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 This month there are some great new features being introduced across Microsoft 365 to help make your life easier and your time more productive. We've highlighted a few of the new features in SharePoint, such as dynamically linking webparts, the new "sticky column" in the Quick Edit view, and the new ability to easily share lists and list items. There are also new features in Forms, Teams and OneDrive, and a new and easier way to use Planner templates. We should also mention the ability to now use your own backgrounds in Teams meetings (although we think you may have discovered this feature yourself and are already using it to its full potential in your video calls). Suggested replies in the Teams mobile app MC215163 Category Teams What is this all about? If you use the Teams app on your mobile, then you will soon have the ability to quickly tap a suggested reply when someone posts a chat or message to you to save having to open the keyboard and type a reply. How does this affect me? When suggested replies are available in your tenant, you will be able to quickly reply to a given message by tapping on a suggested reply that Teams has generated based on the context of the message.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this feature is rolling out during July. Force all of your meetings to default to Online Teams meetings MC213856 Category Outlook Teams What is this all about? If you use Outlook on the web you will soon be able to configure Outlook to setup all your meetings as "online meetings" if you use Teams as your online meeting provider. How does this affect me? When this feature is enabled, you can update your Outlook settings so all meetings created through Outlook on the web and Outlook for iOS and Android will be created as online meetings and will contain the appropriate Teams information for joining the meeting. This feature is not compatible with third-party online meeting providers.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change? When available in July, you should go to Outlook on the Web settings and decide on the best default experience for you. See the last option in the image below. 
Help employees find information by adding bookmarks to Search MC216108 What is this all about? A neat feature of the search engine in Microsoft 365 which is rolling out now, is the ability for you to define bookmarks to key internal / external resources or information. Yes you can use a Quick Links webpart or add items to the Quick Launch menu of a site, and this is fine if the bookmark is localised to a site, but if you need employees to easily find company wide resources no matter where they are, then take a look at adding bookmarks to the internal search engine. How does this affect me? We are all now conditioned to using Search in our day-to-day lives to find information. Yet within our companies we still try and build hierarchical fixed navigation menus and links to "help employees" find things. Navigation is fine to move around your intranet, but if I just need to know where to find a specific company policy, or even the answer to a policy question, then Search would be more effective. For example, a lot of firms have policies for implementing the "Bribery Act" and this maybe through a document called the "Gifts and Benefits Policy". Now I know the policy exists, but cannot remember if it is in the Compliance site or the General Policies site or somewhere else. However, if the link to the policy was defined as a bookmark with key words such as "Gifts, Benefits, Bribery, Policy" etc., then I could just use search and click on the bookmark that is returned to open the policy or be navigated to the page where I can find it. You could use bookmarks for external resources that employees access such as an HR platform. Microsoft search also has many other capabilities for you to customise to make life easier for everyone. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This change is rolling out now and will be completed by the end of July. If you want to make use of this feature then you will need to be a search administrator. More from Microsoft https://docs.microsoft.com/en-gb/microsoftsearch/manage-bookmarks Auto Digest Email for company news and posts MC215356 Category SharePoint What is this all about? SharePoint provides a simple and effective means to curate and post easily digestible company news to keep everyone informed, especially relevant when a large number of staff are working remotely and far more effective than large wordy emails. However, until now the effectiveness of the news posts relied on staff looking at the news either through the browser or the SharePoint mobile app or someone deciding to manually send a "News Digest" email. This new feature now enables your firm to send automated News Digests via email to notify staff of the recent news posts that they have not read. Using Office 365 intelligence, a curated selection of News posts are shared with staff through an email that comes from SharePoint. This is a great way for staff to catch up on News that they may have otherwise missed. Only published news posts are sent in the digest, and staff will have access to all the news posts that they are sent, so rest assured that staff won't see news that they don't have permission to see. If staff want to opt-out of receiving the Auto-News Digest, they can click the unsubscribe button at the bottom of the email. How does this affect me? You will start to receive a weekly mail from SharePoint Online containing news that you have not yet read based on sites that you are following. If you are not happy with the emails, you can unsubscribe from the email by clicking on the unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. Navigation is fine to move around your intranet, but if I just need to know where to find a specific company policy, or even the answer to a policy question, then Search would be more effective. For example, a lot of firms have policies for implementing the "Bribery Act" and this maybe through a document called the "Gifts and Benefits Policy". Now I know the policy exists, but cannot remember if it is in the Compliance site or the General Policies site or somewhere else. However, if the link to the policy was defined as a bookmark with key words such as "Gifts, Benefits, Bribery, Policy" etc., then I could just use search and click on the bookmark that is returned to open the policy or be navigated to the page where I can find it. You could use bookmarks for external resources that employees access such as an HR platform. Microsoft search also has many other capabilities for you to customise to make life easier for everyone. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This change is rolling out now and will be completed by the end of July. If you want to make use of this feature then you will need to be a search administrator.  Sample News Digest  User controlled Unsubscribe What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This change is rolling out now and will be completed by end July / early August. To benefit from this, you need to follow the sites from which you are interested in receiving news. Custom background in Microsoft Teams make video meetings more fun, comfortable and personal Category Teams What is this all about? When you join a Teams meeting by video, you can choose to use a background so other meeting participants cannot see the room or location you are in. The available backgrounds are set by Microsoft. Now, you will be able to upload your own custom background and use that. How does this affect me? You can now decide to upload your own background or select from an online collection that Microsoft has provided. Check out the link below for more information. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This change is rolling out now. You might want to consider if this feature should be enabled for all participants or to control the use of custom backgrounds vs those supplied, or to turn off the capability altogether. Background effects can be controlled via the Teams admin centre. More from Microsoft https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365/blog/2020/06/12/custom-backgrounds-microsoft-teams-video-meetings-fun-comfortable-personal/ New Employee Survey Microsoft Forms template Category Forms Teams What is this all about? Microsoft Forms is a powerful tool for quickly creating internal and external surveys that can be accessed via Teams, SharePoint or just a link. During this time many companies are working remotely and need to collect information from their employee base while planning for their eventual return to the office. Microsoft has received feedback that Teams users are looking for an app that enables them to push "employee pulse" surveys to their employees on a regular basis. Based on this feedback, Microsoft have designed several templates for common scenarios to help teams create and share surveys in their Teams channels. How does this affect me? When the new templates are available, you will be able to customise them to your needs and make then available to your teams. A nice new feature is that you will be able to set an automated recurrence so that the "employee pulse" surveys can be automatically issued on a set recurring frequency. The three templates that will be available for you to use are:
What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Microsoft is rolling this change out to all customers during July. When available decide if these are useful to your business and if needed, customise the out-of-the-box forms. More from Microsoft https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/microsoft-forms-blog/what-s-new-in-microsoft-forms-integrations-may-june-2020/ba-p/1472356 Upload even larger files to OneDrive and SharePoint MC217136 Category OneDrive SharePoint What is this all about? Currently the maximum file size you can upload to OneDrive and SharePoint is 15GB. Yes this is a large file, but for some companies, such as those in the media or graphic design sector, this limit could create issues which prevented the full adoption of Microsoft 365. How does this affect me? Microsoft is increasing the Max File Size from 15GB to 100GB for a single file. This change applies to OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. For best performance, Microsoft recommend uploading very large files using the OneDrive Desktop sync client. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? You will no longer receive errors when trying to upload a file larger than 15GB, but less than 100GB. This will enable productivity, storage, and protection on large files in your organisation. This change is rolling out now. More from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/invalid-file-names-and-file-types-in-onedrive-and-sharepoint-64883a5d-228e-48f5-b3d2-eb39e07630fa?ui New capabilities to share SharePoint lists and individual list items MC217146 Category SharePoint What is this all about? Microsoft is currently making a number of significant changes (which we've previously highlighted in this series) to make SharePoint lists more useful to organisations. However, whereas it is now very easy and consistent to share documents, sharing lists or individual list items was either complicated or not supported. Microsoft is now addressing the sharing of lists and list items to make it a consistent experience. How does this affect me? This update brings the same "document" Grant Access experience to modern Lists. You will now see a Share command when viewing a list, even when you don’t have any list item selected. The Share button for a list will open the Grant Access dialog.  Site owners will be able to grant other users access to the list and are able to specify whether to give View-only, Edit, or Full Control permissions to the list. Other users (e.g. site members and visitors) cannot directly grant other users access to the list, but they can use the dialog to send an approval request to site owners if the site is set up to allow access requests (enabled by default). If the site does not allow access requests then non-owners will get a message letting them know they do not have permissions to share. This update also brings sharing links to list items. When you select a list item and click Share, you will see the same Send Link sharing dialog that exists today but new options will be available. Specifically, the “People in your organisation with the link” and “Anyone with the link” options will be available based on the policy that your organisation has configured.  All of the sharing policies you’ve configured for documents and files will apply to list items. For example, if you have set “People in your organisation with the link” as the default link type then that will also apply to list items. Similarly, if you’ve disabled or restricted Anyone links then those will also be disabled or restricted when users are sharing list items. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? This change is rolling out now. You should review the current sharing options in your SharePoint sites that contain lists, and decide on the list and document sharing capability that you as a site owner, want to give to other members and visitors to your site. You might consider updating your user documentation and training materials. More from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/share-lists-and-list-items-in-sharepoint-3af7efa5-c7fd-4239-b704-7dc3a3f8e508?ui=en-us&rs=en-gb&ad=gb Microsoft Teams - improvements in meetings experience for Mac users MC216823 Category Teams What is this all about? Participants joining your Teams meeting via the Safari browser on a Mac had a different experience to those using Chrome or Edge. Mainly the ability to use audio conferencing capabilities via the browser was disabled forcing them to join audio via a telephone or download and install Chrome. Microsoft are releasing improvements to the browser-based meetings experience for those who join Teams meetings with Safari browsers on Mac. How does this affect me? As a Mac user, you will no longer be required to use Audio Conferencing to dial into the meeting for audio needs, but rather, can use your Mac device to speak and listen. As already supported, you can continue to view meeting content being shared in their browser. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? The change is rolling out now. If you are a Mac user then you will benefit from the new Safari capabilities when joining other Teams meetings. If you host Teams meetings and your participants use a Mac, then the experience for them will be more seamless and they will no longer need to join the audio via a seperate conference number. Copy Planners between Teams and Groups Category Planner Teams What is this all about? If you use Microsoft Planner then sometimes you want to have a template plan that you can use in new Teams. Maybe a default project plan that should be used for all new clients. Although this capability exists, it was extremely inflexible in how you could use the feature. With this change, Microsoft is making it much easier to copy and re-use existing plans. How does this affect me? Consider if you would benefit from creating a template Plan or whether you need to copy a plan that has been previously created and then use the copy as the basis of a new plan in your Team. You might even want to create and make available a number of different template plans that your colleagues can use. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this change is rolling out now. Follow the link below to find out how you can copy and re-use plans More from Microsoft https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/planner-blog/expanding-the-copy-plan-and-filtering-features-based-on-your/ba-p/1483491 New task management experience available for Outlook on the Web MC217689 Category Outlook What is this all about? Microsoft will soon roll out the new tasks experience in Outlook on the web. The new tasks experience in Outlook is powered by To Do and will help you to plan better and get more done with smart lists like Important and Planned. The list sharing feature will enable you to collaborate with friends, family and colleagues. Your tasks sync across Microsoft 365 and Office 365 so you can also manage your tasks on the go, with the Microsoft To Do Android and iOS mobile applications. How does this affect me? If you use Outlook on the Web instead of the desktop version, you will be able to take advantage of the new features. With this change, Tasks will get all the collaboration and co-editing features of To Do. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? There is nothing you need to do for this update which is rolling out now and should be completed by the end of August. Link SharePoint webparts together with new Dynamic Filtering capabilities MC217382 Category SharePoint What is this all about? You can link two SharePoint list webparts together, so that when you select an item in the first webpart, the second is automatically filtered to show relevant information. This is Dynamic Filtering. How does this affect me? Dynamic Filtering will enable you to build richer user experiences without having to revert to PowerApps. For example, perhaps you want to show a list of projects on the home page of your project site and when the use selects a project they see a filtered list of tasks for that project. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, Dynamic Filtering is rolling out now and should be completed by the end of July. More from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/office/dynamic-list-filtering-eed5f92e-1716-45d5-9a94-59decb930e42 SharePoint lists and libraries - sticky column in Quick Edit MC217379 Category SharePoint What is this all about? As you scroll horizontally across a list or document library in Quick Edit, the far left column will soon remain in place just like it does in Excel. How does this affect me? This interface change will make it easier for you to navigate and edit very wide lists.  What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this change is rolling out now and should be completed by the end of September. Add shortcuts to shared folders in your OneDrive MC217339 Category OneDrive What is this all about? You will soon be able to add shortcuts to shared folders in OneDrive and SharePoint shared libraries, and access those shortcuts from your OneDrive. How does this affect me? You will be able to add a shortcut to any folders or libraries shared with you from OneDrive or from SharePoint.  After you add a shortcut, it will appear in your OneDrive as a folder with a link icon at the OneDrive root. Owner information will be visible in the Sharing column to differentiate it from your own content. You will be able to access these shortcuts in OneDrive on the web, the OneDrive sync app, the OneDrive Android app, and Microsoft Teams. Support for additional products, such as the OneDrive iOS app, will be available in the next few months. When syncing OneDrive, these shortcuts will automatically appear in OneDrive across all devices. These shortcuts will respect all policy, compliance, and permission settings from the source. If you lose access to a shortcut, you will see an “Access Denied” error when you next navigate into that shortcut and will be prompted to remove it. What do I need to do to prepare for this change? Nothing, this feature is rolling out shortly. More from Microsoft https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/office/add-shortcuts-to-shared-folders-in-onedrive-for-work-or-school-d66b1347-99b7-4470-9360-ffc048d35a33?ui=en-US&rs=en-GB&ad=GB Author: SO365 Insights This is the first in a series of articles looking at the digital literacy challenge that companies face, especially as for the first time, the workforce may be made up of 5 different generations. According to Wikipedia: Digital literacy refers to an individual's ability to find, evaluate, and compose clear information through writing and other mediums on various digital platforms. The challenge to find informationThe amount of information created by companies is growing at an exponential rate and the type of information is changing, from structured documents to unstructured videos and images. Technology has recently moved into its top gear to help address the situation, let’s look at how the storage and retrieval of information has changed since the introduction of the computer.
Most workers are still at Stages 1 and 2Even after the company migrates to a new collaborative information-centric cloud world, the first thing your staff ask is: "give us back our folders". Why? Change for one thing – people need to be helped through change. But surely search is natural and therefore not a change – maybe not. Ask people of their experience with Google and most will say 90% of the results are irrelevant and a waste of time. People need to be taught how to search effectively and how to filter the results. But the company needs to help here too. If existing information is migrated on mass from legacy folder structures to the new world then search will be handicapped. How much of the legacy information consists of duplicated documents or the dreaded versioning of a legacy document (draft, draft Jan 1986, draft Jan 1986(A), Final Feb 1986, Final(reworked) Mar 1986, etc). The wrong search term and all of these documents will be surfaced, driving the user mad. However, clean up your information, teach your workforce how to use the tools, and the return on investment will be huge.  The modern workplace requires digital literacyWe know Stage 2 no longer works, there is just too much information created and especially too much unstructured information. Companies also need to think about the impending skill gaps amongst their workforce. Soon Generation Z will be entering the workforce. They will embrace and go straight to Stage 3 and 4, having never created a folder in their lives. How will you integrate your Stage 3 and 4 users with those stuck at Stage 1 and 2? Author: Chris Kaye |
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