv6 addresses and also use Named Locations in their Conditional Access policies. 

 

Customers who use named locations to identify specific network boundaries in their organization, need to:

1.     Conduct an audit of existing named locations to anticipate potential impact;

2.     Work with your network partner to identify egress IPv6 addresses in use in your environment.;

3.     Review and update existing named locations to include the identified IPv6 ranges.

Customers who use Conditional Access location based policies, to restrict and secure access to their apps from specific networks, need to:

1.     Conduct an audit of existing Conditional Access policies to identify use of named locations as a condition to anticipate potential impact;

2.     Review and update existing Conditional Access location based policies to ensure they continue to meet your organization’s security requirements.

Failing to follow these steps might result in the following impact:

1.     Users of IPv6 addresses may be blocked, depending on your organization's Conditional Access policies and Identity Protection configurations.

2.     False positive detections due to 'Mark as trust location' not being checked for your internal networks and VPN’s can result in users being marked as risky.

 We will continue to share additional guidance on IPv6 enablement in Azure AD here: IPv6 Support in Azure Active Directory

 

Learn more about Microsoft identity:

·       Get to know Microsoft Entra – a comprehensive identity and access product family

·       Return to the Microsoft Entra (Azure AD) blog home

·       Share product suggestions on the Entra (Azure AD) forum 

 

MC468492 — (Updated) Authenticator number matching to be enabled for all Microsoft Authenticator users

Updated February 2, 2023: Microsoft Authenticator app’s number matching feature has been Generally Available since Nov 2022! If you have not already leveraged the rollout controls (via Azure Portal Admin UX and MSGraph APIs) to smoothly deploy number matching for users of Microsoft Authenticator, we highly encourage you to do so. Microsoft will start enabling this critical security feature for all users of the Microsoft Authenticator app beginning February 27, 2023 and remove this feature’s rollout controls after that date.

 

Please note that we have changed the expected behavior for NPS extension to be even more admin friendly. NPS versions 1.2.2216.1+ will be released once Microsoft starts to enable number matching for all Authenticator users. These NPS versions will automatically prefer OTP based sign-ins over traditional push notifications with the Authenticator app. An admin can choose to disable this behavior and fallback to traditional push notifications with Approve/Deny by setting the registry key OVERRIDE_NUMBER_MATCHING_WITH_OTP Value = FALSE. Previous NPS extension versions will not automatically switch Authenticator push notification authentications to OTP based authentications. Please refer to the NPS extension section of the number match documentation for further information.

 

When this will happen:

Beginning February 27, 2023

 

How this affects your organization:

To prevent accidental approvals, admins can require users to enter a number displayed on the sign-in screen when approving an MFA request in the Microsoft Authenticator app. This feature is critical to protecting against MFA fatigue attacks which are on the rise.

 

Another way to reduce accidental approvals is to show users additional context in Authenticator notifications. Admins can now selectively choose to enable the following:

·       Application context: Show users which application they are signing into.

·       Geographic location context: Show users their sign-in location based on the IP address of the device they are signing into.

 

Number match behavior in different scenarios after 27-February 2023:

1.     Authentication flows will require users to do number match when using the Microsoft Authenticator app. If the user is using a version of the Authenticator app that doesn’t support number match, their authentication will fail. Please make sure upgrade to the latest version of Microsoft Authenticator (App Store and Google Play Store) to use it for sign-in.

2.     Self Service Password Reset (SSPR) and combined registration flows will also require number match when users are using the Microsoft Authenticator app.

3.     ADFS adapter will require number matching on versions of Windows Server that support number matching. On earlier versions, users will continue to see the “Approve/Deny” experience and won’t see number matching till you upgrade.

o   Windows Server 2022 October 26, 2021—KB5006745 (OS Build 20348.320)

o   Windows Server 2019 October 19, 2021—KB5006744 (OS Build 17763.2268)

o   Windows Server 2016 October 12, 2021—KB5006669 (OS Build 14393.4704)

 

4.     NPS extension versions beginning 1.2.2131.2 will require users to do number matching after 27-February 2023. Because the NPS extension can’t show a number, the user will be asked to enter a One-Time Passcode (OTP). The user must have an OTP authentication method (e.g. Microsoft Authenticator app, software tokens etc.) registered to see this behavior. If the user doesn’t have an OTP method registered, they’ll continue to get the Approve/Deny experience. You can create a registry key that overrides this behavior and prompts users with Approve/Deny. More information can be found in the number matching documentation. 

5.     Apple Watch – Apple Watch will remain unsupported for number matching. We recommend you uninstall the Microsoft Authenticator Apple Watch app because you have to approve notifications on your phone.

 

What you can do to prepare:

We highly recommend that you leverage the rollout controls (via Azure Portal Admin UX and MSGraph APIs) to smoothly deploy these features (number match and additional context) for users of the Microsoft Authenticator app.

 

Learn more at: 

·       Number match documentation

·       Defend your users from MFA fatigue attacks - Microsoft Community Hub 

·       Advanced Microsoft Authenticator security features are now generally available! - Microsoft Community Hub 

 

Exchange Online / Microsoft Defender for Office 365

 

MC505088 — Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Quarantine Notifications enabled for Preset Security Policies

We are updating the recommended quarantine notification policy in the Standard and Strict preset security policies.

 

 

With the DefaultFullAccessWithNotificationPolicy, Users will receive quarantine notifications for emails quarantined due to the corresponding threat policy.

 

Here is what the quarantine notification looks like: 

 

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling this out in mid-February 2023 and complete rolling out by mid-March 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

If your organization has enabled preset security policies, these will be automatically updated to include the quarantine notification policies (DefaultFullAccessWithNotificationPolicy) as listed in the above table for the standard and strict protection preset profiles.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

No action required. Please review the following links to learn more:

·       What are quarantine notifications? Quarantine notifications (end-user spam notifications) in Microsoft 365 - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn 

·       Specific controls set in Preset Security Policies: Microsoft recommendations for EOP and Defender for Office 365 security settings - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn 

·       We recommend enabling preset security policies for your organization: Steps to quickly set up the Standard or Strict preset security policies for Microsoft Defender for Office 365 - Office 365 | Microsoft Learn

 

MC503297 — Exchange: Test-Message coming soon

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100494

 

We are introducing a cmdlet called Test-Message that tenant admins can use to independently investigate issues related to the processing of their Exchange Transport Rules (ETRs) and Unified DLP rules without having to engage Microsoft support for assistance.

 

When this will happen:

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out in late January and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

When you want to determine why an ETR didn’t trigger or work as expected, you can use the Test-Message cmdlet to investigate the root cause without asking Microsoft support to help investigate. Tenant admins can run Test-Message to simulate test email messages and get an evaluation report that shows what rules matched/didn’t match for a particular message. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this. Once the cmdlet is available to your tenant, you can run Test-Message with the appropriate parameters. For example:

Test-Message -Sender sender@testcompany.com -Recipients recipient1@testcompany.com -SendReportTo admin@testcompany.com -TransportRules [-Organization testcompany.com]

 

MC501737 — Outlook on the web - Update locations to message compose options

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98114

 

Originally announced in MC427760 (September '22), Outlook on the web is updating where some message-compose options are located, depending on how you use Outlook.

 

1.     For all users - The formatting bar will be relocated to the top of the message compose window, similar to the common "ribbon" you see in other Microsoft apps.

2.     For all users - When composing a new email message, the "Send", "Discard", and formatting bar will now be located at the top of the compose window.

3.     For users with "newest on top" option - When you reply to a message, the "Send", "Discard", and formatting bar will be located at top of the compose window.

Previously, those buttons and bar were located at the bottom of the message compose window.

 

This update will make the experiences across web and both classic and new Outlook for Windows have a similar UX.

 

The shortcut to send an email message will not change.

 

We apologize for the delay and are now proceeding with the rollout of this feature.

 

When this will happen:

We began rolling out mid-January and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Users will notice that some buttons have been updated with new locations to make the experience across Outlook more seamless.

 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do for this update, but you might want to update your documentation and help desk.

 

MC500888 — Changes to navigation in Outlook for Android

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 100570

 

Originally announced in MC450188 (October '22), Outlook for Android is making it easier to find all your contacts, files, and more. See our blog post at Navigating Outlook for Android and iOS - Microsoft Community Hub

 

Users will see changes to the tab bar at the bottom of Outlook for Android, a new Floating Action button, search will be renamed Feed with a new Icon, and Contacts and Files will be found under the “More” button. 

 

We apologize for the delay and are now proceeding with the rollout of this feature.

 

When this will happen:

These changes are available now in Android Beta.

We will begin rolling out to production mid-January and plan to complete rollout by late February. 

 

How this will affect your organization:

There is no admin-level control of this change. Admins can learn more about these changes and why they are happening in our blog post at Navigating Outlook for Android and iOS - Microsoft Community Hub

 

MC497310 — Exchange Online Deprecation - PowerShell Update

In January 2023, we’re going to turn off Basic authentication for multiple protocols in Exchange Online, but a recently uncovered issue has meant our plan for Exchange Online PowerShell has changed for a limited number of tenants.

 

We have discovered some of our cmdlets do not work correctly with Certificate Based Authentication, which will prevent their use in some scenarios.

 

We are investigating and confirming the behavior of all the cmdlets available via Exchange Online PowerShell, but our initial data shows that your tenant may have used at least one of those in the past year. For that reason, we will temporarily postpone disabling basic auth for Exchange Online PowerShell for the time being to avoid disruption.

 

We will provide an update in January 2023 and will specify the affected cmdlets at that time. If you are not using any of the affected cmdlets, we will proceed with disabling basic auth for Exchange Online PowerShell at that time.

 

If you are using any of the cmdlets we will provide an updated timeline for their remediation, and for basic auth to be disabled fully for Exchange Online PowerShell.

 

How this will affect your organization:

We will not disable basic authentication for Exchange Online PowerShell until further notice. You will receive a 7-day warning post in January stating we will disable basic auth fully in your tenant, but we will not disable Exchange Online PowerShell when we disable the other protocols.

 

Please click Additional Information to learn more.

 

MC445411 — (Updated) Exchange: Message Recall Option to Disable the Recalling of Read Messages

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 59438

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are releasing a new Message Recall for Exchange Online feature that will recall messages that are flagged as "read” – the classic Message Recall in Outlook doesn’t recall read messages. Before we release the new feature, we want to let you know that tenant admins now have the option to disable the recalling of read messages for your organization.

 

When this will happen:

The new Message Recall feature will begin rolling out in mid-February (previously mid-January). The ability to disable the recalling of read messages for your organization is available now.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Once the new Message Recall is rolled out, by default the feature will recall read messages, which is different from how the classic Message Recall feature in Outlook behaves. This change in behavior will be welcomed by many, but it could be confusing for recipients who read a message only to have it disappear from their mailbox shortly thereafter.

 

While recalling read messages can significantly increase the success rate of recalls, tenant admins concerned about potential user confusion or frustration can disable the ability to recall read messages for their entire organization. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If you want to accept the default behavior for the new Message Recall to recall read messages, there’s nothing you need to do to prepare. If you want to disable the recalling of read messages for your organization, you can do it either via the EAC or via Remote PowerShell:

1) Via the EAC uncheck the following setting:

EAC > Settings > Mail Flow > Message Recall > Allow users to recall messages read by the recipient

 

2) Via Remote PowerShell:

Set-OrganizationConfig -RecallReadMessagesEnabled $false

 

MC441064 — (Updated) Exchange Online Customizable Message Expiration Timeout Interval Coming Soon

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93315

 

Updated January 25, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

A common request from Exchange Online admins is for the ability to customize the message expiration timeout interval for messages sent by users in their organization. When a message in Exchange Online can't be delivered or sent due to a temporary error, the message is queued for subsequent retries until either the message is delivered or sent, or until the message expires after the message expiration timeout interval has passed. In Exchange Online the service-wide default setting is 24 hours. With this update, we'll now give admins the ability to customize the message expiration timeout interval for their organization from 12 hours to 24 hours.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in mid-October and expect to complete rollout by late December (previously late November). - Complete for WW and GCC organizations.

 

GCC-High and DoD: We will begin rolling out in early February and expect to complete by early March.

 

How this will affect your organization:

If you change the default 24 hour message expiration timeout to a lower value, messages sent by your users that are queued for retry will expire faster, and they will receive a bounce message (NDR) faster. For example, customizing it to 12 hours means senders will receive a bounce message after only 12 hours of retrying a message that can’t be sent, instead of 24 hours.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this.

 

Once the setting is available for your tenant if you want to change it for senders in your organization you can run the following Remote PowerShell cmdlet:

Set-TransportConfig -MessageExpiration <12..24>

 

MC424901 — (Updated) Safe Attachments policy: Retire policy action ‘Replace’ for malware detections in attachments (Phase 1)

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

In Safe Attachments policies, ‘Replace’ is one of the actions that can be applied to messages that are found to contain malware. This action delivers only the message body without any of the original attachments. A replacement text attachment is added to the message to notify that the attachments were removed due to malware detection.

 

The ‘Replace’ action will be retired and will no longer be available in Safe Attachments policies. This retirement is implemented in two phases. 

 

The first phase will start applying the ‘Block’ action behavior (quarantine the email) to existing policies with the ‘Replace’ action. This change will be applied automatically.

 

The second phase will remove the ‘Replace’ action selection from the Microsoft 365 Defender portal and related cmdlets. As part of this change, the ‘Replace’ action in any existing policies will be changed to the ‘Block’ action.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Once this change is rolled out, any Safe Attachments policies with the ‘Replace’ action will not be honored and the action of ‘Block’ will apply automatically. 

 

The phase 1 change will start rolling out in late-September 2022 and worldwide deployment will be complete by late-October 2022.

 

Government: has begun rolling out and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There are no alternatives to the ‘Replace’ action post retirement. Review and update Safe Attachments policies with the ‘Replace’ action to a different action (for example, ‘Block’ or ‘Dynamic Delivery’) before the phase 2 rollout. 

 

Please click Additional Information to learn more.

 

SafeAttachments

 

Safe Attachments policy settings

 

MC424899 — (Updated) MDO Safe Attachments Policy: Changes to Enable Redirect Functionality

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated this message to ensure visibility. The content below has not changed.

 

In Safe Attachments policies, the option Enable redirect forwards messages with detected attachments to the specified admin email address as an email attachment if the section is Block, Monitor, or Replace.

 

The change being introduced is to support Enable redirect only for the Monitor action. Enable redirect will no longer support the Replace or Block actions. 

 

When this will happen:

GA: This change will begin rolling out in late September and will be completed by late October.

 

Government clouds: We will begin rollout in mid-November and will be completed by mid-December.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Once this change is rolled out, Enable redirect will forward messages only for Safe Attachments policies configured with the Monitor action.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is nothing you need to do to prepare. You may want to notify your customers and update your training and documentation as appropriate. To learn more, please visit these links below:

·       Safe Attachments 

·       Safe Attachments policy settings

 

MC407050 — (Updated) Retirement of Exchange Online PowerShell with MFA

Updated January 24, 2023: We have updated the timing of this change below.

 

We will be retiring "the Exchange Online PowerShell module with MFA" on January 31, 2023 (previously December 31, 2022).

 

Support for the Module will end on August 31, 2022.

 

We recommend using the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module (EXO V2 module), which uses modern authentication, and supports accounts with or without MFA.

 

Key points:

·       Timing:

o   End of support: August 31, 2022

o   Retirement: January 31, 2023 (previously December 31, 2022)

·       Action: Update to the latest version of V2 Module

 

How this will affect your organization:

If you are still using the "the Exchange Online PowerShell module with MFA", (described in this document - V1 module - Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell using MFA we recommend that you move to the latest GA version of V2 Module (v2.0.5) to avoid a situation where you need service or support that is no longer available after 31 Aug 2022.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

We recommend using the Exchange Online PowerShell V2 module (EXO V2 module), which uses modern authentication, and supports accounts with or without MFA.

 

For installation and connection instructions, see Install and maintain the EXO V2 module and Connect to Exchange Online PowerShell.

 

For more information about the different versions of Exchange Online PowerShell modules, see Understanding the Different Versions of Exchange Online PowerShell Modules and Basic Auth.

 

MC383901 — (Updated) Microsoft Defender for Office 365: Hourly option for notifications

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93304

 

Updated January 31, 2023: We have updated the content below to show as intended. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are adding a new hourly option to end user quarantine notifications, which will allow users to rely on receiving prompt notifications about quarantined items when appropriate. With this feature, users will be updated frequently once new items land in their quarantine folder.

 

When this will happen:

Standard: will begin rolling out in late November 2022 (previously early October 2022) and be completed by late June 2023 (previously late February 2023).

 

Government: will begin rolling out in early July 2023 (previously early March 2023) and be completed by late July 2023 (previously late March 2023).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Using the quarantine policy, Admins will be able to configure an hourly notification frequency for users in their organization. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

You might want to notify your users about this change and update your training and documentation as appropriate. 

 

MC373880 — (Updated) Migrating the Safe Links Block List to Tenant Allow Block List

Updated January 10, 2023: Beginning February 13th 2023 the Safe Links Block List will no longer be enforced. Entries on this list will not be blocked at time of click. All entries should be moved to the Tenant Block List. The list will remain for an additional 30 days from February 13th 2023, until the end of March 2023 when it will be retired.

 

We have stopped the automated migration efforts to migrate all entries from your Safe Links Block List to the Tenant Allow Block List. Organizations will have the ability to review and take action on the entries that were unable to be migrated. Any entries that are unable to be migrated will be marked as such and organizations will have the ability to resolve that entry and run the migration again. Tenants will have until January 2023 to complete this activity, at which point the Safe Links Global Block List will be retired.

 

Note: Any entry migrated from the Safe Links Block List to the Tenant Allow/Block List will adopt the behavior of TABL. This means that any message with the URL present will be moved to Quarantine. If deleting an already migrated entry from TABL, it needs to be removed from BlockURLS to avoid migration.

 

As a reminder beginning in June tenants will no longer have the ability to add to the Safe Links Block List in the Global Setting menu. Then we will attempt to migrate the Safe Links Block List to the Tenant Allow Block List (TABL) on behalf of the organization. Any entries that are unable to be successfully migrated, they will be marked as such in the Block List and organizations will have the ability to take action as needed beginning in July.

 

Another update will be sent closer to July as a reminder for tenants to review the migration status of the Block List. Beginning in June organizations will no longer have the ability to add to the Safe Links Block List in the Global Setting menu. Following this, we will attempt to migrate the Safe Links Block List to the Tenant Allow Block List (TABL) on behalf of the organization. For any entries that we are unable to migrate, they will be marked as such in the Block List and organizations will have the ability to take action as needed.

 

When this will happen:

·       Early June: Organizations will no longer have the ability to add to the URL/Domain entries to the Safe Links Block List in the Global Settings flyout and we will attempt to migrate all the entries in an organization's Safe Links Block List to TABL on their behalf

·       Mid-June through December: Organizations will have the ability review entries that were not able to be migrated and resolve the issue(s)

·       January: The Safe Links Block List will be retired

 

How this will affect your organization:

Organizations who are utilizing the Safe Links Block List will need to review the list to ensure all entries were migrated successfully. Any entries that are unable to be migrated will be marked as such and organizations will have the ability to resolve that entry, at which point migration will run again.

 

Organizations will use the Tenant Allow Block List to manage URL/Domain blocks moving forward.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

In June an update to this Message center post will be sent notifying organizations that the first migration has been completed and they will need to review their Safe Links Block Lists for potential actions.

 

Microsoft 365

 

MC504328 — Planner Scope Based Diff Sync API Update

Delta Query enables applications to discover newly created, updated, or deleted entities without performing a full read of the target resource with every request.

 

The Delta Sync method allows your application to track changes to objects that the user can access from within Planner over time.

 

When this will happen:

·       The planner team will start rolling out the update by mid-February.

·       The roll out is expected to be completed by end of February and associated documentation will be made available as part of the public Graph API.  

 

As part of Planner Delta Sync Update, we will be making a method call available which will narrow the scope of sync requests to match individual queries. Members added to a plan will have access to new and recent changes to the plan. Diff Sync API provides you with the initial state and follow up with delta. 

 

MC501980 — Translate retirement for Visio Plan 2 - GCCH

We will be retiring the Translate feature within Visio Plan 2 Desktop. 

 

Note: If your organization does not use Visio Plan 2 Desktop you can safely disregard this message.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin at the end of January and expect to complete by mid-February.

 

How this affects your organization:

Users will no longer be able to use Translate feature inside Visio Plan 2, when this change is implemented.

 

What you can do to prepare:

You may consider updating your training and documentation as appropriate.

 

MC498601 — Pricing adjustments for Microsoft 365 Government, effective March 1, 2023

On August 2021 we announced an update to our pricing for Microsoft 365 (which applies to all commercial customers: Enterprise, US Government, and Business). You can find the full blog from our initial announcement here: New pricing for Microsoft 365 | Microsoft 365 Blog.

 

In the case of Microsoft 365 Government, due to local regulations, the price update was planned in a phased manner. Therefore, on March 1, 2023, the updated prices will be effective for the following suites:

·       Office 365 G1 (+10%)

·       Office 365 G3 (+5%)

·       Microsoft 365 G3 (+2%)

 

This price update builds on the product innovation we’ve delivered over the past several years to meet the changing needs of customers. Since the initial release we’ve added new capabilities such as Teams, PowerApps, Power Automate, Microsoft Purview, Microsoft Defender, Whiteboard and many more applications and features2.

 

**Please note that product available will vary by cloud environment please reference the Microsoft 365 Government service descriptions and Microsoft 365 Roadmap for more information. 

 

We also announced the extension of unlimited dial-in across our paid enterprise, business, frontline, and government suites, enabling users to dial-in and join a Teams meeting from virtually any device.

 

If you’re a Microsoft 365 Government customer and have questions about your licensing plans please reach out to your Microsoft account team or partner for support. 

 

MC496928 — [REMINDER] New details on IE11 desktop application permanent disablement scheduled for February 14, 2023

The out-of-support Internet Explorer 11 (IE11) desktop application is scheduled to be permanently disabled on certain versions of Windows 10 devices on February 14, 2023, through a Microsoft Edge update, not a Windows update as previously communicated. All remaining devices that have not already been redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge are scheduled to be redirected with the Microsoft Edge update scheduled for February 14, 2023. Similar to how Windows updates work, redirection from IE11 to Microsoft Edge will be included in all future Microsoft Edge updates and will impact all devices within your organization at the same time with no ability for users to reverse the change. Therefore, if your organization still has dependencies on IE11, you must take steps now to complete your transition before February 14, 2023, or risk business disruption at scale when users lose access to IE11-dependent applications. As a reminder, IE11 has been out of support since June 15, 2022.

 

The change to use Microsoft Edge update to disable IE is intended to provide a better user experience and help organizations transition their last remaining IE11 users to Microsoft Edge. Users will see a dialogue box when they are transitioned to Microsoft Edge. When they try to click any IE11 icons or other entry points, they will be redirected to Microsoft Edge. Users’ browsing data will be automatically brought over to Microsoft Edge from IE11 so they can seamlessly continue browsing.

 

IE11 visual references, such as the IE11 icons on the Start Menu and taskbar, will be removed by the June 2023 Windows security update (“B” release) scheduled for June 13, 2023. They will also be removed by the non-security preview “C” release on certain Windows 10 versions scheduled for May 23, 2023.

 

When this will happen:

·       All in-scope devices are scheduled to be permanently redirected from IE11 to Microsoft Edge on February 14, 2023, through a Microsoft Edge update

·       The Windows update that removes visual references to IE11 is scheduled to be available in the following releases:

·       May non-security preview (“C”) release scheduled for May 23, 2023

·       June security (“B”) release scheduled for June 13, 2023

·       Removal of IE11 visual references will be included in all subsequent Windows updates after the May non-security preview release

 

How this will affect your organization:

Organizations that have already transitioned from IE11 to Microsoft Edge with IE mode will not be impacted when the IE11 desktop application is scheduled to be permanently disabled on February 14, 2023. Note: If you would like to remove the IE visual references such as on the taskbar or Start Menu, you will need to use the Disable IE policy before February 14, 2023.

 

Organizations that have not transitioned from IE11 to Microsoft Edge with IE mode may face business disruption at scale when the out-of-support IE11 desktop application is permanently disabled, currently scheduled for February 14, 2023.

 

When a user tries to open IE11 after receiving the Microsoft Edge update, they will see a dialogue box informing them that they are being redirected to Microsoft Edge. Clicking "Continue" will launch Microsoft Edge. This is an example of a message a user might see:

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Complete your transition from IE11 to Microsoft Edge with IE mode before February 14, 2023. Failing to transition before this date may cause your organization to experience business disruption at scale when IE11 is scheduled to be permanently disabled on February 14, 2023. If you would like to remove all IE11 visuals/entry points, set the Disable IE policy before February 14, 2023.

 

If you need help transitioning from IE11 to Microsoft Edge with IE mode, please reach out to Microsoft as soon as possible through one of the following pathways:

1.     Open a support ticket for help with technical issues

2.     Request help from the App Assure team for app compatibility issues

The majority of customers have already moved to Microsoft Edge and are experiencing the performance and productivity benefits of a faster, more secure, and more modern web experience than Internet Explorer. Microsoft Edge is the only browser with built-in compatibility for legacy IE-based sites and apps with IE mode.

 

Additional Information

·       Read the FAQ to help answer your questions.

 

We always value feedback from our customers.

 

MC496250 — Planner: Task Email Notifications for GCC High

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 106086

 

Task Email Notifications aims at bringing existing Planner email notifications to customers in GCC-High. The two main categories are:

1.     Assignment email notifications

2.     Due date digest email notifications

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in mid-January 2023 and expect to complete rollout by mid-February 2023.

 

How this will affect your organization:

Customers will start receiving email notifications for planner tasks.

 

Assignment Notification - When a task gets assigned to the user, the user gets an Assignment Email Notification.

 

Due date digest - This is a digest email that carries information about users' late and upcoming tasks. The email address the customer would receive the digest email from is no-reply@sharepoint.us.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

For more information, please visit this page. Admins please ensure your organization can receive emails from no-reply@sharepoint.us

 

MC496246 — (Updated) Microsoft 365 admin center: New Teams Group Graph API and Teams Team Activity Counts

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 109548

 

Updated January 24, 2023: We've updated the timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are adding new APIs within Microsoft Admin Center to support Microsoft Teams Groups and Teams Activity Counts.

 

When this will happen:

We will begin rolling out in late January (previously mid-January) and expect to complete rollout by mid-February (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

The new APIs will continue to give Admins new insights of Microsoft Teams usage in their organization.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Leverage the Graph APIs in Activity reports in the Microsoft Admin Center by selecting Reports on the left-hand navigation -> Usage and then scroll down or choose a product to view activity reports.

·       Update Teams Group Graph API:

GET /reports/getOffice365GroupsActivityCounts(period='{period_value}')

·       Add one more Graph API to Teams team Graph API set:

GET /reports/getTeamsTeamCounts(period='{period_value}')

 

To learn more, please visit these pages:

·       Working with Microsoft 365 usage reports in Microsoft Graph

·       Microsoft Teams team activity reports

·       Microsoft 365 Reports in the admin center

 

MC496245 — M365 Admin Center: New Forms Graph APIs to track to help you track Forms activity user, activity,

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 109557

 

We are introducing a new Forms Graph API set to help you track Forms activity user, activity, and user detail metric in Usage Reports. Admins can use the API to get Forms related detailed user usage metrics, such as how many designers and how many respondents over a time period.

 

When this will happen:

Standard release: We will begin rolling out mid-January 2023 and expect completion by late January.

 

How this will affect your organization:

The new APIs will continue to give Admins new insights of Microsoft Forms usage in their organization.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Leverage the Graph APIs in Activity reports in the Microsoft Admin Center by selecting Reports on the left-hand navigation -> Usage -> then scroll down or choose by product  to view activity reports.

 

Forms Graph API set endpoints:

GET /reports/getFormsUserActivityUserCounts(period='{period_value}')

 

GET /reports/getFormsUserActivityCounts(period='{period_value}')

 

GET /reports/getFormsUserActivityUserDetail(period='{period_value}')

 

Documentation:

reportRoot: getOffice365GroupsActivityDetail - Microsoft Graph beta | Microsoft Learn

 

MC477852 — (Updated) Modern Commenting Experience Coming to Whiteboard

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 98083

 

Updated January 26, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below. Thank you for your patience.

 

With comments you can share your thoughts, celebrate with your teammates, or just have a conversation in Microsoft Whiteboard.

 

When this will happen:

Rollout will begin in late April (previously late January) and is expected to be complete by late May (previously late February).

 

How this will affect your organization:

Your users would have the following experiences:

·       The ability to add comments on a whiteboard to aid in discussion with board participants. 

·       This will include a comments pane to see all comments on a given whiteboard.

 

Note: The commenting experience initially will not be supported for the Android and IOS apps. We eventually plan to bring this experience to mobile as well. 

 

What you need to do to prepare:

There is no action required at this time. Continue checking the Microsoft Whiteboard Blog and support pages on details about upcoming features and how best to use them.

 

MC467906 — (Updated) GCC, GCC High and DoD customers will be able to opt-in to Targeted Release

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 93055

 

Updated January 26, 2023: This feature is now available and we encourage you to review your Targeted Release options and implement as appropriate for your organization.

 

GCC, GCC High and DoD customers will be able to opt-in to Targeted Release in Microsoft 365 Admin Center and get early access for OneDrive for Business, SharePoint Online, Outlook for the web and Microsoft 365 Admin Center features.

 

When this will happen:

Standard Release: We will begin rolling out in early December (previously end of November) and expect to complete by end of December (previously early December).

 

How this will affect your organization:

You can select Targeted Release Entire Organization for a test tenant. Or you can select Targeted Release for selected users in your production tenant by going to Settings -> Org Settings -> Release preferences in Microsoft 365 Admin Center. Org Settings -> Release preferences

 

This tenant/set of users will be the first ones to see features before they roll out to the rest of the organization.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

Please update any documentation for the users opted-into Targeted Release. 

 

MC295027 — (Updated) Rich text and images in Planner task notes

Microsoft 365 Roadmap ID 85688

 

Updated February 1, 2023: We have updated the rollout timeline below and content to show as intended. Thank you for your patience.

 

We are adding support for rich text (bold, italics, underline, etc.) in the Planner task notes field. Support for images is coming in the future.

 

NOTE: We will update this post once we have Microsoft Graph documentation for the new rich text task notes field available.

 

When this will happen:

We expect to begin rolling out the new rich text task notes field in mid-February (previously mid-January) and we expect to complete the rollout by early March (previously late January).

 

How this will affect your organization:

To support this capability, we are introducing a new rich text enabled task notes field in the Planner Microsoft Graph API. This will result in two task notes fields in our API – the new “rich text task notes field” and the existing “plain text task notes field.” When this feature launches, Planner for the Web and for Teams (Tasks app) will support rich text in task notes. Other Planner experiences in iOS, Android, SharePoint, and Power Automate will only support plain text task notes, but we plan to update these apps to support rich text at a later date.

 

When this feature update is deployed, all existing task notes content will be preserved in the new rich text enabled task notes field, so users will be able to continue viewing and editing notes without interruption.

 

We will maintain compatibility between the rich text task notes field and plain text task notes field by ensuring both fields’ contents stay in sync.

 

If a user edits the rich text task notes field, all content is synced to the plain text task notes field automatically. Any rich content is converted to plain text and synced to the plain text task notes field.

 

If a user edits the plain text task notes field via the Microsoft Graph API or via a client which only supports the plain text field, the contents in the plain text task notes field is synced to the rich text task notes field without modification. Therefore edits to the plain text task notes field will result in the removal of any pre-existing rich text, or text formatting in the rich text notes field.

 

What you need to do to prepare:

If your organization has custom applications interacting with our Microsoft Graph Planner API, make sure to update the apps to support the rich text task notes field as soon as it is available to take advantage of the new notes capabilities. We will maintain support for the existing plain text task notes field in our Microsoft Graph Planner API for at least 36 months.

 

If your organization has applications or workflows which parse the task notes to trigger logic based off contents in the notes field, we recommend users continue to input only plain text in task notes and not apply text formatting into task notes. Such apps should also be updated to avoid parsing task notes or applying logic to contents in the task notes as these are not recommended uses of the task notes field in our API.

 

Microsoft 365 IP and URL Endpoint Updates

 

Documentation - Office 365 IP Address and URL web service

 

January 31, 2023 - GCC

January 3, 2023 – GCC High

January 3, 2023 - DOD

 

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