Office 365 Weekly Digest | January 15 - 21, 2017

Welcome to the January 15 – 21, 2017 edition of the Office 365 Weekly Digest. Lots of information, covering a wide range of topics and services is included in this week's content. For example, updated file-related functionality in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online, more events including additional opportunities to test drive Microsoft Teams and new business case studies from Microsoft IT. In addition, there are details on recent updates for education and government customers, as well as a look at the updated Skype for Business 2016 on Windows notifications and great news about Azure Active Directory reporting integration with Power BI!


MESSAGE CENTER

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

 

Feature Update: Conditional Access Policy by Network Location for SharePoint and OneDrive for Business

Posted: January 17, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | Office 365 Roadmap ID: 62508 | As we announced in 2016, we are enhancing SharePoint conditional access policies to allow whitelisting by network location. You can use the SharePoint Online admin console to specify approved network ranges. Once this policy is configured, all access to SharePoint Online and OneDrive for Business, from unknown locations outside the scope of the whitelisted ranges, will be blocked. We'll be gradually rolling this out, starting January 20, 2017, beginning with First Release customers. By default, this policy is off. There should be no impact until an administrator configures the policy. This policy setting is completely optional. Please visit  https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/SharePoint-Blog/Introducing-Conditional-Access-by-Network-Location-for/ba-p/39274 to learn more.

 

New Feature: Skype Room Systems support now available

Posted: January 18, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | Skype Room Systems is a new Office 365 feature. You’ll begin seeing this new feature today as the devices this new software supports began shipping in December, 2016. Skype Room Systems bring the Skype for Business meeting experience, with rich HD audio and video, to every meeting room. With the new Skype Room Systems, your team can work like you’re all in one place, quickly and easily join meetings, make phone calls, and instantly share content in the room and remotely—all from an elegant touch screen console device. Please update your user training, and notify your helpdesk. Additional information is available at https://technet.microsoft.com/library/mt790550.aspx.

 

Updated Feature: New report in the Office 365 admin center

Posted: January 18, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | Office 365 Roadmap ID: 70928 | To provide you with a complete picture of how your organization is using Office 365, we continue to include more reports in the Office 365 admin center. Today, we've begun rolling out a “Yammer device usage” report. This rollout should complete by the end of January, 2017. The report shows devices used by users to interact on Yammer. The report includes breakdown of activity across web and mobile clients, and lets you see the device types commonly used by people in your organization. To access the report please click “Usage reports” from the Admin Center homepage and choose the “Yammer device usage” report from the dropdown list at the top of the page. Please share your feedback by using the feedback button in the lower right corner of the admin center. Please see Activity Reports in the Office 365 admin center for more details.

 

Updated Feature: Outlook on the Web inbox search now includes Groups

Posted: January 18, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | Now in Outlook on the Web, after searching your inbox, you will see the option to modify your search to run the query across the groups you are joined to, whether they are public or private. This will be rolling out to First Release customers this week, followed by worldwide by the end of January. You used to only be able search your joined groups by noticing the entry point while typing your query in your search bar of your inbox, or by going to any arbitrary group, searching that specific group, then switching the refiner on the left of your screen to "Your groups". Now, you can just search your inbox normally and switch the scope of your search from your mailbox to your joined groups. Additional information is available at Search Mail and People in Outlook on the web for business.

 

Updated Feature: File Copy for SharePoint Modern Document Libraries

Posted: January 20, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | We previously rolled out the modern Copy/Move command bar button for OneDrive for Business. We’re now adding this capability for SharePoint libraries, allowing you to copy files up to 50MB from SharePoint team sites to other SharePoint team sites, or back to a personal OneDrive for Business. The Copy/Move dialog uses Microsoft Graph to surface a list of most recently used team sites, as well as support for browsing to a target destination, rather than manually entering URL targets. This new experience will begin rolling out to First Release customers starting mid-January, followed by the rest of the world soon after. This feature provides additional capabilities and ease of use directly from the modern command bar. Please visit Updating File Management for SharePoint Modern Document Libraries to learn more.

 

Updated Feature: Download multiple items in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online

Posted: January 20, 2017 | Urgency: Normal | Category: Stay Informed | Action: Awareness | We’re updating download multiple items, in OneDrive for Business and SharePoint Online. When users select multiple files and hit Download, their browser will start downloading a .zip file containing the selected files and folders. We'll be gradually rolling this out to customers starting January 20th, and the roll out will be completed over the next week. Additional details can be found in the Download OneDrive files and folders article.

 


UPCOMING EVENTS Azure Active Directory Webinars for February

When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled through February 16, 2017 | 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: Getting Ready for Azure AD, Streamlining Password Management, Securing Your Identities with Multi-Factor Authentication, Managing Enterprise Applications and Accessing Your Organization’s Internal Apps. Each 1-hour or 75-minute webinar 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 include an anonymous Q&A session with our Engineering Team. So come with your questions!  Capacity is limited. Sign up for one or all of the sessions today!

 

Online Customer Immersion Experience: Test Drive Microsoft Teams

When: Wednesday, February 1, 2017 and Wednesday, February 8, 2017 at 10:00am PT & 12:00pm PT | Around the world teamwork is on the rise. Research suggests employees now work on nearly double the number of teams than they did just five years ago. This means more than ever people are reliant on their peers to help get things done. But a “one size fits all” approach does not work when it comes to group collaboration—different tools appeal to different groups and address unique needs. Join Microsoft to test drive Office 365 and our hottest new collaboration tool: Microsoft Teams. Each 90-minute session starts with an online business roundtable, discussing your biggest business challenges with a trained facilitator and then transitions into a live environment in the cloud.  You will receive 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. Space is limited: each is session is only open to 12 participants.  Reserve your seat now.

 

FastTrack Webinars: Learn how to do more, together

When: Multiple sessions currently scheduled through January 26, 2017 | 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 Forrester’s 2016 Enterprise Collaboration Wave report is out and Microsoft is a Leader!

Forrester—one of the most influential research and advisory firms in the world—recently released their latest report evaluating enterprise collaboration providers, and we’re pleased to share that Microsoft is named a Leader in the report. We believe different groups have different needs when it comes to collaboration, and that’s why Office 365 is designed to give teams a choice in collaboration tools. The report examined collaboration with an emphasis on enterprise-wide knowledge sharing, and we’re honored to see Microsoft and Yammer—as part of the Office 365 suite—in the Leaders designation in the report. Just last fall, we announced Yammer will soon integrate with Office 365 Groups, which means every new Yammer group will get a corresponding team site for file sharing, a OneNote for shared notetaking and a team project plan with Planner. With these enhancements and many others to follow in the months ahead, we’re making Yammer better and better at connecting people and teams across your organization. | Full Report

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Microsoft Power BI and MyAnalytics drive executive effectiveness

Business Case Study | Published: January 15, 2017 | At Microsoft, we want to use data to influence every decision. Our IT executives use business intelligence to help inform decision making and effective communication. Executive Insights dashboards—powered by Power BI—intuitively visualize data, facilitate deeper analysis, and help us make more informed decisions. MyAnalytics quickly analyzes—in aggregate—consumption and actions taken on qualified IT executive group email messages. And MyAnalytics data lets them fine-tune their communication strategies.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Microsoft Office 365 reduces threats, and enhances visibility and compliance

Business Case Study | Published: January 16, 2017 | At Microsoft IT, we use Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise E5 features to complement our security platform services and enhance visibility into our software as a service infrastructure. Policy-based Advanced Security Management discovers anomalies, app usage, and shadow IT. Advanced Threat Protection helps stop zero-day and sophisticated attacks. Finally, in an era of ever-increasing amounts and complexity of data, eDiscovery technologies streamline compliance and discovery requests.

 

Microsoft IT Showcase: Transforming our digital workplace with Office 365 Enterprise E5

Business Case Study | Published: January 17, 2017 | At Microsoft IT, we use Microsoft Office 365 Enterprise E5 features to complement our security platform services and enhance visibility into our software as a service infrastructure. Policy-based Advanced Security Management discovers anomalies, app usage, and shadow IT. Advanced Threat Protection helps stop zero-day and sophisticated attacks. Finally, in an era of ever-increasing amounts and complexity of data, eDiscovery technologies streamline compliance and discovery requests.

 

FastTrack collaborating with partners to reach thousands of customers each month

Microsoft FastTrack is our customer success service designed to help organizations realize business value faster with Office 365. As we start 2017, FastTrack is growing faster than ever with the help of Microsoft certified partners. Collaborative efforts between FastTrack and partners are now helping more than 4,000 new customers every month drive usage and adoption. We have found that customers who actively engage with both FastTrack and a Microsoft certified partner are the most successful in deploying Office 365 quickly, and in extracting the most value from their software investments. FastTrack can assist customers with data migration, provisioning services and mapping Office 365 capabilities to business goals. Microsoft partners complement the FastTrack experience with full on-site support, often providing additional value-added services such as change management consulting, local environment analysis, mitigation of any issues prior to the cloud transition, and long-term engagement with business stakeholders to drive value through the entire organization. | Welcome to FastTrack Guide

 

Updates for OneNote Class Notebook, Learning Tools and Office Lens—plus stickers!

The OneNote team continues to listen to teachers to learn about how we can help them be more productive with our software. We are announcing a set of improvements across OneNote Class Notebook, Learning Tools and Office Lens. All these improvements have come directly from our regular discussions with teachers and include: (1) The availability of Class Notebook Tools on more platforms, (2) Updates for Learning Tools for OneNote—new languages and more, (3) The ability for teachers to give stickers to students in their Class Notebooks, (4) New embeddable content types from partners, (5) Updates for the OneNote Class Notebook and LMS and (6) The availability of Office Lens for iPad, including Learning Tools.

 

Advanced Office 365 capabilities now available to U.S. Government Community Cloud customers

We are pleased to announce the availability of several advanced capabilities in Office 365 that are new for the U.S. Government Community. The U.S. Government Community Cloud complies with federal requirements for cloud services, including FedRAMP, as well as with requirements for criminal justice and federal tax information systems. The new capabilities—including Skype for Business cloud voice, video and meetings services; advanced security workloads; and data analytics tools—together with the core productivity and collaboration capabilities of Office 365, will enable U.S. Government workers to collaborate in new ways and drive digital transformation across all areas of agency operations, all while meeting stringent compliance standards.

 


NOTEWORTHY

Updated: Office 365 URLs and IP Address Ranges

January 17, 2017: Updates for Skype for Business Online. Details on the updates are available on the RSS feed and the complete list is located here. | Additional Resources: Managing Office 365 Endpoints, Content Delivery Networks and Client Connectivity.

 

Office 365 Support Corner: Using SARA tool for troubleshooting OneDrive for Business

Format: Video (3 minutes) | Do you need help syncing your OneDrive files? Here you can find a quick guide on how to use SaRa Tool in order to diagnose and solve OneDrive Sync Issues.

 

New Skype for Business 2016 on Windows Notifications look and feel

As part of the January Office 365 ProPlus update, we’ve updated the look and feel of the Skype for Business notifications for incoming calls and conversations. The purpose of these changes is to introduce a more modern look and feel for Skype for Business notifications, communicate key information about the incoming request (especially when you receive calls on behalf of someone), and make it easy to take quick action on incoming calls and requests. In order to see this notification change users must be running a minimum Office 365 ProPlus build of 16.0.7766.2000 and later. Customers using Skype for Business 2015 or Skype for Business 2016 (MSI) will not see any changes to their current notifications at this time.

 

Identity Admins rejoice - Azure Active Directory meets Power BI!

We’ve heard from many of our largest customers that it’s critically important to them to have easy access to information that helps them understand how their employees and partners are using Azure Active Directory. That understanding allows them to plan their IT infrastructure, to increase usage and maximize the business value they get from Azure AD. The usage and activity reports in the Azure admin portal are a great starting point for accessing and digesting usage trends. But many of you have told us you want the ability to gather richer insights into what’s going on with the various capabilities you rely on in Azure Active Directory. So, today I am excited to announce the new Power BI Content Pack for Azure Active Directory! With this integration of Azure Active Directory APIs with Power BI, you can easily download pre-built content packs and dig deeper into all the activities within your Azure Active Directory, and all this data is enhanced by the rich visualization experience Power BI offers. And you can create your own dashboard and share it easily with anyone in your organization. | Additional Resource: How to connect to the Azure AD Content Pack

 

Project Online: How to handle the SKU changes?

In August 2016 we announced some changes to the Project Online plans and now we are in 2017 more of you will be either starting or renewing to these plans. This can be a challenge to swap the old SKU for the new SKU – particularly when these are not necessarily a one to one mapping for your users. First however, let’s just recap what changed. We retired Project for Office 365, Project Online and Project Online with Project for Office 365 (we had dropped the ‘Pro’ part of the client name earlier in the year). Project Lite was renamed to Project Online Essentials. The new plans were Project Online Essentials (the renamed Project Lite) as well as two new SKUs that both include the Project Online Desktop Client (the new name for Project for Office 365) – Project Online Professional and Project Online Premium. The article mentioned above covers more details about these different plans and your options for renewing but basically the only straightforward change is Project Lite to Project Online Essentials. If you have purchased just Project for Office 365 then most likely you would switch to Project Online Professional – and if you have Project Online or Project Online with Project for Office 365 then you have a choice. If your users need access to the Portfolio features, demand management or the new Resource Engagement features then they should move to the Project Online Premium – otherwise Project Online Professional will be enough.  Easy? The main focus of this blog post is to help guide you through this process – and it breaks down into 7 steps...