Follow up post with new messages from the Admin Center. Good to review these and stay current with Microsoft cloud changes. Cheers!
MC98622 – New Feature: Edit Post in Yammer
05-06-2017
Today, we are releasing the Edit Post feature to all Yammer users. This feature is available for Yammer users on the web first, followed by iOS and Android once it becomes available in the app stores.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14803.
How does this affect me?– You’ll be able to make changes to the text in a post or announcement after it has been published.
– You’ll be able to see the version history of edited posts.
– All post versions will appear in data exports.
– The Yammer API will support edited posts.Note: The edit feature for attachments and external groups is not available in the current release.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change; however, in order to use this feature on your mobile device, you’ll need to update to the latest Yammer mobile version.
MC98642 – Updated Feature: Custom Sensitive Information Type support for DLP, Retention and eDiscovery
05-06-2017
To help you protect your sensitive data, we are expanding support for custom sensitive information types beyond Exchange to also include SharePoint, OneDrive, Outlook, Office Clients, and supported mobile apps. You’ll begin seeing this feature in the coming days.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14796.
How does this affect me?You’ll now be able to customize any of the 82 sensitive types we include out of box or create your own custom sensitive types for any data specific to your organization (e.g., Medical Record Numbers, Corporate IDs, etc.). These definitions are written in XML and uploaded via PowerShell to the Security & Compliance Center where they can be used in any DLP or Retention policies or eDiscovery queries.
We’ll be gradually rolling this out beginning today, and the roll out will be completed on April 17, 2017.
Any custom sensitive information types you’ve created in Exchange will automatically migrate to the Security & Compliance Center. While your sensitive types are being migrated, you will temporarily not be able to modify your sensitive types in Exchange. Any existing policies or Exchange Transport Rules that use those custom sensitive types will continue to function normally during and after the migration. Following this migration, you will manage all custom sensitive types in the Security & Compliance Center.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC98692 – New feature: Office 365 Data Governance – retention policy
05-06-2017
Setting a retention policy is a new Office 365 Data Governance feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature starting today.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14910.
How does this affect me?You can now create an Office 365 retention policy to manage content across SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive, Groups, Skype, and Public Folders. Using the policy, you can do the following:
– Decide proactively whether to retain content, delete content, or both – retain and then delete the content.
– Apply a single policy to the entire organization or just to specific locations or users.
– Apply a policy to all content or just to content meeting certain conditions, such as content containing specific keywords or specific types of sensitive information.Policies can be created in the Security and Compliance Center.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC98693 – New feature: Office 365 Data Governance – labels
05-06-2017
Crating labels is a new Office 365 Data Governance feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature starting today.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14910.
How does this affect me?You can now create Office 365 labels to classify content across SharePoint, Exchange, OneDrive, and Groups for governance, and enforce retention rules based on that classification.
With labels, you can:
– Enable people in your organization to apply a label manually to content in Outlook on the web, Outlook 2010, and later, OneDrive, SharePoint, and Office 365 groups. Users often know best what type of content they’re working with, so they can classify it and have the appropriate policy applied.
– Apply labels to content automatically if it matches specific conditions, such as when the content contains:
– Specific types of sensitive information.
– Specific keywords that match a query you create.Labels can be created in the Security and Compliance Center.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC99685 – Updated features: Data Loss Prevention management experience enhancement and location exclusion
05-06-2017
Customers all over the world use DLP policies in Office 365 to help prevent sensitive information from getting into the wrong hands. We’re updating the Data Loss Prevention (DLP) management experience and policy location exclusion in the Office 365 Security and Compliance Center. You will start seeing these changes today when you log in to the Security and Compliance Center.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID: 15061.
How does this affect me?Enhanced management experience – We are pleased to announce that its now easier than ever to configure and enforce sensitive data policies across your organization using the new DLP management experience in the Office 365 Security & Compliance Center. We listened to you and made Data loss prevention front and center, providing quick access to content protection policies, app permissions and device security policies – all in one place. The new Policy page shows you important information about your current DLP policies at-a-glance, with detailed audit reports just a click away. It’s also easier to turn on and configure DLP: simply choose what you want to protect, specify any special conditions to look for, and select the automatic actions you want to enforce to protect your important data. You can also go into the advanced settings to access additional customization and configuration options to help meet your specific compliance requirements.
Policy location exclusion – You now have even more granular controls over the locations you protect with a DLP Policy. By default, your policies will continue to operate normally. You can decide the specific places where you want to exclude a location from a policy.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC98694 – New feature: Office 365 Data Governance – Intelligent Import
05-06-2017
Intelligent Import is a new Office 365 Data Governance feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature starting today.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14910.
How does this affect me?You can now gain visual insights into PSTs you are importing and filter the data during import. This helps you filter out unwanted data and only bring in data that matters for compliance purposes. With Intelligent Import, you can do the following:
– Gain upfront visual insights into age and types of data being imported.
– Decide proactively whether to filter out data selectively during import by filtering based on age, data type, and users.Intelligent Import is available in the Security and Compliance Center.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC98808 – Updated Feature: OneDrive and SharePoint Online sharing experience
05-08-2017
We are updating the sharing experience in OneDrive and SharePoint, both in the web and in the sync client.
How does this affect me?We’ve improved the sharing UI on the OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online websites and sync clients to provide easier collaboration, better usability and improved security. We’ve also overhauled the sharing dialog in both OneDrive and SharePoint and replaced it with a single control that will be available to users in the web and in the OneDrive sync client.
We’ll be gradually rolling this out starting in early May, and the roll out will be completed September 2017.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?You don’t need to do anything, but may consider updating your user training, and notifying your helpdesk.
MC98898 – We’ve made a change to the Office 365 Trust Center
04-18-2017
As you might be aware, Office 365 security, compliance and privacy information is located in the Office 365 Trust Center. As a commitment to transparency, anytime we materially change the data maps, we disclose this information in the Office 365 Trust Center and send you a notification about this change.
How does this affect me?The Office 365 data maps were recently revised to include a new datacenter region for Korea.
What do I need to do to prepare for thisYou don’t need to do anything.
MC98924 – New Feature: Office 365 Groups support in Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android
04-18-2017
We’re pleased to announce groups are now rolling out for Outlook for Mac, iOS, and Android. This adds to our previous releases for Outlook for Windows and the web, letting you get work done in groups no matter what platform you use. You’ll begin seeing this new feature in the following days.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 72294 and 75119.
How does this affect me?With these updates you can:
– View a list of your groups
– Read and reply to group conversations
– Add group events to your personal calendar
– View unread messages sent to the group
– View group details within the group card (Outlook for iOS and Android only)We’ll be gradually rolling this out starting today, and the roll out will be completed in the coming weeks.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?To start using Groups, ensure your users are using the latest versions of Outlook for Mac, iOS & Android.
04-21-2017
We’re removing the SuppressWarmupMessage parameter from the New-UnifiedGroup PowerShell cmdlet.
A warmup message is the first message that shows in the group conversations space after a group is created. This message is not sent to the Inbox of the group members.
How does this affect me?We are removing your ability to suppress the warmup message while creating an Office 365 group via PowerShell.
If you have PowerShell scripts which call the SuppressWarmupMessage parameter, the groups will continue to get created successfully but the parameter will be ignored. Your PowerShell script may give you a warning, but it will not fail.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is no action required to prepare for this change. Optionally, you can update your PowerShell script to remove this parameter from the New-UnifiedGroup cmdlet, but your script will not fail if you do nothing. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC99607 – New Feature: Distribution list owners can upgrade the DLs they own to Office 365 Groups
05-06-2017
The ability of distribution list owners to upgrade the DLs they own to Office 365 Groups is a new Office 365 feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature today.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 15044.
How does this affect me?In Outlook on the web, distribution list owners will see a list of their eligible distribution lists under the Groups section of the navigation pane on the left. The option to upgrade distribution lists is only available in Outlook on the web and under the following conditions:
– The distribution list must be eligible for update (see which distribution lists can be upgraded).
– The user must be the owner of the distribution list.
– The user must have permissions to create Office 365 Groups.We’ll be gradually rolling this out beginning today, and the rollout will be completed over the coming weeks.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change.
MC99617 – New feature: Modern List and Document Library Web Parts
05-06-2017
The Modern List and Document Library Web Parts are new Office 365 features. You’ll begin seeing these new features over the coming weeks.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 15154.
How does this affect me?The web parts can be added to any modern SharePoint page, allowing users to view and edit files directly from the web part. Any list or document library can be displayed and customized with the users’ own title, view, and size choice.
We’ll be gradually rolling this out in early May, and the roll out will be completed by the end of June 2017.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC98699 – Updated Features: Monthly feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365
04-24-2017
The latest feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365 are now available.
One of the benefits of Office 365 ProPlus is that Microsoft can provide new features for Office apps on a regular basis, through monthly updates.
How does this affect me?This month’s update includes new feature updates, as well as other security and bug fixes. Here is a list of some of the new features available in the April update:
– Get and Transform improvements in Excel
– Guest access to Office 365 Groups in Outlook
– QuickStarter in PowerPoint
– Share file activity in Excel, Word and PowerPoint
– Make diagrams from Excel data in VisioA more complete list of features and descriptions is available by clicking Additional Information.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?If you have users configured for Current Channel release updates, you may want to get up to speed on the new features this month. Other than that, you do not need to do anything to prepare for this change.
MC97483 – New Feature: Focused Inbox
05-06-2017
Focused Inbox is a new feature coming to Office 365. Focused Inbox helps you take control of your inbox and focus on the emails you need to act on right away. This is coming to all versions of Outlook to give you one consistent view of the important items in your inbox. Moreover, this feature comes with administrator controls. This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 14737.
How does this affect me?
Focused Inbox is continuing to roll out to all Office 365 users. All First Release users are now Focused Inbox enabled. We will begin rolling it out to Standard Release, the first week of April, and deployment will complete in 6-8 weeks. In addition to getting the Office 365 service-side update, users must be using a build of Outlook that includes the client-side updates necessary for Focused Inbox to appear. We have provided robust controls to control on how Focused Inbox is rolled out in your organization, and to enable or disable this feature for your users. These controls can ensure you have full control over your organizations experience, and you have time to properly prepare communications and training. These controls are available to all customers, even if your users do not yet have Focused Inbox.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?
If you are looking forward to Focused Inbox, there is no action you need to take. Get yourself familiar with Focused Inbox, update your user training, and notify your helpdesk, as needed. If you would like more control on how Focused Inbox is rolled out in your organization, please click Additional Information to learn more about Focused Inbox, supported clients, and administrative controls.
MC100448 – New feature: Office 365 eDiscovery RMS Decryption
05-04-2017
eDiscovery RMS Decryption is a new Office 365 feature. You can begin using this feature today.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 15030.
How does this affect me?eDiscovery RMS Decryption will allow encrypted email messages to be automatically decrypted at export time, when you choose the MSG Export option.
MC100038 – New feature: SharePoint Add-ins on modern pages
05-01-2017
The SharePoint Add-ins on modern pages is a new Office 365 feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature today.
How does this affect me?When creating modern pages – for example, the pages within team sites that are connected to Office 365 Groups – you will now be able to use app parts from SharePoint Add-ins. The app parts from SharePoint Add-ins that are already installed on the site where the page is being created will now appear in the modern page toolbox.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC100037 – Office 365 Quarterly CPE Pulse Results
05-01-2017
The April 2017 release of the Office 365 Engineering Quarterly Update deck has been completed and is available via your TAM. The Quarterly update illustrates how we use your feedback to shape the services we provide, closes the loop on important topics, and includes critical updates and improvements that we have delivered as a result of your feedback.
CPE Pulse program summary:
The Office 365 CPE Pulse program offers our Premier customers the opportunity to communicate directly with our Office 365 Engineering teams. Every customer comment is read by the Customer Partner Experience (CXP) team, and it is then delivered to our Office 365 Engineering and Leadership team.Customer comments are used by the Office 365 CXP team to identify top themes and to drive process and technology enhancements. Quarterly, the Office 365 Customer Experience Engineering team publishes an update to the customer’s Microsoft representative (e.g. Technical Account Manager, TAM) highlighting the most impactful changes that were driven by customer feedback.
Our next Quarterly Release Update will be in August 2017.
The CXP team recorded a session to introduce the April Quarterly release; the recording is available on our Deep Dive Webcast site. The Webcast is called: “The Office 365 CPE Pulse: How We’re Using Your Insights to Make Office 365 Better for Everyone” and is available for viewing or download.
We encourage you to talk to your TAM about participating and providing feedback. Please click Additional Information to visit the recording at our Deep Dive Webcast site.
MC98699 – Updated Features: Monthly feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365
04-24-2017
The latest feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365 are now available.
One of the benefits of Office 365 ProPlus is that Microsoft can provide new features for Office apps on a regular basis, through monthly updates.
How does this affect me?This month’s update includes new feature updates, as well as other security and bug fixes. Here is a list of some of the new features available in the April update:
– Get and Transform improvements in Excel
– Guest access to Office 365 Groups in Outlook
– QuickStarter in PowerPoint
– Share file activity in Excel, Word and PowerPoint
– Make diagrams from Excel data in VisioA more complete list of features and descriptions is available by clicking Additional Information.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?If you have users configured for Current Channel release updates, you may want to get up to speed on the new features this month. Other than that, you do not need to do anything to prepare for this change.
Please click Additional Information to see a complete list of all the updates to Office, in April.
04-21-2017
We’re removing the SuppressWarmupMessage parameter from the New-UnifiedGroup PowerShell cmdlet.
A warmup message is the first message that shows in the group conversations space after a group is created. This message is not sent to the Inbox of the group members.
How does this affect me?We are removing your ability to suppress the warmup message while creating an Office 365 group via PowerShell.
If you have PowerShell scripts which call the SuppressWarmupMessage parameter, the groups will continue to get created successfully but the parameter will be ignored. Your PowerShell script may give you a warning, but it will not fail.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is no action required to prepare for this change. Optionally, you can update your PowerShell script to remove this parameter from the New-UnifiedGroup cmdlet, but your script will not fail if you do nothing. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC99202 – Office 365 System Requirements for Client Connectivity & ProPlus Updates
04-20-2017
Today, we’re making three important announcements related to Office 365 ProPlus: changes to the Office 365 system requirements; improvements to the ProPlus update model; and new tools and programs to manage ProPlus application compatibility.
How does this affect me?These updates may impact any organization connecting to Office 365 with an MSI desktop client, as well as those considering moving to Office 365 ProPlus.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?Click Additional Information and read the Office 365 ProPlus Updates Blog by Ron Markezich to learn more.
MC98924 – New Feature: Office 365 Groups support in Outlook for Mac, iOS and Android
04-18-2017
We’re pleased to announce groups are now rolling out for Outlook for Mac, iOS, and Android. This adds to our previous releases for Outlook for Windows and the web, letting you get work done in groups no matter what platform you use. You’ll begin seeing this new feature in the following days.
This message is associated with Office 365 Roadmap ID 72294 and 75119.
How does this affect me?With these updates you can:
– View a list of your groups
– Read and reply to group conversations
– Add group events to your personal calendar
– View unread messages sent to the group
– View group details within the group card (Outlook for iOS and Android only)We’ll be gradually rolling this out starting today, and the roll out will be completed in the coming weeks.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?To start using Groups, ensure your users are using the latest versions of Outlook for Mac, iOS & Android. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC98898 – We’ve made a change to the Office 365 Trust Center
04-18-2017
As you might be aware, Office 365 security, compliance and privacy information is located in the Office 365 Trust Center. As a commitment to transparency, anytime we materially change the data maps, we disclose this information in the Office 365 Trust Center and send you a notification about this change.
How does this affect me?The Office 365 data maps were recently revised to include a new datacenter region for Korea.
MC97665 – New feature: Public preview of Microsoft Graph Reporting APIs
04-13-2017
The usage reports in the admin center enable admins to understand usage of the various services within Office 365. Today we are announcing the public preview of the Microsoft Graph reporting APIs that enables you to retrieve the usage data programmatically. Using this API, you can retrieve the data available in the usage reports including organization level summaries per service as well as entity level (user, sites, accounts) detail usage information for different reporting periods of last 7/30/90/180 days.
With this announcement, we’re also providing notice to the removal of the following existing APIs (and any related PowerShell cmdlets) available within the Office365 Reporting Web Service: ConnectionbyClientType , ConnectionbyClientTypeDetail, CsActiveUser, CsAVConferenceTime, CsP2PAVTime, CsConference, CsP2PSession, GroupActivity, MailboxActivity, GroupActivity, MailboxUsage, MailboxUsageDetail, StaleMailbox, StaleMailboxDetail. We will be removing these APIs (and cmdlets) on October 1 ,2017.
How does this affect me?Any user with global admin or product admin rights (Exchange, Skype for Business, SharePoint) can retrieve data through these APIs.
When we remove the existing API’s (and any related PowerShell cmdlets), on October 1, your apps may be impacted.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?Please try out the new Microsoft Graph reporting APIs and submit feature requests by asking or voting on an idea on UserVoice. Please submit questions by posting them on Stack Overflow and tagging them with ‘microsoftgraph’.
If you are currently using APIs from the Office 365 Reporting Web Service that are going to be replaced by the new API’s (and any related PowerShell cmdlets), you should start planning the migration of any subsystems within your organization. Please click Additional Information to learn more.
MC98315 – Updated feature: Company Shareable Links will now open in SharePoint and OneDrive for Business
04-10-2017
We’re updating Company Shareable Links (the type of sharing links that are only accessible to users in your company) so that non-Office files such as pictures, videos and PDFs are going to be displayed in the SharePoint/OneDrive for Business user experience instead of automatically downloading the file or opening it in the browser. This will take advantage of all of our new web previewers, and is going to be a better collaboration experience for all your users.
We are rolling this out today, and the roll out will be completed by the end of May.
How does this affect me?Today a Company Shareable Link to a picture, video or other supported files took the user outside the SharePoint user experience, instead opening the file in the browser if supported, or automatically download it – requiring an installed app to open it locally. We will now open files in our web previewers, simplifying collaboration. If we come across a file that we do not support (see linked article for all formats we support), users can quickly download the file like before.
MC98300 – Updated Feature: Improving the experience for the Content Embed web part
04-10-2017
To reduce the risk of embedded content being pulled in from unknown sites, Office 365 is setting a default list of sites and domains that are recognized as safe. We are rolling this out today, and the roll out will be completed in the following days.
How does this affect me?We are updating the default list of sites and domains (found in the HTML Field Security setting) to include additional, commonly used websites from Microsoft and Google services. This will improve the content embedding experience.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. Please click Additional Information to see the list of sites we are adding, as well as how to change the domains in the HTML Field Security setting list.
MC98017 – SharePoint Newsfeed apps to be removed from the Windows Store and App Store (iOS)
04-05-2017
On May 31st, 2017, we will be removing the SharePoint Newsfeed mobile apps from the Windows Store and the App Store (iOS).
Shortly after the SharePoint 2013 release, we acquired Yammer, announcing the core focus of social innovation would come through updates to the Yammer service, with ongoing integration with SharePoint and Office 365.
How does this affect me?On May 31st, the SharePoint Newsfeed mobile apps will be removed from the Windows Store and the App Store (iOS). For users who previously downloaded the SharePoint Newsfeed app, and were able to connect to their on-premises SharePoint Server, the SharePoint Newsfeed app will continue to work. However, after May 31st, 2017, the SharePoint Newsfeed mobile apps for Windows and iOS will no longer be supported and no longer receive any updates. Microsoft will not provide support for the mobile apps beyond May 31, 2017.
This message only applies to the removal of the SharePoint Newsfeed mobile apps. It does not impact the SharePoint Newsfeed service within Office 365; that will remain untouched at this time if your company is currently using the SharePoint Newsfeed service.
MC97220 – Your Intune account is being migrated to the new Intune on Azure admin experience
03-24-2017
We plan to migrate your Intune groups to Azure AD-based security groups in the next 10 weeks.
How does this affect me?During the first phase of your migration, you may see new group objects in Azure Active Directory (AAD) of your Intune groups.
After you have successfully migrated:
– We will have created the new objects and targeted all of your existing policy to the new groups.
– You’ll see a message saying: “Your Intune groups are now managed in Azure Active Directory,” with a link to take you to the new Azure Portal.
– You’ll be able to use the public preview of the new Intune administration experience in the Azure portal.
– You’ll be able to take advantage of top User Voice requested features that are available for you, such as a modern browser and dynamic groups.
There is no downtime during this migration.
What do I need to do to prepare for this change?Make sure you don’t have any configurations that would block your migration. By now, we would have notified you in Message Center if you’ve had anything we know about, like groups that use exclusions. We’ll send you additional messages if we find we can’t migrate you due to other configuration issues.
You might also want to notify your helpdesk staff about these changes and inform your AAD Admin that, before the migration happens, they’ll see Intune created groups in AAD.
MC96176 – Planned Capacity Balancing Maintenance
03-14-2017
We have maintenance planned for SharePoint Online. In order to increase datacenter capacity, we’ll be conducting planned balancing operations during the month of March.
How does this affect me?During this scheduled maintenance, your SharePoint content will be read-only for up to 60 minutes during off-peak hours.
What action do I need to take?No action is required on your part.
