Office 365 Weekly Digest | Week of August 28 - September 3, 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.

 

New Capabilities in SharePoint Online team sites including integration with Office 365 Groups

Posted: August 31, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | Today we begin bringing SharePoint team sites to Office 365 Groups. Both existing and new groups will now get a SharePoint site. Within a group’s team site, this roll out brings a new home page, featuring the Quick links web part for showcasing links to important team resources, and the Activity web part for showing recently active content. It, too, brings modern pages. These are responsive and powerful page authoring and consumption experiences in Office 365. Modern pages will come as a part of the team site within Office 365 Groups and will be available to all existing team sites, even if they are not associated. Last, we will begin to increase the SharePoint Online site collection limit to 25TB – up from 1TB. Modern SharePoint Online team sites will first come to existing Office 365 Groups. It will start rolling out to First Release customers early September 2016. This will include the new home page, publishing pages, quick links, activity—inclusive of modern lists and libraries. All classic SharePoint functionality is available, too – you can access it from the Site Contents page and within Site Settings. The new 25 TB site collection limit will begin rolling out next week and is expected to be rolled out to all Office 365 customers worldwide within one month. To learn more, please see the "New capabilities in SharePoint Online team sites including integration with Office 365 Groups" post in the "Blog Roundup" section below.

 

Updated Feature: Enhanced people experience

Posted: August 31, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | We’re updating the people experience in Outlook on the web. There are several enhancements in Outlook on the web to help Office 365 customers better understand the people they are communicating with. The update affects Outlook on the web users. The updated experience improves how you access people. We updated Contact Cards to provide a “no-click” way to access common communication actions, as well as provide the ability to see who someone is and how you know them. The new Contact pane offers a deeper view of someone, and we also made several enhancements within the main People section itself. We started rolling this out to First Release customers today, and the roll out will be completed worldwide over the coming weeks. There is nothing you need to do to prepare for this change. For additional details, please see the “Increase your productivity with an enhanced people experience in Outlook on the web” post in the “Blog Roundup” section below.

 

Updated Feature: We are changing how external sharing invitations are sent

Posted: September 01, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | We’re updating how SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business send external sharing invitations. You’ll begin seeing this change September 2, 2016, with rollout completion expected by the end of the month. Previously, we sent external sharing invitations via the Microsoft Online Services Team address. We have often heard that this e-mail address is confusing and that users have trouble finding invitations that have been sent to them. To address these issues (and to make our external sharing mails consistent with our internal sharing mails), we will now be sending external sharing invitations via the Exchange Web Services. Sharing invitations will now come from a SharePoint owned "No Reply" address. No changes are required at this time. External users will continue to receive invitations with no change in the acceptance flow. More information is available in the “Manage external sharing for your SharePoint Online environment” article.

 

Updated Feature: SharePoint Modern Lists

Posted: September 02, 2016 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | As previously announced, we are now starting the rollout of the UI for Modern Lists to production this week. The initial rollout will include the UI enhancements previously described, such as inline creation of custom views and columns; improved mobile support; and the command bar. PowerApps and Flow are preview features, and integration will be available to tenants who have opted in to use preview features in SharePoint Online administration. Full user details, as well as administrative information and testing procedures, are available in this Office 365 Network post. The modern list will be the default experience for all lists except as noted below. Some customizations are not yet supported in the modern experience, and if we detect such a customization we will automatically redirect users to the classic experience. Administrators may choose to disable the modern lists experience on a per list, per site, or tenant wide basis, using the same control previously offered for modern document libraries. If modern experiences are enabled, any SharePoint user will be able to preview the modern lists experience, regardless of First Release or Production rollout schedule, immediately.

 


UPCOMING EVENTS Azure Active Directory Webinars for September

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: Preparing for Azure AD, Azure AD Multi-Factor Authentication, Self-Service Password Management and more. 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!

 

Online Immersion Experience: Boost  your productivity with Windows 10 and Office 365

When: September 7th & 14th, 10:00am – 11:30am PT or 12:00pm – 1:30pm PT | Boost your productivity with Office 365 and Windows 10. An online immersion session is not your typical online event. These 90-minute interactive sessions start with an online roundtable discussing your business challenges and then launch into a live environment in the cloud. A skilled facilitator guides you through simulated business scenarios that are customized to your interests. We will send you a link to connect your own device to a remote desktop loaded with our latest and greatest technology, so you can experience first-hand how Microsoft tools can solve your biggest challenges in a collaborative, fun environment. Please note: Each session is only open to 20 participants. Reserve your seat now and learn how you can be more productive anywhere, anytime with Office 365.

 

Modern Workplace: Data Defense - An inside look at your secure cloud

When: September 13, 2016 at 8:00am PDT | Join us for the season premiere of Modern Workplace! In this episode, get an exclusive look inside the new generation of Microsoft datacenters and see firsthand how they seamlessly make trillions of transactions every day to help make your organization safer and more efficient by leveraging the power of cloud computing. Doug Hauger, General Manager of Cloud Programs, shares why Microsoft is the leading trusted cloud provider and how customers are taking advantage of everything the cloud has to offer. Plus, get a rare look into the cloud with Microsoft’s General Manager of Cloud Infrastructure Strategy, Christian Belady. See where and how your information is stored and learn about the incredible security measures keeping your data safe.

 

FastTrack Webinars: Learn how to do more, together

When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled through September 28, 2016 | 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 New capabilities in SharePoint Online team sites including integration with Office 365 Groups

In May 2016, we unveiled a new vision for the future of SharePoint, and now we’re pleased to announce the rollout of several new enhancements to SharePoint Online team sites in Office 365, including deeper integration with Office 365 Groups. These enhancements will begin rolling out to Office 365 First Release customers next week. These enhancements also include a new 25TB site collection limit, which will begin rolling out next week and is expected to be rolled out to all Office 365 customers worldwide within one month.

 

New to Office 365 in August—the continued evolution of inking and more

August has been another busy month with updates for inking, mobile app security, Outlook and more. We’re also announcing an additional level for the Office Insider program. Learn more about what’s new for Office 365 subscribers this month at: Office 2016 | Office for Mac | Office Mobile for Windows | Office for iPhone and iPad | Office on Android.

 

What’s new in Office 365 administration—August update

The new admin center is getting better and better every month. Many of you already use the new admin center as your main management tool, and it’s great to see your feedback on how it is improving your overall Office 365 management experience. In July and August, we focused on continuing to enhance and automate the setup and configuration experience. This is one of the areas that we have completely redesigned as part of the new admin center. This blog post includes a summary of how the new admin center makes it easier for admins to get started with Office 365 and how it allows you to quickly onboard your users to the service by providing you with new configuration functionality, more control and additional guidance.

 

Increase your productivity with an enhanced people experience in Outlook on the web

There are two components in any communication: the information shared and the people you are sharing with. Understanding your audience—the people you are sending to—is particularly important in business settings. We are announcing several enhancements in Outlook on the web to help Office 365 customers better understand the people they are communicating with. In addition, we reduced the number of clicks to present the most relevant information at a glance. Powered by the Microsoft Graph, these changes allow you to quickly create more personalized and impactful communications.

 


NOTEWORTHY

Updated: Office 365 URLs and IP Address Ranges

August 29 - 30, 2016: Updates for Exchange Online, ProPlus, SharePoint Online, Office 365 identity and authentication, Office 365 shared and portal, Skype for Business Online and Office 365 remote analyzer tools.  Details on the updates are available on the RSS feed and the complete list is located here.

 

Two new posters for SharePoint 2016 and Skype for Business architectural models

With the new versions of Microsoft Office server products, content publishers here at Microsoft have been working hard to show their key configurations and scenarios in a visual way. Here are two results: (1) Microsoft SharePoint 2016 Architectural Models poster and (2) Microsoft Skype for Business Architectural Models poster. These new posters are in tabloid format, also known as 11 x 17, for easy printing. You can choose between a PDF version, a Visio version, or viewing them online on docs.com.

 

Deprecating support for SmartScreen in Outlook and Exchange

On November 1, 2016, Microsoft will stop generating updates for the SmartScreen spam filters in Exchange Server 2016 and earlier (2013, 2010, 2007), Outlook 2016 for Windows and earlier (2013, 2010, 2007) and Outlook 2011 for Mac. The SmartScreen spam filter will be removed from future versions of Exchange Server and Outlook for Windows. (SmartScreen is not available in any other version of Outlook). This announcement does not affect the SmartScreen Filter online protection features built into Windows, Microsoft Edge and Internet Explorer browsers. While branded similarly, those features are technically distinct. These SmartScreen Filters to help people to stay protected from malicious websites and downloads.

 

Announcing the Microsoft Tech Community!

September 2, 2016 - We are pleased to announce the launch of the Microsoft Tech Community, bringing multiple communities together in one central location to support discussions and best practice sharing across a variety of Microsoft products and services.  The Microsoft Tech Community is an evolution of the Office 365 Network, growing to support new Azure; Windows Server, and SQL Server Communities and in future many more communities.  The URL of the new community will change soon to https://techcommunity.microsoft.com and redirects will be in place for any existing URL on the https://network.office.com domain. In today's announcement, not only will you see new communities added but you will also see lots of new features!