 This month Microsoft is introducing new features across many of the Microsoft 365 services, including Teams, SharePoint, Outlook, To-Do, OneDrive and Stream. As ever, there's a lot to take in, so we've chosen to highlight the most impactful for helping your productivity and improving the user experience. Pick of the bunch are the new screen recording features in Stream, the superb updates for task management in To-Do, and even more improvements to the calling and meeting experience in Teams. An honourable mention too for the updates to OneDrive's mobile scanning features, something that's super useful but often overlooked. Create internal training videos using the new Stream Screen Recording capabilities Category Stream What is this all about? Microsoft Stream is a powerful video streaming service that comes with your office 365 subscription that enables you to create, upload and share videos securely across your company. Do you record your meetings in Teams? If so then these recordings are also stored in Stream. Microsoft has now released an enhancement that enables you to create a video and at the same time capture whatever you are presenting on your screen. How does this affect me? The new screen recording tool in Microsoft Stream gives everyone a way to create videos for sharing knowledge, remote learning, leadership updates and other communications across your company. You can now easily create new videos with the web-based tool - no need to download anything to get started. Just open the latest version of Edge or Chrome and your Stream portal then, from the Create dropdown list, select Record screen. Perfect for internal company training videos when combined with a PowerPoint presentation or a demo of a new system. You have options to record any window or screen on your PC, add mic or system audio, and include webcam for a personal touch.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, the capability is already available. To access stream sign into office.com with your company account and locate Stream in your list of Apps. More from Microsoft https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-stream-blog/now-available-screen-recording-for-training-videos-and/ba-p/1362099 Task management and planning just got easier with Microsoft To-Do Category To-Do What is this all about? Microsoft To-Do had rapidly become the single task manager application that we have needed for a long time. Fully integrated into Outlook task management, Microsoft Planner tasks and the ability to create personalised lists. To-Do is available on all platforms so accessible when and where you need it. Now Microsoft have just released a whole bunch of useful features to help you get more organised and productive.
Updated Today and Week view One of our most exciting new updates is rolling out now, starting with Android this week and coming soon to other platforms. To-Do will now give you a Today, Tomorrow, and Week view in your Planned list. Our lives are complicated. We have work, home, that side project, and much, much more. It’s not always useful to see one long list of tasks, without any context. Now you can group by list, so you can see everything due today from each different list. If you don’t want to see your home tasks while you’re at work, then you can close that section, and reopen it when you get back home. Print your lists From this week, printing is now available on all platforms. So, if you prefer taking a paper list to your meeting or keeping a physical copy next to you while you work, now you can. Want to email a copy to someone? Save it as a PDF and add it as an attachment. You can print a list by clicking on the three dots next to the list’s name and selecting Print list.
See your completed tasks more easily Finally, Microsoft haven’t just given you a Completed smart list, they have also made it a lot easier to look at your completed tasks within your lists. Now you’ll find all your completed tasks at the bottom. So, if you like to mark your checked-off grocery items as incomplete for your next shopping trip, it’s now a lot easier to access them. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, these features should now be available. New ability to schedule the sending of emails MC212344 Category Outlook What is this all about? Many of us are adapting to different working patterns including the need to work around home life. This might result in you working unnormal hours such as late in the evening or early morning. Sending emails at this time to colleagues or even clients can cause unnecessary stress to the recipient. Receive an email from your boss at 23:00, then even if not urgent you might feel the need to reply to show you are committed to your job. If you use Outlook on the web as your email client, then you will have the ability to schedule emails to be sent at a later date and time. How does this affect me? When working unsocial hours consider if there is a need to send an email immediately, or to schedule it so that it sends during normal business hours the next day. This way the recipients will not feel pressurised to reply immediately or wake up in the morning with a full inbox. You will be able to delay the delivery of an individual message or use rules to delay the delivery of all messages using Outlook on the web. This feature is already available in Outlook for Windows and Outlook for Mac.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Look for the update to reach you during June and then when it arrives consider how you can best use it to minimise the impact on recipients when working unsocial hours. Consistent Outlook settings across all your machines MC214927 Category Outlook What is this all about? If you use Outlook for Windows on multiple machines, then you will know that you have to configure Outlook on each machine individually. So if you prefer your email font to be "Calibri 12pt italic" then you must make the change on every instance of Outlook. Well no more, soon your Outlook settings will automatically sync between your different Outlook installations - so make a change on one machine and it will automatically appear on your other devices. How does this affect me? When this feature rolls out, the following list of settings will roam across other computers running Outlook for Windows that you are logged in to using the same Office account.
Unless your administrators block this, you will be able can change your preferences via the “Store my Outlook settings in the cloud” checkbox under File > Options > General. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This feature will be on by default however your administrator can override this. Microsoft have started rolling this out and expect it to be completed by late June. Organising a Teams meeting? Have greater control of the lobby MC214522 Category Teams What is this all about? When you organise a Microsoft Teams meeting, the use of the lobby is controlled centrally by your administrator, so maybe internal participants autojoin the meeting but external guests must wait in the lobby and be admitted when the organiser is ready. Well now the meeting organiser can decide on a meeting basis to make everyone wait in the lobby until they are ready to admit them. How does this affect me? After scheduling a new meeting, you as the organiser, will be able to configure meeting options so that only you can bypass the lobby. After changing the meeting option to Only me, you can then manage who is allowed into the meeting. So, if you are running an internal presentation and want to make sure you are fully set up and ready before colleagues join, then now you can.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this feature is automatically rolling out now and will be completed by the end of June. Quick Edit in SharePoint is now easier to use MC214047 Category SharePoint What is this all about? Quick Edit is a SharePoint facility that enables you to edit List and Library columns in an almost spreadsheet style mode. Microsoft are now updating two Quick Edit features to facilitate faster inline editing on SharePoint document libraries and lists.
How does this affect me?
You can now save your view in Quick Edit for any SharePoint list or document library. When you save a view in Quick Edit, the list or document library will always render in quick edit for easy inline editing. Currently you create a normal view and then have to click the Quick Edit button.
You will now see 100 items per page on your SharePoint document library or list when using Quick Edit. The current limit is 30 items. Great for when you need to bulk change a lot of information. Want to learn more? What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, Microsoft is rolling this change out now and should be completed by the end of June. Ability to once again edit OneNote in Teams MC214011 Category OneNote Teams What is this all about? Back in March, Microsoft announced that OneNote in Teams would be read-only, and users should use OneNote for the web or the OneNote desktop app. With this change, OneNote still opens in Teams as read only, but you can now click a button to go straight to Edit mode. How does this affect me? If you use OneNote in Teams, then rather than popping out to OneNote on the web or using the desktop app to Edit your OneNote you can now just click the "Edit Notebook" button. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this feature is automatically rolling out now and will be completed to all customers by the end of April.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this change has already rolled out. When sharing, block downloads of PDF and other file types MC213970 Category OneDrive SharePoint What is this all about? When you share documents from SharePoint or OneDrive, you can block the recipient of the link from downloading the document if it is an Office document (Word, etc.). Now you can block the download of other file types such as a PDF. How does this affect me? You can currently create SharePoint and OneDrive sharing links that block the download of Office files. This sharing link allows recipients to read the file but not download it. This update expands the list of supported file types to include PDF files, images, and audio files, for example. The experience of creating a read-only or download-blocked sharing link is unchanged. You must uncheck “Allow editing” for the “Block download” toggle to be accessible.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this change is rolling out now and will be completed by the end of June. Invite a group or distribution list to a Teams meeting MC213330 Category Teams What is this all about? Currently, when you schedule a meeting in Teams you have to individually add the participants even if all you want to do is invite everyone on a distribution list or an Office 365 Group. With this change, you will soon be able to invite a group (Teams and Microsoft 365 groups) or distribution list to a scheduled Teams meeting. This feature will be available with the Teams web app as well as the desktop app (Windows and Mac). How does this affect me? When scheduling a meeting in Teams, you will be able to invite both distribution lists and modern groups as well as individuals. After adding a list or group, Teams will:
Both distribution lists and modern groups will be discoverable within the people picker when scheduling Teams meetings.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this change is rolling out now. Microsoft Teams new calling and meeting experience MC212453 Category Teams What is this all about? Currently, when you join a meting or call through Teams, it takes over your whole Teams window making it difficult to get to other information or closing the document you were working on. Recently, Microsoft added the ability to pop out a chat into a seperate window which you can move around your desktop, and now they are adding the same capability to Teams meetings and calls. How does this affect me? Once available, you will be able to view meetings and calls in separate windows from the main Microsoft Teams client. Additionally, meeting and call controls such as mute, video, chat, leave and others will now be located at the top of the meeting window so that they are always available and never block the underlying content. This new experience will also include recently announced features such as 3x3 video, raise hands, and custom backgrounds.  New Teams meeting experience  New meeting / call control location
Step 2 - Check the Turn on new calling an meetings experiences check box and then restart the Teams client.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Initially, this change will roll-out "OFF" by default and you will have the ability to turn on the new experience via the user setting: General > Turn on new meetings and calling experiences (if you cannot see this then the change has not reached you yet). To get to User settings, click your picture or initials in the top right-hand corner of Teams. Note: In the future, Microsoft will enable this functionality by default, but they want to provide users extra time to become familiar with having meetings open in their own seperate window.
Multi-page scanning via your phone for everyone Category OneDrive What is this all about? With so many people now working from home, few of us have access to office equipment like printers and scanners. Scanning documents from home, or outside the office, should be easy. Microsoft OneDrive has long offered a free scanning feature from the OneDrive mobile app which lets you scan and digitise single documents, receipts and more. Up until now, scanning multiple pages and saving them as a single document was a premium feature that required a Microsoft 365 subscription. Today Microsoft are making multi-page scanning available for everyone using a OneDrive personal account. What is OneDrive scanning? With the OneDrive mobile app you can scan physical documents, business cards and whiteboards simply by opening the app and touching the camera icon. Once scanned, OneDrive digitizes the image into a PDF file, which you can then save, share or mark-up with text, pictures, or freehand drawing and writing. Once you scan items into OneDrive, you’ll be able to access them anywhere from any device. Tips for scanning with the OneDrive app The OneDrive scanning feature can help keep you organized, simplify tasks, and keep your digital files secured in one place. Here’s a list of some of the many ways you can use the OneDrive app to scan:
What you'll need to use multi-page scan Multi-page scan is rolling out now and will be available to everyone, everywhere OneDrive is available. Author: SO365 Insights |
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