Office 365 Weekly Digest | Week of July 3 - 9, 2016

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Note: The information below may not be posted to your Office 365 tenant as not all notifications apply to all tenants.

 

Updated Feature: Monthly feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365

Posted: July 05, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | The latest feature updates for Office 2016 for Office 365 are now available. This month’s update includes new feature updates, as well as other security and bug fixes. 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. Additional information is available at https://technet.microsoft.com/office/mt465751.aspx. | Additional Resources: What’s new in Office 365 for Windows – July 2016 (Video) and What’s new and improved for Office 2016 for Office 365 (Office Support article)

 

We have removed the tabs for links, polls and announcements in the Yammer topic feed

Posted: July 06, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | We have removed the tabs for links, polls, and announcements in the Yammer Topic Feed. This is in line with the previous removal of the tabs for links, polls and announcements from the Yammer User profile. Users will no longer be able to filter via the links, poll, and announcements tabs but will still be able to view all links, polls and announcements within the conversation tab. Note, the functionality of links, polls and announcements remains unchanged.

 

UPCOMING EVENTS Azure Active Directory Webinars for July

Are you looking to deploy Azure Active Directory quickly and easily? We are offering free webinar briefings on key Azure Active Directory deployment topics! Sessions include: Pre-requisites, SSPR, MFA, SaaS Application Integration and Reporting. Each 1-hour briefing is designed to support IT Pros in quickly rolling out Azure Active Directory features to their organization. All webinars are free of cost and will be followed by Q&A with our Engineering Team. Capacity is limited. Sign up for one or all of the sessions today!

 

Rolling out Microsoft Office in one of the most demanding environments - Microsoft

When: Tuesday, July 19, 2016 @ 10:00am PT | IT subject matter experts will discuss the Office 365 ProPlus 2016 deployment, how we used System Center Configuration Manager to streamline the upgrade process, and how we use channels to deliver updates to users. Get candid answers from our experts as they share insights and best practices developed by Microsoft IT.

 

Microsoft IT enables information discovery with enterprise search and Delve

When: Wednesday, July 20, 2016 @ 10:00am PT | Microsoft IT hosts more than 350 million Office 365 documents and other content, serving 200,000 users around the globe. Helping employees find what they need to be effective in their jobs required new approaches to deliver integrated search experiences. Program managers David Johnson, Sam Crewdson, and Rene Sanchez Almaguer will share how we used Delve, SharePoint 2016 with hybrid services, and Office 365 Search to deliver rationalized search and discovery experiences.

 

FastTrack Webinars: Learn how to do more, together

When: Multiple sessions starting July 12th and ending August 31st | Ask questions, learn shortcuts and find out how Office 365 can make you and your team more productive. Each webinar is a live, instructor-led session offered at multiple dates and times. Facilitated discussion follows each session, with opportunities to ask questions and discuss specific scenarios to you. Direct registration links for each webinar are provided below.

 

BLOG ROUNDUP Skype for Business Mac Preview adds contacts, presence and IM

We’re pleased to announce the next phase of the Skype for Business Mac Preview, which—on top of the meetings functionality released in April—brings a new set of functionalities to the app. Let’s take a look at what’s new: (1) Contacts and presence—See whether a contact is offline or online, whether they’re busy, in a meeting or available, and easily start an IM conversation, (2) Peer-to-peer (P2P) calling—Call other Skype for Business users directly using voiceover IP, (3) Group video calling—Now you can see up to four meeting participants simultaneously and (4) Conversation history—View a list of previous conversations and restart them at will.

 

Introducing free Skype meetings

We’re pleased to introduce free Skype Meetings—a new online meetings tool that provides small businesses with real-time audio and HD video conferencing. Skype Meetings includes collaboration features like the ability to share screens and content during meetings. With Skype Meetings, you can quickly set up meetings and share a personalized URL that participants click to join the meeting. During the meeting, participants can IM, share their screen or PowerPoint presentation or use the laser pointer and whiteboard features to make it more engaging and productive. The meeting organizer also gets professional meeting controls such as the ability to mute the audience in order to be heard.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: OneDrive sync client unifies client file storage and synchronization

Microsoft IT is implementing Microsoft OneDrive for Business as a managed file synchronization and storage service on Windows, iOS, and Android operating systems. In the process, we are decommissioning costly on-premises solutions. The cloud-based OneDrive sync client user experience is identical for personal and business content, giving users access to their data from a single interface. With storage in Azure, it provides robust enterprise-grade security and compliance controls.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Bring your research project to life with Microsoft Office 365

Learn how Office 365 can help you tackle your next research project, from start to finish. Whether you work on a Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android device, you can start with OneNote to record ideas and notes, then prepare to collaborate in a shared workspace with Office 365 Groups. Track your project schedule with Microsoft Planner and document your process and work in Word. Finally, create a PowerPoint presentation and share videos that you create with the Office Mix add-in for PowerPoint.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Building an online training session in Office Mix for PowerPoint

Learn how to build an interactive training session with Office Mix, a free add-in for Microsoft PowerPoint in Office 365. Office Mix makes it easy to turn your PowerPoint presentations into interactive online lessons that you can share with students and colleagues in OneNote, on the web, or in your learning management system. You can use Office Mix on Windows, Mac, iOS, or Android devices.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Creating a dashboard to analyze and visualize your data in Excel 2016

Learn how to plan and create a dashboard with Microsoft Excel 2016 in Office 365. A dashboard can make it easier to collect, analyze, and share your data; giving you valuable insights into your business. You can use queries to connect to external data, choose from a variety of charts to display data, drill down into details with a PivotChart, and apply conditional formatting to visually highlight trends.

 

NOTEWORTHY Video: Office 365 Updates for July 2016

Jim Naroski covers recent enhancements to Office 365, Microsoft’s cloud-based solution for the modern workplace.

 

Free ebook: Configuring Microsoft SharePoint Hybrid Capabilities

We’re happy to announce the availability of our newest free ebook, Configuring Microsoft SharePoint Hybrid Capabilities by Jeremy Taylor, Neil Hodgkinson, and Manas Biswas. In spring of 2016, Microsoft announced the general availability of SharePoint Server 2016, which includes new hybrid capabilities that make it possible for on-premises customers to tap into the innovation the company is delivering in Microsoft Office 365. This ebook draws together the SharePoint Server and Office 365 hybrid workloads and user experiences in one place, providing solid guidance to meet business needs and achieve productivity goals in the cloud-enabled workplace.